Texas Born

by Gould, Judith

  Elizabeth-Anne watched as he dismounted and strode quickly toward her. After her, he was always the first to arrive on the site in the morning, and the last to leave at night.

  When he reached her, he politely took off his straw hat and held it in front of him. 'Buenos dias, Senora Hale,' he said formally.

  'Buenos dias, Senor Cortez,' Elizabeth-Anne returned politely.

  Each time they met they greeted each other formally in Spanish before slipping into English. It had become a ritual of sorts. Still, Elizabeth-Anne couldn't overcome the feeling that his Spanish greetings and his formal 'senoras,' as well as the doffing of his hat, were not done without a hint of mockery. It was as if he were playacting the part of the humble, subservient Mexican, and even the deliberateness of his English seemed somehow affected and mocking. But whenever she looked at him closely to determine if this was the case, she could never see beyond the guarded veil which dropped down over his eyes. There was something impenetrable about him, and although she was not frightened by him in the least, she did find the distance he deliberately placed between them a bit unsettling.

  Now she looked around the tourist court and nodded. 'The work is progressing well,' she said with satisfaction.

  He nodded agreement. 'My men are good workers. In sixteen weeks it shall all be finished.'

  Elizabeth-Anne shook her head and looked at him levelly. 'I was going to talk to you about that.' She lowered her head as if to inspect the scuffed tips of her boots, which peered out dustily from beneath her skirt. Then she looked back up at him. 'We must be ready to open for business in thirteen weeks,' she said softly. 'By then the highway will reach all the way to Rio Grande City, and there'll be a lot of traffic going by.'

  He listened attentively, then sighed and scratched his head as he squinted thoughtfully at the construction site. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. 'The men already work like feverish ants eleven hours a day. We cannot demand more of them.'

  'Then we must hire extra workers.'

  'I'm afraid that is out of the question, senora. These men are the best. They are trained and know what they are doing. Besides, the others are busy with ranch work or the crops. They cannot possibly leave their jobs.'

  Elizabeth-Anne frowned. 'Then we must push the workday up. To fourteen hours a day.'

  For a second his coal-black eyes flared. 'But that means they will have to work through the noonday heat!' he protested. 'It's summer, and the temperature--'

  'We raise their wages by twenty cents an hour,' she said firmly, 'and give them time and a half for any hours they work beyond the usual eleven. For the extra money, they'll do it.'

  He let out a deep breath and shook his head. 'I will put it to them, senora, but I can make no promises. You understand?' He held her gaze.

  She nodded. She herself would have preferred to speak outright to the men, but the Mexican men's macho sense of pride was easily wounded, and, like most men she knew, they found taking orders from a woman loathsome. Women were supposed to stay home and cook and have babies, not run businesses and put up buildings. So she went through Carlos Cortez, who passed on everything she wanted to the men. It was a roundabout way of doing things, a method her headstrong nature rebelled against, but she was smart enough to know when to compromise. She consoled herself with the fact that if anyone could persuade the men to do something, it was Carlos Cortez.

  'I'll be by tomorrow with the payroll,' she said.

  He nodded. Then he placed his hat on his head and reached into his shirt pocket. He took out some folded sheets of thin yellow paper. Wordlessly he unfolded them and handed them over to her.

  Even before she glanced at them she knew what they were. More bills from Coyote Building Suppliers. These were for yesterday afternoon's delivery.

  She glanced at the first sheet. Then her brow furrowed and her lips creased into a frown. Hurriedly she leafed through the rest, her eyes scanning the scrawled list of items and prices. She stared at Carlos Cortez. 'There's got to be some mistake!' she exclaimed softly.

  He shook his head sadly. 'No, there is no mistake, senora. As soon as they arrived I immediately checked and demanded an explanation. 'Rising costs.' That is what I was told.'

