by Lyn Cote
Glancing over, he saw that Erin had fallen asleep with her book in her lap. He turned to the wikiup. What were his mother, father, Emilio, and Sugar discussing in there? If it had just been wedding plans, both he and Erin would have been included.
Though he’d turned his back, the image of Mariel flickered in Carson’s thoughts. The memory of the kisses shared with her still gleamed inside, a private treasure. A fierce desire to do something for her flared within. Was there any way he could help Mariel, protect her?
When Mariel rose the next morning, which dawned warm and bright, she heard immediately that the Quinns would be leaving that day. She’d been anticipating their departure, trying to prepare herself to bear Carson’s leaving. Yet tears still simmered just under the surface. Carson’s departure would leave her alone to face the predicament that gossip had caused.
As she went through the motions of preparing for another day of caring for the little Braun boys, she tried to think of a solution. Only one occurred to her. I must act. I must find someone who will let me room in their cabin when it is built.
One by one, she considered each of the women in the party, trying to decide who would be most apt to show her kindness. She finally settled on Gretchen, one of the younger women in the party. Gretchen and Mariel had talked many times, and Mariel thought of her as more than an acquaintance but not quite a friend. After all, this woman was not a servant, as Mariel was.
Mariel said a prayer, then made her way through the encampment to Gretchen. “Guten morgen,” Mariel said, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice.
Gretchen did not return the greeting.
Mariel’s heart began skipping, and her face stiffened. “I have come to ask a favor.” She hurried on before she lost her nerve. “May I room with you when your cabin is finished? I will work for—”
“Nein.”
Mariel stared at the woman. “Please. I—”
“You know why I cannot,” Gretchen said. “Everyone is talking about what you have done to poor Frau Heller. And your shameless behavior—getting two men to fight over you. Do you want to ensnare my husband too?”
I did nothing. Mariel could not bring words up to her lips. She hurried away from all the merciless faces watching, glaring at her. Why did people believe nasty gossip? Had Frau Heller spread this tale to protect her husband? Or had it been Heller? Or was it just the maliciousness of people?
“Mariel! Frau Wolffe!” Mrs. Quinn’s voice coming nearer stopped Mariel.
For a moment, Mariel just held herself still, composing herself. Then she turned, and Mrs. Quinn was there in front of her. “Yes, Mrs. Quinn?”
“I know we never had a chance to discuss this, but my husband and I would like you to come with us to our ranch and stay. We want you to teach Erin some German and about Europe.”
At first Mariel couldn’t believe what she had heard. Her ears rang. She nearly shook her head to clear them. “Truly?”
“Yes, you’ve been very kind to Erin. And we would like you to come home with us. You’ll be paid, of course, and we’ll provide for all your needs. There are very few teachers in Texas. I’m sure you would be able to find others who will wish you to teach their young when Erin’s instruction is complete. Will you come? We are leaving within the hour.”
Mariel gawked at the woman, shock vibrating through her. An hour? Less than an hour to decide to leave this place, this valley she had traveled from Germany to reach? “But I am not a teacher,” Mariel objected, her mind racing.
Mrs. Quinn smiled. “I’ve listened to you speak and watched you. It is obvious that you weren’t born to be a servant. You have received a good education somehow.”
Yes, listening to my father tutor students in our home and sneaking into his library to read books—though he never guessed I was doing so. Mrs. Quinn patted her arm. “I’m sorry, so much keeps happening. Please. I would be so happy if you would say yes.”
Mariel could barely breathe. “I will think on it.”
“Good, but not long. Come to the wagon with your belongings as soon as possible.” The woman smiled, then hurried away.
Mariel stood there near the surrounding fir trees, not moving, her mind in a whirl. Did she have a choice? If Gretchen, whom she’d thought of as almost a friend, wouldn’t take her in, who would?
And what of Carson Quinn? Mariel couldn’t look at him without recalling those stolen moments beside the fire not many days ago. How could she stay near him and not betray the fact that she was drawn to him?
Herr Heller came by, walking backwards and carrying one end of a newly notched log. He was heading for one of the cabins under construction. He sneered at her.
