Read Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) for Free Online Page A

yards.
           Lon had told Charlee a little about San Antonio, or Santone, as the southern-born Texians called it. When she arrived, Charlee understood why the scout had cautioned her that it would be different. During the grueling weeks on the wagon trek across the vast new Republic, Charlee had seen log cabins, corn fields, and people dressed in homespun who spoke English. Texas had seemed American to the Missouri hill girl.
           San Antonio was far more Mexican than American, a place where vaqueros flashed knives by night to the music of the fandango and women bathed naked in the warmth of sunlit springs. Black-eyed girls dressed in low-cut white blouses and short brightly colored skirts filled jugs at bubbling fountains. Many even smoked cigarillos in public! Swarthy men, dressed gaudily in tight-fitting pants and jackets studded with silver, rode elegant horses whose saddle trappings were scarcely less ornamented than the clothes of their riders. Everywhere the liquid cadences of Spanish flowed, seeming to keep rhythm with the spilling water of the musical fountains.
           Most of the buildings were of adobe and stone, with walls three to four feet thick to keep the blistering sun at bay. Large iron-grilled windows admitted cool breezes. The domes of several large churches were visible, and tall, graceful cypress trees added welcoming shade to the bustling afternoon scene.
           Earlier in the day, Charlee had said farewell to the Mosers, who were heading to their land claims north of the town. Lon was returning to Natchitoches after some recreation in Santone. With silent amusement, he rode beside his young companion, watching “his” wide-eyed absorption with the scene in the Main Plaza.
           Ox-drawn carts full of watermelons creaked along as a vaquero swinging a wide reata raced past them, running a young longhorn to ground. At the side entrance to a fandango hall, two black men unloaded barrels of whiskey. A balky mule was being beaten and cursed inventively by a wiry old Texian while several dogs yipped around the flailing, sharp-hoofed critter. A freight caravan pulled off the main thoroughfare and stopped in front of a frame, two-story structure of Yankee origin, a large, well-stocked general store.
           Charlee looked to the west at the tall dome of San Fernando Church, awed by its size and cool, inviting beauty. Across to the east was the clock tower of the old cabildo, once the seat of Spanish government in Texas. It was three-thirty in the afternoon, and everyone had come alive after siesta.
           “This place is even older than St. Genevieve or St. Louis, isn't it, Lon?” Her voice held a hint of wonder.
           He laughed. “I reckon so, seein's how it was here over a hunnert years ago, back ta th' 1720s, I think one o' them padres tole me once't. It was th' capital o' Spanish Texas way afore th' Mexican government broke free o' th' mother country. Now it's gittin' more American ever’ time I come back.”
           “Yeah. I reckon there are Texians as well as Tejanos living here.” Charlee was proud of her newly acquired vocabulary. “My brother works for a Texian named Slade. Said he even fought at San Jacinto with President Houston.”
           Lon quirked a brow. “If’n yew mean Jim Slade, he's kinda a mix o' Texian an’ Tejano ”
           “What do you mean?” she asked, as they dipped their canteens in the cool spring water of a well.
           “His pa was from Virginey, from what I heered, but his ma was from an ole Tejano family right here in Santone. Lots o' them early adventurers who settled hereabouts married local women. Colonel Bowie hisself had a Mexican wife an’ two kids. When they died o' fever, he went plumb loco. Some said thet's why he chose ta stand 'n die at th' Alamo. Yew got yew a lot ta learn.”
           Charlee pondered her surroundings. She suddenly felt far from home and