"What if someone else arrives?"
"Then we'll move back and drown. You know you don't want me to stop at this point."
She didn't. Her body was already pulsing with excitement as they scooted further up the beach. “Hurry,” she gasped as his driving thrust pushed her deep into the sand. She should have been terribly uncomfortable, she thought fuzzily, but her body was already rising on its own tide, dissolving into Travis and into the bubbling, swirling water around them. On the final wave of passion, her neck arched, and after that the whole curve of her body as she stared into the blue depths of the sky above. How she loved him!
Travis rolled onto his back in the sand, carrying her into a sprawl on top of him. When Jessica moved to detach herself, he protested. “Stay where you are, sweetheart. It feels so—friendly, and I've got something I want to talk to you about while you're feeling friendly."
Jessica was too tired to argue, although she wondered vaguely if she might not go home with a sunburned backside. Penelope had always been after her about the dangers of exposing one's skin to sunlight. How horrified she'd be to think that more than Jessica's face was in danger of dreaded, countrified brown skin.
"I'm going to buy us a house on Calder Avenue,” Travis was saying. “I don't want you living by yourself alongside an oil rig."
"No,” said Jessica.
"No what?"
"No, I'm not moving in with you,” she replied stubbornly.
"So what was going on just now? And don't tell me you were being taken against your will. I know better."
"Just youthful hot-bloodedness,” she replied, but she felt some compunction, for she could see that he was hurt by her answer. Had he really meant that men felt romantic love? That he did? If so, why hadn't he told her? He'd never even expressed remorse for using her in his schemes of revenge.
"Youthful hot-bloodedness? All right.” He began to edge the wet chemise up from her waist.
"Now what are you doing?” she gasped.
"Throwing some more lace and ruffles up the beach to dry,” he replied as he dragged the chemise over her head and tossed it toward the drawers. “Then we can get on with the youthful hot-bloodedness."
Jessica glared down at him. He was so damned adaptable, always ready to take whatever he could get. Obviously, he hadn't been serious about her moving into a house on Calder Avenue with him. Such a house would cost a fortune anyway. If they were going to live together again, it would be more practical—she caught herself at that point and decided that she too had better concentrate on their mutual hot-bloodedness, which was beginning to feel very good again. She surely hoped that no one turned up on this beach. Even if he was her husband, the scandal would be—
"Pay attention,” Travis commanded.
After that she did. Making love on a beach might be wicked, but—well, maybe that's what made it so much fun, Jessica thought as the waves of heat began to pound through her. Cooler waves were coming up around them, but at least they weren't in danger of drowning yet, she thought vaguely, and maybe the tide would turn before they tired themselves out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rainee, gathering the week's wash, muttered, “Clothes full of sand."
"Travis and I went to the beach yesterday,” said Jessica apologetically.
"Even find sand in drawers.” After beating the grains out of the ankle ruffles, Rainee stuffed the garment into the machine. “Should share lodge, not make babies on beach."
"We weren't,” Jessica protested. At least she hoped not.
Rainee's eyebrows rose expressively. “No one tell you how babies made? Only taking man on Saturday night and beach not stop baby. Babies made in tepees, in woods, on—"
"Oh, all right!"
"People talk bad about woman who see man on Saturday in bed and Sunday on beach."
"I thought your husband was supposed to come by to see me this morning. Didn't you tell him about my idea?"
"Jed come after deliver load for Mr. Carroll. You change subject. Babies—"
"Rainee!"
"Your man get tired of Saturday-night wife. Go get squaw in other lodge. Leave you with baby and no buffalo robe."
Jessica threw up her hands and stamped out of the kitchen. She wasn't sure which she was more anxious to do—get off the topic of Travis and their unusual marital situation or get on with her plan to enlist Rainee's husband, Jedediah Beeker, in a building venture. A whole new town was springing up on Spindletop around the Guffey Post Office and the Gladys City Depot—saloons, restaurants, stores, and bullpens, as oil men called the sleeping shacks they provided for their workers. Jessica wanted her share of that particular boom.