That was it. She turned away and walked to where she had been camping with the Brauns. She gathered up her meager belongings and headed toward the Quinns’ wagon, her pulse speeding.
Herr Braun must have seen what she was doing, because he appeared beside her. She didn’t slow her pace. She said, “I’m sorry, Herr Braun. Mrs. Quinn wants to hire me to help with her daughter and to teach her German.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked, panting from running to catch her. “My proposal still stands. You can stay here with your own kind.”
Mariel looked sideways, catching his eye. “My own kind?” You mean the people who do nothing to protect me from a brute and mean-spirited gossip? Her mouth twisted, but she could not stop herself from saying, “I will be better off with strangers.”
Herr Braun pulled his purse out of his pocket and handed her several pieces of silver. “Here is your pay. I thank you for how good you’ve been to my sons.”
Mariel paused, then accepted the payment. Herr Heller owed her money. But now all she wanted to do was to get away from this place, these gossips, even from this lovely valley where she had hoped she would make her home. “I wish you luck, Herr Braun.”
“And I wish you the same.” He bowed and then hurried away.
Mariel reached the Quinns, who were climbing onto the buckboard. “Mrs. Quinn.”
The woman beamed at her. Before Mariel could say anything, Quinn jumped down from the buckboard seat and helped her up onto the back of it beside Erin. Sugar was riding behind the Ranger Emilio on his horse. Carson sat on his mount nearby. He pulled the brim of his hat toward her. Her stomach fluttered.
After the farewells ended, Mr. Quinn slapped the reins on the team. The buckboard started with a lurch, which mimicked the one Mariel’s stomach took. As she looked back at the Germans she had traveled from Europe with, they became more and more distant. And then, as the wagon turned around a steep bend of trees, the people she’d known disappeared. She had experienced this sensation before. As she’d stood at the rail onboard the ship, watching the German shore recede and then disappear, she had felt the same way. Now again this feeling of no turning back rocked her, sucked away her breath. Tears flowed down her face.
Erin must have seen them, because she patted Mariel’s arm and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll like our rancho. You will.”
Mariel tried to smile, but she could only manage a weak imitation. Her ears were sharp enough to catch the jingle of Carson’s spurs as he urged his mount forward. Would she always be so aware of him?
Closing her eyes, she drew in her tears and blinked away the moisture. Being near Carson Quinn and not showing her dawning feelings for him would be an exquisite torture. She had finally found what she was looking for: a good man to love. But he was the son of a landowner, and she would be a servant in his family’s home. How could she have allowed this to happen? Yet when had hearts ever been obedient?
A few miles outside of New Braunfels, Mariel watched as Carson rode beside his friend. Emilio didn’t look as pleased as a man who was going to be married soon should look. Emilio looked deeply worried.
Then, unexpectedly, Quinn slowed the team and stopped. “We need to talk.”
Carson halted and looked to his father and mother. They looked somber also. “I can’t do this,”
Sugar whispered.
Emilio slid from his saddle to the ground. He held up his hands to lift Sugar from her mount. She reached for him but with reluctance. Mariel couldn’t help herself. She discreetly turned her attention to Carson, who was looking concerned. At Erin’s insistence, Mariel also climbed down from the buckboard bed.
“Carson, we didn’t have time to discuss this with you,” Mrs. Quinn said. “Or to mention it to Mariel. But we are going to go back to the cabin near the Guadalupe River where we found Sugar as a little girl.”
Sugar was staring down, muttering, “No, no, no.”
“Sugar,” Emilio coaxed, “this is for our good. You must face your fears. Or you will never be whole. Don’t you see that?”
Sugar didn’t reply; she merely stared at the ground.
“I love you, Sugar.” Emilio took her hands in his. “I have asked you to marry me. You have said yes. Your parents have given us their blessing. As I am sure my parents will. I want you whole and free of the past.”
Sugar tried to bolt. Emilio caught her wrists firmly, yet with obvious regard. “Don’t run, mi dulce.” She struggled only a moment, then pressed her face into Emilio’s shoulder. “The war is coming, mi amor, and I’m sure the Rangers will be wanted and needed. No Anglos or Tejanos know Texas and northern Mexico better than we Rangers do. The fancy American general will need us—even if he does not realize that yet. I cannot leave you if I fear that you are not whole, not ready to face whatever comes.”
