Chapter 12
The thing about San Antonio that always struck Troy when he came to town was just how large a melting pot it seemed to be. People of all types walked along the streets, going about their business in comfortable harmony with one another.
He smiled at how Lizzy took joy in the city and its diversity of inhabitants. She smiled and greeted people in passing as they made their way to the town center, known as the plaza. There was a market, and there were rows of tables sporting goods of all kinds.
With Kyle taking the cart to the lumberyard outside of town to get supports and materials for the mine, Troy and Lizzy had some time on their hands where they could just stroll around and enjoy themselves.
They bought ice cream cones and ate them as they walked around inspecting embroidered tablecloths, fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, trinkets, and books.
“I just realized that I don’t have a dowry anymore,” Lizzy said, holding a tablecloth with some fine embroidery on it.
“Those filthy bandits took everything. They took the money for Tim to go and study at university and everything my mother had set aside for me when I grew up and got married.” She spoke with sadness in her voice, but Troy got the feeling it wasn’t for the items as much as for the sentiment that her mother had chosen those things for her.
He imagined having that chest with its linens and clothes and fine things would feel to Lizzy like she still had her mother with her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not right, them taking things they have no earthly use for. I can’t imagine them having a parlor and putting your mother’s doilies on the coffee table.”
“That at least is an amusing image,” Lizzy said. “I would think they sold what they couldn’t use.” She sighed and put the cloth down. “My mother hated wastefulness. She said she could live with other things but not with people being careless.”
“She was a formidable person,” Troy said. “From the way you speak about her.”
“She was,” Lizzy said with a smile. “She was fierce. Well, she had to be. My father was a dreamer, and if it wasn’t for her, his head would never have come out of the clouds.”
Troy laughed.
“And your folks? Will I ever meet them?” Lizzy asked.
“Ah, well, my father is a professor at a university, and my mother runs a boarding house for students,” Troy said. “Mike and I were always around students and academics. We met Andrew and Jeff, and we all became friends … And now, here we are.”
“What are your parents like? As people, I mean.”
“My mother has a great sense of humor. She’s kind and funny.
Dad’s a little more reserved, but he’ll give you the shirt off his back if you ever need it.
” He slipped his hand in hers. “We’ll have to make a trip back east once the town is firmly established, and Andrew can afford to let us escape for a month or two. ”
“That sounds nice,” Lizzy said.
Her expression had been dreamy, but then she froze.
“What’s wrong?” Troy asked.
She was staring at a man who wore a white, broad-brimmed hat and a linen suit. He looked like a gentleman going about his shopping at the market, inspecting the wares just as they were.
“What is it?” Troy asked.
“That man,” Lizzy said. “I know him.”
“Where from?” Troy asked.
Lizzy shook her head. She seemed to be trying to remember something but finding it elusive, as though it was just beyond her reach.
“Oh, it’s so close. I feel like I should know his name. It’s on the tip of my tongue,” she said and sighed. “Or maybe it was just a man who dressed like him. A light linen suit isn’t that unusual.”
“Maybe he came to your forge or your father’s?” Troy said, trying to be helpful.
Lizzy nodded. “Maybe that’s it.”
It was nearing lunchtime, and they found a little restaurant out of the way and had a wonderful meal together. It was so lovely to be able to sit at a table and eat without anyone disturbing them.
They sat with their hands entwined on the white tablecloth and ate chicken pies and vegetables and even had glasses of small cider. Troy found that their conversations were automatically either drawn to the camp, which he didn’t want to talk about, or to the future, which he did.
“How many children do you want?” Lizzy asked.
Troy blinked. Maybe it was a bit forward, but they now seemed firmly committed to a future together, so her asking didn’t seem unreasonable.
“I haven’t considered it,” Troy said. “Let’s see how events play out. We might not have any of our own and could end up with a house full of adopted orphans.” He shrugged and smiled. “Life is unpredictable, and you never know what will happen.”
Lizzy considered this. “Your logic is sound. We can’t know what God will give us until we get to that point.” She frowned. “You do want children though, right?”
“As long as you do, yes. Very much.”
“There he is again,” Lizzy muttered, her focus shifting from their conversation to the man in the light linen suit, who was being shown to a table.
He took his hat off as he sat down diagonally across from Troy and Lizzy.
He had black hair that shone, and his beard and mustache were very neat.
Even his shoes only had a light dusting of dirt on them.
This was definitely a man of means. Lizzy probably had seen him or someone like him conducting business with her father.
Even rich men needed a blacksmith from time to time.
The man got himself settled and then was promptly joined by another fellow.
This man wore work clothes. His boots were scuffed and showed signs of being well-worn.
His skin was tanned, and his hair was long, reaching his collar.
His beard was unkempt, but he’d clearly made an effort to clean up as his hair was still damp, wetting his collar.
He greeted the man in the linen suit and only then took his seat. Linen Suit never stood but nodded as though accepting the man and allowing him in his presence. A business meeting, Troy guessed. But not between equals.
“Fascinating pair, aren’t they?” Lizzy asked. “Like a big cog and a tiny wheel.”
“They shouldn’t fit, but sometimes they do,” Troy said.
Lizzy smiled. “You always understand.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes cogs and wheels are made for each other.”
They leaned closer, their lips seeking each other, when who should show up but Kyle. The man seemed to have a knack for interrupting them, darn him. They separated quickly.
