Titans (13 page)

T
he lecture was to be given in the auditorium at Polytechnic College, an institution established in 1891 by the Methodist Episcopal Church to promote Southern Methodism. The campus was located four miles east of Fort Worth and advertised itself as safe from Hell's Half Acre, the notorious mecca for gamblers, prostitutes, and outlaws that continued to be a thorn in the side of the city council. As a result, the liberal arts venue attracted guest lecturers of some renown and large crowds to hear them. The lobby of the auditorium was thronged by the time Samantha and her escort arrived, Barnard craning his neck to spot Todd and Ginny.

“There they are,” he said, pointing at a group buried among the crowd.

Todd Baker and Ginny Warner were chatting with two men that Samantha took to be father and son based on their similar physical features and color of eyes, a remarkable shade of blue, she noticed when they drew to the group. The older man was speaking. As she and Barnard joined them, his eye lit upon Samantha, and he paused in midspeech. Todd's exclamations of surprised pleasure that Samantha had shown up—and with his best friend—covered the abrupt halt of the man's conversation. Introductions followed, Todd saying, “Mr. Waverling, may I present my best friends, Samantha Gordon and Barnard Laird. Sam, Barnie, this is Mr. Trevor Waverling and his son, Nathan. Mr. Waverling is the owner of the drilling tool company where I'm happy to say I'm employed.”

Samantha extended her hand to each of the men, a little disconcerted at the interest she'd attracted from the senior Waverling but who was too much of a gentleman to allow to linger. His son, too, appeared to make a conscious effort not to stare. Barnard addressed the older man as they shook hands. “I understand from Todd that your company is branching out into the manufacture of oil drilling tools, Mr. Waverling. That must be an exciting new venture for you.”

“It is indeed,” Trevor said and, with some reluctance, Samantha thought, turned his attention back to the subject under discussion when she and Barnard arrived. She withdrew mentally from the conversation to consider a possibility that had just occurred to her. Perhaps her emotional state of the last weeks was responsible for the idea, but cool logic would also have it that one day, somewhere, someone might stare at her and say, “You look so familiar, especially the color of your hair. Are you related to so-and-so?” One casually dropped comment—
You remind me of
—from an incidental encounter, and then those bread crumbs that Grizzly had warned her about might become whole loaves or at least a slice to lead to who knew where, what, or whom. Such incidences were not unheard of.

The sound of the gong announced that the lecture was about to begin, and as the group parted to seek their seats corresponding to the numbers on their tickets, Samantha had a moment to say boldly to Trevor Waverling, “I could not help but notice that you seemed to believe you knew me when Barnard and I joined you, Mr. Waverling, then decided not. Am I correct?”

“To a degree. The color of your hair reminds me stunningly of someone I used to know.”

“Then I hope it evokes a pleasant memory.”

“Unforgettable ones,” he said and was gone.

Samantha felt oddly deflated. What had she hoped to achieve by her question to the man and why?
I have no intention of following a thread anywhere, Grizzly
, she'd promised the cook. So why had she hoped to find one?

Barnard took her arm, and they followed Todd and Ginny to their seats. The Waverlings were seated many rows down, near the stage, but Samantha had a good view of their heads, their squared shoulders, now and then the lean, high-cheeked profile of the father and more stolid one of the son, before she became lost in the speaker's fascinating lecture.

He began by identifying himself as a hound in search of fossil-fuel rocks. These were energy-rich substances filled with hydrocarbons that produce coal, fuel oils, and natural gas, he explained. Fossil fuels are formed when an animal or plant dies, and its remains are preserved within a protective shield of sediment such as sand, limestone, and organic matter like volcanic ash. Over time—thousands, millions of years—heat and pressure harden this covering of sediment into rock, trapping within it the decayed organisms that can generate oil or gas. It was his job as a paleontologist to search out and study specimens of this oil-producing phenomenon buried beneath the Earth's surface and report his findings. Why? Because, within the decade, America would become ever more dependent on oil and gas to fuel all forms of transportation, to heat homes, generate electricity, and provide mechanical power to factories.

