LAND OF STARS: The Texas Wyllie Brothers (Wilderness Dawning Series Book 2) Read online

  Her neighbors at nearby small farms waved or called hello as she passed by. One little girl, feeding the family’s chickens, was already outside doing her chores. Like most children in Nacogdoches, who were given responsibilities similar to adults even before their tenth year, the girl had daily household duties.

  On the edge of town, she found Mr. Garcia in front of his shop. The wise, old saddle maker preferred to work outside in the mornings. His creased and furrowed bronze skin looked as tough as the leather he shaped so skillfully.

  “Good morning, Mr. Garcia,” she said stopping to chat a moment with the man who had crafted her own saddle.

  He glanced up and rested his strong hands on the saddle cantle and seat he was shaping. “Buenos días, Miss Tyler.”

  The rich scent of leather filled her lungs. “I’ve always wanted to ask you something, Sir. Why did you become a saddle maker?”

  “Because a good saddle is kind to both man and horse,” he said in his spry manner.

  “You love horses then?”

  “Si. God made the horse with the breath of the wind, the beauty of the sky, and the heart of an archangel. I believe God sends guardian horses to protect good men.”

  She smiled at the imagery. She’d loved horses too since she was very little. Ever since the first time her father took her to the horse barn. “Yes, I agree. And my father taught me that although a horse can be a willing and faithful servant, he can never be a slave.”

  “Nor should people,” he said.

  His comment made her glad that her father only had paid workers on their sugar plantation and at the mill. Rebecca nodded. “Adiós, my friend.”

  “Adiós, Miss Tyler.”

  When Rebecca reached the central point in town at the intersection of El Camino Real and La Calle del Norte, or North Street, she paused observing all the people riding on wagons and horses as they passed by going in both directions. On the noisy street, wagons without springs and rattling wheels rolled by and half-wild mounts poorly controlled by their riders added to the commotion. Boys running with their dogs dodged wagons, horses, and horse droppings.

  The El Camino Real was always busy. It connected Mexico City with Nacogdoches and the town’s sister city, Natchitoches in nearby Louisiana. But it was especially busy today because of all the settlers who had fled inland to escape the floodwaters of both the Red River and Sabine River.

  This morning she saw numerous people she didn’t recognize. Displaced from their homes, her heart went out to them as she observed their haggard faces, muddy clothing, and tired horses. A few were on foot, their backs so heavily laden down with tools and belongings they looked like beasts of burden themselves. And others strained as they towed or pushed heavily loaded hand carts.

  Seeing them distressed her. It would any woman of feeling. These folks would be all right for now while the weather was mild. But come winter?

  She particularly noticed one family of about ten in number. Their glum faces and bent shoulders told her they’d seen happier days. The father carried an axe and a gun on his shoulders. The wife carted a small trunk in her arms and a sleeping infant wrapped in a sheet slept tied on her back. Several little boys and girls each lugged a bundle and the oldest boy led a thin milk cow and carried a crate with a hen and a rooster in it. Their one poor horse was mud-caked and heavily loaded with necessities like blankets.

  In stark contrast, a well-dressed, startlingly handsome young man with broad shoulders caught her interest as he passed by in front of her on an exceptionally fine bay horse. He appeared to be a little older than her. Dark, sun-streaked hair hung well below his hat and a day-old beard shadowed his strong jaw. He had the muscled body of a rancher or farmer—or a warrior.

  When he glanced her way, his brilliant blue eyes widened and a slight smile turned his lips up. It wasn’t a flirtatious smile, as so many were by passing men. It was more of a pleasant friendly smile that mirrored the kind heart within the man.

  He tipped his hat at her. The polite, small gesture made her smile back. When their eyes connected the second time, her heart tapped inside her chest as something passed between them. She wasn’t sure what it was but she felt simultaneously thrilled and thunderstruck.