  There was the rustling of paper as she angrily slapped the sheets against her thigh. For a moment she closed her eyes and slowly twisted her head from side to side. Every week, the cost of building supplies went up. It was monstrous! No, not monstrous. Blackmail. That's what it amounted to. Ever since she had begun the tourist court it had been a constant drain on her finances, like a gluttonous monster that constantly had to be fed, gobbling up precious dollars and cents. Already it had cost her far more than it ever should have. And she knew that she wasn't to blame for going over budget.

  It was the Sextons.

  First she'd had to get the loan for the land and construction costs from Quebeck Savings and Loan—a Sexton-owned bank, and Quebeck's only bank. Then she'd had to get all her supplies from Coyote Building Suppliers, which was also owned by the Sextons. The Sextons practically owned the whole county—their stores bought and sold the vegetable crops and all the beef, pork, and poultry; their cotton mills processed the picked cotton; their freight cars shipped the citrus crops up north. As if that weren't enough, it was their land that produced nearly everything. And last but not least, their politicians sat in all the important seats of the local government. No matter which way you turned in this part of Texas, you could always count on one thing: finding yourself face-to-face with a Sexton—or someone on the Sexton payroll.

  Without exception, everyone had learned to hate the Sextons, and with good reason. They either owned you outright, or you were beholden to them in some way or other. Tex Sexton, the family patriarch, was a greedy, power-hungry egomaniac—and his young wife, Jennifer, was evil personified. While Tex was the undisputed 'king' of the county, his mean younger brother, Roy, had—until a tragic accident claimed his life—been in charge of the various hydra-headed branches of the family business. And since Roy's death, Tex and Jennifer had become more corrupt than ever.

  Tex and Jennifer were rich beyond comprehension; they had more money, in fact, than they could keep track of. But somehow they invariably managed to find the time to personally involve themselves in the pettiest of schemes. They bled everyone dry, and when there was nothing left to bleed, they could be trusted to somehow squeeze yet another few drops out of their victims. Long ago Elizabeth-Anne had decided that the Sextons must be very unhappy people indeed.

  But analyzing the state of their happiness, Elizabeth-Anne realized, didn't accomplish anyone a bit of good—herself least of all. Happy or unhappy, Tex and Jennifer were there, all-powerful and avaricious, sucking up the juices of the land and its people. For a long time they had turned a blind eye toward her, but she had suspected that blindness to be temporary, that her time would come. Now it had. They were going to take her for everything she had, try to milk her dry. Wasn't it enough that her beloved Zaccheus had run off because of them?

  She felt suddenly weary. If only she didn't have to battle the Sextons' monopoly. If only she could buy her supplies elsewhere. . . . But what choice did she have? she railed silently. Or, for that matter, anyone else? Coyote Building Suppliers, with its twenty branches, was the only outlet of its kind within a radius of two hundred miles. There simply were no competitors to whom people could take their business; Tex had seen to that. He had neatly built himself a monopoly that covered any and all industries and businesses that showed a decent profit. Anyone who dared offer competition was squashed as effortlessly as a beetle under a boot.

  Cruelty was Tex's middle name. He was well-known for sitting back and watching with amusement as potential competitors fought to gain a hard-earned foothold. Nothing gave him more pleasure than biding his time and waiting until the iron was hot before he struck. Now, out of the blue, he had lashed out in Elizabeth-Anne's direction, suddenly raising his already usurious prices. Why?

  Because Zaccheus h
ad dared fight back?

  It was a bad omen.

  Tex Sexton frightened her. But Jennifer . . .

  Elizabeth-Anne felt a sudden chill as she pictured Jennifer sitting in the enormous ranch house. Watching and waiting and scheming. Ever since they had been children together, Jennifer had idled away her time plotting. But why strike now? Elizabeth-Anne knew she was in no way offering the Sextons competition.

  Could it simply be because of Jennifer?

  She tightened her lips determinedly. Well, she, for one, wasn't going to sit back and let Tex and Jennifer walk all over her! Not on her life! She would go to Coyote and see what she could do. If need be, she would seek out Tex himself and demand an explanation. Besides, what could he do to her other than make money from her, hand over fist?

