"Now, Jessica, the house is for you—for us."
"What scheme have you come up with that requires my cooperation, Travis? Maybe you're afraid you won't get the word quickly enough when my mother realizes how much money she's lost. Or maybe you want me around when it comes time to gloat."
"I can damn well gloat on my own,” he snapped, “and my information from Fort Worth is just fine, thanks; I don't need your sources.” Then he regretted letting his bitterness show, for Jessica looked distraught. Why couldn't she understand that he had good cause, the best, for the things he'd done? He'd loved his father, who had always treated him wonderfully. The Greshams had invited Will's trust and then betrayed him to his death. Still, nothing Travis had done to revenge that betrayal had been directed against Jessica, and he'd stopped entirely when he realized how much he cared for her. What did she want of him?
"Honey,” he said reasonably, “you can't blame me for Penelope's stupidity. She'd have been in high clover if she'd taken my advice, which, incidentally, was meant for you and Oliver, not her."
To his horror, Jessica burst into tears. He was around the table, kneeling beside her in seconds, his arm encircling her shoulders. “Don't cry, love. What's the matter? Surely, you don't blame yourself because Penelope got greedy. Here, use my handkerchief. Look, I won't pressure you about the house. I've got a month's option on it; you can see it any time."
"I don't—"
"Sh-sh-sh. Don't say no. Take a look at it. It's a fine house—trees, grass. Don't you remember how much you wanted a house in Fort Worth?"
"Yes, I did, but you wanted to stay at my mother's, spying and making trouble."
"Jess, we're never going to reconcile if you don't forgive me."
"How can I forgive you when you're not sorry? You'd do the same things all over again, given the opportunity."
"No, I wouldn't."
Jessica sniffed and dabbed her eyes with his handkerchief. “I don't believe you."
Travis gritted his teeth. If she had an ounce of sense, she'd see that his enemies were no friends of hers, even if they were blood kin. Hugh Gresham wasn't even that.
"Lady, here's your dinner. Eat it, will you?” said the impatient man behind her chair to a weeping Jessica.
"Shut up and back off,” snapped Travis. He rose and towered threateningly over the man, who backed up in alarm. Travis returned to his chair. “We'll talk about the house some other day,” he muttered.
"No."
"All right, we won't.” Mule-headed woman! How was he to convince her? An excursion might do it. The trip to Sabine Pass had been a success, and she looked more tired and worried now than she had then. What she needed was some fun, but he'd better not suggest an outing today. He'd bring it up Saturday night and spirit her away Sunday. Maybe if he could get her out of town, he could convince her to move in with him. He'd be damned if he was going to let a bitch like Penelope Gresham deprive him of his wife.
"Say, Jess, could you read over this lease I'm considering? I was out near Sour Lake a couple of days ago, and it looks real promising."
"Certainly,” said Jessica, wiping her eyes. “That'll be five dollars, ten if I have to revise it, and I hope you realize that I'm giving you a family discount."
Well, at least she thought of him as family. Did she realize what she'd just said? Travis grinned to himself. Oh yes, he was going to get her back!
"What did I tell you?"
"All the signs of oil,” Jessica agreed. They were taking a leisurely buggy ride from the hill toward Sour Lake.
"Walter Sharp and Ed Prather have been buying in this area. Walter missed out on Spindletop land—sick at the time, I heard—but he's got rigs drilling all over the hill. Ah, there's a farmhouse. You ready, little bride?"
"Oh, Travis, I'm never going to be convincing,” she protested.
"Why not? You told me you'd been in plays at that fancy school in Washington. Just pretend you're in a play about a bride whose husband wants to buy her a nice, safe farmhouse away from the dangers and sins of Spindletop. Some of it's true. I am your husband, and I do want to get you away from the hill."
"Don't start that again. I'm not moving to Calder Avenue, and if I were looking for a nice place to live, it wouldn't be here.” She stared disdainfully at the tumbledown target he'd chosen.
"Now, Jessica, don't be picky. Remember, you get half the rights to this place if we buy it and if you want them."
