Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

From The Quivera Trail, the current work in progress – a new chapter! Chance has separated Lady Isobel from her faithful maid, Jane. During that separation, Isobel and Jane have begun to discover new and unexpected qualities and talents within themselves. And Jane is beginning to be attracted to Sam Becker, the younger brother of Isobel’s husband. Sam himself has a few unexpected talents and qualities himself …

Chapter 17 – The Turning of the Year

It came as a mild shock to Jane; that end of the fall months, when the apple trees in the walled orchard below the Becker home ranch hung heavy with ripe fruit – russet and ruby and a yellow-splotched pink – and the term of her school year came to an end. The months and weeks had passed as swift and sweet as the hours and days. She knew well that her tenure as a schoolteacher was to end when the family went to Austin to spend the Christmas holidays with their Vining cousins – but in Jane’s mind, Christmas meant frost, cold, snow and dark evenings which descended in the late afternoon. When the weather remained summer-mild, even as the oak leaves turned from green to bronze, Jane somehow maintained a degree of serene detachment from the calendar. The happy dream sustained until one morning where a pale layer of frost veiled the ground and the remnants of summer grass crunched under her feet. A fire burned in the parlor fireplace that evening, and when Sam Becker came in from riding his pastures and paddocks, he shed his coat in the hall and came into the parlor rubbing his hands.
“About time,” he observed. “There’s never a good crop the next year, without there’s a good hard freeze about now. Miss Jane, are your pupils nearly ready for the Christmas holidays? The term is nearly ended, you know,” he added. Jane felt as if the comfortable parlor had shuddered underneath her, as if in some kind of earthquake. She stared at Sam, mildly horrified. How the time had passed so swiftly! She had forgotten, or managed to put it all from her mind – that at Christmas the family would go to Austin – Lady Isobel would return from the Palo Duro ranch with Mr. Becker, and she herself would be a simple ladies’ maid once more. Her first instinct, unbidden was of horror and distaste. She had never in her life been so happy and content as those weeks and days spend in that makeshift classroom; her oddly-assorted pupils were advancing – and now to be snatched away from that… the prospect was like being put in prison, although Jane chided herself for that unworthy and selfish thought. She owed so much to Lady Isobel … and after all, she was not really a teacher. To continue as such was beyond her station, and Lady Isobel needed her. She would be ungrateful – and yet . . .
“I had forgotten,” Jane allowed, honestly. “They are all doing so very well. I will miss them very much.”
“And you will miss teaching them, Miss Jane?” Sam asked, with an unexpectedly shrewd expression on his face.
“I will,” Jane confessed. “I had not thought that work – for it is truly work – could be such a pleasure. I took pride in serving my lady … but not nearly as much as I did in teaching these children.”
“It made more of a difference,” Sam answered. “That’s why.” It almost seemed as if he would say more, but Lottie exclaimed, “You will love Austin, and Cousin Peter’s house, Jane! There are so many amusements and parties. It is especially lively when the Legislature meets. Everyone who is everyone knows the Vinings … because of Aunt Margaret, you know. They used to say that if you came to supper at her house every night for a month you would meet simply everyone of importance in Texas.”
‘I am not sure that I want to meet everyone,’ Jane thought to herself. ‘But, oh – I would like to return with my lady to this place. Surely she would permit me to continue with the school. Society is so very, very different; it can’t be that I must wait upon her every moment of the day…and she has always been dedicated to the welfare of the tenants. I might be able to convince her of lending me to that service …’
That was a happy thought – yes, recalling how Lady Isobel had done the rounds of calls to Sir Robert’s tenants, surely her ladyship could be brought to see the usefulness of that …even if Lady Isobel returned to the Palo Duro, rather than the Becker home ranch. Jane thought again that Sam was looking at her as if he were thinking about her, but he did not speak again about the school, until the morning came for their departure, a fortnight later. Her trunk was packed again with her clothing and few possessions, and loaded with Lottie’s and Mrs. Becker’s trunk, along with another trunk of Lady Isobel’s into the back of the odd-looking two-horse spring conveyance that the family used for their long trips. As Sam handed her her up into it, he said very softly,
“Miss Jane, if you should want to return and open your school again, I would do what I could to see that happen. I would talk to my brother…”
“I would like that,” Jane answered, in the same quiet tone. “But my duty is to m’lady. What she desires must always be my first consideration.”
“Then whatever you would like, Jane,” Sam answered. “Bu I promise … I will always do what I can for you.” He closed the little door at the rear of the conveyance, and Jane took her place, wistfully thinking that she would miss his company at least as much as she would miss her school and pupils, should Lady Isobel’s plans return them all to the Palo Duro, once the Christmas celebrations were done.
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  (Another installation from the current work in progress – Isobel Becker is accompanying her new husband and a herd of cattle to establish a new ranch in the Palo Duro region of North Texas … when the herd is suddenly and deliberatly panicked by a cattle rustler, hoping to round up a goodly number of stray cattle in the aftermath. Isobel and the elderly Daddy Hurst, the trail cook are alone in the camp …)

