Enchanted Heart (4 page)

His company of men, which called itself The Union Loyal League under the guidance of Jacob Kuechler from Fredericksburg, made their way toward the Mexican border, thinking that the Confederates would not chase them that far. But while they slept in their camp on the banks of the Nueces River, the Confederates attacked, killing most of them and hanging those who had survived. Many of the sleeping men were trampled to death by the horses’ hooves as they charged into the slumbering camp, the rest were shot in their bedrolls or while they attempted to surrender. Only a handful of the Germans escaped impending death by retreating across the Rio Grande River and into Mexico. All of the regiment’s records, including Gunnar’s journals were either confiscated or destroyed by the invaders. Gunnar Goldstein’s body was never buried because the Confederate Army called them traitors and threatened death to any who tried to cover them or to say a prayer over them.

Tragedy seemed to follow Marty and Greta, but more so did it follow Marty, for during her marriage to Elias, she suffered two miscarriages and a still birth. And then he left her to fight in the War only to be killed just three months after his enlistment, leaving her with no one but herself to love.

Greta was luckier, and by luckier, it only means that she had given birth to a daughter before her husband was killed. But at least she had something to remind her of her former happiness. At least Seraphina resembled her father in some way so that Greta could see his handsome visage in her little girl’s face and in the bouncy curls that danced around her little golden head.

Marty had nothing to remind her of Elias. All she had were the memories that floated around in her mind and tangled in a jumble of painful recollections in her broken heart. She was a widow with no children, no one to love her, no one to take care of her in her old age. And she had no prospects of filling that void, for she thwarted any suitor who looked her way.

No, she never wanted to love again. She would not take a chance of getting pregnant only to have the baby torn from her body, silent and still. She just could not go through that again, so she dared not find love in a man again for fear of heartache finding her yet again. Even loneliness for a man’s arms around her, his conversations, his company, was not enough to erase the fear of the emptiness that losing another child would cause deep in her soul. Her new promise to herself was that she would be a lonely widow for the rest of her life.

Chapter Four

1868

Marty sat on the porch of the large house where Mama and Sven still lived and where Marty and Greta had come to visit with their husbands before the Civil War had made them both widows. Now, Greta and her daughter Seraphina lived with Mama and Sven while Marty spent more time there than in her own house, making the family feel like it had felt when the girls were growing up.

She cuddled her cousin’s baby boy in her arms while she rocked him on the large porch and watched the other children play in the yard. She smiled at Seraphina and the others running and screaming like she and Greta had done at that age. And then, as if pushed toward her like a wall of rushing water, she remembered all of the things that had brought her misery in her lifetime, wiping the contented smile from her face.

Memories of life, love and loss came flooding back to her while she rocked the baby in her arms as if his tiny body could replace all that she had forfeited. Heartbreaking recollections haunted her like slithering gray ghosts, taunting her with thoughts of how things could have been if only Fate had not interfered and had torn the prospect of happiness from her heart, her very soul.

Tears began to trickle down her cheeks, falling upon the baby’s tiny pink cheeks and she aimlessly wiped them away while she drifted far back into her past and visually relived every moment in her life that had caused her pain.

But when her niece’s voice broke through the wall of grief, Marty jerked her head toward Seraphina when the little girl asked, “Why are you crying, Aunt Marty?”

“I’m not crying,” Marty replied with a trembling smile. “I’ve got dust in my eyes.”

“Do you want me to get you a kerchief?” Seraphina chirped cheerfully while she peeked inside the blankets at Baby Jake, who had startled and awoken at her high-pitched voice.

“I’ll be fine,” Marty assured her with a pat on the girl’s hand. “Run along and play with Ingrid and Arnie. Supper will be ready soon.”

“Mama and Grandma Addie are certainly busy inside,” Seraphina replied as she leaned into the screened door and cupped her small hands against the sunshine.

“Yes, they are making a surprise for my cousin Elsa,” Marty explained, tucking the blanket beneath the baby’s chin and lifting him up to nuzzle his nose.

“Why aren’t you helping them?” the seven-year-old asked inquisitively.

