Ryan's Hand (18 page)

For Cara, who had so much time on her hands, February passed surprisingly quickly. March brought a succession of unprecedented mild days, deceptive in their gentleness, with clouds scampering across the blue skies like fluffy lambs at play. Cara covered her garden with hay to prevent a sudden thaw, which would render her lilies and irises vulnerable to the inevitable spring freezes still to come. “Better to stay in deep freeze,” she muttered grimly to the frozen ground, remembering how she had suffered under the thawing warmth of Jeth's attention.

The daffodils were up, and she collected golden masses of them for the house and cemetery. One afternoon as she laid an arrangement of them on Ryan's grave, she fell to her knees and began to cry uncontrollably, her shoulders heaving from the fury of her grief. “Why, Ryan, why? Why did I have to come here? Was it to fall in love with him? You knew he would despise me. Why did you make me come, Ryan?”

A sudden noise made her lift her head and listen, and she heard the clop-clop of a horse's hooves cantering away. Horror-stricken, she stood up to observe Jeth Langston astride his bay, heading toward the ranch. The implacable back, the indomitable shoulders, the hard set of the black Stetson told her nothing. Had her words carried on the clear, dry air? Had he overheard her crying, or had he, seeing Lady tethered below, decided to bypass the cemetery for another day? Her shoulders slumped in despair. Would March twentieth never come?

She began to plan her escape. She would have to elude Fiona, whom she was sure now, in spite of the woman's growing affection for her, had been Jeth's watchdog. Cara would have to find a way to get out of the house and off the ranch without arousing suspicion. An idea, simple and foolproof, presented itself to her. She wrote for air and bus schedules, which, when they arrived, she was able to intercept without either Fiona's or Jeth's knowledge.

Like one who knows her days are numbered, she observed the world of La Tierra with a sharper awareness, committing to memory all of the sights and sounds that she would never know again. Leon caught her staring at him on a morning when spring was still pretending to have arrived. “What ya lookin' at me like that for?” he snorted affectionately. “Ya got a funny look on yore face, like yore sad about somethin'. Pretty girl like you shouldn't ever be sad, leastways not 'cause of an ol' geezer like me. Stop worryin' that I ain't well, 'cause I am!”

She haunted Fiona in the kitchen until the housekeeper accused her of being underfoot. “Go for a walk!” she finally advised in despair. “You're as jumpy as a rabbit in a gunnysack!”

With one day remaining, Cara could not resist playing the Steinway once more. She chose “MacArthur Park.” Her heart sang the lyrics while her fingers played the melody.
After all the loves of my life…after all the loves of my life…you'll still be the one…

“Very well done,” Jeth said gravely from the doorway of his study when she had finished. “You played that with great feeling.” Cara froze on the bench. She hadn't known he was in his study at this hour of the day. She'd thought he would be at the roundup of the remuda. It was time for the spring cattle drive again.

She turned to him with a face as smooth and cold as marble. “Thank you,” she said tonelessly, and walked from the room.

Once outside, she ran to the stable to saddle Lady. Her heart was beating frenziedly. Don't love anything out there, Harold St. Clair had warned her—no man, woman, or child; no horse or dog—not even an armadillo. How she wished she had taken his advice! Cara kept the gun Jeth had taught her how to use in the tack room, and with hurried, frantic motions, she sheathed it in the saddle scabbard. Once mounted, she urged Lady into a fast sprint even before the gentle mare was out of the corral. Cara thought she heard someone call to her, but it was only the wind that blew in her ears, she decided, only the homeless wind that knew her and called her by name.

Sometime later, Cara reined Lady to a halt, her attention caught by a flock of buzzards, the prairie's precursors of death, circling lazily in the distance. Some hapless animal is down, thought Cara, and kneed Lady into a lope. She had never had to put an animal out of its misery on the range, but she knew that it was a law among cattlemen to do so rather than let the sharp-beaked buzzards tear at the soft undersides and eyes of their still-living prey.

