by Shirl Henke
“I already have. At least I won't repeat my first mistake and fall for a handsome face,” she replied darkly.
“I don't 'spect, considerin' how yew look, thet yew'd ever hafta settle fer a plug ugly toadyfrog.”
In spite of herself, Deborah laughed, holding her belly.
* * * *
When the caravan arrived in San Antonio the next afternoon, Deborah exclaimed, “Oh, Obedience, it's so beautiful!” She could see the spires of an old Spanish cathedral peeking above lush stands of cypress trees. The warm June sun beat down on thick-walled, low buildings. They were whitewashed and many had red tile roofs and iron grillwork balconies. Broad, clean streets lined with oak and cottonwood trees were filled with all manner of traffic as they neared the Main Plaza.
Several peasant women dressed in white blouses and bright cotton skirts carried big clay pots of water on their shoulders. A caballero in a tight-fitting silver-trimmed jacket and pants rode a magnificently outfitted black horse. A teamster cursed and flogged his long train of mules as they pulled a heavy load of dry goods. Here and there, Anglo women in calico dresses and sunbonnets made their way across the thoroughfare, as did farmers, in rough homespun and hard-looking mountain men dressed in buckskins, weighed down with knives and guns.
The city included a motley assortment of humanity, Hispanic and Anglo, rich and poor, desperate and dangerous. Deborah drank it in, as colorful and exotic in its way as New Orleans had been. Please let this be home for me and my child.
Obedience stopped and asked directions at the Main Plaza while Deborah admired the spacious tree-lined square. She heard a mixture of English and Spanish, with occasional dialects unfamiliar to her, perhaps Indian language. But she heard no one speak French. She was grateful and oddly sad at the same time.
“Jist up a couple o' blocks thataways,” Obedience instructed Zeb who gave their mules a sharp slap of the reins, “ ‘n we'll be home.”
“I can hardly wait to see the house,” Deborah said with a grin.
“Now, I warned yew, don't go a gettin' yer hopes up fer a fancy place like back east. My brother, God rest his soul, tended ta put a leetle stretch on th' truth now 'n then.”
Even so, Deborah was not prepared for the dilapidated wooden structure at the end of Commerce Street. It had two stories and a wide front porch. Seth had not lied about that, but the bare boards were crudely fitted and the windows innocent of glass. The doors hung crookedly on their hinges and the porch rail was half-finished. Indeed, the whole place looked half-finished.
“Why, Obedience, it's—it's got lots of potential,” Deborah managed as they pulled up.
“Jehoshaphat! If’n thet means it's a dump, then I reckon yore right,” Obedience said as she jumped down from the wagon and forged across the dusty front yard toward the door.
In her condition, Deborah could only follow slowly. Obedience's call at the front door was met by a small, crablike black woman wearing a fierce scowl that matched the tall Tennessean’s.
“You be wantin' rooms? Mr. Seth he doan rents ta females.” The black woman spoke in a no-nonsense voice.
“I ain't rentin'. I'm ownin'. Obedience Jones is my name 'n I'm Seth Morton's sister. He wuz expectin' me afore th' war. Who are yew?”
“I be Sadie 'n I runs this here house fer Mr. Seth since Miz Mathilda die.”
“I don't hold with slavery, even if my sister-in-law did. I'll see ta yore bein' freed—”
“Yo cain't free me!” Sadie interrupted with a triumphant gleam in her eye, her stooped body still blocking the door. “I already is free. Got me papers to prove it. I works fer Mr. Seth!”
“Jehoshaphat! Yew cud'a jist said so,” Obedience replied in a huff.
“Maybe you never gave her a chance,” Deborah said softly, trying to ease the confrontation. Feeling the black woman's eyes shift to her, Deborah smiled and introduced herself. “I'm Deborah Kensington. Mrs. Jones is the new owner, truly. I know she does appreciate your keeping the boardinghouse operating while we were detained by the war.”
Sadie smiled. “Come in and set. It be hot outside.” She ushered them inside with a flourish of her arthritic arm and then scrabbled down the long, wide central hall to a room on the right. “This be th' parlor. I'll bring lemonade. Set yoself.” She indicated a large leather chair to Deborah and made a gesture toward her belly. Pregnant women should rest was the obvious implication.