  But Jennifer. Well, she thought, Jennifer was another story entirely. She could talk to Tex, but Jennifer would refuse even to see her.

  Meanwhile, Elizabeth-Anne knew that she had no choice but to go ahead with the construction. Now, more than ever, she felt the desperate need for the revenues the Hale Tourist Court would bring in. It had to be open for business as soon as possible. No one but her knew the very precarious state her finances were in. The entire bank loan had already been eaten up. The Good Eats Café and the rooming house, along with six years of hard-earned savings, were paying the bills. If she couldn't open the tourist court within thirteen weeks . . . or earlier . . . and if she couldn't come to an agreement with the Sextons . . . or if they dared raise their prices yet again . . .

  She looked at Carlos Cortez. 'I will see you tomorrow,' she told him briskly. 'Now I've got to head back to town.'

  He followed her to the buggy and helped her up to the seat. In the distance she could see the laborers' flatbed truck arriving. The men were crowded in the back, an indistinguishable mass of blue denim work clothes and yellow straw hats.

  Carlos followed her gaze. As if sensing what effects her problem might have on the employment of his people, he said: 'I will speak to the men about the extra hours. I think I can get them to agree.' He paused, embarrassed, and added softly: 'Without the time and a half.'

  She stared down at him. So he knows, she thought. Suddenly she reached out and touched his shoulder gratefully. Then, tightening her lips purposefully, she sat stiffly erect and snapped the reins. Bessie began to move and Carlos slid out of sight.

  During the ride back to town, her mind was occupied by what the day still held in store. Hours of grueling work and, if she could manage the time—and she couldn't afford not to—going to Coyote and trying to sort things out. Sometimes it seemed to her that no matter how hard she worked, obstacles always stood in her way. So far, she'd managed to work her way around them. So far . . .

  Beyond these thoughts she could hear the steady clip-clop of Bessie's hooves on the dirt road. Then abruptly the smell of burning brush assaulted her senses. Someone was clearing fields. Her lips tightened, and she held her breath. But after a while that one overpowering odor engulfed her completely. Ever since she had been a little girl, fires—even the smell of smoke—had filled her with nightmares and dread. No matter how she tried to close her mind to it, the hideous memory was always there in the background somewhere.

  The smell of burning.

  The crackle and roar of flames.

  The hideous shrieks of agony and the desperate cries for help. . . .

  There was no escaping it. Years passed and many things changed, but never that.

  For with the smell of fire came the memory of death. The unshakable memory that had stayed with her since she had been six years old.

  I

  ________

  1901

  Elizabeth-Anne

  Hidalgo County, Texas

  1

  It was the worst fire that Quebeck, Texas, and Elizabeth-Anne were ever to see. Before her horrified eyes, she watched the conflagration begin in the circus tent.

  At first a tiny flame licked lazily across the sawdust; a moment later there was a sea of flames. From all around, she could hear the cries of fear and panic, pain and anguish. She watched in shock as her father's body turned into a roaring human torch.

  For interminably long minutes the beautiful child with wheat-gold hair stood outside in a field, where she had been picking sunflowers, and watched with wide, horrified aquamarine eyes as the fierce fire burned itself out.

  When the fire began to die down, Elizabeth-Anne headed back to the smoldering rubble that was left of the circus tent to search for her mother and father. They lay dead, pinned down by a still-burning pole. She grabbed hold of it with her bare hands to pull it off them, in her shock unaware of the flames licking her hands, burning her palms and fingers. Then she smelled the nauseous odor of frying, sizzling fresh, her own and her family's, and she dropped the pole and threw up.

  The townsfolk had succeeded in stampeding to safety, and miraculously, only three of them suffered burns, two of them minor. Mrs. Pitcock, the mayor's wife, suffered the most. She was burned on the forehead and cheeks, but that eventually healed, blemishing her face slightly. Not one townsperson died.

