Texas Homecoming Read Free Page B

returned.
    Pilar had expected that Cade would come home. Laveau had written that Cade was alive and just as conceited as ever. Laveau had hated Cade since he was old enough to understand the reason for the enmity between their families. Cade had been more defiant than hostile. Wild as a young man, full of himself, handsome in a boyish fashion, ready to do whatever caught his fancy, Cade had cut a wide swath across the county, leaving a trail of mischief that had caused her grandmother’s bosom to heave with indignation that God didn’t send down a plague to destroy him and every other Wheeler. She said they were common, hadno respect for authority, no traditions to uphold, no fear of God.
    Except for defiance, the man who faced Pilar appeared to have little in common with the boy she remembered. Age had matured his features, experience had robbed his expression of animation, and suffering had dimmed the sparkle in his blue eyes. There was a hardness about him now, a quality that said once he made up his mind to do something he wouldn’t stop until he’d done it. She also saw hostility.
    “Laveau isn’t with us.” His voice was hard, icy.
    “Do you know where he is, when he’s coming home?”
    “No.”
    “We haven’t seen him in a year,” one of the strangers said. “The casualty lists said he was dead.”
    “He’s not dead,” Pilar said. “I got a letter just a month ago.”
    “Where is he?” the man asked.
    The sudden anger in the man’s voice surprised Pilar.
    “Let me introduce my friends,” Cade said. “This is Holt Price. He’s from Vermont, but he did more to keep our boys alive than most of our officers. That lanky blond is one of my Virginia cousins, Owen Wheeler. He’s shiftless, much too good-looking, and you can’t believe a word he says. That man astride the black mare is Rafe Jerry. No one knows where he comes from. We’re afraid to ask.”
    Pilar couldn’t imagine Cade being afraid of anything.
    “What’s Laveau doing now?” Cade asked. His eyes had grown colder. Owen looked angry. She wondered why.
    “He’s been on special assignment,” Pilar said, “traveling all over the West.” Her grandmother had been so proud, certain he would return home covered with honors. “Hislast letter was from Kentucky. He said he was headed home.”
    “I’m sure you’ll be glad to have him back.”
    Laveau wrote that he’d had great success during the last year, that he’d be able to regain the whole of his grandmother’s grant when he came back. Pilar wanted their land back, wanted to return home, but she didn’t feel nearly so desperate as she had two years ago. She’d been humiliated when she and her grandmother had been forced to seek refuge with their enemy. She’d been ready to believe every word her grandmother said about the Wheelers. The old man’s abusive attitude toward her only reinforced her prejudices.
    But two years of hard work and increasing skill had altered Pilar’s attitude.
    She’d learned to take pride in being able to do things she would never have considered doing in the past. Learning to hold her own in the give-and-take with the old man had helped her escape the humiliation her grandmother felt.
    “What was his special assignment?” Cade asked.
    “Betraying someone else,” Owen muttered.
    Owen started to say more, but Cade cut him off. “I guess that would be his job. After all, changing sides during a war requires trading information.”
    Laveau’s defection had shocked Pilar. She cared nothing about secession and states’ rights, didn’t know anybody who had slaves. But though she felt betrayed by a government that refused to recognize her mother’s Spanish grant, she didn’t want Laveau to be part of an army that killed people she knew.
    Her grandmother thought Laveau was brilliant to put himself on the winning side. She believed it was the beginningof the family’s return to power, wealth, and influence.
    “Laveau said everybody could tell