San Antone. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ must lie down, inside, out of the sun,” he said. “Water, but only a little. Wet her wrists and her face, and a small amount to drink, but no more.”

      “No, really, I’m all right,” Joanna tried to insist, but truth to tell, she did still feel light-headed, and found herself hanging on tightly to the edge of the drive board.

      “Do as he says, please, mother,” Gregory said. “We can handle this.”

      “Oh, well,” she murmured, but she let him help her into the shaded interior of the wagon.

      It did feel heavenly to lie down and rest her eyes. Gregory was back in a moment, helping her to sit up while she took a few sips of water, and draping a wet cloth over her brow afterward.

      Lewis was snoring faintly nearby, and, lying inside like this, the constant motion of the wagon was far less wearying than it had been in the driver’s seat. She rose and fell with it, rocking gently to and fro, letting it lull her into a dreamy state of suspension between sleep and waking. It was the most peaceful moment she could remember since they’d left Eaton Hall. She drifted contentedly into sleep....

      And woke to an uproar.

      At first, her brain refused to tell her where she was or how she’d gotten there, keeping secrets from her, teasing her, the way her mother did when she was little.

      “God damn thieving Indians!” Lewis’s voice, an angry bellow.

      Lewis. Indian. William Horse! She sat up abruptly, banging her head on something hanging from the crosspiece (“Space is precious inside a wagon; you must learn to move around things”), and pushed aside the flap over the opening.

      Lewis was there, just alongside the wagon, his riding crop raised in a violent pose. They were stopped—that was the first thing she grasped; the rest came more slowly, seeping upward into her consciousness, like something she’d known long before, and forgotten, that was just coming back to her.

      William Horse, standing in front of Lewis, neither cowering nor defending himself. Gregory, to the side of the two men, not cowering either, but holding himself back: You could actually see the man, not quite ready yet for action; the boy, relinquishing submission, while her son teetered between boyhood and manhood.

      Time, holding her breath, blinked and went on, content to let her handle this. The fist with the riding crop in it (Where on earth had he found that? It gave this whole scene a touch of the ridiculous) lifted to come down.

      “The minute a man’s back is turned,” Lewis was ranting.

      “Lewis! For heaven’s sake!” She nearly fell from the wagon, reaching out to snatch the whip from his hand.

      Unexpecting, he let it slide easily from his fingers. His head snapped around, mouth open, eyes red and graveled. It was the first time she had ever taken physical action to defy her husband, and it would be hard to say which of them was the more surprised.

      “Have you gone daft, woman?”

      She crawled out, clambering to the ground, heedless of skirts and bared legs and people watching, though it did just register that the Indian moved involuntarily toward her.

      “He was helping us,” she said, sorry that she hadn’t stayed in the wagon where she could look down on her husband; he was too tall to scold this way. “The driving was too much for me. He came up to help.”

      “Help?” You could see comprehension struggling its way through sleep and liquor. Heaven alone knew what he thought he’d seen, waking up.

      He looked around, uncertain, suddenly self-aware. People were staring. By now, Joanna realized, the whole train was stopped. It was midday.

      She stepped to her husband, put a gentle hand on his arm, was surprised to discover that he was trembling. “It’s all right,” she said in a lower voice. “I told them you were ill. I said you had a fever.”

      And now I am lying, she thought; it was inescapable: Whatever spoiled, spoiled whatever it touched. Unless you cut off the rot. But the rot was in Lewis; how could she cut him off without sacrificing him?

      “A fever....”

      “Rest here awhile, in the shade of the wagon. I’ll see if Lucretia hasn’t some lunch ready. And this afternoon you can rest inside the wagon. There’s three of us now to handle the driving, no need for you to wear yourself out. You’ll need to be fresh and rested when we get to San Antonio.”

      “San Antonio, yes.” He let her lead him to the side of the wagon and sank gratefully to the ground in the small patch of shade. “Yes, I’ll have everything to do once we get there.”

      He was already reaching for his flask when she turned away from him.

      William Horse was still standing where he had been, one hand on the shoulder of an ox. She tried to read his dark eyes as she came up to him, but without success.

      “I am sorry,” she said. “Are you all right?”

      “Yes.” He made no elaboration. His eyes bored into hers for a moment; she had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. Then, abruptly, he turned away from her and walked toward his horse, eating grass nearby.

      Gregory, looking embarrassed now by the step he had nearly taken, said, “I’ll water the stock,” and the incident apparently was ended.

      But not entirely. A wagon train, Joanna quickly learned, became a small community of its own, even more circumscribed than the society they had known in South Carolina.

      The first effect of all this was the return of Melissa, flouncing over the hard-packed earth as if her feet could not deign to touch it, to announce that Doña Sebastiano had suggested perhaps after all she would be more comfortable traveling with her own family.

      “That’s rather a change of heart, isn’t it?” Joanna asked. Up to now, Doña Sebastiano had been fervently in pursuit of closer ties.

      “And what do you suppose brought it on?” Melissa demanded angrily, lavishly sprinkling her throat and wrists with water from their dipper.

      “Oh, dear,” Joanna said. William Horse, obviously; she had been warned how Texans felt. “Well, it can’t hurt to follow her suggestion for a while, and I promise, I’ll see if I can’t patch things up with Doña Sebastiano this evening. Please, darling, no more quarrels just now, all right?”

      She had no sooner mollified her daughter, however, than Lieutenant Price was there, strolling up for all the world as if he had nothing on his mind but the time of day.

      “Your husband all right?” he asked in an overly casual voice.

      “Yes. I’ve suggested he rest for a while.”

      “This Texas heat gets to a man when he’s not used to it.”

      “It gets to a woman, too, it may surprise you to know.”

      “Liquor can make it worse.”

      “There aren’t any things liquor makes better that I’ve noticed,” Joanna said, too sharply. She was not, just at the moment, in a frame of mind to discuss her husband’s СКАЧАТЬ