by Tami Hoag
“Thanks for the lift, Mary Lee,” he said, popping open his door. He gave her a pained, weary smile. “You're a pal.”
“Yeah.” She slid her sunglasses down on her nose and looked at him over the rims. “Remember that the next time you climb behind the wheel with a buzz on.”
He didn't promise he wouldn't do it again. He'd made enough promises he couldn't keep.
As he climbed out of the Honda, the front door of the house swung open and Tucker and J.D. came out onto the porch. Tucker's eyes bugged out at the sight of him. He had thrown his tattered, bloody shirt in the hospital trash and sweet-talked a nurse into giving him the top half of a set of green surgical scrubs. But even with the sunglasses there was no disguising the fact that he was beat up. A row of neat stitches marched across his forehead. His lower lip was puffed up like a porn queen's. A bruise darkened his left cheekbone to the color of a rotting peach.
“Boy, you look like you stuck your head in a cotton sack full of wildcats!” the old man declared, hobbling down the porch steps. “Judas!” He turned his head and shot a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt. “Your mama wouldn't know you from red meat! What the hell happened?”
Will squirmed, feeling like a bug under a microscope. Tucker was up close, scrutinizing his face, but far more piercing was J.D.'s gaze, which came all the way down from the porch. The shit was about to hit the fan. He could feel it the same as a radical shift in air pressure before a storm.
“Finally wrapped that truck around a tree, didn't you?” J.D. said tightly, slowly descending the steps.
Will forced a sour grin. “Close, but no stogie. Rolled it sideways down a hill.” He spread his arms. “As you can see, I survived, but thanks so much for expressing your concern, brother.”
J.D. shook his head, angry with Will, but angrier with himself for the belated fear that came on his brother's behalf. After all the bad blood that had passed between them, they still shared the same father. Will was a Rafferty and he had nearly gotten himself killed. J.D. wished he didn't have to care. It hurt too much to care. Not for the first time, he wished he were an only child.
“Jesus. I ought to finish the job,” he snarled. “Of all the stupid, shit-for-brains—”
“I don't need a lecture, J.D.”
“No? What do you need, Will? You need some pretty young thing to hold your hand and give you sympathy? You might try your wife.” That galled him almost as bad as caring about Will—caring that Will was with Mary Lee. The jealousy was like a live wire inside him, like a coiled snake, and he resented it mightily.
Mari climbed out of the Honda and leaned on the roof. “Lighten up, J.D. I just gave him a ride home from the hospital.”
“Well, that's right neighborly of you, Mary Lee,” he drawled sarcastically.
“Jesus Christ, J.D.,” Will snapped. “Leave her out of this. It's me you're pissed at.”
“You're damn right I'm pissed. We've got cattle to move up the mountain tomorrow and you're in no shape to get on a horse. How the hell am I supposed to pay for an extra hand when every nickel you haven't gambled away is tied up in trying to keep this place? And what about the doctor bills and the towing bill and the repair bill? Did any of those thoughts once cross your pickled mind while you were weaving down the road on a full tank of Jack Daniel's?”
“No, J.D., they didn't,” Will said bitterly. He curled his hands into fists at his sides and leaned toward his brother. “Maybe I've got other things on my mind besides this goddamn ranch. Did you ever think of that? Maybe I'm sick of being tied to it. Maybe I don't give a flying fuck what happens to it!”
Tucker shifted nervously from foot to foot. His weathered old face screwed up into a look of sick apprehension. “Now, boys, maybe this ain't the time—”
“Maybe the time's passed,” J.D. said, his voice a deadly whisper.
Will felt as though his mirror glasses offered him no protection at all from J.D.'s penetrating gaze. As always, his brother could see right through them, right into his own weak soul. He didn't measure up. Never had. Never would. No point in trying. No point in staying.
He met J.D.'s hard, cold gaze unflinching, and his childhood and youth passed before his mind's eye—him tagging after J.D., the fights, the uneasy truces, the rare moments of camaraderie. They were brothers, but J.D. had never forgiven him for being born and he never would. Half brothers. The tag made him feel like half a man. Half as good. He felt something inside him shrivel and die. Hope. What a sad, sorry feeling.
