The Forever Tree

by Rosanne Bittner

  The looked at each other in mutual understanding. “We don’t have any choice, Gerald,” Will said.

  Gerald just sighed, turning his horse and heading toward his own home. Will rode on to his house, his heart heavy, his mind swirling with indecision, the right and wrong of it, his sense of duty. He loved his home, his babies, Santana. She would never understand this. They had already argued about it, but only in theory. This was reality.

  He saw Glenn, his precious son, run toward the house when the boy saw him coming. He could hear him yelling, “Mommy! Mommy! Daddy is here!” Sometimes it was madre and padre. His children were growing up fluent in both Spanish and English. They were bright and handsome, little Ruth the image of her mother. She would be a beautiful woman someday. Would he live to see it? Was a man a fool to be a patriot? Yet again, was it right to let other men fight and die for a cause he, too, believed in?

  He watched Santana come running out. The meeting had ended too late to come home the night before, so he and Gerald had waited until morning to come back. It was now nearly dark. Santana must be half-crazy with worry, Will thought. She had known this particular meeting was not just a bunch of Americans getting together to discuss the war and their responsibilities, to argue both sides. This meeting had been held by Army officers sent there specifically to recruit volunteers for the Union. It was a meeting where men would make a decision whether or not to go, and he had made his decision.

  “Senor Lassater! It is good that you are back.” Will’s stable boy ran up beside his horse. “Let me take your horse, patron.”

  “Thanks, Pedro.” Will dismounted.

  “Patron, your face! What happened?”

  Will put a hand to his lower lip. He hadn’t had a chance to look at himself, since he hadn’t even bothered to shave that morning. He and Gerald had simply packed as quickly as they could to head home. Gerald had told him, though, that his left cheek was badly bruised and his lower lip was cut. “Nothing serious,” he answered Pedro. “Just a little run-in with some Southern sympathizers outside the meetinghouse. Tend to my horse, will you?”

  “Si, patron.”

  Pedro took the horse, and Will walked on to the house. He heard Santana order Louisa to take the children inside. She stood waiting as he came closer, and he could see by her face that she already knew what he had decided to do. There was something in her beautiful dark eyes that he had never seen before, terrible disappointment, a hard bitterness his gentle, loving wife had never shown. That look changed to concern when he got close enough for her to see his face.

  “You’re hurt,” she said quietly.

  “Just a little ruckus outside the meetinghouse. I’m all right.” He noticed she stood stiffly, and he knew her well enough to realize she was struggling not to scream and weep. Poor, sweet Santana. Still, her father and brother were nearby. She still lived on La Estancia de Alcala, and Dominic would make sure his daughter was always taken care of.

  “Were there many there?” she asked.

  “Close to two hundred men.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “So many! Surely then there are plenty to go and fight your silly war. One more or less will make little difference.”

  He sighed. “It isn’t a silly war, Santana. It’s a tragedy for the Union. It’s something that has to be ended. If we allow the South to secede and divide the United States, we can never be a great nation. United we can be one of the biggest and wealthiest nations in the world. This country is growing at a rate unknown to any other nation, and we must remain united.”

  He walked closer to her. “Think of it, Santana! We are on the verge of uniting every territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico!”

  “To what is left of Mexico,” she reminded him. “Your United States stole all the land north of the Rio Grande that once belonged to Mexico. And you are united with the Pacific only because of more land you stole, this time from the Californios!”

  Will felt as though she had stuck a knife in his belly. The resentment she had never shown before surprised him, though he knew she was attacking him in this new way out of fear of his leaving her. It hurt her that he would go away to fight a war she thought was not his affair, and so she would hurt him in return.

  “This country is bursting at the seams, Santana. Expansion cannot be helped or stopped. At the same time such a union must be preserved. We have to live under one government and abide by the Constitution, and we cannot allow states to secede over something as horrendously wrong as slavery. This insurrection has to be stopped. Washington feels that with enough manpower, and considering the fact that the country’s greatest wealth and all the industry is centered in the North, this war can be ended quickly, another six months to a year at the most. The South can’t possibly manufacture what they need to keep this up, especially if we choke them off from all directions. Gerald and I have experience in handling men. Because of that we can go in as officers, which means we wouldn’t be right on the front lines.”

  Santana slowly nodded her head. “So, you have made the final decision without talking to me first.”

  “We’ve done plenty of talking. You know how I feel. Noel can run the main mill. Our banker and accountant in San Francisco can handle that end of it. I trust Howard Paxon. I’ve taught you a good deal of the bookkeeping also, and you’re a wise woman in handling personal expenses. Everything will be taken care of, the mill, the finances. There are plenty of men here to look after you and the children as well, and your father and brother are close.” He hesitated, then added, “I’ll make sure my will is in order. You and the children would always be taken care of if something happens to me.”

  She turned away. “It is bad enough worrying about you getting hurt at the mill, but this…this war…” She faced him again, tears in her eyes. “What difference can one man less make! Let your United States fight its war without you! Your children need you; the business needs you; I need you! Do not do this, carino mio, I beg of you. Your first duty is to your family, not to your country.”