  He rode beside three men who resembled him; a robust-looking older man that she presumed was his father and two who might be his brothers. All were well-armed with their longrifles, pistols, and long knives. Well-mounted on sizeable horses, the four of them presented a formidable presence. But it was more than their horses and arms that gave them such a daunting appearance. They were a marvel to behold, all big, strong-backed men whose handsome faces reflected a certain strength and intensity. She imagined that they could have been valiant warrior knights traversing the countryside of Scotland or England in times of old.

  She shook her head trying to clear her overactive imagination, no doubt fed by the history books she liked to read. But she couldn’t help but stare after them a few moments before contemplating which store she wanted to visit first. Her mother’s requests included a summer robe and a new novel. They both loved to read. Her own shopping list also included a new book, perhaps a romance this time, as well as a new writing quill. Best to get the robe first since she always took so much time selecting a book.

  Baldy and Adam had left their camp early to go check on other Pecan Point settlers who might be ill from exposure to all the rain and one unfortunate slave whose foot had been run over by a loaded wagon. The two of them planned to come into town tomorrow to see about finding a location for an apothecary and clinic.

  Having finished breakfast and morning chores, Steve, his father, and two brothers had saddled up to go into town and begin their quest for land. They wouldn’t be gone long, but before leaving, they’d made sure the women all had loaded pistols in their aprons and rifles at the ready. Melly also always kept a sharpened ax close by. Steve suspected there was nothing fiercer than a threatened frontier woman.

  Steve’s heartbeat quickened as he caught sight of the roughhewn town. Frontier towns all held a certain excitement and mystery. Perhaps because they also held danger. Typically, little existed in the way of law or law enforcers, and every man knew his fate could change in an instant.

  On the main thoroughfare, they approached the chief object of interest to a stranger to Nacogdoches, the Old Stone Fort. They’d eaten a meal there on their journey to Pecan Point six years ago. Today, it didn’t seem as huge to Steve as it had back then when he was just sixteen.

  “Why do they call it the Old Stone Fort?” Samuel asked Father. “It’s merely a building.”

  “It’s been there for nearly half a century. Its thick stone walls were built around 1779 by Nacogdoches’ first militia commander,” Father said. “Those lead pits in the stone are from at least two failed filibuster attempts by Americans rebelling against Spain.”

  The two-story structure was about seventy feet long by twenty feet broad. Through the open door at the entrance, the building’s impressive walls looked to be between two-and-a-half to three feet thick and were built from quarried stone. The place seemed busy as people conducting business came and went. Men and soldiers, talking animatedly, were also gathered in small groups on the structure’s long wooden porch.

  Connected to the stone building was the actual, more recently built, Mexican army’s fortress. Tall, sturdy palisades rose up on either side of a massive gate. As Steve glanced through the open gate, he could see various buildings, barracks, and dozens of soldiers marching on the grounds.

  But Steve found the town’s chief object of interest to be the beautiful young woman he saw standing on the corner just ahead. She appeared to be waiting for a chance to cross the busy road through town. Her long, dark hair glistened in the morning sun and the pink and white-striped gown she wore adorned her perfect figure. He couldn’t take his gaze off of her as he rode by. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  She’d glanced up at him, and when he tipped his hat at her, she reward
ed him with a captivating smile. That smile was enough to cause his heart to race in his chest for a bit. But most of all, when their eyes connected, it seemed important for some reason. As though that moment in time held a special significance.

  Perhaps moving to Nacogdoches wasn’t such a bad thing after all, if the city held a woman as beautiful and captivating as she was. He glanced over his shoulder, back at her, but she was already crossing the street. Somehow, he would have to find out who she was and where she lived.

  As they rode on, Steve studied the settlement. In the six years since his family passed through Nacogdoches on the way to Pecan Point, the outpost had transformed into a full-fledged southern town. Numerous shops, several trading posts, and a general store lined the muddy main road where farmers and merchants sold clothing, corn, cotton, flour from the states, and dozens of other items.

  Often on the frontier, merchants bartered supplies such as clothing, seed, and tools with area families for farm products, animal skins, and livestock. Prices of American products would be higher here because Mexico imposed high tariffs on products from the United States. Settlers found this practice annoying because they preferred American products while the Mexicans wanted the Texans to buy Mexican products.

