The Yellow Rose Page 3

  “And Señor Clay, is he recovered from his wound?”

  “He’s lots better. Zane and me and Rice Morgan are going to join General Houston.”

  “It is sad that all this has come. I had hoped for peace,” Lucita said.

  “I guess we all did.” Brodie shifted uneasily and then said, “I’m never gonna forget what your son did for me at Goliad. If it hadn’t been for Mateo, me and Clay would have both been butchered.”

  “I’m glad he was there to help.”

  The two stood there awkwardly, then Lucita said, “Serena is out at the barn milking. I know you didn’t come to see an old woman.”

  Brodie grinned crookedly. “You ain’t an old woman, Señora. Not you! I don’t know why you don’t get you another husband. I know you’ve had chances.”

  “It is too soon,” Lucita said.

  “Well, I’ll go mosey down to the barn.”

  “You can stay for supper.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Serena was milking the goat, but she heard footsteps coming. Looking up quickly, she saw Brodie and smiled. “Brodie, I’m glad to see you.”

  “I’m glad to see you, too.” He came over to stand beside her and watched as she continued to milk. “I never could milk,” he said. “Clinton can beat me a mile.”

  “I expect you’re too rough,” she said as she aimed the stream of milk into the pail.

  Brodie stood there, making conversation, as she asked him about his family. He told her about the herd of cattle they were building up to sell at market in New Orleans, and then asked, “Have you heard from Mateo?”

  “No, not a word.”

  “I ain’t forgot how he saved me and Clay there at Goliad. That was a bad time. I thought we were goners for sure.”

  Serena set the bucket down and then turned to face him. There was an air of glowing health about her. Her hair was pure black, and she had strange-colored violet eyes. It was these eyes that drew men as well as the curves of her developing body. She was eighteen now and a full-grown woman. As she watched Brodie, she knew exactly what was going on. He wants to kiss me, and he’s afraid to. She said, “Mateo is a good man, but he is a firm believer in Santa Anna and the cause to rid Texas of the Americans.”

  “I’d sure hate to be in a battle and look up and see Mateo on the other side. I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “It mustn’t come to that,” Serena said. She reached out and put her hand on his chest, and she saw his eyes flare suddenly. He stepped forward, put his arms around her as she had known that he would, and kissed her.

  It was an awkward thing, and she stepped back, laughing, and said, “You’re a naughty boy, Brodie Hardin.”

  “I’m not a boy. I’m a man.”

  “A man! Well, I’m glad to hear it.” Brodie reached out for her, but she evaded him. “You mustn’t do that anymore, Brodie.”

  “Why not? Serena, you know how I feel about you. I want to marry you.”

  Serena knew of his intentions, for he had spoken of them before, but for all of his height and strength, he still seemed like a little boy in her sight. “No, you don’t want to marry me. You’re too young.”

  Brodie stopped and stared at her. “You’re making fun of me, and you’re getting to be a flirt, Serena.”

  “I am not!”

  “No? What about Jeff Bettis?”

  “What about him?”

  “You think I don’t know that he comes calling on you?”

  “He comes calling. What of that?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Serena felt sorry for Brodie. She liked him a great deal, as she liked all of the Hardins. But she was not ready to marry yet. Brodie was so infatuated with her that she felt smothered at times by his constant attention. “I don’t want any more talk about marriage. You’re too young.”

  Anger flared up in Brodie, which was an unusual thing. He was usually gentle natured and sweet tempered, but he had thought about nothing but Serena for weeks now. While he had been gone with the other young men to fight with the Texans against Santa Anna, he had done little but dream about her. And when it looked as though he would be shot, she was the one who had been on his mind. “You ought not to torment a man,” he said roughly and turned and stalked blindly away. The bucket was in his way, and his boot bumped against it, spilling the milk. He gave it a kick and left.

  Serena followed him and watched as he mounted his horse and rode away at a furious gait. She shook her head and turned to find her mother watching her.

  “What happened, Serena?”

  “Nothing. He wants to marry me.”

