When they finally headed for home, their older brother Nicholas was driving the last nail into a shoe he was putting on his horse and he saw them coming. Giving the shoe one last tap, he dropped the mare’s foot and led her into the paddock. “Looks like I’ll have to see to that brushing tomorrow,” he said, giving the mare a scratch between the ears. Then he turned and walked toward the house, reaching it just about the same time Adrian and Alex did.
Taking one look at them, Nicholas threw back his head and laughed. “What was it this time? Did you run into a tree?”
“Shut up, Nick,” they said in unison, hobbling into the house and slamming the door against the sound of Nick’s rolling laughter.
Little did they know then, as they slammed that door that day, that it would be the last time they heard Nick laugh.
But it was. A few days later, the two oldest brothers, Nick and Tavis, announced they were leaving.
“Leaving? You mean leaving here? Our home? Leaving us?” Adrian asked.
“Where are you going?” asked Alex.
“Nantucket, to look up Ma’s brother Robert,” Nick said. “I’ve always had a fondness for the sea.”
“You’ve never even seen the sea,” Alex said. “How can you have a fondness for it?”
“I’ve never seen God either.”
“Uncle Robbie? You’re going to live with Uncle Robbie?” asked Adrian. “How will you get there? You don’t have any money.”
“If we waited until we had money, we’d be too old to go,” Tavis said.
And Tavis was right.
After the deaths of their mother and father, things hadn’t been easy for the Mackinnon brothers. Poverty has a cruel set of standards which tends to be inflexible. Another bad thing about poverty, although not contagious, it tends to prove long lasting and eventually fatal. And like some life-threatening illness, once poverty struck, one rarely recovered from it. And so it was with the Mackinnon brothers.
Little by little they had been forced to sell parcel after parcel of their land, until there wasn’t much of the original farmland left. It had become a way of life for them to eke out an existence, harvesting just enough good crops to cancel out the bad ones, raising a few horses, butchering a few beefs, but nothing more than just getting by. But for five young, strapping men who were chomping at the bit to see if life had more to offer them, this wasn’t enough. After struggling for years to make a go of the farm, one by one the brothers began to realize the futility of it all, and they began to drift away.
Nicholas and Tavis were the first to go, leaving for Nantucket and the home of their mother’s brother to pursue their lifelong interest in shipbuilding and the sea. Before he left, Nicholas was invited to Scotland to inherit a title from their father’s recently deceased brother. Nick turned it down flat, then said to Tavis, “I guess you’re next in line. Do you want to go?”
“Nope,” was Tavis’s reply.
“Ross?” they both said in unison, then remembering that Ross was the most heathen of the lot, and trying to visualize him as a Scottish lord they fell against one another laughing and said, in unison once again, “Not Ross.”
So Nicholas sat down and penned a letter back to Scotland, declining for himself and informing their kinsmen that he had already asked the next youngest, Tavis, who declined as well. As an afterthought, he added, “You’ll have to find someone else, as our other brother Ross has other fish to fry, and neither of the twins would take to the task without the other one.”
Not long after Nick and Tavis left, Alex and Adrian were forced to face reality. If their brothers couldn’t make a go at farming, they couldn’t either. It was time to call it quits. A hitch in the Texas Rangers seemed the only choice since troops were needed to patrol the border along the Rio Grande between Texas and Mexico—a border plagued by unrest that eventually led to a declaration of war.
It was some time after Adrian and Alex signed up for a hitch in the Rangers that another letter came from Scotland. This time the offer was for Ross, and Ross, having nothing better to do, and having a marriage-minded woman with an irate papa on his back, accepted. He left immediately, which the neighbors thought was a good idea, since they personally knew of two weddings in two different counties being planned by papas who thought they had Ross backed into a corner.
“When the nest is on fire, a wise bird takes flight,” Ross had often said to his brothers. His brothers thought Ross wise beyond his years.
The following Sunday, the minister heard Ross Mackinnon had left for Scotland. His only comment was, “I have heard it is possible for a wild colt to become a sober horse. I pray that will be the case with Brother Mackinnon. Perish the thought that we should end up going to war with Scotland when they realize what we’ve sent them.”
