After Eden

by Joyce Brandon

Johnny reddened with shame. Judy had the damnedest way of saying things. She could turn a few kisses into a worrisome piece of business. He decided he might as well get it all out on the table, show his cards. “I might as well tell you this all at once. I was a worse bastard than you think. I came back here to get even with you.”

  “I told you you loved me. That’s the act of a man in love.”

  “I was in love. But I got over it without noticing.”

  A stricken look clouded her dark eyes. “But you…” She faltered into silence. Tears spilled over and made shiny tracks on her lovely, curving cheeks. Johnny writhed inside. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he forced himself not to turn away. He deserved anything she did to him.

  “You love me, Johnny. You’ve always loved me,” she said.

  “I still love you. Only now I love you in a different way. Like a sister…” Johnny inhaled deeply. “I guess I loved you so much I went a little crazy with it,” he said, his voice strained. “I thought I wanted to hurt you the way I got hurt. But I don’t want to hurt you, Judy. That probably sounds like so much hogwash after what I said, but it’s the truth.”

  “Is that why you avoided me, made me come to you?”

  Johnny nodded. For a moment nothing happened. She seemed to be considering his answer, then her chin went up and her eyes flashed.

  Before he could figure it out, she stepped back and slapped him hard across the face. “You liar!”

  Johnny took the blow calmly. And most likely would have taken it again. He wanted to be free to spark Tía.

  “You have to love me,” Judy cried, her eyes anguished. “You have to.”

  “I do,” he said gently. “I love you like a sister. I don’t want to hurt you any more. I want you to be happy.”

  “Then love me the way you used to,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “I can’t.”

  “This is your revenge, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  “You give me too much credit.”

  “Do I?” Her voice sounded oddly brittle. She twisted at her skirt with hands that trembled. “I love you, Johnny. I was good today. I got up early, and I cleaned my room. I ate all my dinner, and I didn’t do anything bad…”

  Johnny couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. They had been in Tombstone that morning. She hadn’t gotten up early. She hadn’t gotten to the livery stable until eight-thirty. She hadn’t cleaned anything. Even her voice had changed, coming out in a piping, childlike singsong he’d never heard before.

  “Judy…”

  “I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re just saying this to punish me, because you think I’ve been bad, but I haven’t. I’ve been good. So you don’t need to punish me.”

  Her bottom lip began to tremble. Her fingers dug into the soft skin of her arm. Again, she had changed more quickly than he could keep up. The confident woman he had known and loved and hated had been replaced by this stranger with the pleading eyes of a child. He didn’t know what to do or say.

  “Stop! You’re hurting yourself.” Johnny pulled her into his arms and held her close, feeling the terrible trembling inside her, racking her body. She cried softly. When she finally subsided he lifted her chin and wiped her eyes with the handkerchief he had taken out of his hip pocket.

  “Feel better?”

  “Yuh…yes,” she said, trying to smile. “You won’t be sorry, Johnny. I’m going to be so good. You’ll be proud of me. You’ll see. You’ll love me more than ever. I’m going to be the best little wife in the territory. Everyone will be so jealous of you. They’ll come from miles around just so they can tell their friends they stayed at the Brago house. It’s going to be—”

  “Judy, I can’t marry you. I want us to be friends—” He stopped. Dilated and unfocused, her eyes told him she was rejecting every word he said.

  Helplessness washed over him, the same sort of helplessness he’d felt when he’d found his parents dead—his father with an arrow through the chest, his mother with a tomahawk in the back of her skull. He had sagged down on the ground and not wanted to see or smell their bodies, as if not seeing again and not smelling would somehow change what had happened.

  Now he wished he’d never come back to Rancho la Reina. He had the feeling that something just as final had happened here tonight.

  Gently, Johnny disengaged himself from Judy’s clutching hands, put his arm around her slim waist, and walked her to the back door of the casa grande.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Seeing Judy at the door of the bunkhouse, Grant Foreman, who had been playing monte with three other riders, passed his cards to one of the kibitzers, pushed his chair back, and strode quickly to the front porch.