  “And how do you feel?”

  “Oh, I like Brodie, but that’s not enough. He’s going to fight. He may never come back. You know that.”

  “If you love him, you should give him something to hope for.”

  “That would be cruel, Mamá. I don’t feel that way about him. He’ll find somebody else to love.” She stood there watching Brodie disappear and then said quietly, “What’s going to happen to us when Santa Anna comes?”

  “Mateo will see that we’re not harmed.”

  “But what about the Hardins? He can’t help them.”

  “I hope they will leave,” Lucita said quietly. She looked in the direction of the Hardin ranch and shook her head. “Santa Anna will not spare them—he will not spare anyone!”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  Clay gave a sudden jerk that brought a pain to the wound high on the left side of his back. He had been dreaming of Goliad. It had been a massacre, for the Americans had been marched out from where they had been held captive, and then the Mexicans had opened fire on them. The Mexican rifles had laid a staccato crackling sound in the air. He had seen the blossoming crimson wounds in his fellow Texans as they had fallen under the murderous fire. The worst part of the dream was that he and Brodie had both been hit. Brodie had taken a bullet in the head, and just when he had, the boy had let out a pitiful cry that had gone right to Clay’s heart.

  Clay sat straight up, favoring his left shoulder, and put his hand over the wound. The bullet had gone almost all the way through, making a neat hole in the back and a bulge in the front. Fortunately, it had missed his lung. Brodie had used Clay’s bowie knife to slit the skin and pop the bullet out. The wound had been painful, but Clay had kept the ball for a souvenir. Now, as he sat there with cold sweat on his brow, he shook his head and muttered, “I could do without them blasted dreams. They ain’t good for a feller.”

  Sleep was gone, so he lifted his legs and put his feet on the floor. He sat there for a moment, waiting for the pain to subside, then with a grunt he stood upright. He slipped into his pants and had trouble buckling the belt because he still had considerable pain when he tried to use his left arm. Finally, he put on his shirt, but let it hang out. He managed to put on his socks, using mostly his right hand, then slipped his feet into the boots. He glanced over and saw Zane, with whom he shared the room, lying flat on his back, straightened out as if he were a soldier standing at attention. It puzzled Clay how a man could sleep like that. He himself usually curled up into a ball, but every man has his own ideas about such things.

  Moving quietly, he left the room, walked down the hall, then stepped outside on the front porch. The air was cool, and over in the east, he could see the faint red rays beginning to tint the morning sky. Looking up, he stared at the stars for a moment. Somehow the stars seemed to be closer in Texas than they had been in Arkansas. It had been that way in the mountains, too, where the air was thinner. For a moment he stood there picking out the brightest stars, wishing, not for the first time, that he knew their names. I should have been a sailor. They have to know the stars to get where they’re goin’, but I’d hate to be cramped up in a little ship for months at a time. I don’t see how those fellows stand it.

  He stepped off the porch, enjoying the freshness of the breeze. Texas was a dry country, but the rainy season had now come upon this part of the land.
The rivers were up, and even now the ground was soft and mushy under his boots. As he walked out away from the house, a sudden movement caught his eye. He was an alert man, for the constant threat of danger in the mountains had sharpened his senses. Even though he was no longer so much in danger of the mountain Indians, he was cautious about sleeping close to a fire when camping out. He always moved back into the safety of the dark shadows.

  The movement came again and a slight sound. Clay recognized that it was coming from the two graves of Jerusalem’s sons that had died in Arkansas. He saw that she was sitting there on a bench that she had asked him to make, and he moved toward her slowly. Brodie had told him once that, when back in Arkansas, she had spent a lot of time sitting beside the graves of her boys and the rest of her people who had passed away. He halted and thought about how Jerusalem had never complained about anything on the trip from Arkansas, but three times she had mentioned that the hardest thing about the move was to leave her boys so far behind.