  But the holocaust took its toll on the traveling circus Elizabeth-Anne's parents owned. All but Hazy, the dwarf, and Hester, the bearded lady, died before they could be taken to the nearest hospital. Hester died in agony that same night.

  Elizabeth-Anne would never forget that terrible sight and the horrible stench of burning flesh for as long as she lived. She would be unable to bear to look at her hands, even long after their wrinkled, parchmentlike skin had healed, for they were a constant reminder of tragedy and loss and death.

  Elizabeth-Anne would never forget the terrible fate which had been so cruelly meted out to her.

  Her father, dreamer that he was, had traded a rundown farm near Naples, Texas, where Elizabeth-Anne had been born, for an equally dilapidated traveling circus years before.

  Now, at six years old, she was without parents or any family she knew of—the traveling circus had been her only family.

  The remains smoldered for days. There was little entertainment in Hidalgo County, and the news spread like wildfire. Even those who had not come to see the circus traveled from miles around to gawk with morbid fascination at the destruction firsthand.

  Elender Hannah Clowney was not one to thrive on sensationalism and misery. Neither was she a gossip.

  She was far too busy to squander her time uselessly by prying into other people's affairs—she had enough headaches and problems of her own, mainly her rooming house on Main Street—where she lived on the ground floor with Jenny, her niece, and rented out the upstairs rooms by the week—as well as the Good Eats Café across the street.

  Twenty-six years earlier, Elender Hannah Clowney had been born in Boston. That legendary streak of New England frugality, coupled with an implacable calm and a no-nonsense approach to life, was ingrained in her bones. She rented out rooms by the week instead of the month because of a simple matter of arithmetic: she figured that there were fifty-two weeks in a year. Divided by four, that came to thirteen months. Renting out rooms by the calendar month, on the other hand, would have netted her only twelve months. It just made plain old Bostonian common sense to squeeze an extra month out of every year—and the money with it.

  If she'd known about the fire, she'd have been the last person to hop into her buggy, drive out to Geron's Fields, and survey the damage. As it was, she didn't hear about it because, for the past two days, she'd been in Brownsville.

  She'd taken Jenny, who had just turned nine, along with her. Since Quebeck was not even a pinpoint on a map, she decided it would be educational for the girl to be exposed to something bigger, more cosmopolitan. Coming from Boston, Elender Hannah Clowney knew the world offered much more and was certainly faster-moving than sleepy little Quebeck, where time stood still. She considered ignorance dangerous and exposure all-important. And yet . . . yet she had moved to Quebeck a little more than eight years ago. By choice. It had seemed the pe
rfect place to settle down and carve out a new life for herself. When she'd arrived, no one had known her, and she had since become a model citizen, admired and respected.

  She'd paid for her past mistakes. Her slate had been cleansed.

  She had to admit that her new life in Quebeck hadn't turned out half bad. No, not bad at all, everything considered, which was why she had gone to Brownsville. Her rooming house was paid for, the Good Eats Caf6 was making money, and she'd managed to save five hundred dollars—two hundred of which was going for new paint, fabric, and furniture. The rooms she was renting out could do with refurbishing, and she could finally afford it. The remainder of the money would go toward buying the house the café occupied. It was much smaller but had a big porch encircling it and was structurally sound; she'd be able to own it instead of renting, and equity was something else which just made good old common sense.

  She'd enjoyed Brownsville—the dressing up, the shopping, the bargaining, and the two nights spent at a real hotel. She'd almost forgotten how much fun a city could be. Of course, it wasn't Boston or New York or Philadelphia, but still, it would have been a perfect trip had it not been for Jenny. The trouble had started as soon as they'd left Quebeck. Driving past Geron's Fields, they came across Szabo's Traveling Circus and Freak Show. The big blue tent was just being pitched, and suddenly Jenny no longer wanted to go to Brownsville. She wanted to stay and see the circus instead.