Way Back in Texas

By George Zamalea

: There are three women and three destinies: Fossie, 68, is deeply shocked and grieved to hear that her only daughter has left her newborn girl with her the middle of the night and disappears without knowing what really has happened to her. Charlotte, 23, learned only yesterday of her mother's disappearance and her action several years later, grew of being an astonished young woman spending so much time at this world fantasying as a different girl and demanding for herself the perfect love for her young heart while she is nursing her grandmother. Bärbel, 35, after a distressing shock to learn of her lover's death and blamed her father for it, while she is taking care of her sick mother who is mean to her, resigns her position as a woman in love by burying notes into the ground. All of these play a major role in front of the Independence of Texas in which the story grows in dimension with just fascination reaching a happy ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Zamalea
• Release date: Apr 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311782434

George Zamalea

George Zamalea is a graduated student with degrees in Literature, Philosophy and History. Mr. Zamalea Lived in Spain, France, Italy, and Brazil. He received a recipient of Creative Writing & Language in USA. Awards: First place of the 2011 International Latino Book Awards in the category of Best Spiritual / New Age book in English with the Six Seasonal Amendments, A Hispanic Inspiration. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, Latino Now, NALIP, Writing & Nonsense Club and American Hispanic in Journalism. His publications and literary journals include the Screech Owl, and others. He is currently working on Animal. He Lives in Rosamond, California.

Book preview

Sweet Agua, Texas Mexico Territory, 1830 to 1831

What can I do to show you I love you?

Charlotte Rozzy McNeal Rowland frowned at the young man who was squiring his eyes across from her.

Nothing, Mr. Dough Morgan, she said quietly.

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise as his voice had become high and hysterical. Nothin’? Do you mean nothing at all? But how can I show it? You ought to say something to me, Miss McNeal Rowland.

As she was about to turn, she halted suddenly. With such elegance of her right hand covered with a pair of white gloves, she replied with self-importance. Very well, Mr. Doug Morgan, you can show me by cleaning down the field behind the stable. Without losing her composure, she turned back and began to walk along a well-worn trail. She walked down to the riverbank and crossed a stream with mossy rocks to reach the other side; for that was where she could go home, while Doug Morgan’s voice continued hearing.

That isn’t love, Miss McNeal Rowland.

Whatever it is in your heart it cannot be changed my demand, Mr. Doug Morgan, and the question is, are you with the needing to be stepped off by turning a girl’s nose up? You put yourself on that position, haven’t you?

There may be another way, he said shouting, walking toward the groundhog site, glowing up with anger in front of Rozzy’s indifference. The girl kept walking toward the westward stretches, moving past the dried terrain, watched the squirrels and chipmunks play; but she continued moving over the wounded, tumbled pathway, which a range of the vast prairie of Sweet Agua and green land that never meet; she turned then abruptly westbound. Roughly down the center, the road spreads. Ahead there were the twanged strips of rocks and brushes that were belonging to her territory. The land of McNeal-Rowland was an endless sea of grasses and burrowing owls under a vast blue bawl of July’s sun.

On a map of Sweet Agua, roughly divided the path where country changed several miles to the small town of Brazos – Sweet Agua was asserted and protected. All of these, however, were belonging to the two survivors of the McNeal-Rowland family – Fossie McNeal, her grandmother, Charlotte, her granddaughter. Their possessions were two cows, Mi and Pi, an ox, Owel, three horses by names of Pinto, Chance, a dozen of chickens, a wagon, and three pigs, and they were Papa Hol, Mama Ura, Lean.

By this time Doug Morgan’s voice was gone. Now there was a solemnly silence of natural beauty where the birds and possums and burrowing owls and prairie dogs scampered their territory in busy ways in the trees and in the ground. A quarter of a mile down into the most healthful land there was the windmill that dominates the hillside. Rozzy knew she was in familiar territory. Surrounded by vegetable fields, wheat, the stable and cattle yard, the white brick house gracefully emerged. She pressed her steps. She noticed on one of the windows was her grandmother. Quickly she removed her white gloves and hidden them into one of the deep pockets of her old long but nice dress. The old woman in the window made a gesture which it seemed characteristic of her. There was no more from her while Rozzy had disappeared into the stable several feet from the main entrance of the house. The old woman stretched her long neck but she was unable to see the girl. She shook her head, and yet there was an icy expression across her cocky face. It was indeed a gawk of disbelief when she saw Rozzy again coming from the stable. She was different. She now wore duty boots; long cotton shirt and this loosen pant as many as a dozen like her would able to fix into it. Reacting by the girl’s outfit and after a moment, there was a sad smile tensed up across the old woman’s face. The girl did not have that flash of superiority now. Instead her eyes narrowed with contempt when she had noticed the expression of her grandmother.