She found the object of the buzzards' interest a few minutes later. It wore the brand of La Tierra on its flank and lay in golden ruin at the bottom of a ravine, a blond-maned palomino whose attempted leap across the wide chasm had resulted in a fall that had snapped both forelegs. Cara saw at once there was nothing to be done. The legs lay at a crazy angle, and the weak rise and fall of the exposed side suggested that the end was very near.

She dismounted and removed the gun from its scabbard. As she descended the rocky incline, a shocking thought struck like a serpent inside her brain. She told herself not to be ridiculous, that there were dozens of palomino stallions roaming the range at La Tierra, and that the horse in the ravine was not the broken magnificence that had once been Texas Star.

The palomino's glazed eyes were open and watched her approach with a flicker of welcome in the brown depths. Cara's resolve faltered, and she knelt down and stroked the rough, dry coat. “I'm sorry, boy,” she spoke softly. “I'm sorry it has to be like this.” She had only to back away now, aim the rifle, pull the trigger, and be gone. It had to be done and delaying accomplished nothing for either of them. But the palomino gave a soft whinny and tried to nuzzle her hand, and a spasm of pity moved within her chest. “Don't—don't make it harder. It will all be over in a second. You won't feel a thing.” And then, because she had to know, Cara brushed back the hair at the base of the mane. There, pigmented into the hide, was a perfectly formed, five-pronged white star.

The cry she hurled toward the heavens startled the predators flying overhead, but only momentarily. The rush of their wings came nearer Cara's head. She roused herself with an effort and hurled a rock at the assemblage. Then, stepping back from the horse, she released the lever, sliding the bullet into the rifle's chamber. The palomino's ears perked at the loud click, as if he remembered the sound from the days when he had carried his master across the plains. Cara raised the .30-30 to her shoulder, and quickly, before tears could distort her aim, centered the sights on the white forehead and fired.

The report carried across the prairie and sent the scavengers flapping skyward in raucous number. The recoil slammed into Cara's shoulder and stunned her cheek, but she was beyond the impact of pain. Only Bill's words from the roundup found their way into the void of her mind: “I figure the boss thinks that as long as Texas roams La Tierra, a part of Ryan does, too.”

Deep in shock, Cara was barely aware of the gun slipping from her fingers, of the black-vested figure stepping in front of her frozen vision. From far away came the sound of her toneless voice. “I shot Texas Star, Mr. Langston. I shot Ryan's horse.”

“It's all right,
querida
, Cara. You did what you had to do. You have always done what you had to do.”

Like a robot she let herself be led out of the ravine and made to sit on the ground beside the big bay waiting for his master. Later, she did not remember being lifted onto the roomy saddle of Dancer, nor recall Jeth mounting behind her, cradling her in the safety of his arms. She only remembered, coming from somewhere, an acrid stench of mesquite smoke. It brought a sudden, quite total darkness, and she fainted.

When Cara awoke, she thought at first she had been asleep in the undulating cabin of a ship. She lay still and blinked. The soft, lapping waves receded, and her surroundings came into focus. She was in her room at La Tierra. Moonlight, cold and pale, filtered through the open blinds and across the blanket in which she was cocooned. A fire was crackling in the fireplace, throwing dancing shadows on the wall, mocking the fierce wind that whipped around the corners of the balcony.

For a merciful moment, Cara's mind was empty of all thought. Then, like the return of sensation after a stunning blow, memory of the afternoon flooded back to her.

“No!” Her denial was strangled as she fought to sit up and free her arms and legs from the entangling blanket. She must meet the returning tide on her feet—she could drown lying here like this.

Instantly a tall figure rose catlike from one of the fireside chairs and was at the bed as she sat up. “Easy, Cara, easy,” Jeth Langston spoke soothingly. “The first few minutes will be the hardest.”

With a total and utter sense of loss, a privation so great that she thought she would rather die than be denied this man for whom her soul craved, the realization came to her that this was to be her last night at La Tierra. After tomorrow she would never see him again. After him there would be no more lovers, no more deaths—only hers.
After all the loves of my life…

Cara tried to say his name, but a yearning, so intense that she feared it would rupture her chest, made it impossible to speak. Instead, she lay back down, turned away from him, and began to sob.

