Paxton and the Lone Star by Kerry Newcomb Read Free Book Online Page B

fences ran up either side of the main drive and delineated twin paddocks where mares grazed peacefully while their colts frisked about them. Behind the show paddocks, a large two-acre garden lay to the west of the house, and a wide lawn complete with a gazebo and tables and chairs lay to the east. To the rear, stretching north and west, True could picture the hay fields and fenced meadows and horse barns where the Paxton thoroughbreds were raised and trained. Further to the east, where the land sloped down again along the back creek, two full sections would be green with corn and cotton and tobacco.
    True nudged Firetail with the heels of his boots and started the roan slowly up the drive toward the house. To his right, a mare looked up at him briefly. He could hear the dull thud of an axe at work behind the house, and from the edges of the fields where the black peoples’ cabins lay, the muffled voice of John Preacher exhorting his charges in their Sunday morning service. True was halfway up the circular drive in front of the house when he caught a glimpse of Lavinia, the housekeeper, emerging from her cottage and going into the garden. Smiling secretly, he turned off the drive and quietly guided Firetail through the garden gate.
    Lavinia had been brought to Solitary as a child and had lived all the rest of her nearly sixty years there without traveling more than ten miles from the front door. At one time, long ago, she had been slim and saucy and desirable. Now, her proportions were massive, and accentuated by a bright yellow blouse and skirt and an equally bright red embroidered apron and head kerchief. “Vestal!” she called, turning and raising a hand to shoo away the horse she heard coming up behind her. “You git that colt outa my gard … Oh, Lawd!” she exclaimed when she saw who it really was. “It’s True! Mr. True come home!” Her face lit by a broad smile, Lavinia trampled radishes and greens and carrots and onions as she ran across the rows toward True and, barely allowing him to dismount, enveloped him in flesh and gingham and garden smells and the honest aroma of cornmeal.
    He was home at last. Finally, once and for all, he was home. Grinning like an idiot and swallowing the hot lump in his throat, True extricated himself from the black woman’s grasp and held her at arm’s length. “Easy, Lavinia,” he laughed. “You’re gonna squash me before I get a chance to say hello.”
    â€œLawd, Lawd.” Lavinia’s head bobbed up and down and her eyes glistened with happy tears. “You a sight, boy. And if you wants to say hello, you’d best hurry, ’cause I’se sure gonna hug you a …” She stopped mid-word, and her smile turned to a mock glare. “Now, see here, Mr. True. You give a old lady a fearsome start riding up secret like that. Why just yesterday one of Vestal’s colts got loose and trolleeploded my garden something awful.”
    â€œTrolleeploded, huh?” True muttered, amused.
    Lavinia indicated a staggered row of broken plants. “Something awful,” she repeated, already dismissing the subject and going on to another. She looked around and behind True. “Where’s Mr. Joseph and young Andrew?”
    â€œProbably with Father and Mother by now. And wondering what’s become of me.”
    The black woman tilted her head and inspected True from the feet up. “Well, I hope they’re fitter lookin’ than you. You boys have breakfast yet, or just ride straight in?”
    â€œJust coffee.”
    â€œCoffee ain’t breakfast. What you been eatin’ the past two months, anyhow?”
    â€œOur own cooking, mostly.”
    â€œIt shows.” Lavinia clucked in disapproval and shoved True toward the horse. “Skinny as you has got, I’d best warm up some cornbread and gravy. And fry up a mess of them catfish Vestal brought in this morning, too.”
    â€œYou cook