What, Grandma? Say it? Do I look ridiculous and with snobbish horror? I won’t mind. It has happened before, hasn’t it?

Her grandmother took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. When she spoke, she had chosen her words carefully. I have said nothing and I think it’s a good signal of what you try to accomplish! Slim and elegant in appearance, with her sleek cotton coat of light black, her eyes sharp and that goggled expression, Rozzy’s grandmother focused her body language.

The girl grinded her teeth but she was able to hide that snarl of agony spreading over face. You’re remarkable adore, Grandma. That is why I love you so much. For any reason, I may say, I will not be upset. Why should I? Ah! These July’s days are just marvelous. Her eyes glinted with pleasure and stood there in a few feet from her from the window. It’s all there, Grandma. Spring is here and we must do the best we can to grasp it. She walked to the house and stood there in the middle of the floor. Have you seen the garden and the tallest hills and the prairie? You must see them. The sun drops and those magpies and cowbirds and ducks and those squirrels and those butterflies are so busy! My goodness! They appear as if Lord of Glories has given them another life as you have said to me many times. All the earth is walking with golden wings. They are in love and all around us have such blooms, and whatever it may be, I tell you, Grandma, I did feel it since this morning. And, just in case I forget-me-nots along this desolated passage, I did not find a man with such range of magnetism. Well, I will serve you now your diner, Grandma. I know you will be starved.

With the same emphasize, she kissed her hurryingly, and she began to walk to the spacious kitchen.

Did you meet Mr. Doug’s son?

Ah, Grandma, she said mysteriously. I haven’t found any owl, and I was glad.

The grandmother gazed at the girl walking toward the kitchen and a wounded look in the eyes all was one could be able to see.

Chapter 2

In the summer of 1830, Charlotte McNeal Rowland was in her twenties. She had violent red long hair, lustrous and silky. Her eyes were holly green, deep-set, fringed with long black lashes, high rosy cheeks and round firm chin. She was indeed considered an exceptional beauty in this part of Texas Mexico. Her face had that Angelic look; it was comely delicate and chiseled and all bony set in a permanent frown. Her forehead was dimpled by such girlish and her jaw was melting shapely and her lips were sensually protruded with pearly teeth and there was a strong will never see from a young woman like her. She had a firm slim body; her waistline was a mere trifle, and while the clothing she was wearing was belonging to her grandmother when she was a teen, that was what her grandmother had been telling her, she had alternated them to her shape and they made her permanently gorgeous. In her free time she changed from dirty clothing into the nice ones, wearing gloves, and showing such well-set figure like hers. In that moment, there was a dream, pluming what it must be living in big cities, facing the unpredictable meaning of life. Sometimes she acted boldly; mixing with that purity of her age; which was in essence her reentered innocence that goes beyond the myth of female superiority and that had also consistently upset in front of a dozen of admirers who, viewing by her own way of seeing as hungry wolves had nothing yet to offer. So far, she was untouchable; emphasizing the real one had not arrived yet ideally rejected as a Doug Morgan who had failed to understand her unique desire. Sometimes she was sarcastic, ironic, or crude, which it had become fashionable in her world that here, in this dried, desolated country, she would never find the real one. Here, there was a psychological sense if one wish to admit it, a discovery other may say, or a momentum that could cheerfully replace the truth of her world. That was, being loved, not being seen as a sex object, a beauty; rather what her heart could give. Her passionate comment of love could not be pervasive to give her virginity away. A fact one knew if it was part of Aphrodite and Hera with their jealousies could give her an advice. No one could consider her an ignorant country girl. Over the opposite tendency of the girls who lived more than three hundred miles from where she lived, she had been taught by her grandmother and by the symbol of nature how to defense herself and not give up her honor such as a booty momentum. She was perfectly healthful, and by looking it she was very strong in front of this rugged countryside. Nevertheless, she was curious, finding answer almost on everything, learning all around her. Like these mysteries of prairie-dogs, American bison and the whooping cranes now that they were scampered and fully drawing with small babes. She knew there was a change; a moment of wondering. It was a kind of blessed light that fall slowly over them and the nature. Since her growing up, however, and the possibility of God’s existence, she had seen her body into those drastic changes. She had clarified the difference between the psychological fact of girl’s belief and now as a grown young woman. She had seen it when she went to town and she had observed those individuals appeared to torn her into ashes. She had seen it for the past five years inside those yellowed white eyes of Doug Morgan stared at her; they seemed set in fire. She felt it and sometimes it scared her. At the same time, which produced so much mystery, she wondered why her body and her face would bring such desire in front of them. Have other girls experienced the same? She doubted.