  Her words had bothered Clay for a long time, and when he had made a trip to New Orleans, taking a herd of cattle for cash money, he had headed for Arkansas, bought a wagon, and exhumed the two boys. The caskets were crumbling, so he had bought new ones and then put the remains in them. For a while he had considered bringing her parents back. But she had never spoken of them, so he contented himself with bringing the boys. He had been apprehensive on the way back, not knowing if he was doing the right thing. But he knew by her tears, when he told her what he’d done, that for once he’d done something right.

  From far away the sound of a coyote howling plaintively at the coming dawn broke the silence. Clay moved forward and deliberately shuffled his boots as he walked and cleared his throat as he approached the bench Jerusalem was sitting on. She turned to look at him, but she did not speak. Clay came to stand off to one side, then she made a gesture toward the bench, and he moved over and sat down beside her. He noticed that Bob was sitting on her feet. It had always amused Clay that the rangy dog loved feet and would sit on anybody’s except those who posed a threat to the Hardin family.

  Jerusalem remained as still as a statue. Her eyes were fixed on the two graves and the two stones that she had had made by one of the neighbors. She turned to him and said, “Clay, it was a noble thing you did bringing my boys here. I will always be grateful to you for that.”

  Clay saw that even in the breaking light her face was drawn. He was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say. Finally, he murmured, “I was glad to do it, Jerusalem Ann.” The two sat there, neither of them speaking. Clay knew that she was thinking of her boys and wondered what sort of long thoughts she had, if she were still remembering them as infants, or as they were beginning to crawl and creep around. But the memories were there, strong and sharp, and Clay suspected they would never go away from her.

  Suddenly, Clay thought of Jake with a touch of anger. Jake had died with William Travis and Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett defending the Alamo. He died an honorable death, Clay thought, but he shore did make a sorry life! I don’t know how a fellow could go off and leave a woman like Jerusalem Ann and the kids like he had. Clay had gone over and over in his mind about why Jake would do a thing like that, but there was never any answer. He had known men like that before, men who just couldn’t keep still, and Jake had, evidently, been one of those wandering types. He pushed those thoughts from his mind and sat there quietly until he heard Jerusalem Ann start to weep.

  She was not a woman who cried a great deal, and Clay could not think of anything to say. He longed to comfort her, but he just sat there. After what seemed like a long time, she stopped, took a deep breath, and pulled a handkerchief from the front pocket of her apron. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and then turned toward him. The morning light was clearer now. He could make out the green eyes, well shaped and deep-set, that so fascinated him. The crying had not ruined her face as it does for some women.

  Finally she said, “Men hate a weepy woman, and so do I.”

  “Grief takes you like that,” Clay said softly.

  “Yes, it does. It all caught up with me, my two dead boys, my parents dead—and Jake dead now.”

  Clay almost asked her, “How did you feel about Jake and his runnin’ around and his Indian family?” But he knew better than that. He knew that Jerusalem had forgiven Jake for all the pain he had caused her and the kids. He waited until she gathered her thoughts and began to speak again.

  “You know, Clay, I really loved Jake at first. He was one of the finest-looking men I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t just that. He loved me, Clay, and I thought that he always would, so I married him.” A silence interrupted her then. It was as if she were remembering those days, and then she continued, her voice soft, but filled with pain. “He was a wandering man, Jake was. At first he just made short trips, was gone only a week or two, but then he stayed longer and longer until finally he’d be gone for a whole year.”

  Suddenly, Bob lurched off, barked sharply once, and dashed off toward the copse of cottonwood trees down by the river. Clay had not seen anything, but he knew dogs could smell and see and hear better than any man. They both heard the dog barking at something, probably an armadillo.

  “I’ve been tryin’ to think,” Jerusalem Ann said, “how I felt about him, and I found out that I had two husbands.” She shook her head as if in wonder at the thought. “The first husband was the Jake that I first loved and who loved me. But the second was the stranger who would come in now and then, and who would always be leaving on some trip to the mountains. I guess I knew he would wander off after a while, and I can’t love a man I can’t hold, Clay.”