“I'll go pack a bag,” he said softly.
Tucker swore under his breath and tried to catch up as Will started for the house. Will raised a hand to ward him off and the old man faltered to a stop, looking helpless and angry. He wheeled on J.D., sputtering.
“Damnation, if you don't have a head harder than a new brick wall!”
“Save your breath, old man.”
J.D. turned and walked away from him, toward the corrals. He willed himself not to look at Mary Lee, but he couldn't hold himself to it. He cut a glance at her as she stood beside her car. Her eyes were stormy, her stare direct. Displeasure curved her ripe little mouth. Guilt snapped at him. He kicked it away. To hell with Mary Lee Jennings. To hell with Will. He didn't need either one of them.
Mari told herself to get in the car and drive away. She had enough problems of her own without adding the burden of someone else's sibling rivalry to the load. But she couldn't seem to make herself leave. Will, for all his flaws, was a friend. J.D., in spite of many things, was her lover. She couldn't just stand back and watch them tear their brotherhood apart. She knew only too well how irreparable damage like that could be.
Swearing at herself under her breath, she trotted after him. “J.D.—”
“Stay out of it, Mary Lee.” He kept on walking, his long strides forcing her to jog beside him. “It's none of your goddamn business.”
“He could have been killed in that accident.”
“It would have served him right.”
“Damn you, Rafferty, stop it!” she snapped, slugging him in the arm as hard as she could, succeeding in making him turn and face her. “Stop pretending nothing and no one matters to you except this ranch.”
“Nothing does,” he growled.
“That's a lie and you know it! If you were such a bastard, you wouldn't keep on hundred-year-old ranch hands and an uncle whose mind went around the bend twenty years ago.”
“That's duty.”
“That's caring. It's the same thing. And you care about Will too.”
“What the hell do you know about what I feel or don't feel?” he demanded, furious that she had managed to strike a raw nerve. “You think going to bed with me makes you an expert? Jesus, if I'd known you were gonna be this much trouble, I'd've kept my pants zipped.”
Scowling blackly, he started once again for the corrals, where half a dozen horses stared over the fence with their ears pricked in interest. Mari went after him, calling herself seven kinds of a fool.
“I could say the same thing, you know,” she pointed out. “You're never going to win any prizes for charm, and I sure as hell didn't come to Montana to get stuck in the middle of a family feud.”
“Then butt the hell out.”
“It's too late to pretend we don't know each other.” She wanted to say it was too late to pretend they didn't care, but she knew that would be asking for a kick in the teeth. She'd had enough pain to last her. “All I'm saying is, Will is the only brother you've got, J.D. Yes, he's screwed up, but he's not a lost cause. He needs help. You could drop the tough-guy act for ten minutes and show a little compassion.”
“You want compassion?” he sneered. “Go see a priest. It's not an act, Mary Lee. I'm exactly what I appear to be.” He spread his arms wide. “Nothing up my sleeves. No trick mirrors. You think I'm a hardcase and you don't like it? Tough shit. Go find yourself another cowboy to screw. There's plenty around for the time being. Shit, you like my brother so well, maybe you'd rather be fucking
him.”
Mari blinked hard and jerked back as if he'd slapped her. He may as well have. Tears flooded her eyes. She refused to let them fall. “Jesus, you can be the most obnoxious son of a bitch!”
“If you don't like it, leave. Nobody's gonna stop you, city girl.”
“Fine,” she whispered, her voice trembling too badly to manage anything more. With a violently shaking hand she swept an errant chunk of hair behind her ear. “I'm out of here. And don't bother coming down to Lucy's place again. I don't need you either.”
“Good. I've got better things to do. Call me when you decide to sell the place.”
Fighting the tears, she started for her car, a blurry white blob across the yard, but she pulled up and turned to face him again, shaking her head. “You're so busy protecting what you own, you don't even see that you're losing everything that's really important. I feel sorry for you, Rafferty. You'll end up with this land and nothing else.”
