top of the chest of drawers where rested a round cord of bullion with
two tassels and a pair of fancy spurs. The wink of light was reflected
again from the mirror before which Drew stood.
"Jefferson's shirt has long enough sleeves, but all these billows!"
Cousin Merry's tongue clicked against her teeth in exasperation. Her
hand was in the middle of Drew's back, gathering up a good pleating of
linen, but he still had extra folds of cloth to spare over his ribs.
Four days of rest and plenty of food was not sufficient to restore any
padding to his frame. "You certainly grew one way, but not the other!"
Boyd, established in the big chair by the window, laughed.
"I could take a few tucks," Drew offered.
"_You_ could take a few tucks!" Her astonished face showed in the glass
above his shoulder.
"Oh, I'm not too bad with a needle. Did you note those neat patches on
my breeches--?"
"I noted nothing about those breeches; they went straight into the fire!
Such rags...."
"Miss Merry, ma'am--" small Hetty showed an eager face around the corner
of the door--"Majuh Forbes and Missus Forbes--they's downstairs."
Drew faced away from the mirror. "Why?" he demanded with almost hostile
emphasis.
Meredith Barrett untied the strings of her sewing apron. "Hetty, tell
Mam Gusta to set out some of the English biscuits and make tea." Then
she turned back to face Drew. "Why, Drew? Rather--why not? They're your
kin, and I think that Marianna feels it deeply that you came here and
not to Red Springs. Not to go home...."
"Home?" There was heat in that. "You, if anyone, know that Red Springs
was never really my home. And Forbes is an officer in the Union Army.
This is no time for a Reb to camp out in his house. My grandfather
wanted the place to be just Aunt Marianna's, didn't he?" He paused by
the chest of drawers, his hand going out to the spurs, the gold cord.
Three years--in a way a small lifetime--all to be summed up now by a
slightly tarnished cord from a general's hat, a pair of spurs a young
Texan had jauntily worn.
But it _was_ a lifetime. He was not a boy any more, to have to endure
his elders making decisions for him. His future was his own, and he had
earned the right to that. Drew did not know that his face had hardened,
that he suddenly looked a stranger to the woman who was watching him
with concern.
"Please, Drew, you mustn't allow yourself to be so bitter--"
"Bitter? About Red Springs, you mean? Lord, I never wanted the place. I
hate every brick of it, and I think I always have. But I don't hate
Forbes or Aunt Marianna if that's what you're afraid of. It's just that
I have no place there any more."
Her mouth tightened. "But you have! You owe it to Marianna to listen to
her now. This is important, Drew, more important than you can guess. No,
Boyd--" her gesture checked her son as he arose from the chair--"this is
none of your affair. Come with me, Drew!"
He picked up a borrowed coat, also much too wide for him, pulled it on
over the bunchiness of his shirt, and followed her, swallowing what he
knew to be a useless protest.
The parlor was as bright with sun as the upper room had been. As Drew
entered a pace or two behind Cousin Merry, the officer in blue strode
away from the hearth to meet them. But Aunt Marianna forestalled her
husband's greeting, rising suddenly from a chair, her crinoline rustling
across the carpet. She held out her hands, and then hesitated, studying
Drew's face, looking a little daunted, as if she had expected something
she did not find. The assurance she had displayed at their last meeting
on the Lexington road was missing.
"Drew?"
He bowed, conscious that he must present an odd figure in the
ill-fitting clothing of Meredith Barrett's long dead husband.
Major Forbes held out his hand. "Welcome home, my boy."
My boy. Consciously or unconsciously the major's tone strove to thrust
Drew into the past, or so he believed. The major might almost be
considering Drew an unruly schoolboy now safely out of some scrape,
welcome indeed if he would settle down quietly into the conventional
mold of Oak Hill or Red Springs. But he was no schoolboy, and at that
moment the parlor of Oak Hill, for all its luxury and warmth, was a box
sealing him in stifling confinement which he could no longer endure.
Drew held tight control over that resurgence of his old impatience,
knowing that his first instinct had been right: the old life fitted him
now no better than his coat. But he answered civilly:
"Thank you, suh."
His proper courtesy apparently reassured his aunt. She came to him, her
hands on his shoulders as she stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek. "Drew,
come home with us, dear--please!"
He shook his head. "I don't belong at Red Springs, ma'am. I never did."
"Nonsense!" Major Forbes put the force of a field officer's authority
into that denial. "I do not and never did agree with many of Alexander
Mattock's decisions. I do so even less when they pertain to your
situation, my boy. You have every right to consider Red Springs your
home. You must come to us, resume your interrupted education, take your
proper place in the family and the community--"
Drew shook his head again. The major paused. He had been studying Drew,
and now there was a faint shadow of uneasiness in his own expression. He
might be slowly realizing that he was not fronting a repentant schoolboy
rescued from a piece of regrettable youthful folly. A veteran was being
forced against his will to recognize the stamp of his own experience on
another, if much younger, man.
"What are your plans?" he asked in another tone of voice entirely.
"Drew--" Major Forbes waved aside that tentative interruption from
Cousin Merry.