She peered out the window to look for Jed and saw, instead, Travis's crew. They had come to spud in on her grandfather's land, the value of which had become astronomically high in the last few weeks. Jessica hoped she had done the right thing in electing to drill instead of sell or lease. On June first the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe had sponsored the demonstration run of an oil-burning locomotive. If all the railroads switched from coal to oil, that should certainly raise the price of oil, and why wouldn't they change over? The engine had gone over four hundred miles on forty-two barrels. A coal burner would have used twelve tons of coal, which she assumed was a lot of coal. Jessica couldn't even picture that much coal, whereas twelve barrels of oil was easy to picture. She'd seen a hundred times that much spewing out of one well in a single day. She'd probably had more than twelve barrels running off her parasol.
Besides, if she didn't want to keep the well, she could sell it to some Easterner as Mr. Beatty had done. It would only cost five thousand to drill, and Beatty had got over a million dollars for his! Jessica shook her head, aghast that she could even think in such terms, much less discount five thousand dollars as negligible.
Yes, her well, unless it turned up dry, would be a good investment. On the other hand, she knew her mother had done the wrong thing by investing money off the hill. Penelope and Hugh had bought at fifty thousand dollars an acre. During the time when two letters of warning from Jessica had gone unanswered, the going price had fallen to below five thousand, and Travis predicted it would go lower. Jessica shook her head. Perhaps Penelope had already sold. If so, she might have eased Jessica's mind by saying so.
Jessica patted the head of James Hogg, who was turning from a lively puppy into a huge, fat, lively puppy. He had been well named, for her dog would eat anything, even her own dinner if she didn't keep an eye on him. She doubted that he'd ever be a good watchdog, but he would roll over on command. Were anyone to threaten her, she could order James Hogg to roll over on the culprit, which would probably be fatal.
Her musings were stemmed by the arrival of Rainee's husband, a man even taller than his wife, with dark brown skin and a sober demeanor. Jed Beeker was slow to speak but knowledgeable when he did so. Jessica had met few men of late who inspired more confidence than her chosen partner in this building venture. She had already investigated work that he had done in South Africa, an area populated by Nigrahs and Mexicans where Rainee and Jed had a house of their own. It was a shanty town for the most part, but the small houses Jed built were solid and sturdy, as he himself was.
They came to a quick agreement once Jed discovered that Jessica planned to pay his men two to three dollars a day and him a generous and rising share of the profits when the business got off the ground. “If you can find customers for a company run by a woman an’ manned by colored, Ah can promise you good workers an’ good work,” said Jed, “but Ah ain't quittin’ my job with Mr. Carroll till you got a contract."
Jessica smiled. “I'll start today.” She held out her hand, and although he looked somewhat surprised, Jedediah Beeker took it, his wife looking on expressionlessly.
"This idea work?” Rainee asked when her husband had driven off.
"I'm sure of it,” Jessica replied, “and I have another suggestion to make.” She had been thinking of Travis's plan to buy a house on Calder Avenue
for the two of them. “Why don't you and Jed move in here with me?"
Rainee shook her head.
"There are all sorts of advantages.” Jessica counted them off on her fingers. “Number one, you'd be more comfortable; number two, there's plenty of room; and number three, that way I wouldn't have to live here alone."
Rainee stared at Jessica a minute, then replied, “One, I not live by oil well; two, I like own house; three, you want company, you live with your man."
"I guess I'll go out and get a building contract,” muttered Jessica, disgruntled. “I know someone who wants to build a saloon on the hill, and Mr. Carroll won't let them have one in Gladys City."
"Fine idea. Building saloon make good name for woman married on Saturday night and Sunday beach."
Jessica had to laugh. She then surprised Rainee by giving her a hug and exclaiming, “Why, Rainee, you made a joke!"
"Comanche very humorous people,” Rainee replied solemnly.
"If you say so.” Jessica grinned.
"I say."
Jessica giggled. Humorous? Her housekeeper hardly ever smiled, much less laughed.
