San Antone. V. J. Banis

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      “...Now,” the lieutenant was saying, while Joanna took a last, sweeping look around—Gregory, sitting rigid beside his father in the driver’s seat of the family wagon; Jay Jay, forbidden to ride with the Indian, William Horse, glowering petulantly from the seat beside William in the slave wagon. Melissa was with the Sebastianos in their wagon, though for herself Joanna could not see much to choose from between the Sebastianos’ wagon and their own.

      “Where’s Jay?” Lewis asked.

      “He’s protesting the world’s refusal to see things his way,” Joanna said. “Never mind, he’s with William and Lucretia, he’ll be all right.”

      “Riding with the niggers?” Lewis asked, but Joanna ignored him.

      “All set?” Lieutenant Price asked.

      “Have been, dammit, for half an hour,” Lewis said, and got only a polite glance for his trouble.

      “Yes,” Joanna said, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Yes, I believe so.”

      “Well, then....” The lieutenant nodded, and gave a signal to one of the horsemen at the front of the long column.

      A moment later the call came back, from wagon to wagon, like an echo bounding off their canvas roofs—“Let’s move out!”

      Joanna climbed up beside her oldest son, taking a tight hold of the seat as Lewis got them off to a jerky start.

      “We’re on our way,” he said. His laugh was high and giddy, like a child keyed up on nervous energy.

      He was not the only one. In all the wagons, people were laughing or talking loudly. Voices shouted back and forth, and toward the rear of the train, someone was singing “Did you ever hear of Sweet Betsy from Pike?” in a bawling, off-key baritone. “Crossed the wide prairie with her husband, Ike....”

      Like syrup dripping from a spoon, the tight ball of wagons and horses and oxen spun itself out slowly into a long, thinning strand across the flat Texas earth, stretching, stretching, until you expected actually to hear the snap of the thread that held them.

      At the head of the train, one of the cowboys suddenly gave a nasal yell—“Ahhh-haaa, San Antone!”—and larruped up his horse. Behind him others took up the shout. Horses galloped, and the wagon drivers whipped their animals to a brief burst of speed as well—pointless, foolish even, but spontaneous and exhilarating.

      The dust rose up from the ground in raucous clouds, and the cries came and went:

      “San Antone! Ahhh-haaa, San Antone!”

      Chapter Nine

      By the time the sun had climbed halfway up the morning sky, Lewis had begun to feel his thirst.

      He drove on, trying to ignore the sweat dripping from beneath his hatband into his eyes, and the increasing soreness of hands unaccustomed to handling a team. He’d promised himself he would drive the first day. People were looking up to him, after all—Lewis Harte, of Eaton Hall, South Carolina. The head of the train. He’d heard it referred to in Galveston as the Harte Train. So, even here in Texas, his name had begun to acquire significance, hadn’t it? Which was only right.

      “Just wait till we get to San Antonio,” he told himself.

      It almost seemed as if everything had been hanging in suspension since they had left South Carolina. Even the things that had happened he saw through a haze like that blurring the far-off Texas horizon. His senses, his entire being, everything was focused on their destination.

      San Antonio. A half-million acres, to make a new Eaton Hall, the biggest, grandest plantation anyone had ever seen, and he its master. Rice growing as far as the eye could see, farther, even. And cotton, too; he’d brought cottonseed, enough to grow what they needed, anyway. And fruits and vegetables; they’d need to look out for themselves, obviously, with San Antonio far more isolated than they had expected. Lucky for them all, he’d had the foresight he did.

      Joanna and all her lessons, he thought scornfully; a lot of good her geography books had done them. He had made up his mind, there were things he meant to put his foot down on. All this learning business. And the way she’d changed since they’d left home; half the time she acted like she’d forgotten she had a husband.

      Of course, he had to give her her due, she’d done a good job of managing things. Not that a woman wasn’t supposed to help; that was her job, wasn’t it? A helpmate. Obviously she hadn’t found that in any of her books, or taken the time to study its meaning. Too clever by half for her own good, Joanna was.

      Well, yes, he could feel admiration for her. And disappointment at the same time. He didn’t know why he always felt cheated when she handled everything in that level-headed way of hers, like she’d taken something from him to do it.

      His throat was dust-dry. He reached for the flask in his vest pocket and caught a movement out of the corner of his eye: Joanna, watching him.

      Dammit to hell, always waiting for him to fall on his face—you’d think she was expecting him to. It put a curse on a man, made him trip despite himself.

      “Watch out,” she said.

      “I see it.” He snatched the rein in both hands and wheeled violently around a boulder, making the wagon rock violently. “You could wreck us, shouting in my ear that way. I’m not blind, you know.”

      Admiration and disappointment. Now, what kind of a man could make a marriage out of that?

      Take their wedding night, for instance. Wouldn’t you think a woman would be glad for a man who knew what he was about? Wouldn’t you think experience would be a good thing at a time like that?

      But, no, there was Joannie, just looking at him in that way of hers, cold, unforgiving. He could still see that look in her eyes— maybe he had ought to have put out the lamp, but, dammit all, a man did like to watch.

      Disappointed, yes, even on their wedding night. He had known that before he was even done, had seen in her eyes that he had done it wrong, and how the hell would she know...? No, wait, that wasn’t right. It was him that was disappointed, had been all along....

      There was a sudden crash and the wagon gave a lurch. The oxen bellowed.

      “What the hell....” Lewis leaned out to see, and almost fell from the seat—the heat made a man dizzy, God Almighty.

      They had broken a wheel. Despite Lewis’s insistence that the others push on, the whole train ground to a halt.

      “It was that fella in front of me,” Lewis said, angry because everyone seemed to be blaming him for the delay. “Kicking up a dust storm, you couldn’t see hand in front of face.”

      “You’ve been driving all morning,” Joanna said in a sympathetic voice. “Why don’t you rest awhile out of the sun and let me drive?”

      “Makes a man thirsty,” Lewis said, taking out his flask and drinking; he cast a defiant glance around, but no one seemed to have paid any attention.

      He demurred at first, but Joanna pointed out that women were driving in some of the other wagons, and would be throughout the trip. “And I’ve got Gregory up here if I get tired,” she added.

      Lewis found a patch of shade on the far side of the wagon and sat sipping from his flask while the lieutenant’s men saw to changing the wheel. By the time they were ready to start up again, Joanna had convinced him to climb inside out of the now scorching Texas sun.

      In no time, he had fallen asleep.

      * * * *

      Joanna quickly learned that handling a team of oxen over the rough ground was a far cry from driving a buggy or even a farm wagon in South Carolina. Her arms ached, and she began to sympathize with the thirst that had plagued Lewis. The sun beat mercilessly on her, despite the protection of the sunbonnet she wore, and she was covered from head to foot with the dust of the trail. Gregory