"I don't know. But I can't stay here." That much he was sure of, Oak
Hill, Red Springs, all of this was no longer necessary to him any more
than the outgrown toys of childhood could hold the interest of a man.
Once, hurt and seeking for freedom, he had thought of the army as home.
Now he knew he had yet to find what he wanted or needed. But there was
no reason why he could not go looking, even if he could not give a name
to the object of such a search. "I might go west. It's all new out
there, a good place to start on my own."
There was a catch of breath from Aunt Marianna. The look she gave Cousin
Merry held something of accusation. "You told him!"
"Told me what, ma'am?"
"That your father is alive...." She saw his surprise.
"Is that true, suh?" Drew appealed to the major.
Forbes scowled, tugging at the belt supporting his saber. "Yes. We found
some letters among your grandfather's papers after his death. Your
father wasn't killed; he was in a Mexican prison during the war. When he
escaped and returned to Texas, your grandfather had already been there
and taken your mother away. Hunt Rennie was too ill to follow
immediately. Before he had recovered enough to travel, he was informed
his wife was dead, and he was allowed to believe that you died with
her--at birth."
"But why?" Alexander Mattock had disliked, even hated his grandson. So
why should he have lied to keep Drew with him at Red Springs?
"Because of Murray," Cousin Merry said slowly, sadly. "It was a cruel
thing to do, so cruel. Alexander Mattock was a hard man. He couldn't
bear opposition; it made him go close to the edge of sanity, I truly
believe. I know we are not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I
can't forgive him for what he did to those two. Melanie and Hunt were so
young, young and in love. And your Uncle Murray deliberately pushed that
quarrel on Hunt. Jefferson was there; he tried to stop it. The duel was
_not_ Hunt's fault----"
"Uncle Murray and my father fought a duel?" Drew demanded.
"Yes. Murray was badly wounded, and for a time his life was despaired
of. Your grandfather swore out a warrant against Hunt for attempted
murder! So he and Melanie ran away. They were so pitifully young!
Melanie was just sixteen and Hunt two years older, though he seemed a
man, having lived such a hard life on the frontier. They went back to
Texas, and she was very happy there--I had some letters from her. Yes,
she was happy until the War with Mexico began. Then Hunt was reported
killed, his father, too. And she was left all alone with distant kin of
theirs. So your grandfather went down to fetch her home. I'll always
believe he really wanted to punish her for going against his will. She
died--" her voice broke--"she died, because she had no will to live, and
_then_ he was sorry. But just a little, not enough to blame himself any.
Oh, no--it was still all Hunt's wickedness, he said, every bit of it! He
was a hard man...." Cousin Merry faced Aunt Marianna with her chin up as
if daring the other to object what she'd just said.
Drew returned to the news he still found difficult to believe. "So my
father's alive, Major. Well, that gives me some place to go--Texas...."
"Hunt Rennie's not in Texas." Cousin Merry spoke with such certainty
that all three of them gave her their full attention.
"I married Jefferson Barrett six months after Melanie eloped. We went to
Europe then for almost two years of traveling. Part of our mail must
have been lost. Hunt surely wrote to me! He liked Jefferson in spite of
the differences in their ages. If I had only had the chance to tell him
the truth about you, Drew. But I never knew he was alive either. You
remember Granger Wood, Justin?"
Major Forbes nodded. "He went out to California in '50."
"Yes, and when the war broke out he rode back across the Arizona and New
Mexico territories with General Johnston to enlist in the Confederate
forces. A month ago he came back here and he called to tell me he saw
Hunt in Arizona in '61. He had a horse-and-cattle ranch there, also some
mining holdings."
"Drew"--Aunt Marianna caught his arm--"you won't be so foolish as to go
out into that horrible wilderness hunting a man who doesn't even know
you're alive--who's a perfect stranger to you? You must be sensible. We
know that Father's will was very unjust, and we are not going to abide
by its terms--half of Red Springs will be yours."
Gently Drew released himself from her hold. "Maybe Hunt Rennie doesn't
know I exist; maybe we won't even like each other if and when we do
meet--I don't know. But Red Springs ain't my kind of world any more. And
I won't take anything my grandfather grudged givin' me. I may be young,
only in another way, I'm old, too. Too old to come under a schoolin'
rein again." He glanced across her shoulder, noticing that his speech
had registered with the major.
"You're not goin' to start out this very afternoon, are you?" Forbes
asked.
Drew relaxed and laughed a little self-consciously, knowing that his
uncle had ceded him the victory in this first skirmish.
"No, suh. You know, I brought two things home from the army--and one of
them was a pair of Texas spurs. A mighty good man wore those. You'd have
to ride proud and tall in the saddle to match him. I told him once I was
goin' to see Texas, and he said there was nothing to make a man stay on
the range where he had been born. Since I've always wanted to know what
kind of a man Hunt Rennie was--is--now maybe I'm goin' to do just that."
* * * * *
BY ANDRE NORTON
Storm Over Warlock
Galactic Derelict
The Time Traders
Star Born
Yankee Privateer
The Stars Are Ours!
EDITED BY ANDRE NORTON
Space Pioneers
Space Service
End of Project Gutenberg's Ride Proud, Rebel!, by Andre Alice Norton