"Jessica not serious person,” said Rainee disapprovingly.
"Of course I am. It's only that you bring out the fool in me."
"How possible? Rainee serious person."
"That's what I said."
Rainee threw up her hands, but Jessica could have sworn there was a twinkle in the woman's eye. Thinking wistfully of how close she felt to Rainee, Jessica went out and climbed onto her bicycle. She had so wanted the Beekers to move in. It would have been like having family again—a sister.
Jessica loved Frannie, but with Rainee she felt comfortable. Basically they were the same sort of people, serious ones, she supposed, to whom laughter was only a sometime bit of comic relief in the arduous process of getting on with one's life. Jessica appreciated the fact that Rainee seemed to have her interests at heart. Rainee took the trouble to give advice, not that Jessica always followed it. In return, she wanted to make Rainee's life better, and this building company should do it. Jessica was determined to make a success of it for all their sakes.
"Damn,” she muttered under her breath as rain began to fall again. Riding a bicycle while holding an umbrella was awkward. Maybe Jed could devise an umbrella holder for a bicycle.
Why hadn't Rainee wanted to live with her? Jessica wondered sadly. It wouldn't have meant more work—less probably, since she would have had only one house to tend—but she'd said she wanted her own house. Her grandmother, the Nigrah wife of a Comanche war chief, had been a slave before she was captured, but the Comanches had been a free-ranging people before they were confined to the reservation, where Rainee herself had grown up. Did Rainee, with her mixed heritage of absolute independence and absolute bondage, feel that living in Jessica's house would compromise her sense of freedom and dignity?
"I'd like an option to buy,” said Travis.
"Option? People either buy a house or they don't. Are you an oil man?” The woman eyed him suspiciously.
"I have to show it to my wife,” said Travis. “I'm sure she'll like it, but—"
"If you're an oil man, just be warned: You can't put any derricks on Calder Avenue."
"I want to live here, not—"
"The neighbors won't stand for it. Anyway, it's against the law."
"Actually, that law applies to property within the city limits. This is just the other side of the line, if I'm not mistaken."
"You do want to drill here."
"Ma'am, I am an oil man, but I assure you—"
"I knew it!” she exclaimed smugly. “Well, I don't object to taking your money, but you can't drill here."
"There's no oil here even if I wanted to drill, which I don't."
"Oh, you say that, but—"
"I want this house just so that my wife won't have to have an oil well in her yard."
"Don't say I didn't warn you. You oil men think you own the world, but folks on Calder Avenue won't stand for it."
Travis sighed. The things he put up with, trying to get his wife back.
Jessica could have screamed with frustration. Jed had provided her bicycle with a marvelous umbrella holder so that she could pedal along protected from the rain. However, today when she got to the Ervin Boarding House, she hadn't been able to get the umbrella out of its slot so was forced to take the bicycle into the business district or arrive soaking wet for her appointment with a timber customer. That meant walking the machine through the mobs of people on the board sidewalks, the street being too deep in mud for riding.
So far, half the days in June had been rainy, not a promising situation for a budding contractor. She had in progress a boardinghouse, a saloon, and a warehouse, but rain kept falling on her projects. Her wagons got stuck in the mud even though Jed knew and hired the best freighters. She had men putting up structures at night by lantern light, any time when the weather permitted; that way Jed could bring the crews indoors to work when the clouds opened up again.
Other contractors laughed at her methods, but then they couldn't hire crews who would work odd hours—they often couldn't hire crews at all—whereas she and Jed were getting more contract offers than they could accept. They were both about to drop from exhaustion. In addition, Jessica had her grandfather's business to keep up with, although she'd finally managed to hire a salesman to take some of that load off her shoulders. As for her newspaper writing, she hardly had time for it anymore, and the editors who bought her articles had begun to hound her for more. Everyone wanted news of Spindletop; why she couldn't imagine. What a wretched place!
She stared bitterly at the river that had replaced the street she must cross to keep her appointment. What was she supposed to do? Swim? How long ago her day at the beach with Travis seemed, a day free from responsibilities and frustrations—and rain.