She sighed. “It seems dishonest to me, tricking some poor farmer."
"Jessica, I'm going to offer the man more than he ever dreamed of getting for this miserable piece of land. Either he'll think I'm the original dumb tenderfoot sent by God for him to take advantage of, or he'll know what he's got and refuse to sell. If he sells, he'll have enough to buy a better farm somewhere nicer."
"Somewhere nicer is right,” she agreed, half convinced.
"That old scoundrel,” exclaimed Jessica as she laid out the lunch on the checkered tablecloth she had spread beneath a tree. “He could hardly stop snickering when he took your money."
"Well, if there's no oil, he'll have reason."
"And he pinched me."
"He pinched you? Where?"
"Never mind."
Although Travis looked incensed, Jessica was giggling at the thought of that aged lecher pinching her bottom; he must have been in his eighties. Of course, he hadn't had much strength in his fingers. If he had, she might have ignored his years and given him a slap. His was the second piece of land they'd scouted and bought that afternoon. Jessica was really beginning to enjoy the action, especially as it was evident that the sellers were every bit as underhanded as everyone else she met these days.
"You certainly have the talent for chicanery, Travis,” she remarked, grinning. “It's a wonder you've never been arrested and sent to jail.” Since she had made the remark lightheartedly, she was shocked when Travis's mouth compressed into a bitter line. “Have you been in jail?” she asked, wide-eyed.
"Yes,” he snapped.
"Whatever for?"
"Something I didn't do,” he muttered, “but I ended up on a road gang anyway."
"How did it happen?” She couldn't imagine Travis a prisoner; as independent as he was, he must have hated the subjugation.
He shrugged. “It's a long story, Jess—from back in ‘87 when I was a boy on the streets of Fort Worth. I'd had myself a fairly steady job for about six months delivering mail."
"I didn't know the government hired children."
"They didn't. I caught the mailman drunk and throwing the mail away, so I said I'd report him or he could pay me to deliver it for him—blackmail, in other words, but I made a little money, and the people got their mail. I wasn't too picky about how I kept eating."
"And that's what you were arrested for?"
"No, I was arrested for robbing and killing a drunken cowboy behind a saloon."
Jessica's face went pale.
"I told you I didn't do it,” he snapped. “Seems the mailman had a deputy friend who was willing to say he saw the whole thing. Once they got me in jail, they said if I'd confess to the robbery, they'd ignore the fact that the man had been killed. That way I wouldn't hang. I was twelve years old—no family, no friends, no money, and scared to death. I confessed."
"Oh, Travis,” said Jessica miserably, tears coming to her eyes. No wonder he hated her family. “I'm so sorry."
"Cheer up,” he said dryly. “I could have hung."
"How long were you on the road gang?"
"Until Joe Ray came riding along a road in Tarrant County on his way to sell some land in Fort Worth. He recognized me—said I looked just like my dad. Somehow or other he got me pardoned—probably a combination of threats and bribes. Turns out they'd found who committed the murder, but they didn't bother to see that I got set free. Might have looked bad for the deputy who lied in the first place. Anyway, I owe Joe Ray a lot, even though I never could get along with him and purely hated it out on his ranch."<
br />
Impulsively Jessica leaned across the tablecloth and kissed him on the mouth. “I'm so sorry, Travis. I wish I could change the past for you."
"Don't let it worry you, honey. I'm not a poor scared child anymore.” He shrugged off the gloomy memories and added, laughing, “If you want to change something, you could change my future."
She was tempted. His fingers curved around her ribs, palm to the side of her breast. She was tempted to scoot across into his arms, to do anything he wanted, including move into that house on Calder Avenue with him. But if she did, all the bitterness of his childhood would lie like poisoned water between them. She should stay away from him, maybe even get that divorce Penelope had tried to force on her. A divorce would set him free to find someone he could truly love, the way she loved him.
"For heaven's sake, Jessie. You're getting awfully teary lately. No reason to cry over a few weeks on a road gang. Hell, that work used to be done by ordinary citizens."