Reddening, Deborah sat down while Obedience made a quick inspection of the large, scantily furnished room. Sadie went after the promised refreshment.
“Well, it is big and roomy,” Deborah ventured.
“Filthy as a hawg pen. They ain't hardly no furniture!” Obedience responded.
There were two crude leather chairs and an ugly horsehair sofa. One small, rickety table sat beside it with a lard wick stuck into a saucer that served as the room's only apparent lamp.
“We might see if Zeb and Ira would consider hiring on to do some chores for a while,” Deborah suggested, then added, “I have plenty of money to pay them and I want to do my share, Obedience.”
The old woman grinned. “Right stubborn fer sech a skinny leetle thing, aintcha?”
By the next day, Obedience had all her questions answered. Seth had built his large house and had made plans to finish it, ordering the furniture from New Orleans and hiring workmen to paint walls and put glass in the windows. However, he had scarcely begun when Mathilda had become gravely ill. She had been the planner, the one responsible for choosing colors, furniture, wallpaper, everything for the interior decoration.
After she died, Seth Morton had written to ask his sister to come to San Antonio, but he had lost interest in his wife's dream. He had thrown himself into the revolution with the fervor of a rootless man and had left the house, with six, old male boarders, under the care of Mathilda's servant, Sadie.
* * * *
In the months that followed, Deborah joined Obedience in a whirlwind of activity, converting the half-finished boardinghouse into a comfortably furnished home.
As Obedience had predicted, Deborah's lethargy, nausea, and other discomforts of pregnancy abated, leaving her feeling surprising healthy and energetic during the dry sunny days of San Antonio's summer. Her appetite was voracious, but her diligence in working alongside Obedience kept her from gaining much weight. Recalling the odious tales of “confinement” Celine and her friends whispered about, Deborah often laughed as she traveled about the city and worked in the boardinghouse, heedless of her ripening figure.
A thin, nervous man of indeterminate years named Chester Granger appeared the second day they had set to work. Hat in hand, Adam's apple bobbing and feet shuffling, he inquired if the new owners wanted a general handyman. He could drive a team, work livestock, prune the orchards, and do anything else they needed.
Realizing Zeb and Ira planned to homestead their own land the following spring, Deborah was inclined to hire Chester.
“We need someone who can be a jack-of-all-trades for us,” Deborah said to Obedience as she and the older woman talked in the kitchen while the applicant waited nervously on the side porch.
“Jehoshaphat! He's too puny 'n too twitchy ta lift a flour sack without spillin' it,” Obedience replied, giving the encrusted pot she was scrubbing a masterful scrape to free a hunk of baked-on food.
“He's had experience working in orchards and growing things. I really want to reclaim the fruit trees out back and grow a large garden to supplement our table.” Deborah's voice was beseeching. “I’m sure he'll be helpful.”
“Harrumph, like thet crippled ole Sadie's helpful! I declare, we're runnin' a orphanage fer growed-up misfits whut cain't do fer themselves.” Her tone was brusque, but Deborah could see she was coming around.
“For all your bluff and bluster, Obedience Jones, you've taken in more than your share of misfits along the way, including one scared, pregnant runaway,” she replied, tiptoeing up to kiss the leathery cheek of the big Tennessean. “I'll tell Chester he c
an start right away!”
While Chester sawed, spliced, and put mud plasters on tree wounds in the orchard, Deborah sweated in the garden, planting sweet potatoes and corn as well as a large assortment of beans, carrots, broccoli, and cabbages. They would have a bountiful harvest of wholesome fresh vegetables this fall. “I can grow anything in this rich warm earth that they can in sticky old Louisiana,” she promised herself as she wiped the sweat from her brow, applying herself to the seeding once more.
“Yore overdoin', mark me,” Obedience scolded, kneeling alongside Deborah with a grunt.
“Zeb turned the ground for me and prepared it. All I'm doing is patting seeds into it. No heavy lifting. Anyway, I've heard you say you plowed and milked cows when you were pregnant,” Deborah rejoined, ignoring the ache in her back.
“Jehoshaphat! Look at yew 'n me. I'm jist a tech bigger 'n sturdier. Kinda like thet little bitty fig tree over there standin' up ta th' cypress trees by San Fernando Church!”