When Jessica heard the hearty guffaws, she knew they must be directed at her. It wouldn't be the first time some oaf had laughed at her umbrella-protected bicycle, but today she didn't feel like being the object of anyone's misplaced mirth and looked up with a cutting remark on her tongue. What she saw silenced her, for a skiff, manned by an elephantine figure in the same bright green rain slicker topped by the same brighter yellow umbrella, had beached at her section of the sidewalk.
"Miz Parnell, isn't it?” boomed Governor James Hogg. “You're lookin’ mighty forlorn, ma'am. Can I give you and your contraption a ride across the street?"
Jessica giggled, thinking of her dog James, who had bade her good-bye that morning with her breakfast bacon dangling from his jaws and a resounding “woof,” reminiscent of the governor's best speech-making volume. “My contraption and I wouldn't want to swamp your skiff, Governor,” she replied.
"No fear, Miz Parnell. If my weight hasn't sunk it, one little lady with her bicycle and umbrella won't either. Now, give me your hand.” He helped Jessica in, pulling the bicycle after her. “Mighty ingenious, ma'am,” he said as he shoved his skiff away from the sidewalk. “As you know, I don't think much of bicycles, but if you've got to ride one, a bicycle with an umbrella has its merits, at least during the Beaumont rainy season."
"I hear you have a fifteen-acre section on the hill now, Governor,” said Jessica, knowing he loved to gossip, especially when the news concerned himself. “Are you going to start drilling soon?"
The governor laughed uproariously. “No, ma'am, the Hogg-Swayne Syndicate is going to cut it up into twenty-foot leases."
"Twenty foot?” Jessica's eyes went wide.
"That's enough for a derrick. Figure to see a heap of derricks rising there, and why not? We can get a hundred thousand a lease and make a lot of oil-hungry Texas voters happy. That's what Swayne tells me anyway."
Dazed, Jessica climbed out of the skiff at her destination. A hundred thousand dollars for a twenty-foot lease? “Thank you, Governor,” she mumbled, taking possession of her bicycle again and returning the governor's wave as he set out toward the Crosby
House across the river of brown water.
A hundred thousand dollars? She could do the same if she were willing to live in the middle of a hundred derricks. Would her grandfather want her to? Could she survive the experience? The whole tract could go up in a howling inferno, taking her with it. What would her percentage be if she arranged the deal? Jessica began to calculate as she wheeled her bicycle toward the office where her late morning appointment awaited her. How many twenty-foot leases were there in her grandfather's tract? It had been a while since she'd done any problems in geometry.
"Jessica, just the person I wanted to see. Have supper with me."
"Oh, Travis, I—” She couldn't finish her protest because he had already whisked her into a restaurant. At least, she thought, shaking out her napkin, she was out of the rain. “Take your hand off my chair,” she ordered, glaring at a bearded fellow who had staked a claim to her place before she could order.
"Feeling a little touchy today, are you?” asked Travis cheerfully. “The rain will do that."
"Then why are you all smiles? I wouldn't think drilling a well in the rain would be any easier than building a saloon."
"Jessica Parnell, sure you're not building a saloon! Mr. Carroll isn't going to like that. He closed up the first one, had a clause in the Gladys City contract that he got the land back if anyone tried to sell alcohol on it."
"My saloon—and before you say it,” she forestalled him, “I don't mean I'm going to own or run it."
"I should hope not."
"The saloon isn't on Gladys City land. I've no desire to bring Mr. Carroll's wrath down on my head."
"Smart girl. Well, Jessica, my love, I'm so cheerful because I've got an option to buy a house out on Calder Avenue."
Jessica's heart sank. She didn't want to have this argument with him.
"We'll go out to see it straight after we've eaten."
"I have neither the time nor the inclination.” But she was thinking of how much nicer it would be to live on Calder Avenue with Travis than by herself on Spindletop Heights surrounded by oil derricks. If she leased that land, she might never get another night's sleep.
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