San Antone. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ Space was limited, the means of keeping food fresh in the Texas heat virtually nonexistent.

      Beef had to be dried into jerky. Fruits—apples, apricots, peaches—were dried, too, into leathery strips not unlike the beef.

      Water was precious; there would be weeks, the lieutenant informed them, when there was none available except what they’d brought with them in specially constructed barrels. Melissa, seeing one of the barrels, wailed, “But I’ll need that much for bathing.” She was unreservedly homesick for South Carolina, and not at all shy about letting everyone know.

      Fortunately, the adventure had not yet begun to pale for the boys. Lieutenant Price took them with him one day on his way to the docks. They came home, to Joanna’s surprise, wearing trousers of a peculiar cut and fabric in place of the woolen ones they’d left in.

      “They’re called ‘dungarees,’” Jay Jay informed her proudly. “Lieutenant Price says all the cowboys are wearing them these days.”

      “Dugris,” Gregory corrected his brother. “They come from the Bahamas. And they’re ever so much more comfortable than the woolies.”

      “They wear like iron, ma’am,” Lieutenant Price added, “and they are comfortable, especially on the trail. I guarantee your boys will find them much better for the trip.”

      “And we saw an Indian, too, a real one,” Jay Jay went on.

      “An Indian?” Joanna shot the lieutenant a worried glance, but his smile was reassuring.

      “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “This one’s perfectly tame. His name’s William Horse and he’s going to join us on the train. He’s quite civilized—I’ve talked with him at length myself. Been to boarding school back east, but his home’s around San Antone. I thought he might be handy to have along.”

      “He’s Nasoni,” Gregory smiled. “The word Texas comes from a Nasoni word. It means friends, or allies.”

      Joanna laughed and shook her head. “Honestly, Gregory, I don’t know where you learn all these things.”

      “From Lieutenant Price,” Gregory said matter-of-factly.

      It sometimes seemed to Joanna that if it weren’t for the young army lieutenant, they would never have managed the trip to San Antonio—or, as he called it, San Antone. With their first setback, Lewis had lost that industry and determination with which he had first approached the venture. He still spoke glowingly of what lay before them—apparently, in his inner vision, some sort of Garden of Eden awaiting only his presence to make it bloom—but as the days passed, he grew less and less capable of coping with the myriad details essential to their departure. More and more, Joanna and the lieutenant between them assumed the responsibility for their preparations.

      * * * *

      Lewis and Clifford Montgomery had apparently hit it off well. They were frequently out together, for increasingly long periods of time, sometimes all day and most of the night. Alice seemed quite willing to accept her husband’s often flimsy explanations for their absence, though Joanna thought she herself had a better idea what they were about.

      When they were in the house, the two men were, more often than not, closeted together in the host’s study. Lewis’s progressively boisterous laugh, and the clink of glasses, could be heard often—as could, later at night, the falls Lewis took on the stairs on his way to their bed.

      Clifford Montgomery had, it seemed, a thirst to equal Lewis’s, though he held his liquor a little better.

      Alice Montgomery was a pleasant enough woman but her endless chatter soon wore on Joanna’s nerves. Joanna was used to her solitude and found herself missing it sorely. Even with guests at Eaton Hall, she’d had plenty of places to hide out by herself when the need came on her.

      She discovered the house by night.

      The household retired early, except for the two men drinking downstairs. Eventually they, too, came up and the slaves retired to the attic and the outbuildings. There were whole rooms with no one in them, not even a light burning to people them with furniture and shadows. She discovered them by accident. She woke late one night to find that Lewis had not come to bed. Once before, he had passed out on the steps and spent the whole night sleeping there, till the slaves had found him in the morning. Thinking that might have happened again, Joanna donned her peignoir and went looking for him.

      She did not find Lewis—she supposed he was with the Negroes. She found the empty, blessedly silent house instead.

      Even better, she found the gazebo, off by itself in the farthest corner of the garden, scented with blossoms, teased by the welcome breeze that blew in from the Gulf.

      She took to going there late at night; while Lewis snored unevenly, only the sleepy whisperings of the palm fronds disturbed the silence in the garden.

      Not that she was alone. San Antonio sat there with her, the whole of Texas came to visit, and mock her, and mutter dire imprecations of what lay before her. And the sober spirit that fled Lewis’s body when he drank, sometimes that was there as well.

      Chapter Five

      They had been there six weeks when Lieutenant Price came to tell them their wagons were nearly ready.

      “The whole train’ll be ready soon,” he said. “I thought maybe you’d like to take a ride and come see them. And Mrs. Montgomery, too, of course.”

      He did not even mention Lewis, who was not in the house at the time anyway. By now it was understood that any decisions that had to made would of necessity be made by Joanna. It was she who had decided they must have two wagons—one for the family and one for the slaves. She had been adamant in the face of one of Lewis’s increasingly rare objections.

      “They’re not animals,” she had insisted. “I won’t have them walking behind the wagons like dogs.”

      In the end, the quarrel had simply died away; Lewis had had another drink and forgotten it apparently, and Joanna had asked the lieutenant to see to the extra wagon for her.

      Watching her husband sink lower and lower into his drunken abyss, and unable to do anything to reverse his course, Joanna had found herself dreaming of her husband as she had first known him, before they were married. Dashing, reckless, riding pell-mell across the fields at Eaton Hall; waltzing with her at a cotillion, his hand firm on the small of her back, his eyes gazing lovingly down into hers; or, eyes closed, listening to her read the verses she’d written (but perhaps he’d fallen asleep and she simply hadn’t known).

      He’d seemed to promise so much. Or had she written the promises onto the blank pages of his character? That was the tragedy of being young and idealistic: You saw things as ideal, things that never could be.

      She’d forced herself to set those thoughts aside. Like a carriage that you’d driven till the wheels were worn and the seats sprung, Lewis would never be new to her again, or wonderful and shiny. The best you could do was keep it going and hope the wheels stayed on over the rougher stretches.

      * * * *

      The ride with the lieutenant turned into a regular outing. All three of the children were delighted to go. Alice Montgomery sat beside Joanna, her voice rising and falling to the bobbing and swaying of the brougham.

      Joanna СКАЧАТЬ