When the tears were spent, the bed beneath her face was soaked and she had another of Jeth Langston's large handkerchiefs clutched in her hand. “That must have been coming for some time,” he remarked, when Cara turned in surprise to find him still in the room.

Conscious of how puffy her eyes must look, how red her nose, she swung her legs to the floor. The bedside clock read nine o'clock. “You've been very kind to bother with me, Mr. Langston. I'm all right. Really. This is roundup time. You've plenty to do without having to bother about me.”

Jeth had pulled one of the wingback chairs up so that he could prop his booted feet on the bed. Without removing them, he said, “So Ryan told you about Texas Star, did he?” When Cara wearily nodded, he said simply, “He was in love with you, Cara. Don't you know that by now?”

She raised her head, comprehension breaking over her face like a quiet sunrise. She regarded the rancher sadly. Yes, Ryan had loved her, not as the friend she had thought, but as deeply, as passionately, as she loved his brother. How naive she had been not to have known. Then why had he sent her here to be abused by the brother he also had loved?

“Are you hungry?” he asked unexpectedly. “I had Fiona keep you something warm in the oven. I can bring it up to you.”

“No, I couldn't eat anything,” Cara answered. “I'd rather just have a bath.”

“Have one, then. I'll see you in about thirty minutes with something that will make you sleep. My mother used to make it for Ryan and me when we had a bad night coming up.”

Cara watched him walk to the door. As he opened it, she said softly, “You've had lots of those, haven't you, Mr. Langston? Bad nights, I mean.”

The rancher paused, hand on the doorknob. His expression was oddly tender. “No more than you, little girl. Thirty minutes.”

When Jeth returned, Cara was sitting listlessly before the fire in a white, long-sleeved granny gown that covered her from neck to ankles. A shawl of pink flannel was over her shoulders, and fluffy white house shoes peeped from beneath the hem of her gown. The light from the fire played on her blond hair and in the dusky violet depths of her eyes.

“You look like a little girl,” Jeth commented, handing her a hot mug of dark liquid. “All you need is a teddy bear to complete the picture of scrubbed innocence.”

“But we both know how misleading that would be, don't we?” Cara said cynically as she took the mug.

“Do we?” he said, with the still expression she could never read. Then he changed the subject abruptly. “There's a freeze expected by morning. Will your garden be all right?”

“Yes. I knew a freeze would come, so I covered it with hay. Weather is like people, always vacillating between hot and cold. Tell Fiona—” She stopped and caught her lip between her teeth. She had almost said,
Tell Fiona to remove the hay when the weather warms so that the iris bulbs can feel the sun.

Jeth asked, “Tell Fiona what, Cara?”

“Nothing. I don't know what I was about to say. I'm feeling rather groggy. This cocoa has alcohol in it.”

“Brandy. Drink it up. It's better than a sedative.”

Jeth had brought for himself a glass of bourbon, and they drank in silence, Cara thinking of tomorrow and Jeth's reaction when his lawyers called to inform him that Ryan's share of La Tierra had been restored to him free and clear. She had never intended to sell the land back to Jeth. Harold's letter, which she had received yesterday, had assured her that the appropriate papers would be in the hands of Jeth's attorneys tomorrow, the first day of spring.

“This is very good,” Cara said. “It goes down like warm fingers soothing away the hurt. Your mother must have been a wonderful woman.”

“I've only known one other like her.”

“The woman you're going to marry, of course.”

“Yes, the woman I'm going to marry. She is the most courageous person I think I've ever known, and I admire and love her with all of my heart.”

“Lucky her,” said Cara flatly, setting her finished drink down and getting up suddenly. “I think I'll say good night now, Mr. Langston—” The room began to spin like a kaleidoscope, and she thrust out her hands to steady herself. Her last fully conscious thought was of Jeth rising to catch them. After that she descended into a blissful oblivion in which she was buoyed up by something strong and swift that bore her away to a place of softness and warmth. In the dreamy depths in which she floated, she could feel Jeth's mouth, as soft as a whisper, against her lips. Over and over his lips found hers, and once she thought she felt the wetness of tears upon her cheeks, but they could only have been hers.