  One man stood by his wagon loaded with several deer carcasses. The man’s sign read, ‘Fresh Venison $1 per quarter.’ Although a quarter was a good amount of meat, Steve wondered why a person would spend a whole dollar on venison when they could just hunt it. Perhaps deer were not as plentiful in the woods around here as they were along the Red River.

  In the waterway that ran through town, a barrier of large stones that must have been hauled in from nearby hills were arranged to create a waterfall that turned a mill wheel. The power generated by the mill powered a sawmill that produced finished lumber in large amounts, based on the numerous stacks of fresh boards and planks he saw. The clean scent of the waterfall and freshly cut wood filled the air as they rode by. No doubt the owner would make a fortune with the growth in population of the town and surrounding countryside.

  Even now, a ten-wagon train of assorted hopefuls came towards them on the opposite side of the street. Each of those wagons would be loaded with families with one goal—to find a better life. The fortunate would fulfill that dream. Others, Steve suspected, would only find greater poverty.

  Just past the sawmill, he spotted the busy blacksmith’s open-air shop alongside the farrier. The age-old occupations of blacksmithing and horseshoeing would also do well in a town full of horses and wagons.

  When Father spotted Trammell’s Tavern, they stopped and tied their mounts on the hitching rail.

  As he always did at the end of every ride, Steve gave Stardust an affectionate pat on his horse’s warm, thick neck. It was the least he could do in exchange for riding on the bay’s back.

  Unlike the quiet tavern in Pecan Point that rarely had more than a half dozen people in it, this place appeared to be quite large and busier than he would have expected. There looked to be at least several dozen men here, many of them eating a late breakfast.

  “A tavern is always the best place to find out what you need to know about a town,” his father said as they unsheathed their rifles and stepped up onto the porch. “Here men learn current crop prices, arrange trades, hear newspapers read aloud, discover business opportunities, and bet on upcoming horse races.”

  Horseracing was the only kind of betting Father enjoyed. When he was younger, his father often raced his big stallion, George.

  “And it doesn’t hurt that they serve lip-smacking beverages,” Thomas said.

  “Try not to get into any fights with bandits,” Samuel told Steve. “That last bout split your lip and almost broke your pretty nose.”

  “That’s good advice,” their father said.

  “I didn’t start that fight,” Steve objected. “I just finished it.”

  Steve followed the other three through the doors and glanced around. Most of the men inside stood along the long bar and others sat at round tables eating. It surprised him how large and noisy the place was. A story and a half high, he could see two rooms above the main floor. Undoubtedly, the ground floor was used to serve drinks to the public, while the upper-level floor was likely where the tavern keeper lived.

  The sound of numerous conversations blended together to make a tumultuous racket. And the scent of food, spilled whiskey, and ale blended with the musky scent of men and tobacco smoke. The tavern held a diverse group of men. Some appeared to be well-groomed and well-dressed in fine broadcloth. Others wore rough buckskins or typical frontier garb, torn and worn thin, and sported shaggy beards and hair.

  As they made their way to the bar to order an ale, Steve heard men discussing the threats posed by various Indian tribes, the unwanted presence of Mexican military troops, the constant influx of migrants from the east, and, of course, the weather, the one topic upon which men could generally agree. Others were telling tales. Like Steve’s Uncle Bear, they wouldn’t let facts stand in the way of a good old-fashioned yarn.

  In one corner of the tavern, a small group of men gambled over a game of Faro. The game, notorious for cheaters, was also called bucking the tiger because of the drawing of a Bengal tiger on the backs of the cards. Steve preferred trying his luck with a bucking horse. A bucking horse will test you, but at least it won’t cheat you.

