by Lyn Cote
Mariel accepted these from him, then turned to Quinn. “Bitte, please, I sew for you?”
“Go on, Quinn,” Tunney said in a voice that teased. “Let the little lady sew your shirt.”
Quinn gave her a look she could not read. Then he shrugged out of his jacket and shirt, revealing his chest. “Thanks. It’s not necessary, but thanks.”
Seeing him without his shirt left her mute. She hated her shyness. Blushing in hot, unwelcome waves, she hurried away.
Unfortunately, she bumped into Herr Heller.
“What are you doing, you stupid girl?”
She looked at him, noting how ugly his angry eyes looked. “I am sewing for the Rangers to thank them—”
“I know what you’re doing,” he interrupted her, gripping her arm, tight and hurtful. “He won’t have you. You’re nothing. He’s a Ranger, an official of the government. You’re nothing. Just a servant girl.”
Mariel made no reply; she just stared into the man’s face, refusing to lower her eyes. When the Ranger had stared at him for slapping her in Galveston, Herr Heller had shown cowardice by backing down and then cursing the Ranger behind his back. And she liked Heller even less for it.
And I know what you’re angry about, Herr Heller, what you want from me. And as long as the Ranger is here, he will not let you get away with it. And before he leaves, I will think of a way to leave your employ.
Mariel yanked herself away and walked toward the fire, where her mistress and her little son sat. The woman greeted her with a wan smile and a plea for Mariel to relax. Mariel nodded. A sense of victory over her master’s nasty remarks strengthened her even as sudden tears threatened. She blinked them away, however, and got out her sewing basket. No one in Germany had thought she was worth much—not her father, not her husband. Only her grossmutter had told her she was special, a child of Gott. A verse she had often quoted came to mind: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land.” Mariel hadn’t known then that the land would be Texas. She whispered, “Now I am a Texas woman. I will trust Gott, do good, and dwell in this land. This land with men like Carson Quinn.”
Under the warm afternoon sun, Sugar stood to the side of the one dirt street that made up Montezuma. The town was barely big enough to be called a town. Besides the one muddy street, it had a ferry over the Colorado River, a blacksmith, and a small general store. Tufts of wild grass, wildflowers, and cottonwood trees provided the only touches of beauty.
She and her family had arrived late yesterday, expecting to find Carson waiting for them. However, Carson had yet to arrive. She rubbed her forearms, worrying.
An older woman sitting in a rocking chair in front of her house kept eyeing Sugar. It made her uneasy. Why was the woman watching her so closely? The woman, whose face was shadowed by her unstarched bonnet brim, continued rocking and smoking a long wooden pipe, a habit some Texas women had, a habit that still horrified her mother. But then, Dorritt had been born a lady.
“You must not worry, señorita,” Emilio said.
She involuntarily jerked at the sound of his voice. She had been so focused on the woman that she hadn’t heard him even though he wore spurs on his boots.
“I’m sorry I have surprised you,” he apologized in that rich, velvety voice she loved.
As she turned, her bonnet, only loosely tied, slid back on her neck. Then she was looking into the face that to her was the best in all of Texas. Emilio’s skin was a rich tan, his eyes coffee black. His dark hair waved and curled around his ears, and his generous mouth was curved into the special grin he reserved for her alone.
She tried to smile back, but her lips felt tight.
“You must not worry, señorita,” he repeated. “Your brother Carson will come soon. He is just delayed.”
This time she managed a smile. She glanced over her shoulder. The woman had left her rocker and gone inside. “I know,” she murmured, but the anxiety was still there. She didn’t like to be away from the Quinns’ rancho and without Carson. The old, unnamed fear lingered, always there just under the surface. Without Carson here, she felt exposed, defenseless.
That’s foolish. Emilio and my father would protect me.
“I am going to the blacksmith to see if our horse is reshod. Would you like to walk with me?” Emilio coaxed her with another, even richer, grin. “I know the town is busy with people, and we don’t like crowds, do we?”
She scanned the lone street, empty now except for a sleeping sow lying out on her side on the mud and a few chickens walking and bobbing their heads. She chuckled, her tightness relaxing. “No, I don’t like crowds…like this.”