Chapter Four
It had been almost four years to the day since Alex and Adrian had ridden away from Limestone County. A lot of things can happen to a man in four years. Things that change him. Things that make him grow up overnight. It even happens sometimes that some time away can make a man forget, but that didn’t happen to Alexander Mackinnon. A few months with the Rangers and a hitch in the army had not dulled his feelings for Karin Simon, far from it. A lock of her golden hair, that he had taken the night before he left, had been a constant reminder of the fair-haired lass he had left behind, but had not forgotten.
The sun was hot upon his shoulders, the warm midday breezes cool upon his brow as Alex rode up the road toward the old Mackinnon homestead. Adrian rode up next to him, easing his horse into a slower gait. Like Alex, he let his body roll along with the rhythm of his horse, his thoughts focused on what lay just ahead. “It seems like it’s been longer than four years, doesn’t it?” Adrian said at last.
Alex nodded, watching Adrian lean over and spit in the Johnsongrass that was as high as the belly of a horse. Adrian had taken up the habit of chewing tobacco during the war, something that Alex found irritating as all get out, although he couldn’t say just why that was. Like Adrian said, it wasn’t causing him any pain, but Alex found it as galling as watching someone rub his belly and belch, or pick his nose. He had been after Adrian to give it up, but Adrian was as stubborn as they came. “I’ll give it up when some sweet little thing asks me to,” Adrian had said only yesterday.
Adrian spit again, glancing at Alex, as if he expected his brother to make some comment. Alex didn’t say anything. He didn’t feel much like talking today, and that was unusual for him. It was also unusual for him to be so reflective. But coming home can do that to a man.
Leaving the main road, they turned up the road that led to the Mackinnon place, having their first glimpse of one of the few things they could call their own—their land. As their pa always said, “A man who has land is lord of something, even if it’s only a horned toad.” The road was overgrown now, the ruts no more than grassy indentations, and what had once been a sturdy, well-built fence that ran along the road was no more than a few sections of broken-down posts with a scissortail or two sitting on top. But it was home and that was all that mattered.
All around them the yellow-green grass was a sea of ripples as it sloped down toward the creek that would be running slow and sluggish this time of year. It felt good to be home, to feel you belonged to something enduring. A scissortail sitting on a post took sudden flight as they passed and Alex looked in time to see its fine colors of gray, salmon pink, and black. Alex watched as the bird climbed higher, its folded scissor opening as it did.
Absorbed with the long familiar land about him, intoxicated with the fresh smell of spring that lay all about, Alex felt like he was dreaming, yet he knew he was awake. He looked out over an ocean of pale silver-green grasses four feet high, flowers of every color interspersed in the ravines and along watercourses where the grasses did not grow. Dear God, the memories this weedy old road stirred. Well he could remember a time when the fences were strong and straight and the road was well-metaled with two deep ruts, and fat cattle grazed that silver-green grass for as far as the eye could see. The pastures were empty now, a silent testimony to the passage of time. Yet, as he looked toward the sun he could see its brilliant heat turning the grass the color of shimmering flax that reminded him of the color of Margery’s hair.
Margery. The youngest of the Mackinnons, and the only girl.
The pageant of his years here at this place seemed to take over his consciousness, unfolding steadily in pictures that brought the past so vividly before him. Margery came first, her long blonde hair a tangle of curls around a sweet cherub face, her eyes blue and laughing, her cheeks as pink as a summer sunset, her chubby fingers locked around a wilted bunch of buttercups. Margery. She had been only six the day the Comanche raided the little private stockade known as Parker’s Fort and stole her away. That had been twelve years ago, but the memory of it was still fresh. Twelve years. Dear Lord above! She would be eighteen now and more than likely the wife of some Comanche brave who did little more than fill her belly with half-breeds. Maybe it was a blessing his ma and pa were dead. They would have never been the same after little Margery was gone.
Alex let his eyes wander in the direction of the pecan grove that lay along Tehuacana Creek. He couldn’t see the grave markers, but he knew they were there, knew what they said:
Andrew Mackinnon, son of Margaret and John. Margaret Mackinnon, wife of John.
And on the last marker, because their father had already been buried when they received word that he had been killed and scalped, they had simply written,
Here lies the memory of John Mackinnon. Born in Scotland. Died in Texas.
They knew their mother would have wanted it that way.