  One man with a loud voice was regaling the others with a story. “I remember just how those poor men looked as we rode up to where they’d made camp. The orange light of the settin’ sun streamed down upon them where they lay. Their heads were towards us and they weren’t moving at all.” He paused to take a sip of his ale and possibly to let the tension build in his rapt audience. “Every last man had a grotesque round red spot on top of his head—they was scalped! They must have been attacked in their sleep because they were dead on their bedrolls. It was frightful. The blazing sunset seemed to make their head wounds glow. Strangest thing I ever saw. Still gives me the shivers.”

  “Makes my scalp prickle,” a man said and rubbed the top of his head.

  Another man, undoubtedly about to try to top that disturbing story, started telling a tall tale. “I once came across a dead man. I guess he figured he was going to die because he carved his name in the tree he lay in front of.”

  “What’d ya do?” a man asked.

  “The only decent thing a man could do. I buried him right there,” the tale teller said. “Had to use my axe on some of them tree roots.”

  A tall man dressed in buckskins held up his hand to quiet everyone. “That story reminds me of a tale I heard in Kentuck. While explorin’ one of the many caves there, some men came across a skeleton. Near the bones of his hand was a big knife. On a smooth rock near his head was carved, ‘I fell in this cave five days ago. Indians were running me. My leg’s broke and I’m starving. I’m going to run this blade across my neck. I can’t stand to starve to death. I’d rather bleed to death. John Rhoades.’”

  Yet another man was trying to sell some of his slaves. Keeping his voice low since slavery was frowned upon in Mexico, he was telling a fellow, “I have three slaves Ben, aged twenty-one, Nelson, aged twenty-one, and Juliana, aged nineteen. I’ll sell all three for 1,800 pesos.”

  Sickened by the offer and feeling restless, Steve decided he wasn’t in the mood to listen to these men or to drink. “I think I’m going to wander about a bit,” he told the others. “See what I can learn out there.”

  Father nodded. “We’ll only be here an hour or so. Then we’ll find the office of the Alcalde. He opens up at 11:00. So, meet us back here in about forty-five minutes.”

  “I’ll meet you later then.” He left and promptly rode back to where he’d seen the pretty young woman at the town square known as the Plaza Principal. The El Camino Real, or King’s Highway, sometimes called the San Antonio Road, ran directly through the square, headed east to Natchitoches and west to San Antonio. People walked about the square speaking an assortment of language
s and wearing clothing reflecting their backgrounds. In addition to Mexicans, there were Spaniards, French, Americans, and free men of color.

  Glancing about, he saw on the opposite corner a Mexican woman and her little daughter making tortillas over a small fire. The sight of the stacks of hot flat bread on their table made his mouth water. Curious about what tortillas tasted like, he rode over and bought one. The young woman who spoke a little English spread butter on the tortilla and then showed him how to roll it up to make it easier to eat.

  “Si. You like?” she asked with a pretty smile as he took his first bite.

  “Sí. ¡Muy bien! Gracias,” he told her. Although Samuel spoke Spanish, that was about the extent of Steve’s Spanish vocabulary.

  As he ate the hot, delicious bread, he rode up and down the street in both directions glancing into the shops as he passed by.

  Finally, he spotted her and his heart vaulted in his chest. Her pink and white striped gown stood out in the window of a general store named Frost Thorn’s that looked like it sold books, among many other items.

  For a moment, he just studied her from atop his horse. How should he approach her? He didn’t have much experience with talking to women other than Melly and his sisters-in-law. And they didn’t really count. He had always been a bit on the shy side around females, and the thought of speaking with a woman his age made butterflies flutter in his stomach. After a few moments of gazing at her, he decided it was more like bees buzzing around inside of him.

  And she looked as sweet and delicious as a pot of fresh honey.

  He decided he had to try. As he hurried to the shop’s door, he came up with a strategy. Once inside, he casually strolled up to the proprietor. “Sir, do you have The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving?”

  “I do,” the gentleman said. “I have one copy left but Miss Tyler is examining that volume at the moment.” He pointed to the young lady.

  Steve couldn’t believe he’d asked for the same book she was looking at. Perhaps it was because it was an especially popular book about the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman.