Felicia Andrews

by Moonwitch

  As she crossed the open land, she saw cords of wood stacked against the side of the house, protected from the December rains by a slanting plank roof. She smiled to herself. He has enough there to last thirty years, she thought and shivered suddenly when a damp gust crawled under her collar and slipped down her spine.

  A grim sort of beauty; but she wished it would hurry up and snow and get it over with.

  Olivia met her on the porch, a heavy sweater under her coat, a scarf wrapped around her head.

  They had not spoken since Amanda's return from Goreville; the excitement that had infected the ranch, and the town, had not touched her directly. Amanda understood the changes Livy was suffering, first seeing Amanda almost dying before vaulting back to life, seeing Harley slowly but inevitably breaking back out of his shell and placing himself foursquare at Four Aces's side for the battle they all felt sure would come.

  But Maitland had done nothing.

  Several times since, Amanda had gone into town on one pretext or another to test the wind and see if she was being hunted. Opinion, apparently, had slowly swung back in her direction and the greetings she received were just about normal, as though the past year had not been and nothing had changed.

  But Maitland had done nothing.

  He had, it was said, hidden himself away in the house on the Circle B and did all his business by messenger. Eagleton still held the badge, but Kurtz had told him that there would be an election in the spring since there were a few people, including Cole Anders, who coveted the job and were just as qualified. Eagleton bore no grudges, telling anyone who would listen that he had taken the position temporarily only. In the meantime, however, he behaved as before, though his conversations with Amanda were limited to hellos and good-byes.

  They had waited, then, with the hands fully armed and patrols making the rounds until the preparations for winter took over their priority. Alex believed Maitland was digging in for the winter, that he would take the hibernation months to reinforce his insanity and move at the first thaw. Harley agreed, as did most of the others.

  Amanda was not sure. His previous years of planning had almost brought her to her knees, and when she had recovered, she knew . . . she had felt when she had seen him, standing in the sun in the middle of the street, that he had finally been pushed over the last brink. She slept well, but lightly; she made sure she always carried the knife in her boot; and she did not believe for a minute that Maitland was done.

  The equation was simple: everything legal, and unprovable, had failed-now there was only one thing left to him to exact his revenge.

  In a way, curious and melancholy, she pitied him. For years after he had engineered the death of her father and had driven her from the family home and business, she had plotted and schemed for a way to destroy him. His life wasn't enough; she wanted every drop of blood. And it was not until she realized that there were more important, and lasting, matters to attend to-Guy, Bess, Little Cat, and more-did she allow herself to relax and let the law take its course.

  She knew, then, the torment he was suffering, the thirst for retribution that demanded to be quenched.

  But unlike herself, Simon Maitland was demented. Quietly, gently, lethally insane.

  And then, while she was eating lunch and laughing with Bess about one book or another, a note had come from Olivia. It was terse and cold, but nevertheless a beginning.

  She smiled and held out her hand as she climbed up the steps. Olivia accepted the gesture; her fingers were chilled. They looked at each other for several searching moments before Olivia turned away and looked out over the yard.

  "If it don't snow soon," she said, "I'm goin' to start shootin' at the sky just to get it goin'."

  Amanda sat back against the railing, her arms folded over her chest. "I know what you mean. This gets to be pretty dismal stuff after awhile."

  Olivia pulled mindlessly at the ends of her green scarf. "I love my husband, Amanda," she said, obviously believing the amenities had been done.

  "So do 1," Amanda said and did not flinch when Olivia glared. "Other than Sam, he is the oldest friend I have. On more times than I'd like to remember, he risked his life for me, and for Guy, and for the ranch. He built this place up to what it is now. All I'm doing is keeping it going. Guy wasn't a rancher and everyone knew it. He was a gambler out of his element. It was Harley who kept this place in one piece until I could learn the ropes, and it was Harley who made sure that I didn't act like a complete ass all the time. "

  She looked then at Olivia, whose expression was unreadable. She swallowed and prayed that the right words would come.

  "When his first wife ran off with that man from California, and his daughter died, it was Four Aces that kept him from falling apart. I was part of Four Aces."

  "He loves you," Olivia said flatly, not bitterly.

  "He probably does, in a way. But if he does, Livy, it's the way I love him. As a friend, though he may not realize it just now. A friend. You love him as a friend and a woman." She smiled gently. "That's more than I can do for him, Livy, a hell of a lot more . "

  "But you don't have a man," she said, a slight frown o n her brow.