Mariel knew what he was saying. He was telling Sugar that he might be killed and he did not want to leave her in this fragile condition. And that meant that Carson might have to go to war too. War. Mariel had known unrest but not outright war. The thought of Carson riding into battle clutched her lungs, almost squeezing the breath from her.
Quinn cleared his throat. “Sugar, Emilio is right. We are all going with you, the whole family and the man who will make you his wife. You will not face this alone.”
Mariel captured her lower lip with her teeth. Did Sugar know how wonderful it was to have her family care about her?
Sugar lifted her eyes to her father’s. She gazed at him solemnly for a long time. “I’m frightened.”
Dorritt took her husband’s hand. “We know that, but the fear you carry is from the past. What happened then cannot truly hurt you. It won’t change the way we feel about you—”
“Or the way I feel about you,” Emilio cut in.
“Sugar,” Carson said, “I’ve been back there many times—”
Sugar glanced up, eyes wide. “You have?”
“Yes, and from the day I carved those words about you into the tree telling where you could be found, I’ve never discovered anyone there. Or any evidence that anyone has been there—except for wayfarers or squatters. I don’t think your family survived the Revolution.”
“Yes,” Dorritt spoke up, “that woman in Montezuma said that your mother is dead. Your father may have gone to battle with Houston—”
“Or with General Fannin to Goliad,” Quinn added.
“If any of your family had survived, wouldn’t they have come looking for you at Rancho Sandoval?” Carson asked. “You’re afraid of ghost memories of people who have passed on. They can’t hurt you from the grave.”
“Memories can hurt you only if you let them,” Dorritt said.
“Yes, it is best to face the truth.” Mariel heard herself say these words, then she pressed a hand over her mouth. What was she thinking—speaking like a member of the family? “I beg pardon, sir and lady.” She lowered her eyes to the ground. Her face flamed.
“You don’t need to apologize for speaking the truth,” Carson said.
“And we’re not ‘sir’ and ‘lady,’” Quinn said. “I’m just Quinn and Dorritt is plain Mrs. Quinn or Señora Quinn. We aren’t fancy.”
Mariel nodded, still looking down, more puzzled by this unusual family.
“Sugar, will you try?” Emilio asked. “Will you do this for me?”
They rode southeast all that day, camped overnight, and reached Gonzales on the Guadalupe River. After some shopping in the small town, they set out again. The morning sun was warm and glinting all around. Riding behind Emilio, Sugar tried to brace herself for what was to come. Each mile towed her closer to the cabin, to her shadowy past. Each mile affected her like a rock dropped into a well, a well with no bottom. It was like being pulled down, falling through air and never landing.
That dreadful distant, disconnected feeling began creeping over her. Only Emilio’s touch brought her back, linked her to today, to the dirt trail they rode over together. Sugar concentrated on the present—the clip-clop of the horses; the cloud of fine dust kicked up by their hooves, which got into her eyes and up her nose; the heat from the high sun on her shoulders. The spring rains had abated, and now the dry summer had begun.
A high, sweet voice was singing a strange but pretty song. Sugar glanced over at Mariel, who must be singing to Erin in German. The two of them were riding in the back of the buckboard. Sugar caught Carson looking at the pretty woman. The inclusion of Mariel on this journey shouldn’t have surprised her. She’d seen her mother speculating while observing Carson watch Mariel. Could Mariel heal Carson’s broken heart?
The momentary distraction ended. The meadow and trees felt familiar, perilously familiar. She took in a deep breath, or tried to. Her lungs seemed to have shrunk.
They turned a bend. There, through the trees, was the cabin. As she stared at the abandoned cabin, Sugar’s ears began to fill with the familiar humming. The cabin’s roof had given way in places. The door hung on one hinge. Here in the yard wild chickens screeched and ran from them.
“Sugar,” Emilio spoke to her in a stern voice, “do not let your ears close. Tell yourself that you must do this. For me. For you. For our life together.”