                                                     Chapter 15 – Palo Duro

The main body of stampeding cattle ran straight for the the cookfire, the wagons, and the draft horses which pulled them now stamping uneasily at the ends of the picket ropes. Isobel cast another glance over her shoulder; tossing horns amid a cloud of dust, rolling inexorably towards. She caught a brief glimpse of a man at the edge of the herd, crouched low on the neck of his galloping horse, attempting to ride ahead of them, but in another second that sight was lost. The horses – the cattle would panic the draft horses, the picket ropes would never hold; already they had caught the contagion of panic, even as Daddy Hurst ran towards them. Isobel knew instantly what the old man intended – to calm the horses, lead them closer into camp, and into a fragile shelter behind the wagons, but another instinct told her it was not going to work; six horses would be too much for the old man’s strength. She would have to help him. She caught up a blanket from hers’ and Dolph’s bed-roll, with a mad hope of covering one of the horses’ heads with it – that’s what Mr. Arkwright had always said – Cover their eyes, Miss Isobel – if they can no’ see, then they must trust you. Now the onrush of cattle sounded like an endless roll of thunder – worse than thunder, as she could feel it, feel the ground under her feet trembling. She ran towards the horses, while Daddy Hurst struggled with the picket ropes; he had two, three of them freed from the picket-pins screwed deep into the ground … and then one of them reared, neighing so loudly that it sounded like a scream, jerking the rope out of the old man’s hand.
Isobel had never in her life before heard a horse make a noise like that – and in the midst of that horror, Daddy Hurst fell. Isobel did not see clearly what caused him to fall; she was certain that he was not kicked by the struggling horses. He simply fell, the picket ropes falling from his slack hands, and the terrified horses dashing away.
No time, no time – the cattle were nearly upon them. Isobel shook out the blanket, remembering how the hands had talked of other such stampedes, how they would wave their jackets in the face of panic-stricken cattle. She ran a short way towards them from the wagons, hardly aware that she was screaming, shaking the folds of the blanket as if she were shaking dust from its folds. Her heart pounded in her chest, but was it her heart or the earth pulsating underneath her feet? She must make them avoid running through the camp, running over where Daddy Hurst lay helpless. Now the dogs were howling behind her, and she shook the blanket again, hardly thinking of her own peril. The cattle would wash over the camp, a wave of them, as unrelenting as an ocean tide sweeping all before it… but in a flick of an instant, the tide broke and parted. They thundered past, some to one side of Isobel and the wagons, some to the other. She was enveloped in a choking cloud of dust, and sank to her knees. From the buzzing in her ears she thought she might faint from the sheer terror of it. But she did not. Slowly, she stood up, on legs that trembled violently. The main body of running cattle was beyond the wagons now. It seemed as if they had gone in all directions, gone as suddenly from her sight as they had appeared from the canyon. The three horses which Daddy Hurst had tried to lead to safety were gone; Isobel could hardly begin to see where. The other three remained, nervous and stamping uneasily at the end of their picket lines. One of them had managed to loosen the picket-pin halfway from the ground. Isobel dropped the blanket from her nerveless hands and stumbled towards that horse on unsteady legs. She managed to catch the rope, just as the horse jerked away. The coarse grass rope ripped at the flesh of her hands and the picket pin slipped all the way out of the ground. The pin flew up, the sharpened end slashing the side of her face, and Isobel gasped from the sudden pain in her palms and cheek. She held on, gasping out soothing endearments to the frightened horse. The rope slackened, as the horse calmed, and stopped pulling away from her hands, which now were slick with blood. She could never drive the picket pin in solidly enough to hold fast. She led the horse to the cook-wagon and tied the picket rope securely to one of the straps that secured the water-barrel. Now to see to Daddy Hurst.

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