A Woman Clothed in Sun

by Jeanne Williams

  There were so many birds! The timid Inca dove with its scalelike feathers, the whitewing and blue quail. Sometimes they could glimpse a great blue heron in the river. Best of all, there was a new pair of eagles on the cliff that seemed to glide in joyous power and sheer love of the high blue sky, except when their young kept them ceaselessly on the hunt for food. Owls, too, hunted, and hawks, and once Rachel hid with her body the sight of a shrike impaling a field mouse on the spike of a yucca.

  The world of the twins held flowers, bright birds, as well as those who blended with the earth, the dull sheen of a green or black rattler, or pepper-and-salt pattern of a diamondback, with his black-and-white ringed tail, horned toads that buried themselves in sand at night to dig out for morning warmth, deer grazing in the flats, big and small sheep, Lady and the different horses Juanito rode, beavers making dams, coons, skunks, rabbits, field mice, squirrels, herds of javelina, yellow-gray coyotes and their night songs.

  At night they watched the Big Dipper make its slow swing around the pole star and listened to the muted distant sounds of furred and feathered night hunters, an occasional alarm from the dogs.

  Up to now the twins’ lives were full with discovery and their own rapid development, but before long they’d enjoy a father’s knee to clamber on, his long legs to trot after.

  Matt! Rachel thought one summer afternoon as she played with the twins. Please come soon! And look at the children; let me know if you can love them.

  Melissa was touching flowers, patting their leaves and petals as if they were skin, while Jonathan fingered dandelion wisps and thistle pods with great intentness, laughing when Rachel blew them away.

  The dogs began to bark, facing the pass through the mountains. Juanito? He’d just been here yesterday. Anyway the horseman was a full-grown man, and Rachel didn’t recognize the horse.

  Matt? There might be some reason he wasn’t on Storm. But the rider was thick through the body, lacking Matt’s grace. Yet there was something, something disturbingly familiar—Rachel sprang to her feet, told the twins to stay where they were, and hurried toward Santiago, who, quieting the dogs, was moving toward the stranger.

  “I don’t like being barked at,” called the horseman. “Keep those damn dogs quiet or I will.” He pulled a rifle out of the scabbard and tilted back his slouch hat, and Rachel knew who he was.

  Seven years had given him a gross hardness, had coarsened his form and face, but the blue eyes still had the innocent wideness of a child’s, the same unnerving clarity as they went over her, flicked the twins who’d scrambled over to hang onto her skirts.

  “So, Rachel.” He tilted his head critically. “A bit thin and savage but still worth my trouble. You’ve always been my trouble, darling. The way I hunted for you when you broke Matt out and got away—well, it was comic with women eager and close to hand. I finally gave you up for dead, but then who should ride up to my packery but Matt!”

  “Matt?” Rachel whispered.

  “He didn’t care to talk about you and wouldn’t say where you were, but one of his vaqueros did after losing his hands.”

  “You—didn’t hurt Matt?”

  “Doesn’t hurt to die in your sleep. I’d like to have let him know first that I meant to follow his and Harry’s examples and take you for my woman, but Matt’s pretty tough. Neater to kill him where he lay.”

  Matt dead? Rachel couldn’t believe it. When he came back from the war, even after their bitter quarrels, she’d believed there’d come a time when they could be together. When it happened this time, it had to be forever. That was why she’d been so watchful of him with the twins. But deep in the core of her being, she knew Matt was her man.

  “You—you’re lying!” she panted.

  Tom arched his eyebrows. “Well, I should have brought you his head, my dear. Surely you don’t think I’d be crazy enough to come for you with Matt still in the world?”

  “You’re crazy to think I’ll come with you.”

  He smiled, his merry eyes touching the twins. “Now, Rachel, you’ll do anything I say for two very good reasons—Melissa and Jonathan. You can kiss them sweetly and tell this old ruffian to look after them, or they can all be dead in five minutes, even the dogs. And you’ll still come with me.”

  Frozen, she shielded the twins, hating Tom so ferociously she felt consumed. He stroked his rifle.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  Santiago frowned. “What is it, my lady? I do not like this man!”

  “He brings news of Don Mateo,” Rachel said.

  “I understand Mex,” warned Tom.

  “Please take care of the children until I get back,” Rachel said, battling horror, trying not to collapse or break down. If she did, Tom might destroy her children and Santiago with no more qualms than if they’d been game.

  “Tell him to saddle your horse,” Tom instructed. “I guess that old mare’s good for a trip back to Gloryoak. If you want to take anything with you, get it together.”

  She thought of begging to take the twins but stifled the plea. Best not expose them to his erratic temper. Besides, if they were safe here, and later she could get away—

  Mechanically, Rachel gave Santiago instructions and moved toward the stone house followed by Tom. “Don’t pick up a knife or try anything like that,” he advised. “My horse could easily squash in your babies’ heads.” He watched her while she got her brush and comb, an extra dress. “Don’t have much, do you?” he said. “I’ll get a dressmaker to stay at Gloryoak and get you outfitted.”

  Santiago brought Lady, tied Rachel’s small bundle back of her saddle. “I will watch the children,” he promised. “I hope you will be back soon, Doña Rachel. Perhaps Don Quil could accompany you?”

  “This man is Don Mateo’s brother,” Rachel explained, bitterly amused at Santiago’s obvious relief. “Thousand thanks, my friend. Guard my little ones.” She pressed his hand, hugged and kissed the twins and, evading Tom, swung into the saddle, hooking her leg over the horn. Santiago picked up the twins, who began to wail. Rachel had never left them.

  “Take them to the river to play!” she called to the old shepherd.

  He nodded and bore them off. Diverted by the promise of a water frolic with Santiago, they stopped crying. “In a week they’ll have forgotten you,” Tom said.

  Rachel ignored that. “How did you get past the house in the meadow?”

  “I took the house.” At her shocked look, he grinned boastfully. “From what I got out of the vaquero there was only Matt’s black partner and a woman and kid at the ranch. The four guys I had with me were enough to handle that. We rode in this morning before they were up.”

  Fear for her friends turned Rachel dizzy. Dear God, how could creatures like Tom roam the country, doing what they pleased? Savoring her dread, Tom waited a moment.

  “The black’s all right unless he got too feisty again and the boys decided to do a little cuttin’ That woman’s a looker Would have had her myself but I was saving it all for you.”

  “You’ve got no reason to hurt them!”

  “No reason not to, either,” He shrugged. “Don’t worry. If they—and you—behave, I’ll just leave a couple of the boys to watch ’em a few days till we’re long gone, and there won’t be nothing wrong with them a little time won’t cure. But I’ll remember where they are. You ever try to get away and you can count on my making a clean sweep of everyone in this valley, starting with your twins.” His gaze raked her. Shall I have you now or wait to tumble you in Matt’s bed?”

  She’d never endure him long. She’d kill him or herself. But she had to last until they were far away from here and there was a way to make sure he couldn’t send thugs to the meadow and river before he died.

  “Is Tante Estelle at Gloryoak?” she asked.

  “Think she’d help you?” Tom laughed softly. “Well, maybe she would. But she picked up typhus nursing during the war. I kept the silver Matt sent her. And Selah went off to fight for the North, and you can bet he’
ll never dare show me his face again! Too bad,” he mocked. “Out of all those pickaninnies you taught, you could think a few would still be around to give you aid and comfort, but they’re not, my dear. Harry’s will freed all the slaves who hadn’t already bought their liberty, and I turned ’em all off, the whole damn boiling! Bought a new lot of hands and got a good overseer.”

  “Must be hard for you, Tom, now that you can’t own men!”

  “Near enough I can.”

  “I thought most plantations were ruined by the war.”

  “Most were. But I saw how things were going and made a few useful Yankee friends. Gloryoak had some lean times, but now I’ve bought Belleforest and another place. I’ve had to hustle and scheme like hell, but I would reckon I’m the richest man in the county, maybe in all of East Texas.”

  Did he expect her to care? Rachel said nothing.

  As if stung by her silence, Tom rode close, brutally closed his hand about her breast. He laughed at her involuntary cry. “I don’t know why you’ve stayed in my blood, Rachel. Must be a fatal addiction I share with my brothers, though thank God I didn’t take after them in other, ways.”

  “I hate you. I always will.”

  “Good. Then you’ll never bore me.” He stroked her waist and thigh. “You set me on fire! But I’ll wait a couple of hours to take you in Matt’s bed. In my own way I’m a sentimentalist.”

  They were at a narrow stretch of the pass. Tom motioned for Rachel to go in front. She had just passed a side canyon obscured by trees and boulders when there was commotion behind her and a voice called “Tom!”

  She knew that voice. Whirling, afraid she was imagining things, Rachel’s heart swelled as Matt edged his gray stallion between her and his brother.

  “Ride on!” Matt ordered her in the second that Tom raised his rifle.

  Matt’s gun, already out, barked a second before Tom’s shot crashed upward against the cliff, broke off rock that skittered down the pass. Tom straightened, stared as if amazed, then pitched from the saddle. When Matt bent over him, he was dead.

  Rachel didn’t remember scrambling down from Lady or how she got in Matt’s arms. She only knew she was there and he was alive and they were back together, his mouth claiming hers, his arms holding her as if he’d never let her go.

  “Lupe and Quil?” she asked breathlessly. They were both shaking as if in a storm.

  “They’re fine. I’ll tell you later.”

  He carried her up the canyon and made love to her there, purging away years of separation, other passions, other loves, so that they came back fresh to each other, trembling, awed, renewed. Hearing the steady comforting rhythm of his heart, Rachel felt utterly at peace, but he sat up, dropping a kiss on her eyes.

  “Stay here until I call, sweetheart. And then we’ll go get our twins.”

  She thought Tom must be buried under a heap of rock a little way up the pass. Matt unsaddled Tom’s horse and let it loose but it followed them as they rode toward the river.

  “Tom said you were dead!” Rachel burst out.

  “I’m sure he thought so,” Matt said drily. “It must have taken me a day or so to come around from the blow I got on my head. If I hadn’t been protected from the sun by my men’s bodies, I probably would have died without ever coming to.” He explained how he found Storm and the vaqueros’ horses at a watering place cattle had scooped out in a dry streambed. Weaponless, without money or food, he’d been lucky to come upon the farm of a German settler who fed him and gave him supplies for the journey.

  “I’m going to give Friedrich one of my best Durham bulls,” Matt vowed. “I’m not sure I could have made it without his bread and sausage, at least not soon enough to catch Tom.”

  “The four men at the house?” Rachel asked.

  “I didn’t know how many there were, but I’d picked up their tracks and knew Tom wasn’t by himself. So I used an old trick. Not very elegant, but I hid in the outhouse. The first man had a knife around his neck, so I took that, which made it simpler to take care of the second who came out. The place was crowded by then, so I worked around to the back of the house and came in a window. I could hear Tom’s men in the kitchen. They were making Lupe cook while they told Quil all the good times they had planned before Tom came back with you. The door creaked when I opened it, but Lupe branded one with a hot skillet and Quil, who was tied up, managed to lunge into the other bastard and spoil his aim. Quil finished them off when I cut him loose.”

  “Lupe’s not—hurt?”

  “She’ll get over it. Juanito didn’t see much of what went on. They tied him up and stuck him in the bunk-house.” Rachel shuddered, thinking for a horrible moment of what might have been.

  The twins tumbled out of Santiago’s hut and the dogs started barking, though they stopped at Rachel’s voice.

  Santiago followed, crossing himself, laughing as he greeted Matt, begging to know if Rachel was well while the twins stared round-eyed at the tall stranger who dropped to his knees and gathered them in a hug along with their mother.

  “I’m your daddy,” he said huskily. “And I’m going to take you home!”

  There was a shrill whoop from up the pass. In a few minutes, Quil rode toward them, Juanito clinging behind him like a burr while Lupe, not used to riding, was just coming in view.

  There by the river the companions met with embraces, laughter and tears. The sun was low by the time questions had been asked and answered, the twins had been sufficiently admired and Matt had made clear that his family was moving to the meadow.

  “But for tonight,” said Rachel, “won’t you be my guests? There are enough mats and blankets for everyone, and Santiago barbecued a lamb last night that broke its neck in a fall.”

  “Lamb!” groaned Matt.

  “It saves killing one of your calves,” Rachel pointed out.

  “Doggone it, that’s right!” Matt conceded. He swept her close while the eagles screamed from the river.

  Acknowledgments

  To those who shared with me their love and knowledge of Last Texas and the Big Bend. my debt is great. Anneut Singleton Krenek, originally of Jefferson, but now of Bryan. Texas, first took me to her hometown and to Caddo, introducing me to many gracious people, of whom. because of special assistance and information. I would mention Mrs. James Hale and Mr. and Mr. Marvin Singleton. Also, David Robertson, sponsor or the Jefterson Junior Historical Society, gave invaluable advice. To anyone who wants a glimpse of the Old South at its most charming and nostalgic, I recommeno a trip to that most historic little town and its superb I xcelsior Hotel.

  The Big Bend, my favorite wild country, can’t be separated from the friends who camped with me along the Rio Grande; June and John Wylie and Pete Williams, all of Austin, Texas.

  Books that were particularly helpful were A History of Jefferson by Mrs. Arch McKay and Mrs. H. A. Spelling; (no publisher or date, pamphlet); Early Texa Homes by Dorothy Bracken and Maurine Redway. Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Tex., 1956, Baronial Forts of the Big Bend by Leavitt Corning. Jr., Trinity University Press. San Antonio, Tex., 1967. The Big Bend Country by Virginia Madison, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, N.M. 1955. The Big Bend by Ronnie C. Tyler, Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1975; Pioneer Surveyor, Frontier Lawyer: the Personal Narrative of O. W. Williams, 1877–1902, University of Texas at El Paso Press, El Paso, Tex., 1966, edited by S. D. Myres.

  And always and ever thanks to my daughter, Kristin, for tolerance and critical reading; Leila Madeheim for typing and catching slips; Claire Smith for being friend as well as agent; and Pat Soliman for graceful editing.

  Jeanne Williams

  Tucson, Arizona

  February 23, 1977

  About the Author

  Born on the High Plains near the tracks of the Santa Fe Trail, Jeanne Williams’s first memories are of dust storms, tumbleweeds, and cowboy songs. Her debut novel, Tame the Wild Stallion, was published in 1957. Since then,
Williams has published sixty-eight more books, most with the theme of losing one’s home and identity and beginning again with nothing but courage and hope, as in the Spur Award–winning The Valiant Women (1980). She was recently inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won four Western Writers of America Spur Awards and the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award. For over thirty years, Williams has lived in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1977 by Jeanne Williams

  Cover design by Connie Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-3633-7

  This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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