Even Deborah had to giggle at the comparison. The cypress trees around the cathedral towered over all the surrounding buildings while her fig tree was small and delicate. “I guess I am like the fig tree after all—ready to bear fruit this fall.”
As the big Fourth of July celebration neared, Obedience had to credit Deborah's grit. The thin, harried young woman she had met in the cold rains of spring had blossomed under the summer sun. Her porcelain white skin was now tinged a delicate incandescent gold and her hair was even more silvery white. Still slender but for her growing belly, Deborah was no longer hollow-eyed and gaunt but firmly fleshed from exercise in the open air and a good, hearty appetite. Above all, she was gaining a sense of accomplishment in her work.
The boardinghouse now had ten boarders, three of the four new additions being women, two widow ladies and one spinster. The fine table set by Obedience and Deborah won praise from everyone.
Deborah's Boston refinement seemed to impart respect for her rules to all the boarders, even the tough old mountain man, Racine Schwartz. He loved to frighten the women with grisly tales of scalpings, horse stealing, and knife fights; but now he watched his language as he did so. She allowed no chewing or spitting of tobacco in Jones' Boardinghouse, an incredible injunction in Texas where six year old boys often indulged in the vice. Gentlemen wore shirts and jackets to the dinner table and everyone followed Deborah's lead in using appropriate utensils and observing table manners.
“We got us three more men waitin' ta move in, Deborah. Seems word o' yore clean sheets 'n fancy menus been gettin' ‘round,” Obedience said as they prepared to leave for the July Fourth dance and celebration in the Main Plaza.
“You can't give me the credit for your splendid cooking, Obedience,” her friend rejoined.
“Jehoshaphat! I'd a been feedin' them sweet taters 'n meat 'n biscuits. Yew was th' one growin' all them fancy greens. I learned me ta cook stuff I never heerd o' afore I met yew. Cain't believe how good them broccoli things taste.”
“You, Chester and Sadie have all helped,” Deborah replied.
“Who got the crazy idea o' dealin' with them Tonks, huh?”
Deborah had made an exceptional arrangement. When several friendly Tonkawa Indians had come to their kitchen door with a brace of quail to barter, Sadie had run screaming she was about to be scalped by Comanche. Deborah reasoned that hostile raiders would scarcely knock and bring foodstuffs, after riding openly through the center of town. Chester, who had lived in central Texas all his life, assured her these were remnants of a small, decimated tribe who subsisted on the periphery of white society.
Wanting fresh game for their table to supplement the endlessly boring pork and beef menus, Deborah had enlisted Chester as an interpreter. She bartered salt and cornmeal for the quail, then reached an agreement with them for more fresh meat. Turkey, rabbit, and venison now varied their main courses, as did the chickens she was raising for eggs and for the cook pot.
“I suppose we have much to celebrate this July Fourth, don't we?” she said with a warm smile for Obedience. Things were prospering.
“Yup, thet we do. Let's go tie one on. Seems almost like bein' back in the good ole United States whut with th' way folks hereabouts carry on.”
Texians always took advantage of any excuse to celebrate—American holidays, Mexican saints' fiestas—any day they could stage horse races, set off fireworks, hold a dance, drink, and feast. People who worked hard played hard as well—nowhere more so than in Texas.
“Yew expect ta see Jim Slade at th' fandango?” Obedience asked as the two women strolled toward the Main Plaza.
“Only if he's squiring about his fiancée, Señorita Aguilar,” Deborah replied.
Jim Slade had returned to his ranch just in time to see his father die of a heart condition. Although Obedience fostered the friendship between the youthful owner of Bluebonnet Ranch and her friend, nothing came of it. Within a couple of months Jim was engaged to Tomasina Aguilar, whose father Don Simon was an old friend of the Slades. The best Tejano and Texian families in San Antonio clucked their approval of the impending marriage.
“Speakin’ o' them two, here they come,” Obedience said as she scanned the crowd thronging the plaza. Jim Slade, dressed in an elegant suit of brown homespun, looked adoringly down at the tiny, black-haired girl on his arm.
Seeing Obedience bearing down on them with Deborah in tow, he smiled warmly. “Hello, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Kensington.”