C
ara awoke the next morning instantly alert. Rigidly she forced from her mind the events of yesterday, which she recalled quite clearly, telling herself that she had to concentrate on the day at hand. She was fuzzy only about what had happened when she tried to stand up last night. Jeth had been talking about his fiancée, she remembered. Obviously she had fainted again, and he'd been obliged to put her to bed. The man would probably heave an enormous sigh of relief when she was gone!

Fiona looked at her sharply when she entered the kitchen but made no comment about Texas Star. The fact that she prepared Cara's favorite omelet, heaping it high with fresh tomatoes and peppers and the special picante sauce she loved, spoke more than words of her concern about Cara's ordeal.

When she had eaten, Cara said casually, “The bookmobile will be here in about an hour. May I have a paper sack to carry my books in? After it leaves, I think I'll go for a ride on Lady. She got shortchanged yesterday.”

Fiona nodded and went to the cupboard to get a brown paper sack. “You should rest today, señorita. You look too pale.”

Cara thanked her and went upstairs to pack what little she planned to take with her to Boston. The paper sack, of course, was for her few essentials. She would leave all the clothes Ryan had bought her, including the sable-lined raincoat. They had been meant, she knew now, to impress his brother, and had failed miserably. She touched the twin charms at her throat. The gift from Jeth she would keep; she could not have parted with it. She opened the bureau drawer that contained the three clean handkerchiefs of Jeth's she'd never returned. The one from last night she had washed and dried in the bathroom. It was ready to be folded with the others. After she had packed the paper sack, placing on top of her things the library books she meant to return when she escaped in the bookmobile, she went along to Jeth's room with the handkerchiefs. Without glancing around his quarters, she placed them on his bureau and hurriedly left.

Cara left the sack of “books” on the hall table, then went out to the stable to see Lady. The mare, too, was part of the plan. She intended to turn Lady loose without being saddled. If Jeth came looking for Cara, finding Lady gone, he would assume she was out on a ride. He wouldn't become suspicious until nightfall. By that time she would already be in Boston, having taken a bus from Alpine to Midland Air Terminal where she would catch a plane.

As Cara made her way to the stable, she noticed a number of ranch hands ringing one of the large corrals used to pen the remuda. There was no one to see her hide the saddle or turn Lady loose in the pasture adjoining the stable. Her heart was heavy as she started back across the ranch yard to wait for the bookmobile, which would soon be arriving. Homer Pritchard saw her and called, “Come see what the boss caught yesterday, Miss Martin! If he ain't a sight to behold!”

The group of men parted respectfully as she approached, and Cara gasped at what she saw. Inside the corral, bucking and snorting in derision of his captors, was the last unconquered challenger on La Tierra Conquistada.

“Devil's Own!” she cried with such familiarity that the men turned in surprise and looked at her. The horse heard her and stood still. He gazed in her direction, ears pointed alertly.

“You two know each other?” Homer queried in surprise.

“Indeed we do.” She turned angrily and addressed the men draped along the corral fence. “Don't you men have something better to do than to stand around gaping at that animal? Get off the fence!” she snapped. “Stop staring at him!”

“Cara, what are you doing?”

Recognizing the familiar voice, Cara wheeled to face the owner of La Tierra Conquistada, her eyes dilating in their fury.

“What do you intend to do with that horse?” she demanded tightly, vaguely conscious that every eye was on them and that the great black stallion was standing motionless in the center of the corral.

“Why do you want to know? What business is it of yours, little girl?”

“Don't call me
little girl
! I'm not a little girl! And I'm making that horse my business. What do you intend to do with him? Break him? For what purpose? You have hundreds of horses at your beck and call. Why do you need him?”

Jeth studied her closely. “Why is that horse so special to you, Cara? Why do you care so much what happens to him?”