  He shook his head. “You know that isn’t true, Santana. There was a time when your own father and brother fought the Americans when John Fremont first intruded. Your forebears lost their lives fighting for what they thought was the right cause in their own civil wars in Mexico. A man does what he has to do in order to live with his conscience, Santana. In the long run, protecting his country is one of the most important ways a man has of protecting his family, for he’s protecting their future. The stronger and more united the Union, the better for the economy, for Lassater Mills, and for the future of my children.” His heart ached at the look of devastation in her eyes. “Don’t you realize that the last thing I want to do is leave you and my children and go off to war? Doesn’t that tell you something about how important this is to me?”

  Tears began to slip down Santana’s cheeks, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply to keep her composure. Still, when she spoke, her voice was choked, her words broken with agony. “All last night I lay awake, thinking of all the things I could say…to make you stay. And yet I knew that none of them would do any good…because for men, honor means something different…than for a woman. I wish that I could understand this war…but I cannot. Still, I suppose I understand your reasons for going…although I am not sure I can forgive you for leaving.” She wanted to run to him, to hold him and beg him to please, please stay. How could she live without her beloved? How was it that a woman could love a man so much, and also hate him the way she hated Will for going off to war?

  She again fought back her tears. “When will you go?”

  “I have to go to San Francisco first, talk to Howard Paxon and to our attorney. I want you to come with me, to be aware of the plans I’ll be making for you and the children.”

  Santana studied the blue eyes that had so enchanted her seven and a half years ago, eyes that still touched her heart. She knew this was as agonizing for him as for her, but at the moment she could not sympathize with him. She
wanted only to blame him. “The plans I’ll be making for you and the children.” It was as though he had created his own death sentence, as though he had discovered he was dying from some terrible disease. There was so much to be said, words she wanted to shout, but what was the use? Why should their parting words be ones of anger and bitterness?

  “Come inside and clean up and have supper,” she said, thinking what silly, simple words they were at this traumatic moment. She turned away, needing to be held but refusing to allow it.

  Will followed her inside, hating himself, yet knowing he could make no other decision. He wished Santana could understand, but the woman he had married was a Californio, who had little interest in the United States. She would never understand the gravity of what was happening back east. He could only pray that he would make it back to his beloved California, to his precious children and to this woman who was his life…and that when he did come back, she would again be the warm, loving Santana he had always known.

  Seventeen

  Santana got up and made her way by moonlight to the patio doors. Opening them, she walked outside and listened to the night wind. An owl hooted somewhere nearby, and in spite of the distance between the roughing mill and the house, the wind was just right to catch the faint but distinct sound of the screaming band saw. She had never dreamed that sound would be almost nostalgic, but tonight it was. It had always reminded her that Will was close by. For all their married years he had stayed overnight at the mill only three nights a week, and she had hated even that.

  Tomorrow he would leave, and who was to say for how long? Until now, lovemaking for them had been as natural as breathing, something neither of them could go long without. But since the day he had come home to tell her he was going off to war, she had slept in another bed, so angry and disappointed that she could think of no other way to show that anger than by denying him the very thing he probably needed the most. Why should she give pleasure to a man who was leaving her for no good reason? He knew how she felt, and had not pressed her to come to his bed.

  Now, the finality of it, knowing he would be gone for a long time and that he could even be killed and never return to her…How could she let their last moments be spent apart, with all these hard feelings between them? Pride told her to let him suffer, not to give him the satisfaction of a moment of pleasure before he abandoned her; but another part of her ached for him, told her she could not live with herself if something happened to him and she had let him go this way.

  She wore only a thin silk gown, and she folded her arms, rubbing them against the chill of the night air. She took a deep breath and swallowed back her stubbornness and determination, then walked out of the guest bedroom and into her and Will’s bedroom. He was not asleep, but was standing at a window smoking his pipe. “Will?”

  He turned, and in the darkness she could see the glow of his pipe. A shaft of moonlight showed that his shoulders were bare. She knew that he slept naked, knew he was standing there naked now. She did not need full light to know how wonderfully virile his body was, the scattering of soft hairs on his chest, the slender waist and muscled buttocks and thighs, the powerful shoulders and arms.

  “I was about to come to you,” he said quietly. “We can’t leave it this way, Santana. We’ve hardly spoken for the last ten days, except out of necessity. I know how angry you are, and I’m sorry. But if you love me…I need to be with you tonight, to hold you, feel you against me. I need to remember everything about you, to carry that memory with me. Sometimes it’s those little things that keep a man going in bad times.”

  Some of Santana’s own anger left her at the realization that he truly hated this as much as she did. Even more, he was afraid of what he was heading into, which only showed how important this was to him, and how brave he was to do this.

  She stepped closer. “I need the memories, too, carino mio. I will never understand this, but I will accept it because I must. And wrong as I think you are, I cannot let my beloved go away without holding him in my arms this night.” She put her hands on his strong biceps, feeling the muscle there. “Without giving him his pleasure and feeling him inside of me.”