“Because I have to keep Elsa outside so that she won’t figure out that her birthday party is being prepared in the house,” Marty whispered.

“But where is Elsa?” the girl inquired with a shrug, her blond curls touching her shoulders and then bouncing back toward her head.

“I’m here,” Elsa called from the flowerbed just beyond the porch where she had stopped to pluck a rose for her hair. “What is it that you need, my dear Seraphina?”

The girl looked to her aunt for an answer, but then she scrunched her nose and said, “I think Baby Jake needs to be changed. Do you want me to go inside for a diaper?”

Elsa stepped onto the porch beside Seraphina and smoothed the girl’s curls before she smiled warmly and said, “Thank you, but I can get it.”

“No!” Seraphina exclaimed as she stepped in front of her second cousin and declared, “I will go and get it for you! Sit with Aunt Marty and I’ll bring you anything you need.”

“Well, that is very kind of you, my little angel,” Elsa declared with a beaming smile before she sat in the rocking chair beside her cousin and reached for her infant son.

“I’m not an angel,” Seraphina whispered under her breath before she disappeared inside the house. But just to ensure that Elsa did not enter and spoil the surprise, the girl called back, “I’ll be right back!”

Elsa settled Baby Jake in her arms and instinctively began to rock while she cuddled him to her breast. Then, she looked across at Marty and saw the sad expression on her cousin’s face. She touched a hand to Marty’s forearm and asked, “Won’t you come with us? They need teachers in Fort Concho.”

Elsa had come with her family on the second wave of immigrants on the boats to Texas, but that was after the United States had annexed the republic and had made it a state. She had married a young man here in New Braunfels and had delivered three babies within six years of her marriage. This made Marty more than a little jealous but it did not make her love Elsa any less because her cousin was a kindhearted and warm young woman whom everyone cherished.

“I couldn’t leave Mama and Greta and Papa Sven,” Marty argued with a shake of her auburn head.

At that moment, Mama poked her head out of the screened door and asked what had sent her granddaughter running up the stairs in such a flurry. “What’s got into that girl’s bloomers? Running through the house like it’s afire.”

Elsa laughed at her aunt’s colorful expressions before she answered, “She is getting a change of clothes for Baby Jake.”

“Is that all?” Adelaide asked while she wiped her brow with her apron and leaned against the wall of the house.

“Won’t you sit down, Aunt Addie?” Elsa offered while tucking her legs beneath her chair in a struggling effort to rise with the baby in her arms.

“No, thank you, Elsa,” the older woman said while blowing a wayward tuft of hair out of her face. “I’ve got to get back to the kitchen. Greta seems to think that she is the better cook but I am bound and determined to win this war!”

“Whatever are you two cooking in there?” Elsa asked with a knowing grin.

“Now never mind about that,” Addie said with a puff of her lips. “What was it that I heard before I walked outside? Are you trying to talk my Marty into moving to Fort Concho with you and your family?”

“She was just making a suggestion,” Marty interjected, thinking that Mama would emphatically disagree with the notion.

“Really,” Elsa declared with a nod of her head. “It would do her a world of good to get away. Start a new life—before she’s too old to start a family.”

“You may have a point, Elsa,” Mama agreed with a nod of her gray head. “Wasn’t it your Papa’s dream to go and claim that land, Marty?”

Marty ducked her head and peered up at her mother with a sheepish grin before she answered, “It was a childish thing to promise Papa that I would live his dream for him.”

“Your father would not think it so,” Mama argued with her mouth set in a thin line.

“Of course he wouldn’t,” Elsa agreed. “He would want you to make good on that promise. You are, after all, a Hirsch. And a Hirsch never goes back on her word.”

“I couldn’t have said it better,” Mama said with a grin.

Figuring that she had been granted the upper hand in the argument by her aunt, Elsa added, “They are building a new town that is being started by a man named Ben Ficklin. It’s just five miles south of Fort Concho. I hear the fort can be too rowdy for families, so this new town will be a wonderful place for us to call home. You can surely get a job there. You have nothing keeping you here, why don’t you pack your things and make a new start?”

Looking to her mother for support, Marty repeated, “I can’t leave Mama and Greta.”