  Clay listened as she continued to speak to him for the first time of her marriage to Jake. She told him how when the children were born Jake seemed to be proud of them and promised to be there for them. But then whatever it was that drew him away from her would come upon him, and he would leave. She had learned to recognize the signs and tried her best to do whatever to keep him home. She did not think it was another woman.

  She thought it was just simply that he was one of those men born with a wanderlust like Daniel Boone and that breed of adventurous pioneers.

  She gave a strained half laugh and turned and put her hand on his arm. “Poor Clay. Here I am weeping and spilling over with my troubles.”

  Her hand tightened on his arm, and he turned around. He saw a strange look in her eyes, one that he could not identify, and she was watching him intently. He could not imagine what was on her mind.

  “Most men would take advantage of a woman who’s having a weak moment like this.”

  Clay saw that she was waiting for him to speak. He cleared his throat, for in all truth she had touched on a sore spot. He had wanted nothing more than to put his arms around her and pull her close. The thought shocked him, and he put it away, saying, “Why, Jerusalem, I’d never do a thing like that.”

  Jerusalem stared at him, not saying a word for a long moment. He grew uncomfortable under her gaze.

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

  Clay could not read what was in her expression. She seemed almost disappointed. He changed the subject quickly and said, “I’ve been thinkin’ about what to do about Santa Anna. What I think is that we all better git out of here as soon as possible.”

  “I’m not leaving here, Clay,” Jerusalem said.

  The sound of Jerusalem’s voice was like a door closing firmly and the lock clicking.

  Clay tried to argue. “You know soldiers are bad when they are looting and raiding. You’ve got young’uns here to think about.”

  “I’m not leaving, Clay. I didn’t come all the way to Texas to run away.” She got up and stared at him for a moment, as if something had been left unsaid. He stood up with her, but she did not speak at once. She stood there looking out over the land that had become home to her, then she said, “I’ve got to go get breakfast.” She turned and walked away without another word, leaving Clay standing there.

  He did no
t move, and Bob returned and sat down on his feet. He looked down and shook his head. “Have a seat, Bob. Make yourself at home. While you’re there, why don’t you tell me what that woman’s got in her mind.”

  Bob looked up and leaned heavily against Clay’s knees. His tongue lolled out, and he barked, “Woof—woof!” softly and then pulled his tongue in and looked away back into the woods.

  Knowing that the men would have a long trip on their journey to join Houston, Jerusalem fixed a large breakfast that could not only be eaten early, but the remains could be taken in a poke. She fixed cat head biscuits, so called because they were about as big as a cat’s head. Clinton had brought back a passel of squirrels, which he had cleaned, and she fried them up along with a big potful of grits. She also fried large slices of ham, and draining off the excess fat, she added a little water to the drippings to make red-eye gravy, which the men all loved. As she cooked, she listened to the men, who were talking about Houston. Brodie was excited, and she heard him say, “Just wait until Sam Houston gets them Mexicans where he wants them. Why, there won’t be a live Mexican left in Texas!”

  Clay was drinking coffee out of a big mug, and he shook his head slightly. “Don’t reckon he’ll be doin’ much of that for a while.”

  Brodie said in a shocked tone, “Why, of course he will, Clay. Ain’t nobody can get the best of Sam Houston.”

  “I reckon Clay is right,” Zane said. He was standing up, leaning against the wall, holding Mary Aidan, who was pulling at his long hair and chattering constantly.

  “Why do you say that, Zane?” Clinton asked. He was still disappointed because he was not accompanying the men, but he knew that when his mother spoke in a certain way, the subject was closed. “I thought you admired Houston.”

  “I do,” Zane said. “I think he’s the toughest man in Texas, but he won’t be able to do a lot except retreat.”

  “Retreat!” Brodie exclaimed. “Sam Houston wouldn’t run away! He’s no coward!”

  “He ain’t got much choice, Brodie,” Clay shrugged. He sipped the coffee and said, “Right now all he’s got is a few men, and Santa Anna’s coming with thousands of trained soldiers. It would be a slaughter if Houston threw what few men he’s got against Santa Anna’s army.”