“Howdy, Jimmy. Figgered yew'd be out ta take in th' sights. Afternoon, Miz Aguilar.” Obedience nodded at his beautiful companion.
Although Tomasina smiled at the big woman, when her jet eyes caught Deborah's lavender gaze, her expression suddenly cooled. She nodded to the “boardinghouse widows” as many San Antonians called them.
Forcing a smile at Tomasina, Deborah said, “We haven't seen you in town in a while, Mr. Slade. I hope things are going well at Bluebonnet.”
They chatted a bit about the cattle business and how Jim was faring as he took over the big operation.
After a few minutes Tomasina said in her precisely accented English, “If you will be so kind as to excuse us, señoras, I see some old friends we must greet across the plaza.”
Watching them depart, Obedience said shrewdly, “He fair follers her like a pup now, but I got me a feelin' it cain't last, even if’n she is purty as one o' them Madonnas in San Fernando Church.”
Deborah gave a snort of derision. “Some Madonna! She heartily disapproves of me showing myself in this disgraceful condition. Couldn't you see how she stared?”
Obedience laughed out loud. “Might cud be yew fancy havin' her man fer yerself. Yew'd suit him much better 'n her. She's a snooty one, thet'n.”
Deborah's cheeks flamed. “Honestly, Obedience, how often must I remind you Jim Slade is only a friend—and one who is two years younger than I to boot!”
“Yep,” Obedience replied, having heard it all before. “Yore purely witherin' on the vine o' old age! But a great-lookin' stud bull like thet yeller-haired young devil'd fix yew up jist fine.”
Now, it was Deborah's turn to laugh, holding her distended abdomen. “I can scarcely summon up any base physical cravings at the moment, Obedience. Look at me, waddling along, seven months pregnant.”
“Harrumph! Thet's only temporary. Believe me, I oughta know,” the undaunted Amazon replied.
Deborah silently prayed it would not be, wanting no return of tortuous, bittersweet dreams of her Creole lover. To Obedience she said only, “I’m still a married woman and that's the end of it.”
* * * *
Summer spent itself into a long, golden fall, full of the rich promise of a bountiful harvest. Deborah worked alongside Obedience and Sadie in the boardinghouse backyard, stirring the steaming cauldrons of apple butter. The spicy sweet perfume wafted on the warm September air.
“We're going to have the best table ever set in San Antonio this winter, mark me,” Deborah said proudly to Obedience as they stood on the boardinghouse p
orch, looking out on their domain. She had just commissioned the digging of a real ice cellar on the back of the property, deep beneath a rocky hill. Once sealed off and filled with ice during the winter, the storage cave would guarantee cool drinks for everyone the following summer.
“Sinful luxury, that's whut a Baptist preacher back in Tennessee would call all this here high livin',” Obedience said with a glow of unrepentant pride.
Deborah laughed. “Well, this is Texas and I'm Episcopalian, not Baptist. We don't fret over sin. We just enjoy luxury.”
“Yew worked ta earn it, I reckon. In fact, I think yore plumb peaked today,” Obedience said, inspecting Deborah's face.
“Oh, it's just this backache I woke up with this morning, that's all. I'll be fine. In fact, I wish I could walk to town and vote. It's the Texas Republic's first election day and women are just as excluded here as they were in Boston or New Orleans.”
“I think General Sam'll get hisself elected president without our votes,” Obedience said dryly, knowing another of Deborah's soapbox speeches was imminent.
Just then her friend winced and emitted a small, surprised gasp. “Oh, you rascal, what a kick,” she exclaimed as she leaned against the porch banister.
“How long yew been havin' them ‘kicks'?” Obedience asked casually.
“One every fifteen minutes or so since lunch. They're nothing compared to this accursed backache, though...” Deborah's words faded as she looked up at Obedience with dawning comprehension. Spluttering, she stood up. “You mean I've been having a baby and I didn't even know it!”
“Jehoshaphat! ” Obedience laughed. “It shore ‘pears that way, but if 'n yew never done it afore, how kin yew know what it's supposed ta feel like?”
Recalling Celine's horror stories of travail, Deborah gave a hearty chuckle and said, “I think you might send Chester to fetch Dr. Weidermann. Tell him I'll be out back checking the progress on the icehouse!”