In spite of the pain a return to the past holds, there were good times tucked into his memory as well—times that had been meadow-sweet. He could almost hear the shrill laughter of his brothers running barefoot along the creek in the summertime, feel the breathtaking shock of that first plunge into its cold water. And then the sun would be on them again, warm and brilliant and they would feel as languorous as a bull snake at midday. He remembered sitting on the back porch on afternoons that were so hot a body could do little more than sit and watch the chickens peck, and the way the sun would set, a peachy-orange color against a twilight sky of the purest royal blue. He had never seen that exact color of twilight in any other place he had ever been. How well he could remember cold winter afternoons around a crackling fire, and the way he would grow sleepy listening to the sound of his mother’s voice reading from a book; and there were long rambles along leafy lanes and across dry, rustling cornfields on frosty autumn afternoons. This was the land that had taught him so much, the washes and draws, the deepest parts of the creek and the most shallow, the open fields and the secret hollow, the bare, stripped trees in winter, the leafy undergrowth in summer, the rich smell of the heavy black land when it rained, all giving up their secrets that helped him to look shabby poverty in the face and say, “Someday, I’ll rise above it.”
He was glad life had been unembellished, hard, and stripped of convenience. He had lived with the barest bones of existence and they had taught him something. This was his land, his home, the place where he had been tripped by logs and chased by bees; the place where he learned to recognize the rubbings of a deer in velvet, or the hair-infested droppings of a bobcat. It was where he had lain in a meadow of sweet clover and studied clouds and funguses on stumps and been amazed at their caricatures. It was where he learned to ride like an Indian, swim like a fish, work like the devil, and say, in spite of all life threw at him, he’d do it all again in a minute, if he had the chance.
Of all the memories that called out to him from this place, none were as strong as the memory of Karin. Karin with the brightest blue eyes this side of heaven. Karin with hair as cool and pale as a moonbeam. Karin, so lovely, so misunderstood. Sometimes he felt as if he were the only person in the world who understood her and her often prissy, determined ways. He couldn’t fault her for wanting more than life had seen fit to give her so far. There was no harm in that. Folks who didn’t know her thought her to be selfish and vain, but she was hardworking and frugal, and she knew what she wanted. There were times he felt as if some of her ambition, her desire to better herself had rubbed off on him, for the poverty he had left behind held no appeal for him, and like Karin, he wanted something more. Only one really big difference that he knew of stood between them. He loved the land, and drew his strength from it. Karin saw it as something you walked on. “For God’s sake, Alex. It’s only dirt!”
He shook his head at the memory and almost laughed. How many times had he heard her say that? And how many times had he taken her in his arms and kissed her, saying, “Sweetheart, this
dirt
is going to give you everything you ever wanted, everything your adorable heart desires.”
Karin was too practical to be taken in by visionary dreams. “I don’t survive on fairy tales,” she had said. “I don’t soar on imaginary wings. Life isn’t a dream. It’s fact, Alex. Cold, hard, cruel fact.”
“Why are you so unhappy with your life, with what you have?”
“Because I have to be, don’t you see that?”
“No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do my best to give you the things you want. This land, this soil that I love will make me a wealthy man one day.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll still have each other.”
“It isn’t enough, Alex. I love you, but it isn’t enough.” She had turned the loveliest, tear-filled eyes up at him. “I read something once, something St. Augustine said. I wasn’t much more than twelve or so at the time, but it struck me so hard, I never forgot it. A year or so later, I came across it again, and this time I copied it down and hung it over my bed. I read it every night and every morning:
What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not.
That’s why I’m unhappy with who I am and what I have. It isn’t because I look down my nose at others, or that I think I’m a little better than anyone else. I simply detest this life, this existence, this groveling in the dirt for a few measly potatoes. I want to wear beautiful gowns and eat at places I can’t even pronounce the name of. I want to be able to walk into a fine store and buy anything I want, without having to ask the price and listen to the snickers of others when I put it back. I know you don’t understand, Alex, and I don’t know what to say or how to explain it so that you will.” She had laughed a little—a dry, sad sound. “I understand that you don’t follow what I’m saying, for God knows I don’t always understand it myself. I only know it’s something I want above all things, something I will stretch and claw and reach for until I get it.”