Texas Woman

Cruz took her to the primarily Spanish-speaking Texas town of Gonzales, northeast of San Antonio along the Guadalupe River, where one of the few priests to be found in the Republic, Father Vicente Delgado, was known to be.

They found the priest in a one-room adobe house at the far edge of town, giving last rites to an old Mexican woman who had her loved ones gathered round her. When Father Delgado at last made the sign of the cross, someone whispered in his ear, and he looked beyond the crowd to the tall man at the rear. Slowly, he made his way toward Cruz.

“We have come to seek your services, Padre,” Cruz said.

“Let us go where we can talk in comfort,” Father Delgado replied.

He led Sloan and Cruz, who was once again carrying Betsy, down the dusty street to a small adobe structure and gestured them inside. The house had two rooms, one in front and one in back, separated by a striped blanket that had been hung between the two. It reminded Sloan of the house where her sister Bay lived.

It was almost dusk, and Father Delgado lit a candle on the table in the front room. He pointed to a narrow cot to one side. “You may lay the child down there if you like,” he said to Cruz.

Cruz started to set Betsy down, but she grasped his neck and wouldn’t let go. “I will hold her,” he said with a rueful smile.

“Then sit here.” Father Delgado gestured Sloan and Cruz to a bench on one side of the simple wooden table, then sat down on the opposite bench.

“How may I help you?” he asked.

“We want you to marry us,” Cruz said.

“Certainly. I will arrange to read the banns-”

“Tonight.”

“But, senor, I cannot-”

Cruz handed a small pouch full of coins to the priest. “Surely, Father, it is possible to get a dispensation in special circumstances.”

Father Delgado looked from Cruz to Sloan to the child in Cruz’s arms and asked, “Are there special circumstances?”

“Only that we wish to be together as man and wife,” Cruz admitted solemnly. “Will you marry us?”

The priest weighed the small rawhide bag in his hand. The people of his church needed money, but that was not the only, or even the most important, reason he decided to grant the hacendado’s wishes. He knew from the look in the man’s eyes that he would not wait the weeks until the banns had been read before he sought out the woman. Perhaps he could do them both a service, and serve God as well, if he removed the reason to sin from their paths.

“Yes, I will marry you, my children.”

Father Delgado watched the faces of the two young souls before him and saw that his announcement had brought neither of them great joy. The hacendado looked grimly satisfied. The woman looked grimly resigned. They both looked grimly determined.

Father Delgado sighed inwardly. He was tempted to withdraw his offer to marry them, but one look at the hacendado convinced him that trouble lay that way. He sighed aloud. He would join them in the eyes of God, and pray to the Good Lord to guide them to earthly happiness.

“Do you have a place to stay in Gonzales?” the priest asked.

“We will find something,” Cruz said.

“May I offer my humble dwelling for your comfort?”

“We would not want to intrude-”

“It is no intrusion,” Father Delgado assured Cruz. “I promised to sit with the family of Senora Santiago for a while, so you are welcome to use my home to refresh yourselves before the wedding. And I will be perfectly comfortable on the small cot I keep at the mission. I will have no need of my bed here tonight.”

“Then, yes, we would be glad to stay,” Cruz said.

“Are you hungry?” the priest asked.

Cruz looked to Sloan, who admitted, “A little.”

“I’m hungry,” Betsy volunteered loudly.

Sloan smiled and reached over to embrace the little girl, which meant putting her arms around Cruz as well. She felt the muscles of his arms bunch under his wool shirt, and she turned her face up to find his eyes hooded with need.

She forced her gaze back to Betsy’s face. “We’ll have to get you something to eat,” she murmured to the child.

Sloan’s thoughts weren’t on food, however, but on hunger of a different sort altogether.

The sound of Father Delgado clearing his throat brought Sloan upright. She shook her head slightly as though to clear it.

“I am afraid the fare I have is simple, but it is nourishing,” Father Delgado said. “You will find pinto beans cooking out back on the fire and corn tortillas and a bit of cabrito in the cupboard over there.” He gestured across the table.

“Cabrito?” Sloan whispered to Cruz.

“Roasted goat,” Cruz whispered back.

Sloan just had time to straighten the wrinkle of disgust on her nose before the priest turned back and said, “Eat, take time to prepare yourselves, and meet me in the church when it comes full dark.”