  She pulled her gown off and let it fall, and Will drank in the sight of her full breasts in the moonlight. As he turned to set his pipe aside, a thousand emotions exploded in him, and the part of him that did not want to go told him how easy it would be to stay. When he turned back to Santana, though, he knew this must be, no matter the right or wrong of what he was doing, no matter the pride and anger that still lay between them, no matter what his worries were about what he might be facing. This was something that simply had to be.

  He lifted her and carried her to their bed. “Siento el fuego bajo tu piel,” he told her.

  Yes, Santana thought, there was a fire under her skin, a fire that only one man had ever been able to kindle in her. No matter what happened, this man had given her six years of blissful marriage and three beautiful children. He had saved her from Hugo Bolivar’s bed and a life of unhappiness. She would always have the children as a reminder of the brave man who had faced down her intended, even though he hardly knew her then, was not even sure that he loved her. He had done it out of pure decency and a sense of right and wrong, and for those same reasons, he must go away to war.

  “The fire is for you, mi vida,” she answered. “It will always be there, smoldering deep within me, for my Will, only for him.”

  He met her mouth in a savage, hungry kiss, a kiss of gratefulness mixed with a terrible need to have her tonight. She answered the kiss with her own desperate desire. Both knew that this would be more than an act of love or need. It was almost symbolic, something that represented an eternal devotion, a possession of souls.

  Each groaned in terrible need, his manhood quickly swollen, probing, searching for its solace in the moist warmth of her lovenest. She parted her thighs, and his hands grasped her bottom as he found his mark and pushed deep. The agony of leaving her, combined with desperate need and passionate feelings of love and devotion, made him surge wildly inside of her, circling his hips in thrusts that he knew excited her and rubbed against secret places, fanning her fire into raging flames.

  Santana clung to him, tears filling her eyes as she wondered if she would ever again know this joy, feeling her beloved as one with her, planting his life deep inside her. For several minutes he moved in sweet rhythm, until finally her ecstasy climaxed in surging spasms that made her cry out his name while tears slipped down the sides of her cheeks.

  Will knew how important it was that this be a wondrous memory for both of them, and he continued his thrusts, prolonging the pleasure for both of them. He raised up on his elbows, bending his head down to lick hungrily at her nipples, wanting to remember every inch of her, every curve, the feel of her full nipple against his tongue, the taste of her. Santana arched up to him in blissful surrender, grasping his arms, wanting to remember the feel of his hard body, the joy and comfort of being held by him. She had felt protected by his strength since she was only sixteen, even before he had ever held her. Just his presence was all she needed.

  His life surged into her with such force, she could feel its pulsations. She reached up and grabbed his mouth with her own, kissing him as savagely as he had first kissed her. She begged him between kisses not to stop, to stay inside of her and make love to her again, all night long, no matter how tired they both might be by morning.

  Tomorrow they would go to San Francisco. Her father and Hernando would accompany them so they could escort her home. Will would board a stagecoach that would carry him through desert, over mountains, through Indian country, to that land of mystery in the east. Off to war, to shoot at other men and be shot at in return, perhaps injured, imprisoned…killed.

  No! God would not take him from her! He would not do such a thing! Will would come back to her, her handsome, virile husband who was so healthy and full of life. He must come back to her!

  She clung to him and felt him grow hard again, a
nd again they made love, even more eager and needful than they had been their first night together. They moved in heated passion, the sheets quickly becoming damp and disheveled, two people wanting desperately to make the night last forever. But that was not to be. They made love twice, three times, as night moved into dawn, dawn to sunrise. When they could delay no longer they rose and bathed. Will finished packing, then spent some time with the children, trying to explain why he had to go away and that he would come back to them.

  Santana felt as though she were trapped in a terrible dream, and wished she would wake up from it soon and discover none of this was real. The family buggy was packed, and after breakfast they were joined by Gerald and his family in their own buggy. Santana looked at Agatha and knew that she was suffering the same horror and unreality. She saw tears in Will’s eyes when he turned to take a last look at his home.

  “Visit the mill a few times, will you?” he said to her. “Keep a check with Noel, see how things are going and write me. I don’t know if any of the letters will reach me, but once I find out whose command I’ll be under, I’ll try to get a wire or a letter to you. That will give you a location where you can send letters. With luck, the Army will find me.”

  “I will write,” she answered. Her voice sounded far away in her own ears. She was achingly weary from a night of lovemaking that should have left her euphoric, but had instead plunged her into the deep throes of depression, for she might never share her husband that way again.

  Too soon the buggies were off. They drove down to meet Dominic, Hernando, Teresa, and their children. Five men who worked as border guards for Dominic accompanied their little procession to help Dominic and Hernando watch over the women on their way back. With so many men gone off to war, all that was left were the kind of men who did not care about honor, outlaws and raiders who knew many homes were now unprotected. But there were still many Mexicans on La Estancia de Alcala who were loyal to Dominic and his family, Mexicans who cared little about the war in the East.