  “Hey, pretty lady, you all right?”

  The smile she gave him was forced. “Of course.”

  “You look pale.” He took her arm to lead her off the porch. She looked worse than pale. A hard look of strain pinched her features and darkened her eyes. “Did you fight with Johnny?”

  Judy looked like a fawn surprised by a hunter. In the dim light from the window, her pretty face had a luminous glow. Grant was sorry he had asked. She would lie to him; he knew it instantly.

  “Johnny and I don’t fight,” she said firmly. “You know how I am, though. When I’m bad he punishes me.”

  Concern furrowed Grant’s brow. “What do you mean, he punishes you?”

  “It’s not important,” she said vaguely, waving her hand. “It was all my fault. Besides, nothing matters as long as he still loves me…”

  “Did he hurt you?” Grant demanded, anger rising in him.

  Startled, Judy looked at Grant and then turned away quickly, her eyes clouded with some painful memory. “Johnny would never hurt me. Johnny loves me. He’s always loved me.”

  Confused, Grant tried to control the rage building within him. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying to me.”

  Staring at the bunkhouse lights behind Grant, Judy frowned. “Am I?” Then, taking a deep breath as if trying to throw off something unpleasant, she asked, “Will you walk with me, Grant?”

  It was past the usual curfew that Steve imposed at the casa grande. The house would be locked when they came back, but Grant didn’t care. Judy climbed in and out her window all the time. The only thing that mattered was she needed him. “Sure, any time, you know that.”

  Slowly they walked to the playhouse at the back of the orchard. Inside, Judy sank down onto the small cot. Grant sat Indian fashion at her feet. They talked for an hour, about anything Judy wanted to talk about. As always Grant was the perfect gentleman. He played his part the way she had outlined it to him long ago: he was her friend, which meant he could not expect romance. He knew she had others among the riders she flirted with and some she kissed and toyed with, but that only lasted until they pressured her in some way. There may have been one or two that she had allowed other liberties, but he loved her too much to dwell on that.

  Close to eleven o’clock, they started back.

  Judy took his hand and walked alongside him, swinging their hands between them. She stopped at the back entrance and let herself in as if she knew the door would be open. Steve always locked up the house about nine.

  “Thanks, Grant.”

  “What are friends for?”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Good night.”

  Judy faked a smile, waved at him, and then closed the door. She waited there until she saw Grant step up onto the bunkhouse porch and go inside. Then, quietly, she slipped back outside the way she had done when Johnny had left her earlier. She was already lonely for Grant, but she knew he needed his sleep. Johnny took the riders out early and worked them hard. She should go to bed, too, but she was too restless to sleep. The night was cool and crisp. Her room would be stuffy, stifling. She shivered. The terrible things Johnny had said to her kept bobbing around in her head like apples floating in water. Every time she pus
hed them down, they popped back up. And each time they bobbed up, the pressure increased in her head.

  She had done it again. She had driven Johnny away the same way she had driven her mother away—by wanting too much. Her hands were sweaty and cold. Maybe she was going to be sick. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to be alone. As she turned and started back toward the bunkhouse to get Grant, a shadow stepped out of the other shadows and caught her arm.

  In the pale starlight she recognized the rider. “Oh, Slick, you scared me!”

  Slick grinned and leaned against the adobe.

  In the moonlight his resemblance to Johnny was stronger than usual.

  “You want to sit and talk a spell?” he asked.

  Judy started to say no, then stopped herself. Slick was safe. He wouldn’t hurt her, and she didn’t want to be alone now. She nodded. “Walk out to the playhouse with me.”

  Slick could not believe his good fortune. He fell into step beside her.

  Five o’clock came much too soon for Tía. Groggy from unaccustomed sleeplessness, but excited about her first real day at Rancho la Reina, she tumbled out of bed. By the time she’d dressed and combed her curls, the eastern sky was streaked pale pink and gold with a hint of dawn.