Charlotte lived in Sweet Agua since she could remember. Sweet Agua was somewhere in Texas Mexico territory; her grandmother had said a four-month journal she was able to reach a place called San Antonio de Béxar. She never has tried but according to her platonic lover Doug Morgan it was only fourteen days by horses. This part of Sweet Agua was belonging to her grandmother. Whether there and there was belonging to her and when she dies all would be belonging to her. No one lived around this parcel. Not either Doug Morgan, who was still galloping his horse to reach Espejo Hill- several miles toward Dark Lakes. This was her place. In summer there was a movement of dry beauties, changes, birds and animals all around. Wild roses, a passion from her grandmother in gathering them, grew in the gardens or below the river below and there was a smell downturn everything. In this season, where the sun was hottest, she was able to climb on top of the slops. She watched the hills with its green blankets and the footwork; the trees happy and there was a battalion of butterflies fly around. The birds were noisier. By the midday there was the stillness of this place that was engulfed her very being. Somehow here and there, watching from the hilltop, she was able to see some Indians moving deep into Mexican territory and there were the dirty cowhands of Mexican vagueros crossed the prairie and deepened their horses to that part of the countryside. So far none of them had been able to cross the tallest wall of rocks and mountain an appeals of handiwork of God to reach Sweet Agua.

In the autumn, there was a change in the passage. The harvest crops had been collected and housed underneath in the family house. She cleared up the yard and made chess and butter and bacons and kept a good portion of food away. She cut off the wheat and with her grandmother she would select the best seeds for next planting. She moved around the house and took care of everything on her way. She kept her grandmother under her medication and together they decided what to do next.

She washed clothing. She would make her grandmother to step outside in the porch for a while. The sun was not hot, and the breeze from the hills was lovely. When later she came from the river, she would spread clothing on the rocks and would give her grandmother her medicine along with her afternoon snack. Her grandmother would retire for an hour to siesta. Hours late Charlotte stopped and listened to the winds and looked at the clouds. She wondered around. Collecting here and there precious stones, and she would dress nicely, and she would be there watching the river or she would wander from hillside into glade with a book that had been reading a hundred of time, Mary Astell. In the evening, after she had fed her grandmother and now sleeping, she sat along in the porch as the evening sounds whispering to her what those stars meant to her. Instead of fragrant flowers and the green of the hills, shining stars coming to her with different message, and now lay there on her bed, with her window open, another gentle whispering message reached her. As it carried so much mysteries across the room, and as it chanted softly I am closer to you as her heartbeats were heard upon.

By now she stood still. She would not move and it seemed it goes forever, and her large breasts were the only living forces that seemed alive moving up and down. When she reached those moments, she was lost. Her grandmother had not told her what to do when she reached this level of uncertainty, and she would dare to ask her. Before it had come and then it would go away.

But in this evening it kept upon her, pressing hard upon her. By now it was inside her. Suddenly she slipped off from the bed and knelt on the floor and she started to moan and to sigh and to weep as those mysterious thoughts kept screwing her young soul. She scurried out of the house and the cool breeze made her to run. She did not know where to go, but she did not care. She began to run, not thinking on nothing but to run and to resolve her own enigma not to think about those mysteries. It had happened, and she was able to control them by praying, and then a good night sleep would follow it. They had come