“Listen to me, Jeth. Once that horse feels your saddle on his back, your bit under his tongue, he'll never be the same again. You'll brand his flank, but a horse like that…you'll be branding his heart. You may turn him loose when the roundup is over, but he would never be free again. If you can't love him, don't tame him. Isn't that what you once said to Ryan? And you could never love that horse. He's been too much of a thorn in your side.”

Jeth smiled slightly. “You don't think I could love something that has been…a thorn in my side?”

Cara shook her head.

“Well.” Jeth's voice was tender. Unexpectedly, he reached out and brushed a silken strand of hair out of her eyes. “We'll talk about it tonight. Go back to the house now.”

“It will be too late then.”

“No. I won't let it be too late.” An employee had come up from the headquarters building. “Boss, there's a call for you from Dallas. Sounds pretty urgent.”

Jeth gave the girl a soft glance. “We'll talk tonight.”

With a hollow ache Cara watched him walk away from her and disappear inside the headquarters building. The men began to disperse, and Cara turned back to the corral. Calmly, without hurry, she lifted the wire hoop that secured the gate, swung it wide, and stood waiting for Devil's Own to register her invitation. In less than a minute the ears flattened, the tail arched, and the startled shouts of the men were too late to deter the thundering hooves. With tail high and mane flowing, Devil's Own streaked through the open gate, past her to freedom, deflecting with ease the hastily thrown ropes of the few men who had gotten them into the air.

Cara had a glimpse of Homer's ashen face before she tore off across the yard to the house. Fiona was in the kitchen, unaware of what had transpired. “I hear the bookmobile coming, señorita,” she said.

Her escape was easier than she had ever imagined. She had simply asked Honoria for a ride into Alpine, and the young woman, glad of Cara's company, had eagerly granted her request. By early evening, Cara was landing at Logan International Airport in Boston where Harold St. Clair met her.

“My God!” was all he could say at first when she disembarked carrying her paper sack. She was almost unrecognizable in the blue jeans and flannel-lined jean jacket, her short hair the color of platinum.

“Hello, Harold.” She smiled and convinced him that she was really Cara. “Thank you for meeting me and for everything else you've done. My apartment really is available to stay in tonight?”

“Yes. The tenants left last week. Uh, is that your only luggage?”

“I'm afraid so. I left everything else at La Tierra.”

“So it would seem. That's why we've all been awfully worried about you.”

“Who is
we
?”

“Why, myself of course, and Jeth Langston, not to mention the whole ranch staff. When it was discovered that you were missing, Jeth Langston checked your room. None of your clothes were gone, and he thought something had happened to you. Apparently he must have turned the ranch and the whole county upside down looking for you, then something made him think that you'd taken a powder.”

He found the handkerchiefs, Cara thought.

“He checked the bus company and found out that you bought a ticket to the airport. In the meantime, his lawyers called me to find out if I knew your whereabouts. I told them I was expecting you late this afternoon.”

“Had they spoken already to Mr. Langston? Did he know La Tierra is his again?”

“He knew, all right. They got in touch with him this morning.”

Cara remembered the phone call that had interrupted her final conversation with the rancher. She suddenly felt drained. She was sorry to have worried Fiona or Leon unduly. “Could you get in touch with him tonight, Harold, and tell him I'm here? I made some friends at La Tierra I wouldn't want to be worried about me.”

“I'd be happy to, except that Jeth Langston seems to have disappeared, too. His lawyers can't find him, and his housekeeper has no idea where he's gone.”

“Disappeared?” Cara was aghast. “With the spring roundup at hand? He probably went to Dallas to be with his fiancée.”
To tell her the good news
, Cara could have added.
Now they can begin planning their wedding.

Harold's face appeared troubled as he bit his lip nervously. “Cara…there's something I must tell you—”

Cara's heart felt an apprehensive chill. “What is it?”

“A few days ago, as instructed, I mailed to Jeth Langston a registered letter that Ryan wrote shortly after he altered his will. It was to arrive on the twentieth of March.”

“Did it?”