  Amanda knew the remark was not meant cruelly, but she could not help feeling the pang. "I . . . I don't seem to have much luck with them," she said, turning around to face the brown grass. "Two of them have died, and two of them have turned out to be enemies of mine. " She shook her head once. "Somewhere, I think, my deck was shortchanged. "

  " I thought we were going to make it," Olivia said then, softly, to the ground, as if she expected no listeners. "All of a sudden we were over there with Hope, and just as quick we was almost ownin' the place. I know it wasn't really us that bastard was after, but because it was you, see, it had to be your fault." She turned her head. "Do you see, Amanda? It had to be your fault! You told him not to sign them papers, and it wasn't him that did it, it was me. I was the one who talked him into it. I thought . . . " She grimaced and looked away again. "I thought it would get you away from him. He wouldn't never have to come back to you. " Her laugh was sudden and sharp. "And now look where we are. Right where we started. "

  "Right," Amanda said, "where Harley wants to be. "

  "Because of you!"

  She shrugged. "You may be right, Livy, I don't know. But if it is true, it isn't because I've been leading him on. I haven't given him a single excuse to think that I would . . . you know what I mean. Not one damned excuse."

  Olivia hunched her shoulders, straightened, and stared at the wind. "I think I know that, most times. But you're stronger than me, Amanda. Look what you done that time, ridin' in like that, like some kind of queen, like you owned the place. You faced up to that man, and he backed down like a muskrat.You—"

  "No, Livy," she said quickly. "Don't underestimate him.

  He didn't back down. He only pulled in his head. He1l be back. I know it."

  The air grew suddenly more damp; Amanda stepped down off the porch and stared up at the sky. The gray was turning over to black, and the light was dimming.

  She plunged her hands in her pockets, wishing she'd worn her gloves.

  "Olivia," she said, trying to keep her tone steady, "Harley is your husband, and he loves you like a husband. And damn it, you are as strong as I am when you put your mind to it. " She looked at her sideways, one eye squinting. "You're the only one who can make him see the difference between you and me.

  "But what more can I do? I cook and I mend and-"

  Amanda laughed and turned her head away from the gusts that had finally become a wind. "Livy, if Harley wants a maid like those English lords and such, he can probably find one pretty cheap down at Sophie's. And he could use those same women fur a lot of other things, too . " This time she did not laugh, though the expression on Olivia's face nearly choked her to death. "You have to be Olivia, Livy. You have to be the woman he married. And the day you stop thinking so much about me as your competition and more as your friend. . . " She spread her a
rms wide and tilted her head.

  Olivia took a deep breath. ''I'm glad you carne over, Amanda. "

  "So am I . "

  A single large flake spiraled onto her cheek.

  "At last!"

  Olivia grinned as the gray air began to turn white. "White Christmas, " she said.

  Ten days, Amanda thought; most likely she's right.

  "Amanda?"

  She had started walking toward the low slope and the black wall of the trees. When she turned around, Olivia was touching at her hair nervously, the scarf in her hand.

  "Amanda, it'll . . . it'll be all right, won't it?"

  She nodded. "It can't get any worse. "

  Olivia laughed and quickly ducked back into the house. Amanda drew up her collar and put her head into the wind as the snow thickened, lashing now off the back of the wind. By the time she reached the grove, the bark on the north side was patterned brown and white, and the low clumps of grass looked as though they were sprouting down. By true nightfall, she judged, there would be an inch or more, and she did not think tomorrow's sun would be strong enough to melt it all off.

  Beyond the grove, as she moved down the slope, the lights of the house glowed a warm, comforting yellow. She could hear noise from the stables and knew Alex and Sam were getting in the horses and probably cursing at the hay they'd left outside. Fae would be warming milk in the kitchen, and Grace would be trying to talk Bess out of ghost stories for after dinner.

  Winter, she thought, and a shudder raced through her, sparked by the cold.

  Five minutes later she was standing in front of the fireplace, warming her hands and muttering to herself. Bess had gone back to her room to play with her dolls, and there was no one else with her but dark dancing shadows. And in those shadows she saw briefly the harried face of her father, smiling and nodding while he chomped on the stem of one of his pipes.

  She smiled.

  Winter in Daghaven, before all the troubles, was a matter of watching the Hudson River resist freezing so the packets could get through. And when she was able to walk from shore to shore, the boats would be attacked by their crews with chisels and hammers, newly forged iron and freshly cut planks.

  There had not always been enough money for complete overhauls, but the patches always held and the new bolts seldom rusted before their time was done and she and the other children spent hours on the ice, their skates lashed to their boots, the sharp wooden runners hissing and scraping like snow beasts on the run.

  More than once, she recalled, she had to stand for nearly an hour in front of the fire or next to the stove, waiting for the burning pain in her nose and cheeks to fade, while her father scolded her against the dangers of frostbite, all the while laughing as she told him of her fun.

  She wondered, however, if those really were the best times-when, bundled and wrapped like a statue of precious jade, she would be like other children and no one mentioned her color-at least not to her face. There was too much excitement and too much laughter, and it wasn't until she had started to grow that the remarks grew with her.