“That's all that matters,” J.D. said, but Mary Lee had already turned away from him and was stalking back to her car, her hiking boots scuffing on the dirt and rock as she went.
He stood there and watched her drive away. She couldn't matter to him. He couldn't let her. She wouldn't stay in his life. In another week or two she would tire of the rustic life and head back to California, and he would still be here, working the ranch and fighting to preserve his way of life from extinction. He couldn't let anything intrude on that.
As he turned back toward the corral, the word martyr rang in his head and left a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth. He spat in the dirt and climbed through the bars of the fence to catch a horse.
How she got down from the Stars and Bars without crashing into a tree was beyond her. A miracle. As if such things existed. Angry and hurt beyond all reason, Mari jumped out of the Honda and headed for the barn. Urgency pushed her to a jog, then she was sprinting into the dark interior and out the side door. Clyde raised his head from dozing and brayed at her. She kept on going to the llama pen and over the gate. She ran into the pasture until her knees threatened to give out and her lungs were on fire, then she fell down into the deep grass and lay there, sobbing.
She wasn't even sure why she was crying. Because Rafferty had hurt her feelings? He could have made a living at that, the bone-headed clod. Because she hurt for Will, for what the two brothers were losing? Because her friend was dead? Because she wanted a cigarette so badly, she would have gotten down on her hands and knees in the gutter to scrounge for butts? All of those reasons and more.
She lay in the grass and cried until she couldn't cry anymore, then she just lay there. The sun shone down, as warm and yellow as melted butter amid popcorn clouds. A breeze fanned the grass and brought the scents of earth and wildflowers. Opening her eyes, Mari watched them bow to the breeze—delicate violets, blue-bells just starting to open, windflowers with their thick, hairy stems and showy blooms. Their beauty calmed her, their simplicity soothed her. A bumblebee buzzed lazily from blossom to blossom, oblivious of the human world and all its self-made agonies.
Maybe J.D. was right in giving his heart to this land. She could have given hers too. She felt a part of it, nourished by its beauty and its strength. Turning onto her back, she gazed up at the sky. It really was bigger here. A huge sheet of electric blue, stretching on forever. There were moments like this one, when she felt more at home here than she ever had anywhere. That sense of belonging had nothing to do with birthright. It had to do with things deeper than circumstance, with matters of the soul.
A llama nose descended on her, small and furry, twitching inquisitively as it bussed her cheek. Smiling, Mari sat up and reached out to stroke the baby's neck. This one was brown from the shoulders back with a white front half and splotches of brown on his face, as if God had been forced to abandon the paint job to go on to more pressing matters.
“I'll call you Parfait,” she announced, startled at the hoarseness of her voice.
The llama's long ears moved from angle to angle like semaphore flags. A brown spot on her muzzle made her look as if she were smiling crookedly. Half a dozen of her older relatives stood a few feet away, studying Mari with their luxurious sloe eyes. They hummed softly to one another.
Mari curled her legs beneath her and stood slowly, worried that she might frighten them away. They just looked at her, chewing their grass and violets, their expressions gentle and wise. They were beyond the petty cruelty humans inflicted on one another. It didn't matter to them that she'd fallen in love with a man who was both hero and villain. The scope of their simple world was so much greater. They held the secret to inner peace and looked on her with gentle pity for her ignorance. They offered solace in the form of company, understanding in their quiet manner.
She spent the afternoon with them, resolutely ignoring the various messes in which her life had become entangled. She mingled with the llamas, petting them and scratching them, talking with them about the greater meaning of life. For a few hours nothing else was important. She pretended she had stepped through a portal into a place of calm and reason. She let the llamas take the tension away, let the sun recharge her soul. Then, as the sun began its descent toward the mountains to the west, she stepped back into the real world of people and trouble and the mysteries of llama feed.
CHAPTER
20
J.D. RODE the pharmacist's yellow mare down across the wash above Little Snake Creek. The mare picked her way along uncertainly, awkward with the unaccustomed weight of a man on her back. Her small ears flicked forward and back. She leaned on the bit. Automatically, J.D. dickered with the reins, moving his hands gently, just enough to get her to soften her mouth and bring her nose back an inch.