Samantha listened, somewhat repulsed. When she had studied paleontology, the purpose had been to learn more about the animals and plants that had once inhabited the Earth. She could still remember the reverent thrill of her first analysis of a chunk of sedimentary rock where an animal's remains had decayed, leaving an empty space. Minerals had filtered down into this space and hardened into rock that formed a shape just like the animal that had died there. When she was in school, the process of fossilization had been studied for its own sake, not to inflate the pockets of investors drilling for money.

She was glad when the lecture was over and they were seated in the restaurant at the Worth, the city's first luxury hotel that also housed the town's finest restaurant. Sipping wine prior to the arrival of her pheasant-under-glass, Samantha listened without much interest to the others' eager discussion of the speaker's points. “Petroleum will displace agriculture as the principal locomotive of the state's economy, you mark my words,” Todd was pontificating, as Samantha happened to glance over her shoulder and spot Trevor Waverling and his son at the hotel registration desk. She surmised that they were staying overnight, rather than taking the train back to Dallas so late. She did not wish to interrupt Todd's discourse, so Samantha waited until he had finished to alert him of his boss's presence in the hotel. Perhaps he'd like to invite him and his son to join their table, but when she looked again, the Waverlings were gone.

Monday fell on April ninth. “The original date for Fool's Day,” Estelle announced at breakfast. “A proper date for the fool's errand your father is sending you on, Samantha.”

Samantha exchanged a roll of eyes with Mildred, who was already dressed for the train they would take in less than two hours. The housekeeper was pouring the last round of coffee, a smock protecting the blouse and skirt of her gray mutton-sleeved traveling suit she'd bought especially for the occasion. She had never ridden on a train or spent a night in a hotel. Mildred's usually impassive face showed a hint of animation at the prospect of an adventure and amusement at her mistress's dire predictions of the doom that would befall it.

“You're making that up, Mother,” Samantha said. “Fool's Day has always been celebrated April first.”

“As the
beginning
date to celebrate
fooldom
,” Estelle huffed. “Why in the world your father thinks we need another ranch is beyond me.”

“He wants to become a titan.”

“Well, he can forget it. He'll never catch Robert Kleberg and Dan Waggoner.”

“He has to try.”

Estelle insisted on seeing them off at the station, adding to the flurry of departure by pelleting them with questions too late to address when their feet were on the boarding steps. Did Samantha have her derringer in her purse? Had Mildred packed the sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs? Did the girls remember to bring their fans? Did they have their smelling salts? Their books?

Finally, they were away, seated in a Pullman car in the first-class section of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, known affectionately as the Katy. With the deep stillness inherited from the race of her father, Mildred gazed out the window at the panorama of the rushing countryside, but after a while Samantha's silence drew her attention. Her mistress's daughter seemed indifferent to the original experience she was enjoying.

“What's the matter, Miss Sam? You seem down in your feelings.”

“Just thinking, Mildred,” Samantha said.

“Thinking or scheming?”

Samantha glanced at her, marveling. “Nothing gets by you, does it, Mildred? Yes, I suppose you'd say I'm scheming. Once our business is through in Gainesville, I'm going to leave you on your own for a while.”

Mildred's dark eyes clouded with suspicion. “Where will you be?”

“On a little trip.”

“Without me? I'm to stay by your side, Miss Sam.”

“I don't want to involve you in what I'm about to do. What you don't know can't get you fired.”

Mildred shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Miss Sam, you're scaring me, and that ain't easy to do.”

“All I ask is that you not tell my parents that I disappeared for a while.”

“I ain't going to tell them nothing about nothing, but I'm sticking to your side whether you want me to or not, so you might as well tell me what you're up to.”

Samantha hesitated. As with Grizzly and Wayne, she could trust Mildred to keep a secret. Of all people, the one-time kidnapped child of the Comanche would understand why she must do what she had to do with this opportunity so close at hand. She faced the housekeeper. “Swear to me that my answer will stay between us.”