  A log snapped, and she jumped back automatically, grinning foolishly as she looked around the house to see if anyone had noticed. She choked back a scream when she saw Alex watching.

  He was standing at the door to the north wing. Behind him she could hear faint sounds from the kitchen at the back. His coat wa5 off, and his dark green shirt shimmered as though it had been woven of silk.

  "Daydreaming, Mother?" he said, his eyes laughing at her kindly.

  "I tend to now and then, yes. " She slumped into her wing-back chair, waiting until he had taken a place on the couch. "The horses settled down?"

  ''Sam is taking care of it. He says this storm will be bad. "

  She stretched out her legs toward the brick hearth and sighed. "I was hoping that wouldn't be the case. "

  "Why?"

  She looked at him steadily.

  "Mother, " he said, "you know we've been all through this before. He's crazy! But he's not that crazy. If this is a bad blow, we won't be able to get out of here until spring because it won't be the last one. He's going to wait, believe me. "

  Her left hand kneaded her thigh. "I just wish he'd do something. "

  He leaned forward, frowning slightly. "You don't mean that."

  "No. Well, yes. I don't know. " She flashed him a confused smile. 'Td like to think it's over, but I know him better. He's been waiting too long just to let me take it all away with a showy ride through town. No. He'll do something all right. I just wish to hell I knew what it was. "

  Alex pushed himself deep into the near comer and almost propped his boots onto the table before he caught her disapproving eye and crossed them instead. "It's maddening, isn't it. "

  She looked at him quizzically. He had not asked a question, nor was he talking primarily about the waiting. And as she looked, she noticed how much older he seemed, how the weight of his responsibilities had added slight but definite lines of character to the smooth chestnut features. A man, she thought; little boys become men, and little cats become lions.

  "All right, " she said with a loving, gentle smile. "Out with it, Little Cat. You'll never have a face like Sam's. "

  He grinned at her sheepishly and stared at the hands loosely clasped in his lap. "What I mean is, Maitland can do all these things to you-Eagleton and everything else-and you just sit there, waiting for him to do something else. I don't know. I suppose it's right, but I can't help wishing I had killed him that night. "

  "And I'm glad that you didn't."

  He put a hand to his chin and stared at the fire. "Are you waiting for him to make a mistake or something?"

  "Partly, " she admitted, nodding. "And also because it's legal. "

  "Is that really so important, Mother?"

  She took a long time in answering, because it had taken her a long time in deciding.

  "Yes," she said at last. "Yes, Little Cat, it is. If l let you or Harley or Booth go baring over there with blood in your eyes and guns at the ready, there'd be killings. And it would be murder. And that, my son, would make us no better than he is . "

  "But you've killed before," he said, though the protest in his voice was almost perfunctory.

  "I know. But only when I was attacked myself. I fight back, Little Cat, but I do it in the hope that no one gets hurt. "

  They fell silent for several minutes. The fire reached for the chimney, fell back to muttering between the spaces in the logs. Sparks rose. Gusts over the chimney mouth moaned in midnight pain.

  "You know something?''

  She waited.

  "I think you're right, now. "

  "About what?"

  "Maitland. I don't think he's going to wait out the winter."

  "In that case," she said briskly, "perhaps we ought to do something about it. "

  "Like what, Mother?"

  She folded her hands into a double fist and lifted it to her chin. "Maybe we should keep a few shadows around his place. It wouldn't hurt to know in advance if he were going to try anything. Besides there might be a chance that we could-Alexander, what are you grinning at?"

  Alex looked quickly away from the fire to his mother, too quickly, and he was not able to mask the guilty look that had crossed his face.

  "Alexander," she said, her tone warning him.

  "Well, Mother, " he said weakly, "Harley and I, we thought that maybe . . . well, you know what I mean."

  "No," she said sternly. "Why don't you tell me?"

  He sighed loudly. "I told him it wouldn't work," he muttered to the hearth.

  "Alexander Munroe, you're getting me annoyed. "

  He slapped his hands on his knees and straightened. "Well, Harley and I thought that there might be a chance you were right and we were wrong."

  "Might be a chance?"

  He winced. "We . . . kind of considered it, yes . "

  "And?" She tried t o keep the tone of her voice level, but she was having a difficult time holding down
her laughter.

  "And so we had Booth and Kit kind of keeping an eye on the place, " he said in a rush so rapid she almost missed it. "They've been over there since Thanksgiving."

  "I see. " She knew she should have been angry at their preemption, but the fact that they had been seeking to protect her without her knowledge was something she had not counted on.

  "Kit comes back every night around midnight and Booth goes out to replace him . " He watched her and shrugged. "There isn't anyone over there during the day. We didn't figure he'd try anything then."