Emilio offered her his arm. “Perhaps we will stop at the store on the way back. We could pretend we’re children and buy peppermint.”
She took his arm. He was teasing her. Everyone knew that she loved peppermints.
She leaned a bit closer and tighter to him. Walking beside Emilio gave her such a splendid feeling of—
“Hey, lady!” a loud voice interrupted Sugar’s thoughts. “Is that Mexican bothering you?” A large man in buckskin and linsey-woolsey had stepped out of the general store. He took a menacing step toward them.
Sugar wanted to shout her anger at this insult to Emilio. Her breath rushed out, but she couldn’t form a word.
“Hello, señor, I am Emilio Ramirez, a Ranger.” Emilio held out his hand.
The stranger looked him up and down, finally gripped Emilio’s hand, then swept his hat off to Sugar. “Sorry. Didn’t know you were a Ranger. Some Mexicans are pretty nervy. Think they’re as good as Texians.”
“I have relatives in Mexico, I suppose,” Emilio drawled, “but I have never met them. So yes, they probably think they are better than Texians.”
The stranger’s face twisted with concentration. Emilio’s mild tone and friendly smile appeared innocent. Emilio knew how to disarm rude people and, at the same time, poke fun at them in a way they couldn’t object to. Indeed, though the man appeared to know he was being put in his place, he couldn’t find any way to protest without looking a fool. He finally asked, “You two with the family that’s waiting in town?”
“Sí, we are waiting for Carson Quinn, another Ranger and this señorita’s brother.”
Nodding, the stranger put his hat back on and walked away, whistling. Sugar looked away from Emilio, ashamed that her face was burning. The rude encounter had distressed her too deeply for words, disgraced them both in some way.
Emilio began leading her, but not to the blacksmith’s forge. He guided her to a nearby grove of cottonwood, showy with white spring blossoms fluttering with the breeze, and away from the dismal town. Bluebonnets carpeted the surrounding open pasture with a deep violet blue. Emilio let go of her and bent down to pluck a few. He gave them to her and said, “I am sorry if that gamberro, that lout, upset you.”
Sugar accepted the flowers, cool and smooth in her hands, but continued to stare down. Biting her lower lip, she gathered herself together, then looked up. “I hate it…when people say such…rude things.”
“Rude people say rude things. Good people speak good things. It is as Señora Quinn says. What a man speaks reveals his heart.”
For once, she found herself able to reply. “When I go to San Antonio, people I barely know walk up to me and say, ‘Oh, you’re that orphan girl the half-breed Quinn and his New Orleans lady took in after San Jacinto.’ It’s like by using those words, they…” Her voice faltered.
“They make you less than you are? Make the Quinns less than the good people they are?” Emilio suggested.
She nodded. It had cost her a great deal to say that aloud; now her breath came fast. She had thought it for years but had never been able to put it into words. “It’s hard for me…to speak.” In the distance, she heard the sound of the rocking chair on the wooden porch resume, and she glanced over her shoulder.
Was the older woman with her pipe back on her porch, still staring hard at Sugar? This thought gave Sugar gooseflesh.
Emilio took one of the bluebonnets and tickled her nose with it. She shivered at this delicate touch even though it was meant to tease her into smiling. Then he grimaced and pushed the flower back into her hands. “I know it is hard for you to speak.” His voice was distant now. “You are still so young.”
“I am not a child. I’m a woman,” she insisted, goaded.
“But still a young woman.” His voice had become very brisk, and he half-turned from her. “Let us go to the blacksmith and see if he’s finished with the horse.”
His words drenched her like a pail of cold water. And she found herself tongue-tied again. Why couldn’t she ever speak what was in her heart for Emilio?
And as they approached the one street town, why wouldn’t that woman stop staring at her?
Carson approached Montezuma with unexpected qualms. Leading the large party of immigrants had kept him busy every daylight hour and so exhausted that he had slept without dreaming, a boon. But as he came around a bend, he glimpsed Sugar and Emilio walking down the muddy street toward him. The sight of them unleashed every turbulent emotion from the days at Buena Vista. Every miserable, mortifying moment burst inside him like fomenting wounds.