He gave her a wonderful, wry smile, and she knew it would be a while longer before she could give him up for good. The thought of another woman claiming Travis made her absolutely sick with jealousy. At least, as long as they were man and wife, he was still hers legally; she could have her Saturday-night marriage, as Rainee so disdainfully called it. Travis was always willing.
"Is that a lusty gleam I see in your eye?” he asked, laughing. “Are you about to spread a balm of kisses on my painful boyhood memories?"
"I am not,” she replied and threw a biscuit at him.
"Hardhearted woman,” Travis muttered and dove across the tablecloth, scattering the remains of their picnic while Jessica rolled into the marshy grass to escape his clutches.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Late one afternoon Jessica was talking to Al Hamil, the driller who brought in the first Lucas well. “I'm sure I can offer you a better price on lumber,” she said. A huge roar cut off the bid she was about to make.
Hamil cried, “Oh, Lord, that's our well!” and pulled her under a wagon bed.
"What happened?” she shouted as, peeking out, she saw the rig topple while the derrick was blown into fragments and the pipe shot into the air. Closer to the well, men were dropping to the ground.
"Gas blowout!” Hamil shouted back. Tons of pipe had begun to rain down around them.
The roar continued; the pipe bombardment ceased eventually, and Hamil helped her out, telling her to get away as fast as she could. “Head into the wind and away from the gas."
"What about you?” she asked, even as he was pushing her in the right direction.
"Gotta drag my men away from the well,” he replied and sprinted into the center of the destruction.
Jessica's first impulse was to help, but she realized that she hadn't the physical strength. She'd never be able to drag away even one inert male body. Then she thought of Travis. He might have been hurt by falling pipe if he had been at her well or closer. There might be a fire. Glancing apprehensively behind her, she hopped onto her bicycle and set off to warn her husband and her own people.
"Gas blowout!” she called to the crew at the building site. “Head into the wind and watch for fire.” Jed and his men gathered their tools, piled into the wagons, and took off.
She met Travis halfway to her house on Spindletop Heights. He was shirtless, sweaty in the damp, hot air of late June, and pale with fear. When he saw her, he swept her up onto his horse and took off in the opposite direction, muttering, “Thank God, you're all right. Rainee said you had an appointment with Hamil. I thought—"
"My bicycle,” she interrupted, for he had left it behind.
"The hell with the bicycle; that was a gas blowout. I'm getting you as far away as I can."
"But Rainee, is she—"
"Fine. Heading for home."
Travis carried her all the way into town, shouted so angrily at Molly that Jessica was allowed to stay in his room, kissed her with a brief, desperate intensity, and headed back to the field to offer whatever help he could.
Badly shaken both by the blowout and by her fear for Travis, Jessica sank onto his bed and tried to rationalize away the conviction that she was further from falling out of love with her husband than ever. She needed distraction. Glancing at his desk, she decided to write to Anne in Weatherford. Even as she began the letter, she realized that Anne was always the person she turned to at the best and worst times of her life.
A week later her stepmother replied in a letter full of anxiety, begging Jessica to come home, away from the dangers of Spindletop, offering to welcome Travis as well. How generous and loving Anne was, Jessica marveled, while Penelope ... oh well, there was no use thinking about Penelope.
"I have to put the money back into the accounts,” said Hugh desperately.
"I thought you had some other way of getting it."
"Yes, but it's more dangerous than what I did in the first place."
"Well, really, Hugh, it's your bank. You ought to be able to do whatever you want. If we sell the land now, we'll miss out on even bigger profits. Someone sold an oil well for over a million dollars—just one well."
"When was that?"
"I don't know,” said Penelope vaguely. “Several months ago."
"You mean you haven't been keeping track of the investment?” he demanded.
"Me?” Penelope looked astounded. “You're the banker."
Hugh groaned. “It takes all my time just trying to keep things together here. I haven't even had time to read the papers lately."
"Well, as I told you, someone got a huge amount for just one well."