His mind wasn't on the job. He hadn't gone on this ride for the benefit of the mare. He'd saddled her only because his work ethic wouldn't allow him to do much of anything that wasn't productive in some way.
What about Mary Lee?
Time spent with her might have been productive had she shown any sign of offering him the chance to buy Lucy's land. But then, the idea of prostituting himself went against his ethical grain. It was a no-win deal. If he went to bed with her for the purpose of gain, he was nothing but a gigolo. If he went to bed with her for any other reason, he was asking for trouble he swore he didn't want.
The point was moot. He wouldn't be going to bed with her again.
He made a sour face and shifted his weight back in the saddle as the mare negotiated her way down the last slope to the creek bottom. Life in general was turning out to be a no-win deal. He'd gotten nowhere in his attempt to put together an offer for the Flying K. A call to set up an appointment with Ron Weiss, vice president of the First Bank of Montana, had netted him condolences on Will's unprecedented losing streak at Little Purgatory. Bryce was probably sitting back laughing at his futile attempts to keep the property out of Bryce's hands, biding his time and counting his money. With Samantha in his camp, he had to be thinking ownership of the Stars and Bars wasn't that far off.
And now Will was leaving—had in fact already left. J.D. had watched him drive out of the yard in Tucker's old International Harvester pickup. He had always expected him to relinquish his claim to the family land and move on to greener pastures. Now that the day had come, J.D. felt neither relief nor triumph, but a sick hollowness in the pit of his stomach. Old guilt revisited. Remorse for losing something he thought he had never wanted in the first place.
They were family, and there was a strong obligation there. But he had taken that sense of duty as a license to badger and bully and preach. He treated Will more like a screwup ranch hand than a brother. Only he couldn't fire Will for his drinking or for not showing up to work or for gambling away ranch money or for playing them into the hands of their biggest enemy or for totaling his pickup, which brought him back full-circle to the drinking.
Mary Lee thought Will needed help, that his drinking was out of control. J.D. had viewed it as a nuisance. This was rugged country with rug
ged people. Drinking was part of a cowboy's life. Too big a part in too many cases. Alcoholism was a problem in the ranching culture. The stress, the loneliness, the code of manhood, all contributed. He'd seen Will drunk more times than he could count, and all he had ever done was ride the kid about wrecking his truck or being late to work.
The guilt dug its teeth a little deeper and gave him a shake. The truth pulled on him. The lead weight of accountability. He had come out here to escape the burden of his responsibilities, not put them under a microscope. He had come out here to lose himself in his first love—the land.
This stretch along the Little Snake was a favorite spot—when there weren't half a dozen city idiots in their Orvis vests and waders fly fishing. Luck was with him for once. He could see a red Bronco parked some distance downstream, but no sign of its owner. Probably someone hiking in the woods, looking for morels. He might stop and pick a few himself on the way home. Tucker could fry them up a feast of fresh trout and wild mushrooms for supper.
This little valley and the slopes on either side belonged to the Bureau of Land Management. Once upon a time the McKeevers of the Boxed Circle spread had owned the grazing lease, but the McKeevers had sold out in 'ninety-one to a network news anchor who didn't raise anything but a few head of horses a year, and the lease had gone back to the BLM. J.D. had considered trying for it, but an environmental group had taken up the “Preserve the Little Snake” banner for fly fishermen and weekend hikers from Bozeman and Livingston, and the small amount of grass hadn't been worth the trouble of a fight.
He still liked to ride over here when he got a chance. It was secluded, unspoiled for the moment. The Little Snake, which was actually a small river, wound between columns of cottonwood and aspen. Fed by mountain runoff, it ran fast this time of year, and was cold and clear and studded with boulders. Along the banks the grass grew in a lush strip dotted with wildflowers. Wooded slopes rose sharply beyond. It wasn't uncommon to see mule deer drinking from the creek, their black-tipped tails flicking nervously. He'd seen bears here more than once. The Absarokas were thick with grizzlies and black bear. The encroachment of man pushed them deeper into the wilderness areas every year, but conflicts with ranch stock and tourists still happened from time to time.