He fought back.
Emilio, one of his best friends, had gone off with him six years ago to serve in the Rangers. Emilio and he were near the same age, and they had ridden many rough and dangerous miles together. Walking with a newspaper folded under his arm, Emilio saw him too. He evidently told Sugar, who looked up. She blushed, as though caught in an indiscretion, like a cat in an upturned cream pot. Then Emilio was hurrying Sugar forward and shouting in welcome.
Carson grinned. Emilio, a friend indeed. Carson held up his hand in greeting and slid from his saddle. Then, remembering his duties as leader, he turned his back on Emilio and called out, “Halt! We camp here tonight!” He turned back in time to receive Sugar’s welcoming hug.
“We were worried,” she said, rosy pink, and then her usual self-consciousness took over and she couldn’t continue.
“Hey, amigo.” Emilio slapped Carson’s back. “You get lost without me to guide you?”
Carson grimaced and nodded toward the people crowding behind him. “Some more pilgrims for the promised land.”
Coming out of their wikiup at the edge of town, his parents and little Erin hurried forward. Seeing them again stirred every sad, awful emotion Carson was feeling from the family trip east for Blanche’s wedding. Carson was having a hard time keeping everything in, but he was managing. Just. Little Erin threw her arms around his waist.
Then, interrupting his mother’s greeting, distressed shouts came from behind. Pulling away from Erin’s hold, Carson turned and hurried toward the familiar babble of German and the tight knot of gawkers and moaners.
He found that a woman had collapsed. Her husband was gripping her hand, saying her name. Carson turned back, but he didn’t have to call out. As always in times of trouble, his mother Dorritt was there. She knelt beside the woman and felt her forehead. “She’s burning up.” His mother checked the woman’s pulse at the wrist. Then she bent her head to listen to the heartbeat. Erin held back, under her father’s arm.
Dorritt rose. “We need to get her under cover. There aren’t any inns. We’ve set up our tent. Bring her there. I must bathe her face and wrists with alcohol and bring down that fever.”
Before Carson could speak, Meuserbach was explaining this in German. Carson moved forward to help the woman’s husband pick her up and carry her toward Dorritt and Quinn’s campsite at the edge of town. He ducked inside their tent and followed his mother’s instructions to lay the woman down on bedding his father had quickly unrolled.
Mariel moved forward through the crowd and positioned herself so that she could see inside the strange tent, which looked as if it was made of animal hide. Their odd-looking tent was round at the bottom and narrower at the top, with a peak where smoke curled up. These people must be the Ranger’s family they were to meet.
Tunney suddenly appeared in front of her. “Come on.” He took her hand and drew her toward the strange dwelling. She stumbled forward, keeping up with his long strides over the uneven ground.
“Carson,” Tunney said, “I brought Miss Mariel to help your mother. She can interpret too.”
What? Mariel’s whole body tightened. She was to interpret?
Carson greeted her with a distracted smile. “Mother, this is Miss Mariel. She has acted as a nurse for us already and speaks some English.”
Mariel was startled again by the fact that they didn’t treat her differently because she was a servant. She found herself staring at the Ranger. As soon as she was aware that he was gazing back at her, she turned her face away, trying to act as if she hadn’t been staring at him.
“Hello, Mariel. I’m Dorritt Quinn. And this is my husband, who is called Quinn.”
Bending because of the low ceiling near the entrance, Mariel curtseyed. When she forced herself to look up, she found herself being given a quick, but thorough, scrutiny. Mrs. Quinn was an imposing woman. It wasn’t just that she appeared very tall for a woman; it was more about the force of her person. Mariel sensed this woman did not do things in halves.
Mariel received the same impression from the man Quinn, who was kneeling and gazing up at her. He wore his hair in a long tail. She had never seen this style on any man before. Or heard of a man who was called only by his last name by his own family. A fair-haired young woman with a dark-haired little girl stood near the entrance with a young man of darker skin.
“Please come closer. I need you to translate,” Mrs. Quinn invited with a tight smile.