In the Comanche way, Mildred pressed a balled hand to the area of her heart. “I swear,” she said.

“I'm going to take the ferry across the Red River into the Oklahoma Territory. There's a doctor I want to see in Marietta.”

T
he train chugged into the station on schedule, allowing time for the women to register and deposit their portmanteaus in their rooms at the Harvey House, which was within walking distance of the depot. They forewent luncheon, having eaten their sandwiches and boiled eggs on the train. Samantha consulted the ferry schedule posted on the reception counter and made arrangements for transportation to the departure dock at nine o'clock the next morning. She should have her business over with in time to return to the hotel, collect their travel bags, and catch the two o'clock train home.

Samantha did not know what excited her most: the probability that at the conclusion of her visit to the farm, La Paloma would have a thoroughfare to the Red River or the possibility that the man she was going to meet knew and would disclose the full details of her birth. The latter, she thought, feeling a nip at her conscience. The women were sipping coffee at a table in the meeting place of the small café attached to the depot. They had chosen a spot that gave a view through the window of the street outside where the representative of the Barrows farm would likely appear.

“You have any idea what this Barrows man looks like?” Mildred asked.

“I figure I'll know him when I see him,” Samantha said. “He'll have the manner of somebody looking for someone and will probably be in a hurry since he's late.” In the time they'd been at the table, several possibilities had come and gone, but only to meet passengers. Samantha pulled at the chain of her lapel watch to check its face. It was an annoying ten minutes past the scheduled appointment.

The sound of a buckboard and mare clattering to a stop before the window raised her hope that he'd arrived, but the driver was a woman. Samantha and Mildred watched her alight. She was slightly built, ramrod straight in posture, and brisk in her movements. A calico neckerchief and a straw hat with a wide brim set just above her eyes almost covered her face. She wore a jacket with its sleeve ends tucked into the cuffs of work gloves and a sturdy pair of boots brushed by the hem of her skirt. Her footsteps when she reached the wooden porch were quick and purposeful, and Samantha found herself raptly watching the door when the woman barged in. She paused to survey the room, her mouth clamping tight in evident chagrin at not finding the passenger she'd come to collect. After a few more seconds, she turned on her boot heel and went outside to take a seat on the bench to wait, the high crown of her straw hat visible through the front window.

Samantha and Mildred traded looks, then giggles. The haughtiness of the woman had struck them as comical. “Now there's a woman whose husband has learned when it's wise to duck, I'll bet!” Mildred said.

Another hour went by, the coffee shop clearing of customers in the lull between the arrival and departure of the Katy but for a noisy family of six and two women at another table. Even the woman with the hat had disappeared in her buckboard. Samantha felt an emptiness fill her stomach. The seller wasn't coming. The farm had already sold. Her father would be devastated. After another twenty minutes when the seller did not appear, she and Mildred pondered what to do. They both agreed that the farm had probably been sold or taken off the market and the owner did not have the courtesy to let them know. “Nonetheless,” Samantha said, “I can't leave here on only a guess that's what happened. Daddy will expect me to make sure.”

She left her seat at the table and consulted the stationmaster, who had come in for a coffee. Did he know the location of the Barrows farm? Absolutely, he said, and gave them directions. With Mildred in tow, Samantha walked back to the hotel and booked a ride to their destination with the cabbie of the same conveyance she'd arranged to take them to the ferry. They passed fertile crop lands on the way, Samantha on the lookout for the crossroads sign that would indicate the beginning of the Barrows farm. Not long past it, she spotted a man in overalls and cloth cap in a heated one-sided exchange with a mule hooked to a plow in a field of new wheat.

“Stop here,” she ordered the cabbie. “I'd like to speak to that man.”

The cabbie drew to the fence and Samantha stepped down. The man in the field left his mule and plow and walked toward her. He had a rather loping gait that suited his open, friendly face despite his chagrin at the mule. “May I help you?” he called before he reached the fence.

“Good afternoon,” Samantha called back. “Is this the Barrows farm?”