  Her room was next to the kitchen. The clang of iron pots greeted her before she opened her door. She couldn’t believe her ears, but it sounded like even Andrea was up, moving around her room.

  Tía walked into the kitchen. Kerosene lamps gave the room a cheery glow. Carmen was poking at the firebox under the oven.

  “Buenos días,” Tía said as she stopped behind Carmen. “What can I do?”

  Smiling, Carmen looked over her shoulder. “Buenos días, Señorita Marlowe.”

  “Humph!” Sullen with sleepiness, Cruz eyed Tía and Carmen with gloomy impassivity. “No day that begins without mass can be a good day,” she said emphatically.

  Tía frowned. “Is there a chapel within the walls?”

  “¡No, por supuesto! Would infidels build a chapel?” Cruz demanded, her high-pitched voice caustic. “Infidels tear down chapels. They do not build them. There was a chapel, down by the cottonwoods, but infidels burned it, too. Just like they burn everything of value. If it won’t burn, they knock it down, brick by brick if necessary.”

  Smiling, Carmen motioned Tía to her side. “Don’t worry about Cruz. She is only happy if she is complaining.”

  “Thanks,” Tía said, grinning. “What can I do?”

  “Señorita, if you would not be offended, there are many potatoes to be peeled and sliced,” she said.

  “I forgot where I saw the knives.”

  “Here,” Carmen said, pointing to a drawer under the wooden bench beside the cook stove. From catalogs, Tía recognized the three stoves that lined the wall as Acme sterling-steel ranges, the best. With forty men to feed, and at ten thousand a week, the Burkharts needed and could afford the best.

  Tía reached for the knife and the potatoes. If all the women had to do was cook, it was still going to be a long, busy day.

  Cock a doodle, doo. Cock a doodle, dooooo! Andrea covered her head and tried to ignore the insistent crowing of that damned rooster, but the sound started all over again. She tried to mash the pillow over her ears, but the sound was so piercing she could barely tell the difference. Groaning, she staggered out of bed and over to her window. The offender was a small, red banty rooster, alternately crowing and pecking at the sandy soil.

  She shushed him away and staggered back to her bed. Within seconds he was under her window again, crowing at the top of his lungs. Andrea threw her pillow at the open window, but it only hit the wrought-iron bars and bounced onto the floor. The rooster crowed louder than before.

  “I’m going to suggest rooster for dinner!” she yelled. The rooster squawked and beat his wings and squawked louder. “Shut up!” Three hens rushed over to stand under her window and add their voices to his. At last Andrea sighed and gave up. “You win, but I warn you, I’m not going to take this lying down.”

  She sponged herself off in the bowl next to the water pitcher, combed her hair, and dressed herself. She would have liked to lie down again, but the chickens seemed to be louder than ever. She walked to her door and started to turn the knob.

  A loud yell that sounded as though it came from the parlor caused Andrea to stop. The next voice was undoubtedly Judy’s. Steve and Judy? Frowning, she opened the door and walked as quietly as possible into the hall.

  “Leave me alone! I’m twenty years old. I don’t need a wet nurse!” Judy cried, her usually melodious voice harsh with anger and passion. “I couldn’t sleep, so I found Grant, and we walked for a while. That’s all!”

  Steve’s voice was tight with suppressed fury. “I asked Grant not ten minutes ago, and he said he hadn’t seen you this morning.”

  “You have no right running around like some prison warden spying on me. I hate it! I absolutely hate it! You treat me like a six-year-old child!”

  Andrea could not make out Steve’s low-voiced reply.

  “If that maggot says one word to me, she’s going to get a mouthful of knuckles, you hear me?”

  Andrea flushed. He had been talking about her.

  “Leave Andrea out of this.”

  “Then you leave her out of it. You’re the one ganging up against me! Now you’ll have Miss High and Mighty with her shotgun and her damned schoolteacher mouth on your side! She’s a maggot! I hate her!”