"Wonderful! Get down there and have Jessica sell our holdings before I'm caught and arrested."
Penelope laughed. “People of our sort do not get arrested. And it isn't as if you've done anything really wrong, after all."
"Shut up and do what you're told,” he snapped.
Penelope's eyes narrowed. “Watch what you say to me, Hugh."
Travis had been leaning against the wall of the Guffey Post Office thinking about a message he'd had from Lieutenant Hartwig in Fort Worth. Wagoner, Montana? It seemed an unlikely area for Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch to be operating when their home base was Fannie Porter's brothel in Hell's Half Acre. Still, Hartwig was sure they were responsible for the June 3 raid on a Great Northern train and that Hugh Gresham would be useful to them if they came back to Fort Worth with the loot, forty thousand in nonnegotiable securities. But would they come back? Travis wondered. Last winter the Sundance Kid had been in love with one of Fannie's girls, Etta Place, so maybe they'd return; maybe they'd use Hugh.
Travis shook his head. If Hugh went outside the law now with Hartwig and Arleigh watching his every move, he'd be caught, and then it would be “Goodbye, Penelope.” A husband broke and in jail wasn't going to enhance her social position, especially if Oliver realized that she had pushed Hugh into a life of crime. Long ago when Penelope had gotten herself in trouble, Oliver had stood by her, having no other heir except a baby granddaughter he had never seen. Now he had Jessica—full-grown, smart, honest, hardworking Jessica—a descendant to be proud of, unlike his bitch of a daughter.
"Parnell, I hear you've bought a place on Calder Avenue."
Startled, Travis confronted the man who would be his and Jessie's new neighbor. “That's right,” he replied warily, for Captain Weiss was scowling.
"Then take fair warning. We won't put up with any oil derricks in the neighborhood."
"You haven't a thing to worry about,” Travis assured him. “I want to move in, not drill for oil."
"You haven't moved in yet,” said the owner of the house across the street from the Ervin. “When do you plan to do it?"
"Soon,” said Travis, confident Jess was on the verge of coming back to him. Hadn't she looked for him first thing after the Guffey well blew out, just as frightened for his safety as he had been for hers?
"So we've decided we're ready to sell the land,” said Penelope, unwinding the veils from her wide h
at.
She had arrived unannounced at Jessica's house late in the afternoon of a very hot July day. To Jessica she looked worse than on her last visit; she was too thin, her face still beautiful but now gaunt and pale. Her eyes, strangely dilated, held a blank hostility in eerie contrast with her air of friendly nonchalance. Jessica shivered at the scene she anticipated when her mother realized how little the land was now worth.
"I've read such wonderful reports in the papers about land prices,” said Penelope, becoming somewhat more animated. “Nine hundred thousand dollars an acre—over a million for one well."
"Penelope, I've been writing to you for two months."
"So sweet of you to take the trouble."
"But did you read the letters?” Jessica felt as if she were talking to someone who wasn't there.
"I have a very busy social schedule, Jessica,” Penelope replied irritably. “But I do appreciate your writing. Now Hugh says you can take care of selling the property for us. Father speaks so highly of your business acumen—unsuitable in a young woman, to be sure, but since you haven't seen fit to follow any of my advice..."
"Penelope, the land you bought is worth less than three thousand an acre now. That's what I've been telling you in the letters. The price has been dropping since May."
"Jessica, if you think you can buy that land back from me at some ridiculously low price and reap all the profits for yourself—"
"I don't want to buy it."
Penelope at last began to look alarmed. “But the newspaper said—"
"The newspaper was talking about land on the hill. The price of off-hill land has been plummeting for several months. There's no oil on it."
"You mean you cheated me? You sold me worthless land and made me pay a fortune for it?"
Jessica sighed. “I told you before you bought in that Travis expected that land to lose its value."
"Well, really, Jessica, you can hardly expect me to follow the advice of an enemy. I'm not a complete fool. Now I expect to make a profit on my holdings.” Her voice had risen hysterically. “You find me a buyer."
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