“It is.”

“Are you the owner?”

As the man drew nearer to the fence, he reached to remove his cloth cap and his hand seemed to freeze on the bill. He stopped in his tracks, and for a few seconds, he stood as still as a sculptor's subject.

It's the hair, Samantha thought. They were all taken by the color of her hair.

“No,” the man said, his response slow, his eyes thoughtful. “I'm the hired help.”

“I had an appointment to meet the owner in town today to speak to him about buying his farm, but he didn't show up. Is the farm still for sale?”

The man reached the fence. “And your name, miss?”

“Samantha Gordon. I came on behalf of my father, Neal Gordon. He made arrangements by telegram to meet a representative of the Barrows farm at the depot coffee shop. Do you know anything about that?”

“ 'Fraid not. I'm not told much.” The man put his cap back on. “The farm, though, it's been sold. Went pretty fast.”

Disappointed, Samantha said, “I figured as much when nobody showed up.” She gazed out over the rows of healthy young wheat, straight as an army on parade. “I can understand why it sold so quickly. Well, thank you. I'll report to my father.”

“You do that,” the man said. “Good day to you.”

“And to you,” Samantha said, climbing back into the buggy.

Leon stood at the fence until the long stretch of road was quiet and empty. Not long ago, Millicent had pulled up to this very spot in the same mood as when she'd left—mad as a she-bear with a sore tooth. She rarely drove the buckboard, because the reins did not leave her hands free to hold a parasol, so she'd assumed that he would be the “Barrows representative” to meet Neal Gordon and bring him to the house, but Leon wanted no part in the sale of the farm. Fuming and fretting, covered from head to toe against the sun, Millicent had been the one to set off to collect the sender of the telegram come to buy her land.

“Damned man didn't show up,” she'd barked.

“Well, then, it wadn't meant to be,” he'd said.

And now Leon believed that was so. It wasn't meant for the father of the young woman just here to buy the Barrows farm. Leon still felt chills running through him. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, at first sight of her, he'd thought he was looking at Millicent's long-lost daughter, then got ahold of himself. Fate wouldn't be so blackhearted, so downright mean, to bring her back to them in such a way, looking to buy unknowingly the farm where she was born and given away, but for a crazy moment there, seeing that hair…

Unbeknown to Millicent, not long after the twins were born, Leon had taken the ferry across the Red River and hitched a ride into Marietta, Oklahoma Territory, where Bridget Mahoney lived and worked for a Dr. Tolman. He got nothing from the midwife when he asked what had happened to the little girl. “You people have forfeited your right to know,” she'd said, but Dr. Tolman had taken pity on him.

“I gave her to a ranching couple close to Fort Worth. She'll be all right,” he'd said, and that was all Leon could weasel from him.

Leon had traveled to Fort Worth a few years after that and caught himself wondering if one of the little girls the age of Nathan he saw on the street could be his daughter, for he thought of her that way—as his own, as he would always believe that Nathan was his son. A child did not have to be of a man's flesh and blood to be counted as his own as long as he was part of his heart and soul. That was the connection that mattered.

Leon could guess exactly what had happened in the train depot coffee shop. Both women had gone expecting to meet a man. Neal Gordon's telegram had not said anything about sending his daughter, and Millicent had not wanted her name printed in the advertisement—“emblazoned for all the world to see,” she'd said. No telling what sort of man might turn up if he thought her a widow eager to get rid of her husband's farm.

The shock of his first impressions of the girl had forced Leon to lie, a sin of which he was rarely guilty. Leon couldn't quite explain it to himself other than he could not see the farm going to a young woman with hair the color of what his daughter's might be—who, though her pretty face and figure were not cut along the same lines as Millicent's, could have been born from her womb. He turned to go back to his mule and plow. On second thought, he couldn't entirely discount fate's hand in the events of this afternoon. Fate was a strange customer. If old Mopey Dick, as Leon called his mule, hadn't gone into one of his blue moods and refused to budge, he would have been in the north pasture when that buggy went by.