“I don't know. I mentioned this to the Langston attorneys, who said, according to the housekeeper, the mail had arrived while Jeth was in the house. Whether the letter was among the correspondence, she didn't know. She had no idea whether he had signed for it. But he left shortly thereafter. As for his being in Dallas, he's not. His attorneys have checked. I just finished speaking with them before I picked you up. They thought perhaps he might come here.”

“To Boston? What on earth for? Jeth Langston didn't come to Boston when Ryan was alive. There would certainly be no reason for him to come here now. The letter probably upset him. He's gone off somewhere to be alone.”

At her apartment, Harold insisted on taking her out to dinner, at least a hamburger, he suggested, marking the clothes she was wearing and doubting whether the paper bag contained anything suitable for something more lavish. He thought of the red dinner dress with regret. Cara was not to try and put him off. She should eat, and in a couple of hours he would be back to take her out for a bite. In the meantime, while she rested, he would go back to the office and put in a call to La Tierra. As he was leaving, Cara said warmly, “Thank you for everything, Harold, especially for advancing the money I needed. You know I'll pay back every cent.”

“Cara, you don't owe me or the firm one nickel. Ryan took care of any and all expenses that you could possibly have incurred this year, which weren't many.” The lawyer gave her a diffident smile. “If I may say so, Cara, I am so glad you're back. I've been counting the days until you were. See you in a little while.”

When he had gone, Cara took her curling iron from the paper sack. She really should try to do something to look less like a waif, she decided, looking at her straight hair and unenhanced face in the mirror. How far away and long ago was that curly-haired, golden-skinned young woman who had once been reflected in her mirror. She had been so striking in her blue party dress and high-heeled shoes. Quite possibly, Cara would never see the likes of her again.

As she bathed, she wondered about the letter Ryan had written to be delivered on March twentieth. Very probably it explained to Jeth why she had come to live for a year on La Tierra Conquistada. It would have been like Ryan to clear her name with his brother, to end that chapter without a question mark remaining. But as for her, she would never be able to understand why Ryan had sent her there in the first place. There was a remote possibility that somehow Ryan had thought Jeth would come to care for her—though why, when he had known his brother had a perfectly suitable fiancée waiting in the wings? Surely Ryan would have known that Jeth would have found someone like her, a believed whore…intolerable. Perhaps the letter explained his reason for sending her there. Cara would never know.

She was ready by the time Harold's knock came at the door. She had put on makeup and her hair had been washed and softly curled about her face. Too bad about the flannel shirt and jeans, she thought, not really caring. Tomorrow she would get out of storage the dull, meager collection of clothes she had left behind a year ago. It was a good thing that she'd not discarded the old, brown “monk's cassock.” Her jean jacket was not suitable for the rigors of a New England spring.

Cara did not even make the effort to smile as she went to the door. Her heart was too full of Jeth, of the yawning emptiness of a future without him. She threw the door open wide as a recompense.

“Hello, Cara,” said Jeth Langston grimly from the doorway. Over his arm was draped the sable-lined raincoat.

For a paralyzed few seconds, Cara thought she was hallucinating. Jeth Langston could not possibly be standing at her door. But then the man in the fleece-lined jacket moved, stepped forward over the threshold, the gray eyes beneath the fawn Stetson never leaving her face, and the small, shabby room was all at once filled with the man's very real and dangerous presence.

Cara backed away, her mouth and eyes round Os of amazement. “Mr. Langston, what are you doing here? Surely you didn't come to—to get even with me for setting Devil's Own free?” In her alarm, it was the only reason she could think of.

“He's part of the reason I'm here, yes,” Jeth answered, kicking the door softly shut and advancing toward her.

“You—you monster! Can't you bear to lose anything you set your sights on!”

“No, Miss Martin, I can't bear to lose anything I set my sights on.”

“Well, content yourself with the knowledge that there's always another roundup. There will always be another opportunity to get your rope around that poor animal's neck!” She had retreated as far as she could go, furious with herself for letting him frighten her so. This was her apartment, her town, her land! How dare he come here and try to intimidate her!