“I will help. Bitte,” Mariel managed to murmur. Please, God, don’t let me do anything wrong.
“What is this woman’s name?” Mrs. Quinn asked, gesturing toward the patient, who had just opened her eyes. “And will you please ask her what her symptoms are?”
“Symptoms?” Mariel didn’t know this word. Her stuttering heart began to thud.
“Yes, what different types of sickness is she feeling besides the fever?” Mrs. Quinn added.
Mariel’s heart slowed its thudding. She could do that. She came forward and knelt beside the woman, asking about her symptoms. Then she turned to Mrs. Quinn. Before she spoke, she swallowed once, twice. “Frau Braun say she started fever last night. She hope…be better in morning. But she feel weak and weak all day. She hurt in all her body. Aches. And feel cold and hot.” Mariel was aware that the Ranger was watching her closely, as was his mother.
“Good job.” Mrs. Quinn sat back on her heels. “It sounds to me like Frau Braun has what’s called influenza, or the grippe. Men, all of you leave and shut the flap behind you. This young woman…” She motioned toward Mariel.
“Miss Mariel,” the Ranger prompted, already obeying his mother and backing away to the door.
Mariel’s nerves were calming, her heartbeat nearing normal. Hearing the Ranger say her name again and with the polite title of Miss brought the same embarrassing warmth to her face and neck. Noting this, his mother paused to look to her son and then back to Mariel, once, twice, as if weighing and measuring.
Then Mrs. Quinn smiled and asked, “You don’t mind, Miss Mariel, remaining to help nurse and translate for me?”
Mariel nodded but said no more. Mrs. Quinn’s gaze had been penetrating. Mariel only hoped she hadn’t given the wrong impression. There was nothing between her and the Ranger.
After the men left, Mrs. Quinn and Mariel remained beside the ailing Frau Braun. The young woman and little girl Mariel didn’t know still lingered just inside the tent.
“Mother, what can we do?” the older, very fair girl asked.
Mrs. Quinn turned her head. “Mariel, these are Carson’s sisters. The eldest is Sugar, and the youngest is Erin. Girls, this is Miss Mariel.”
Mariel smiled, taken by the sensitive eyes of the older daughter and her obvious concern over a stranger. The younger daughter looked intelligent and curiou
s. Mariel smiled at her too.
“Sugar, please ask your brother to bring me buckets of well water. And then please keep Erin with you and away from the other immigrants. I don’t want her exposed. There might be more coming down with this.” The two of them left then. Mrs. Quinn smiled at Mariel.
Mariel nodded her willingness to do whatever was asked of her, yet she wondered why they had named their daughter Sugar, a very unusual name. Or maybe that wasn’t true in Texas.
Setting to work, Mariel soon became too busy to think of much more than trying to understand the American woman’s instructions and requests as together they nursed Frau Braun. Then two more patients, Mrs. Braun’s two little boys, also feverish, were carried into the odd-looking tent.
Mrs. Quinn sighed and began to bathe their faces and wrists with alcohol. She then wrapped them in blankets. She was about to speak when Mariel heard the voice of Herr Heller, loud and argumentative, demanding that she come and serve her mistress. As Mariel didn’t want him to make more of a scene, she rose, stammered an apology to the American lady, and backed outside, closing the tent flap behind her.
“There you are, you stupid girl,” Herr Heller barked. “My wife needs help. You are to obey her, not these Rangers.” His face reddened with anger as he lunged forward to backhand her.
And then he was on the ground, looking up at the Ranger and his father. It had happened so fast that Mariel gawked in surprise.
Four
Mariel choked, gasping for air. The Ranger’s father was standing over Herr Heller, his fists clenched as if ready to do battle. “Stand up, coward,” the man said. “Come on. Hit someone who can strike back.”
Herr Meuserbach hurried forward, his hands held in front of him. “Halt! Bitte! Halt!” He stepped between the two men. “Why has begun a fight?”
Herr Heller rose, glaring as he wiped blood from his lip. The Ranger’s father maintained his stance, ready to continue the fight. “No man strikes a woman in my presence.”