“We will be all right,” Mama said with a huff as she crossed her arms. “You are a grown woman and you need to get out from under your mama’s skirts.”

“Besides, Aunt Addie has Uncle Sven to take care of her,” Elsa agreed.

“What about Greta?” Marty asked, trying to find any reason to stay. “She’ll still be under Mama’s skirts.”

“Greta will be fine,” Addie answered before her niece could reply.

“Greta needs me,” Marty argued with a frown while she placed her hands on the arms of the rocking chair. “Greta is fragile and forlorn. She hasn’t been the same since her Gunnar was killed. She would simply waste away if I left her alone. No, I can’t leave her.”

“Then bring her along! She lives here with your parents and you rent your home. It’s not like either of you have to worry about selling your house.” Elsa reminded Marty, her eyebrows flying into the mussed bangs on her forehead. She looked to her aunt for permission to continue.

Adelaide gave her a smile before she agreed, “It would do Greta good to move to this new town. Of course I’ll miss my little Seraphina.”

“And she would miss you,” Marty said sadly. “I’ll miss you.”

“Did I hear my name?” Greta called from the foyer just before she stepped out onto the porch, leaning sideways so that her daughter could whiz by with a bungle of baby clothes.

“We were discussing you and Marty moving to Fort Concho with us,” Elsa said, taking the clothes from Seraphina and thanking her kindly.

“Fort Concho?” Greta asked, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “We’re moving?”

Marty nodded with a beaming smile as if it alone could convince her sister to agree, “It would be a nice change for us.”

“Mama?” Greta turned to Adelaide with a questioning expression.

“Why don’t you go with them, you and Seraphina?” Mama coaxed. “If you don’t like it, Sven and I will come and get you.”

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble for me,” Greta replied, shaking her head. “If I move there, I will stay. Besides, Papa wanted us to go on and live his dream. Isn’t it about time we did it?”

“You still have your wagon, no?” Elsa asked excitedly.

Marty sighed. She knew that Elsa would keep at her until she relented, for Elsa was a formidable foe when it came to arguments. After rolling her eyes, Marty took in a deep breath and relented, “Greta, do you really want to move?”

Greta looked at Mama and then at Marty. Finally, she pulled her daughter into her skirts. Remembering that long-ago day when, at Seraphina’s age, Greta had promised Papa in whispered words that she would follow his dream. She had never told anyone of her vow, for she had little confidence in herself at that time. But she had hoped that Papa, watching high in Heaven, had enough faith in her for the both of them.

She raised her shoulders and announced, “We will go for Papa!”

“Good, then,” Elsa said with much finality. “You’re going with us.”

“Who will drive your wagon for you?” Adelaide asked as if she was not aware that her daughter was strong enough both physically and mentally to take on that task.

Marty squared her shoulders and raised her body up so that she appeared three inches taller and she declared, “I will, of course!”

***

Within the week, Marty found herself standing in line with the other families to sign up with the wagon master and to put their lives and their money into his hands. As she bent to sign her name on the ledger, her eyes locked for a moment with the man who sat behind the makeshift desk on the general store porch. And for an instant, time seemed to cease its procession through her life, a slow-motion journey that was left overrun by the quickened beating of her heart. And when the stranger reached for the quill, his large yet gentle hand brushed hers, a lightning-fast occurrence that lasted less than a second in time but forever in her soul, burning into her heart as if that nominal contact could ignite a torrent of emotions that would linger for an eternity. She raised her eyes to discern the man’s reaction but he had moved his head into the shadows and the wide brim of his hat obscured any emotion that his eyes would disclose. But his grin increased into a smile that made her heart flutter with apprehension, or was it anticipation?

She did not stay to find out. She dropped her velvet coin purse into the metal box that he had left open upon the table and she quickly turned to go. She hurried down the plank walk to the corner of the general store where she slipped around the edge of the building and pressed her back against the warmth of the wood. She placed a gloved hand upon her breast to steady her heavy breathing and to will her heart to slow its hastened pace. Then, against her better judgment, she leaned around the corner to steal another look at the man who had caused such a surge of sensations in her.