  “Hush!” he whispered fiercely. “She’ll hear you!”

  “You even like her! Traitor. I thought for once you were going to be on my side.”

  Andrea slipped back to her door, opened it, stepped through again, slammed it, and walked briskly and loudly toward the parlor.

  As she stepped through the doorway, Steve frowned Judy into silence. The tension between brother and sister was palpable. “Well, good morning,” Andrea said carefully. Now that she was here, she could not imagine why she had barged in.

  “Good morning yourself!” Judy said, flouncing past her.

  “Brat!” Steve said under his breath. A moment later they heard Judy’s door slam hard.

  “Problems?” Andrea asked.

  “What the hell would you do if your sister came straggling in at six o’clock in the morning?” he demanded, forgetting Judy was her sister, too.

  “That depends,” Andrea said.

  “On what?”

  “On whether I loved her.”

  Caught off guard, Steve frowned. “And if you did?”

  “I’d cook her breakfast, if she was hungry.”

  Steve looked at her as if he’d never heard anything so ridiculous. “Oh great! You’d cook her breakfast. How the hell is she going to learn right from wrong?”

  Andrea raised an eyebrow. “Judy’s a twenty-year-old woman. She’s doing what she does because she either wants to or needs to, not because she doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong.”

  Steve shook his head in frustration. Andrea was saying pretty much what Judy herself had been implying one way or another for years, ever since she’d been doing what she wanted instead of what she was supposed to do. “She’ll hunt with any dog that’ll run with her,” he said bitterly.

  “That’s a pretty harsh accusation.” Andrea watched him closely.

  Wearily, Steve shook his head. “Well, dammit, if you walk like a duck, and you quack like a duck, people will call you a duck, and treat you like one, too.”

  “You have a point, but I don’t see what good it does for you to yell at her. Doesn’t that just announce to the world what you want to keep secret?”

  “Don’t you think an unmarried woman should be punished for living like a strumpet?”

  “Not by you.”

  “Who’s going to do it?”

  Andrea felt a sudden surge of despair. She was thinking of her mother and all the ways the world had of dealing with a woman who broke the rules.

  “You don’t really want to punish her, do y
ou?” she asked at last.

  Frowning, Steve mulled over her question. “No. I’m just trying to save what’s left of her reputation. I don’t give a damn if she wants to live her own life, but I do want her to have a life left when she finally comes to her senses. She’s got to learn there are serious consequences when a woman behaves badly.”

  “Yelling at Judy now isn’t going to save her from anything else. All you’re doing is mining the closeness that you two already share.” Andrea paused. “Has Judy always been willful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you aren’t going to change her at this late date. I would rather see you on her side so if she does get into real trouble, she has someone to turn to.”

  “She knows she can turn to me.”

  “Not if you’re always condemning her. The world is full of people who can’t wait to judge her. Do you really want to be one of those? Judy loves you. You’re all she has. She’s not acting out of malice. She’s doing the best she knows how.”

  Too frustrated to speak coherently, Steve made a fist, then let it drop to his side.

  Andrea felt like a fool defending Judy, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “You love her. Don’t shut her out.”

  “I don’t want anyone to hurt her…” Pausing, Steve regarded Andrea more thoroughly. “You sound like you’ve had some experience with wayward sisters. Did you have one, too?”

  “A wayward mother.”

  “I guess I should have known that. You must love her a lot, to be so understanding. What was she like?”

  “A lot like Judy. Very pretty and very restless—she has to live every minute to the fullest. In spite of that, she was a good mother. She loved us and took care of us.”

  “You had brothers and sisters?”

  Andrea blanched. She had almost given herself away. “One half sister. No brothers.”

  “Where’s your mother now?”

  “I don’t know. She left me in Albany. Then Mr. Furnett’s letter came…I didn’t have any place else to go, so here I am.”

  “Where’s your sister?”

  Andrea sighed. “I’m not sure.” That was almost true. Tía could be anywhere. The house, the barn, the garden…