She heard his words; they didn’t work. The buzzing grew as she let him help her down from his horse. On the ground, they faced each other. He murmured comforting phrases in Spanish and English. Sugar clung to the sound of Emilio’s voice as if it was a lifeline, trying to let it overcome the buzzing.
Emilio took her arm. “We will walk around and see if there is anything here that causes you to remember—”
A sharp voice in Sugar’s head began chiding her. Sugar couldn’t catch the individual words, just the feeling of being scolded as a child. The woman was angry with her. Little Sugar wouldn’t do what the woman wanted. Sugar put a hand to her cheek, feeling the sting of a long-ago slap.
The cabin reached out and drew Sugar in. She pulled away from Emilio, walking toward it. As she stepped to the open door, she began to hear more voices of people who weren’t there. The words were muffled, and the voices told her they were Pa and Auntie. “No, no, don’t go. Don’t leave me.” Sugar heard her own voice. It shocked her. She tried to turn and run again.
Emilio caught her. “I won’t leave you.”
“Not you. He’s leaving me.” She pressed her face into Emilio’s broad shoulder. Images, voices jumbled in her mind, and the buzzing tried to shut them out.
“Who’s leaving you?” Emilio murmured next to her ear.
And she knew the answer. “Pa. My pa is leaving me.”
“Left you, you mean,” Emilio gently corrected her. “This is from the past. You are not the little girl whose father left her. You are Sugar, daughter of Quinn and betrothed to me, Emilio Ramirez. You know that, sí?”
Sugar nodded. Clinging to Emilio and listening to his firm, honest voice was keeping her from slipping into the numbness, the deafness. She swallowed, clearing her throat and ears. “I’m feeling the sadness…the feeling of losing, being lost. This wasn’t a happy place for me.” Sugar looked over Emilio’s shoulder to the buckboard.
Her father helped her mother down from the bench. “Of course it wasn’t,” her mother said. “That year, 1836, was not a happy year. Texas won its independence, but many people died, lost loved ones. It was a hard year.”
Sugar nodded. Her father Quinn had fought in that war, and so had Carson. She wanted to plead with Emilio to let them leave now. She had no desire to go any further into the past. Her parents walked closer.
Dorritt gently stroked stray hair away from Sugar’s face. “Do you think you can go inside?”
Eight
“Do I have to?” Sugar asked, sounding like a child again.
Hating how this was distressing her, Carson slid from his horse. He resolutely turned his back to the buckboard, where Erin and Mariel had just alighted. Even with his back turned, he felt the pull toward the delicate but resilient widow. He forced himself to concentrate on his younger sister. And her pain. It tugged at him.
“Sugar,” Emilio replied for Dorritt, “sí, you must go in. I will stay beside you. You may leave any time you wish. Still, I think it is important for you to go in.”
Sugar looked into Emilio’s eyes, then nodded. “All right,” she whispered.
Carson joined his parents as they escorted Sugar and Emilio into the abandoned cabin. The dirt floor was thick with dust, dried leaves, old mice nests, and shattered branches that had been blown inside. Carson halted just inside the door. The decayed cabin smelled of animal droppings and was distinctly unwelcoming.
Ahead, Sugar stood in the center of the small one-room house with its sagging loft. Carson shifted on his feet, ready for anything. Sugar had always been fragile.
His mind drew him back a decade ago to that terrible journey here. He’d only been fourteen when he’d found the vaqueros from the Rancho Sandoval murdered. His insides tightened at the memory. He’d become a man that day—like it or not. His path had been set. He’d become a man of war, not a man of peace.
Within hours of finding the vaqueros dead, he and his mother had set out to find his father, right when all of Texas had been racing toward the eastern border, fleeing before the Mexican Army. At Santa Anna’s orders, the army had been burning and looting along the way. Carson and his mother had happened upon this empty cabin their second night.
Then Carson gulped air as he recollected the panicky sound of his mother calling him. He’d burst into the cabin to find only a little girl cowering in a corner. Sugar had looked up and run to him. She’d thrown her arms around him. And suddenly he remembered.