Shortly after the priest left, a young Mexican girl arrived with some clothing for Sloan.

“Father Delgado’s wedding gift to you,” the girl said.

Sloan could not imagine how or where the priest had so quickly obtained the garments, but she was grateful she would not have to be married wearing pants and boots.

She went into the back bedroom and, with Betsy’s help, dressed herself for her wedding. She first put on the white embroidered camisa, with its lace trim along the square neck and the short, gathered sleeves. Then she added the matching white cotton skirt with its colorful embroidered border of tiny pink roses and trailing green vines along the bottom hem. A set of ivory combs held her hair back from her face, which was then framed by a delicate white lace mantilla. Simple leather sandals adorned her feet.

Since the night was cool, Father Delgado had also provided a triangular shawl with the same beautiful pattern of pink roses and vines embroidered on it. The long fringe on the shawl felt silky against her arms when she wrapped herself in it.

Sloan stayed as long as she could in the bedroom, but the hour until dark passed with all the speed and raging turmoil of a prairie fire. At last she stepped past the striped curtain into the front room to greet Cruz.

“Isn’t she bee-you-ti-ful?” Betsy said from her hiding place behind Sloan’s skirt.

“Very beautiful,” Cruz agreed with a smile. Sloan’s eyes were the warmest brown he had ever seen, her lips soft and berry-red. The simple peasant wedding blouse framed her smooth shoulders, leaving her throat bare and exposing the racing pulse beneath her ear. The skirt emphasized her narrow waist and womanly hips and exposed her slim ankles. He wanted to hold her in his arms, to smooth the blouse off her shoulders and skim the skirt down her supple legs. He forced himself to patience. Soon she would be his wife in fact as well as name and he could do with her as he wished.

He brought his hand out from behind his back and handed Sloan a small bouquet of wildflowers. “I thought you might like to carry these.”

As their fingers touched, a bolt of desire streaked through Sloan. She quickly accepted the flowers and brought them up to her face to hide her growing blush of pleasure. She inhaled the pungent sweetness, meeting Cruz’s gaze over the top of the bouquet.

His eyes were hooded with desire, his nostrils flared, as if to catch the scent of the wild blossoms-or the scent of her.

Betsy broke the thread of tension growing between them when she demanded, “Is it time to go yet?”

Cruz reached out and lifted the little girl into his arms. “Si, nina.” He turned to Sloan and asked, “Shall we go?”

“I suppose so,” she replied, unable to keep the nervousness from her voice.

Now that the moment of truth was upon her, Sloan realized the enormity of the step she was about to take. When she entered the candlelit Spanish adobe mission with Cruz at her side, her heart was in her throat. She had been baptized Catholic at her mother’s insistence, then raised Protestant by Rip after her mother’s death.

She knew little of the Latin ritual that was to come, only that its very strangeness lent it potency in her mind. She followed Cruz’s lead, dipping into the font of holy water after him, crossing herself when he did, even bending her knee in a mirror of his genuflection.

They walked slowly down the aisle of the church to the altar, where an imposing wooden cross bearing the carved figure of an agonizingly crucified Jesus drew her eye. As he had promised, Father Delgado was waiting for them.

Attempts to seat Betsy elsewhere were met with quite vocal resistance, and so the three of them, Cruz, Sloan, and Betsy, knelt on the velvet padded bench before the altar.

Sloan folded her hands with the flowers between them and rested them along the wooden rail, then bowed her head as the priest began to drone his Latin refrain.

She dipped her nose into the flowers to counter the overwhelming odor of incense that reminded her of the painful confrontation she’d had with Dona Lucia at Tonio’s bier.

She heard Cruz murmuring a response in Latin, but let her eyes drift to the flickering candles along either side of the altar.

The candles mesmerized her, sending her back to a night long ago, when she and Cricket and Bay were children. There had been a bad thunderstorm, and Cricket and Bay had come racing to her room to huddle under the covers with her until the worst of it had passed. She had lit a candle and with that single bit of illumination they had waited out the storm together. They had talked of their dreams for the future.

“I’m going to spend my whole life doing exactly what I want,” Cricket had said.

“What’s that?” Sloan asked.

“Having fun!” Cricket replied with a laugh.

“I’m going to meet a handsome man who’ll carry me away on his magnificent black stallion,” Bay said, her violet eyes dreamy.