The bartender frowned. “It is feared Americans will come down here and try to take their women out of these places, now that the American soldiers are invading Mexico. You would not be some sort of spy?”
Adam snickered. “I assure you, my intentions are strictly pleasure, señor. My sons wait outside at this very moment. Come and see if you don’t believe me.”
The bartender waved him off. “It is all right. You just do not look all Mexican, that’s all.”
Adam slugged down his whiskey. “Don’t you realize there are many Mexicans who carry European blood? How many Mexicans are pure Mexican? How many Apaches are pure Apache, hmmm? Of course I am not pure Mexican. There is Spanish blood somewhere back there, and a little Apache. Maybe an Apache ancestor captured a pretty Mexican girl once, huh?” He laughed and held out his shot glass.
The bartender chuckled and poured another shot. “Sí, señor. I understand.” He set down the bottle. “Rosa’s place is a big house about a quarter-mile north of town. It is painted all white with green trim, and is kept very neat. The wealthy customers like it clean. The women are also clean.” He leaned closer. “Some are drugged, you know. With strange drugs that make them crazy for a man.” He shook his head. “A man has to have a good heart to go to that place. He will get much exercise.” He chuckled and walked away, and Adam slugged down the second shot. It tasted good. He’d stayed away from whiskey for a long time now. It was hard to drink it without wanting more, but he had only drunk it to fit in and not be suspected. Suddenly the thought of these men groveling over Andrea made him want to turn and shoot at every man in the place and then drink down a whole bottle of the blessed whiskey. But he had to think of Andrea. His drunkenness had been part of the reason he’d lost her in the first place. He wouldn’t allow it to inhibit him now. He fought the desire for more and walked out, mounting his horse.
“Let’s go, boys.” He turned his horse and rode south, and his sons followed.
The fat, aging Mexican woman opened her door gladly, grinning excitedly at the four fine-looking men who waited outside. One was obviously older, but just as handsome and well built as the young ones. Four good-looking, wealthy Mexicans! This would be a good day. So far no Americans had come to raid her. No soldiers had taken away her white women. Now most of the American soldiers were much farther south, heading for Mexico City. She was safe.
She greeted the four men with a happy grin, and Adam Chandler and his sons entered the parlor behind her mountainous form. Everything was red velvet, the carpeting, the upholstery, the drapes. Three white women languished on sofas and loveseats, their breasts billowing from ruffled dresses. The one with red hair smiled at Adam as she pulled her dress nearly to her hips to reveal slender white thighs.
“And what can we do for you fine-looking men today?” Rosa said to them. “For the right price, we have the finest wines and liquors, and of course, the finest women. There are more upstairs if one of our ladies here does not please you.” Rosa breathed deeply, eagerly as she eyed the younger men. She stepped closer to John Ross, running a hand along his arm. “This one seems very young. Perhaps he is…inexperienced?”
John Ross jerked away, and the woman frowned. “My son is new to this,” Adam said quickly. He noticed an armed Mexican standing in one corner of the room, another near the doorway. “Perhaps an older woman who is very understanding would be better for him. Can you bring them all down here for us to look at?”
He spoke Castilian Spanish, and Rosa was sure he was a very wealthy Mexican. If she could please him, perhaps he and his sons would return often, paying the best in gold coin for her finest women. “Ah, come with me, señor. There are six rooms upstairs, with a beauty in each one. Two are occupied right now. We will have to knock first, and perhaps you will have to wait a few minutes before they can serve you. Would you like some wine before you go up?”
Adam looked at his sons and grinned. “No. They are too anxious. Perhaps afterward…a bath and wine would be nice then.”
Rosa laughed and, hoisting her hefty body past them, started up a grand, red-carpeted staircase. “Come then!”
The Chandlers followed, Adam’s heart pounding wildly with dread and anticipation. Andrea! Had she really been forced to work in this hellish place? And what had the white women downstairs been like when they’d been brought here? A couple of them had a hauntingly innocent look to them, but their eyes were glazed and staring, as though they were not in this world. He followed a huffing, puffing Rosa to the top of the stairs, where another armed man stood guard.
Rosa led them to the first door, and the boys looked away as she opened it, afraid their own mother would be inside, perhaps nude and involved in some hideous sexual act. “She is too dark,” they heard their father say. They moved to the next door, and Adam cleared his throat before commenting on the woman’s beauty, his signal to them that it was not their mother inside. After seeing every girl upstairs, Adam turned to his sons. “Well, boys, it’s your choice,” he told them in Spanish. Even Stephen knew the signal words, for he’d been drilled in them. They had not found their mother. It was time for more drastic action.
Stephen whirled then, cocking and aiming a handgun at the guard upstairs, while Adam whipped out his gun and aimed it at Rosa’s nose. As he shoved the fat woman against a wall, Jonas and John Ross moved to the head of the stairs, to watch the unwitting guards down below. Stephen held a finger to his lips, warning the man upstairs not to make a sound, and then motioning for him to take out his gun and drop it.
“I’m looking for Andrea Chandler,” Adam said in a near whisper to Rosa. She stared cross-eyed at his gun. “Where is she!”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Don’t you lie to me, you fat bitch!” Adam hissed, pushing the gun hard against her nose. “Mary Means brought her here about seven years ago—a pretty blond woman. She’d been married to a Cherokee man!”
Rosa’s eyes moved to his face. “Y-you?”
“Where is she? You tell me, fat lady, or there will be a big hole in your ugly face where your nose used to be!”
The woman swallowed. “She…she is with the used ones…the crazy ones…downstairs.”
He grasped her hair. “What do you mean, crazy ones?”
“Downstairs…we put the girls there who…are too used…or too crazy from the drugs. The poor men can visit them…for a few coins. They are no longer…any good to the rich men. Downstairs…through a kitchen door to the cellar…they are chained to cots down there.”
Adam’s eyes widened with rage. Then he swung the gun hard. Rosa was no woman to feel sorry for. He smashed the barrel across her face, and she screamed just before it hit her. As her huge body slumped to the floor, the two guards downstairs charged up the staircase, guns drawn.
The man Stephen had been guarding lunged at him. Stephen fired point-blank, and the Mexican’s body lurched backward. Then everything else happened in a matter of only one or two seconds. Jonas and Adam both fired at the two guards coming up the stairs. One fired back, clipping the top of Adam’s shoulder and ripping his poncho. A bloodstain immediately appeared as Adam’s body was jolted by the hit.
“Father!” Jonas gasped.
“I’m all right! Come on!” Adam headed down the stairs, past the bodies of the two Mexican men they had shot on the stairway, caring little if they were dead or alive. The house was full of screaming and running women as the three Chandler sons followed their father down a hallway to a kitchen at the back of the house. Two more men made an appearance then, barging out of the kitchen door. Adam yelled for the boys to look out, then ducked to the side as the two Mexicans opened fire. Jonas dove under a table and came up with it, tossing it into one of the men and knocking him backward. Adam fired at the second man, catching him in the side of the face, while Stephen yanked the gun from the first man’s hand and hit him over the head with it.
The four Chandlers barged into the kitchen then. Women ducked and ran. The three in the parlor had already r
un outside for help. There was no time to waste. Adam began to open doors until he found the one that led to a stairway going down into a room dimly lit by lanterns. “Stay here and keep watch!”
He headed below, feeling sick with dread and horror. The small cellar room had a damp stench. Eight cots sat in two rows, each with a naked woman chained to it. Three men stood up, yelling in Spanish. “Get the hell out of here before I blow you all to pieces!” Adam ordered.
They all grabbed for their clothes, cursing in Spanish but afraid of the wild-looking man who had come barging into the little room. They fell over each other getting to the stairway, and Adam frantically checked each cot, wanting to find Andrea yet almost hoping she would not be there.
“Andrea? Andrea?” He checked each woman, shooting off her chains as he did and wishing he could help them all. But he could not. It had to be…A gut-wrenching groan came from his lips then and he struggled not to vomit. A frail wisp of a woman with blond hair lay in the farthest corner on unwashed sheets, her eyes sunken and staring, her face so thin and hollow that at first he could not be sure. He took down a lamp and held it closer, and the tiny brown birthmark near her left breast told him who it was. “Andrea,” he groaned.
“Father, hurry!” John Ross shouted. “We have to get out of here. Stephen has the horses at the back door! More men are coming!”
Adam set down the lamp, horrible sobs wanting to come. But there was no time for anything now but getting her out. He quickly shot off the chains and wrapped her in the sheets. With horror, he noticed how light she was when he picked her up; she felt like a skeleton. He covered her face, not wanting the boys to see her until he could clean her up and bring her back to reality. He hurried up the stairs then, regretting having to leave the other women behind. Jonas and John Ross stared wide-eyed at the wrapped body, tears in their eyes.
“It is she…our mother?” John Ross seemed afraid to ask.
“It is. She’s alive. Let’s go.”
They hurried out the back way then. Adam handed Andrea to Jonas while he mounted up. Then Jonas handed her up to him, wanting to scream at how light she was, wanting to kill and kill for what had been done to her. He mounted his own horse then, and they rode north. The men behind them were shouting and firing, but none tried to follow. A bullet whizzed past Stephen, skinning his right calf, but soon they were out of range. They rode hard toward the mountains, where they had left the pack mules, to the place Adam had already decided to take Andrea if he found her alive. It was a little hidden valley with green grass and a stream of fresh, clear mountain water. There they could be alone until she was ready to face the world once more…and her sons. God was with them this time. No one followed.
To Andrea it all seemed simply a vague dream. Had it been Adam’s voice that called to her? No. Too many years had gone by. He would never find her now. And besides, it was hard to remember sometimes who Adam was. There were moments when she remembered him very clearly, and her precious sons. She would cry then, cry until she was sick. Then memory would leave her, especially after Rosa put the smelly cloth over her mouth, or lit the strange incense, or gave her something to swallow. Then her only memory was of hands using her rudely, of bad breath and ugly laughter. Sometimes she had actually wanted the strange men who came to see her. It was the liquid Rosa gave her that made her want them. She fought it, but could not. And finally she begged for it, took men willingly for it, for she could not live with the pain she felt when she could not have the blessed liquid or smell the wonderful incense. She remembered Adam then with sorrow, for she could never go back. Things could never be the same.
But now the dream of hearing his voice, feeling him hold her, seemed so real, so real. The voice became more clear, the arms more sure. Sometimes she sensed fresh air and sunshine. Someone bathed her, said beautiful words to her, said something about an oak tree. But then the pain came, the horrible pain that made her scream and writhe, curse and fight whoever it was who held her and would not let her have the blessed liquid or smell the wonderful incense. He was cruel, so cruel! She begged for it, offered her body for it, but he refused. Sometimes she could hear him crying; sometimes he held and rocked her, telling her pretty things; sometimes he just said her name over and over—Andrea. Andrea.
Hours turned into days, days of screaming agony until reality finally began to take hold of her abused body and tortured mind. “I know how bad it is, agiya,” he was telling her. “I went through a terrible time when I decided never again to drink the whiskey. This I know is even worse, but you can make it, Andrea. You are strong. You are my Andrea. We have survived so many things. We can survive this. I will help you. I will hold you until the pain is gone.”
How many days had they been there? How many days had passed before she opened her eyes and saw him for the first time, sitting near her, shirtless, bent over a campfire. Adam! He was older. He looked so tired. It all came to her then—all of it. The memories. The horrible, horrible memories. How could she ever be worthy to look at him again, let alone touch him? How had he found her, and why? Why would he bother now? How could he possibly love her? She had to get away! She threw off her blanket and started to run, but a moment later someone caught her. She screamed and kicked wildly. “No! No! No! Don’t touch me! Don’t look at me!”
“It’s all right! It’s all right, Andrea!”
He held her so tightly she could not budge. Then he carried her back to the campfire, where she fought and fought until she was limp from exhaustion. Her agony finally came out of her in wrenching sobs and fits of vomiting. And all the while he held her. He would not let go of her for a moment. He smoothed her hair back when she was sick, washed her face, gave her fresh water with which to rinse her mouth.
“Go away! Leave me here!” she begged. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I know everything. My God, Andrea, I thought you were dead! I buried a woman I thought was you, and my life has been empty ever since. When I heard you were alive—”
“How? How did you find out?” She kept her head bent her hands over her face. How could she ever, ever face him?
“It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter, Andrea. All that matters is you are alive, and I have found you. And if only you can forgive me for allowing any of this to happen…” He choked up and broke into tears himself, then grasped her tight against himself. Turning her and pinning her face against his chest, he wept, rocking her, begging her forgiveness for not taking her with him to Independence, for his drinking, for that last terrible year when he was cruel to her.
She slowly allowed herself to cling to him, breathing in the old, familiar scent that was all man, all Adam Chandler. Adam! After all she had been through, it was he who was sitting there begging forgiveness. How could he hold her this way? How could he still love her? Yet he said over and over. “I love you. I love you. Nothing can change that, Andrea. Not anything.” How could she believe those words? “I don’t drink now, Andrea. I’m a successful attorney in St. Louis. I’ve bought back the land, Andrea, all of it. It’s all ours now, if we want to go back. I want to take the boys there. I want to show them the oak tree. Please, Andrea, don’t let it end now, not after all of this, not after finding you again. Don’t give up. We have to go back to the oak tree, you and me and our sons. They came with me, Andrea. They love you so much. They want their mother back.”
“I can’t go back,” she sobbed. “I’m ugly…and used. I’m not…the same anymore.”
“Yes you are. You are! You will always be the same to me…my sweet little Andrea…the innocent child I claimed under the oak tree. I always think of you that way and I always will. Please, Andrea, let’s live the rest of our years in peace. We can now. It’s all over. All the ugliness is over.”
She hung limp in his arms. “I wish I could just die,” she groaned.
He kept rocking her, patting her hair. “Oh no you don’t. If you really wanted to die, you would have let yourself die back there. You would have found a way
. But you knew that as long as I lived, I might come and find you. You lived for me, Andrea, and for our sons. Don’t give up now. Now you have more reason than ever to live.” He kissed her hair, her face, taking it in his hands and forcing her to look at him. He studied her thin face and hollow eyes lovingly, seeing the beauty that would return as soon as she gained some weight and could smile again. “I did not bring just two sons down here with me, Andrea. I brought three sons.”
Her body convulsed in a sob, and she just stared at him. “I…don’t understand.”
“One calls himself Stephen. We called him Nathan.”
Her sobbing subsided, and a look of desperate hope came into her eyes. “No!”
“Yes. He was released from an orphanage where he’d been held like a prisoner and forced to work in factories until he was eighteen. Then he came to find his father and mother. He’d found out he was part Cherokee, so he went to Cherokee country first and learned where I was and what had happened to you. He found me, and he has been with us ever since. He is buying into a supply store, Andrea. He is a fine young man, and will marry soon. He is twenty years old now—a tall, strong young man. When you see him, you will think you are seeing me when we first met, for he is like my twin. I knew the moment he walked into my office he was my son. And his fondest dream, his most heartfelt prayer is to meet his real mother. Do not disappoint your first-born son, Andrea. And do not pass up this chance to finally know him yourself.”
“My God,” she whispered. “My son!”
Adam nodded, and she flung her arms around his neck then, weeping bitterly. He let her cry. She needed to cry…and cry. But he would win her back. Slowly but surely she would be his Andrea again, and they would be a family. It didn’t matter if she might be unable to let him make love to her again. That would come in time. All that mattered was that she was here, in his arms, his Andrea. They had truly come full circle. Someday they would go home, to Georgia, to the Cherokee hills, to the oak tree. He had kept his promise. Over twenty years had passed since he’d met little Andrea Sanders under that tree, and to him she had not changed.
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