“I’ve been looking all over for you two,” he said. He dragged over a chair from a neighboring table and sat down, blocking their view of the two men. “Well, I’ve done all I had to do. And you two?”
“We took a stroll through the market and ate ice cream,” Lizzy said with a smile that Troy knew would drive Kyle mad.
“You what? This isn’t a holiday. You were meant to go and get the things you needed,” Kyle said.
“I don’t suppose you thought of going to the post office?
” He sighed. “Really, you’re useless. Both of you.
I’ll stay here and have a nice lunch, and you two lazy louts can go and get what you came here for.
And then we have to go. We don’t have all day. ”
Lizzy and Troy rose. Troy put down money on the table for their meal. “There, now you don’t have to pay for us.”
“Gee, thanks,” Kyle said. “Off you go.” He shooed them away with his hands.
“Why do you suppose he’s so grumpy?” Lizzy asked as she and Troy left the restaurant.
“Because he’s Kyle, and he has his own agenda,” Troy said. “He always does.”
Kyle was right though. Troy and Lizzy had probably taken all the time they could doing nothing productive at all.
Although Troy would never say that spending time with Lizzy was ever a waste of time.
He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
He definitely wanted children with her, and talking about it had given him a peek into a life he could have. It looked blessed.
Their shopping list was mostly things for their projects. The iron master’s forge was on the outskirts of the town. It was a hot, smelly place, and Troy didn’t want to hang around for too long. They had the cart with them since Kyle had left it outside the restaurant once he’d tracked them down.
“Do you really need all that iron?” Troy asked, watching the men put bars of the stuff into the back of the cart.
She nodded. “Yes. If we’re going to make all the things we need for the new projects and fix up some of the older ones.”
He nodded. “Good point. These poor horses are going to have to go slow on the way home.”
The next stop was at the post office, but it seemed that Kyle had already picked up the mail for the camp.
He had been harping on about it. Maybe he was expecting a letter from home.
He had left his mother and sister to come out here, so it was understandable that he would want to check in.
Troy wrote to his folks a lot more regularly than Michael did.
His mother complained about it to him in her letters.
As though Troy could do anything about Michael’s lack of interest in correspondence.
Back at the restaurant, they found Kyle coming out of the door at speed.
“We gotta go!” he cried, turning them both as he ran between them.
“What have you done?” Troy asked, worried.
“No time! Just get in the cart!” Kyle said.
An annoyed-looking man in a black jacket came to the door. He glared at Troy and waved his fist at Kyle.
“And stay out! We don’t need your sort in here!” the man cried.
Troy turned on his heel and, taking Lizzy by the hand, hurried down the steps and climbed up on the cart. The man watched them drive off.
“What did you do?” Lizzy demanded.
Kyle looked somewhat embarrassed. “One of the patrons was giving the waitress a hard time, you know, ordering her around like she was a servant. So, I told him to mind his manners. That’s all.”
Troy frowned. “How did you tell him to mind them?”
“It might have been at gunpoint,” Kyle said. “She was pretty.” He shrugged at their appalled looks. “The manager stepped in and calmed the man down. Apparently, he’s some rich merchant who comes in there regularly and acts like he’s the king of San Antonio. Maybe even the king of all Texas.”
“The man in the linen suit,” Lizzy said, speaking hollowly.
The horses were plodding along. Should anyone want to shoot them, they would have no trouble at all.
With all of the lumber and the iron, the cart was just too heavy for them to go at any faster pace. Luckily, the road home was mostly flat.
“Kyle!” Lizzy berated him. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” he moaned. “I was thinking that she was a lovely young woman and didn’t deserve to be spoken to like that. Is that wrong?”
“No, but I don’t think that’s the kind of man you pick a fight with,” Troy said.
“He’s nothing special,” Kyle said, but his expression spoke of his worry. He looked behind them. “Well, he’s not following us. So, that’s good.”
But Troy couldn’t shake a feeling of foreboding. With all the trouble in the area with bandits and so on, was it a good idea to pick a fight with anyone? Surely it would have been far better to leave well enough alone and not draw attention to them.
“Well, we’d better get out of town as fast as we can,” Troy said. “Just in case this man is the kind to hold grudges and take them out on folks on the road.”
“How would he know where we’re going?” Kyle asked, his usual bravado back now that the threat was gone. “He didn’t follow us or anything. It was just a silly little disagreement, and no one got hurt.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t try to shoot him,” Lizzy said. “The man next to him would have been in a lot of trouble then.”
“Oh, very funny,” Kyle said. “Here, take the pistol back. If we end up in trouble, you’re the better shot.”
“You couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn if you were trying,” Lizzy agreed.
For an hour, they drove with no trouble at all.
Troy was beginning to think they would make it all the way home with nothing happening when suddenly there were yells all around them. Kyle’s eyes went wide, and Lizzy’s hand dropped to the pistol instantly.
Out from behind trees and boulders came riders on horseback. They circled around the cart until Kyle was forced to rein the horses in. It took seconds.
“Now. We don’t want trouble,” Kyle said.
“A little late for that, isn’t it?” a voice said. Turning, Troy saw the man who had been in the restaurant. Not the man in the linen suit but the other one. He smiled and brought the butt of his shotgun down on the side of Kyle’s head.