Victoria got to her feet, her eyes swimming with tears she couldn’t hold back. She tried to focus her blurred vision on Mason’s face.
“Then stay, damn you! But don’t expect any cooperation from me. I’m going to do my best to make you as miserable as I am. And you better control that—that child in there”— she waved her arm toward the front of the house—”or I’ll take a switch to her backside. I won’t be treated like an intruder in my own home. And another thing—” The sound of a crash and the splintering of glass halted her words. “Oh, my God! What now?” she gasped and rushed to the door.
Dora, in a long nightgown, stood looking down with disgust at the shattered glass. She glanced up as Victoria came through the door.
“It wasn’t my fault. The ugly old thing just fell.”
Victoria knelt down and picked up a piece of what once had been her mother’s cranberry-glass jelly bowl. A wedgeshaped section was broken out of the lid and the bowl was in a thousand pieces. Shock receded and in its place came a fierce anger.
“You horrid child! What were you doing in the china cabinet?” The words came from Victoria’s throat in a series of strangled cries.
“Ain’t yores no more,” Dora said flippantly.
The words had no more than left her mouth when she was snatched off her feet. Mason’s boots crunched the broken glass, an oath exploded from his lips.
“I just was goin’ to look at it, Mason!” Dora cried in alarm when she saw the look on her brother’s face. “What’er you goin’ to do?”
“You’ll see, girl.” He slung her under his arm like a sack of flour and strode angrily toward the room she was to share with Nellie.
Nellie, her hair down around her shoulders, stood uncertainly in the doorway. “Oh, what has she done? I was just coming to get her, Mason.”
Silent, his face like a thundercloud, Mason ushered his sisters inside the room and closed the door.
Pete had come bounding down the stairs at the sound of the crash. He bent down beside Victoria and took the piece of jagged glass from her hand.
“Ah, it’s a pity. Musta been a purty thing.” His voice sounded strangely like Mason’s and the softly spoken words of sympathy tore at her heart.
Victoria got to her feet, her face twisted in agony. “It’s a dream. My God! It’s got to be a dream!” she cried, sobbing, and ran down the hall to her room leaving the two men and Ruby standing amid the broken glass.
Once safely behind the closed door she stood with her fingers pressed to her temples. She could hear the sound of Dora crying and the low murmur of Mason’s voice coming from the room across the hall.
“What can I do?” she whispered into a silence that gave no answer.
The room was dark and lonely. She found herself moving about, touching familiar things, smoothing her hand over the walnut washstand her father had made one winter while they were snowed in. Victoria moved to the wardrobe and held her palms against it for a long moment before she opened one of the slender doors and let her hand run down the long row of drawers. She didn’t need a light to know what was in each of the drawers she touched. Her fingers trailed across the humpbacked trunk on her way to the window where, in the soft glow of the moonlight, she saw Stonewall and Ruby cross to the little cabin built beside the bunkhouse. Would they stay on if she lost to Mason Mahaffey?
Mechanically she unbuttoned her dress, then unbraided her hair. She changed into her nightdress and sat down on the edge of the bed. Her worst fantasy had turned into a living nightmare.
Suddenly it was too much to hold inside her. Her face convulsed and huge racking sobs came from deep within her and disrupted the silence of the dark room. She couldn’t have choked them down had her life depended on it. She collapsed onto the bed and cried for her father who had carved this place out of the wild, untamed country, and for her mother, refined and gentle, who had loved her handsome husband fiercely, and this place, because it was his. She cried for herself because she was alone, and life as she had known it up to now had come to an end.
When the warm, soothing hand touched her shoulder, she welcomed it; when she was lifted and held close to a human form, she clasped her arms tightly around it and clung. It didn’t matter to her who it was, it was someone who cared, and she burrowed her face into a broad shoulder that was soon wet with her tears. It felt so luxurious to be cosseted and comforted that she melted against the hard chest, loving the feel of the arms that held her.
“Shhhh…don’t cry. Hush, dear heart, don’t cry.…”
Sensitive fingers played lightly with the few straggling wisps of hair that stuck to her cheeks then moved beneath the heavy masses to work gently at the nape of her neck. Soon the sobs that shook her were replaced with faint grieving moans. She was drained and empty, wanting nothing but to cling to the warm, living man who held her.
“Don’t grieve, golden girl.…It’ll be all right.” The words were murmured against her ear in such an inexpressibly moving, deep voice that she cried again.
“It won’t be all right,” she sobbed.
“It will, dear heart, I promise it will.”
Gentle hands held her and rocked her as if she were a small child. She cried until she had no tears left and lay limp and lifeless against him.
“Nothing is impossible, Victoria. We’ll work something out.” His voice was still close to her ear and just as kind and comforting as before, but now that her tears had been spent the reason for Mason Mahaffey’s presence in her home surfaced once more.
She pushed herself away from him as if he’d been on fire and slid off his knees onto the bed. “Oh…” She gasped. “Go. Get out!”
In the stillness that enclosed them after her words she could see the faint shadow of him sitting on the edge of her bed. Her eyes clung to that shadow as she moved away from him. How could she have felt so safe, so complete in his arms? What was the matter with her? Why was she sitting here so docile? Why wasn’t she screaming her head off?
He flicked the end of a match and held it to the cigarette he put in his mouth. The light flickered on his dark face. He drew deeply on the cigarette and the end flared briefly. Before he blew out the match he raised his lids and she had a glimpse of steady blue eyes.
“I’m not the enemy, Victoria,” he said quietly.
Did he know her every thought? She had been desperately trying to think of him in those terms. A whiff of tobacco smoke reached her nostrils and she thought crazily, A man is sitting on my bed smoking a cigarette!
“You are!” They were the only words she could manage.
“No. I’m a man who put almost his last dollar down on a place to build on, a place to spend the rest of his life. I want you to understand my position. I’ve got my sisters and my brothers to think about. I came back to find Nellie sleeping on an attic floor, Dora running wild, and a crazy old fool trying to work Doonie to death. I’ve got to take care of them and I’m going to take care of them, here on the Double M.”
Victoria heard his dispassionate words. Her eyes were dry and wide. There were no more tears left within her. She took a shuddering breath and let it out slowly.
“Lucky them,” she whispered, but he heard the words.
“When I came here I was determined to take over, and I’m still determined, Victoria. I think it only fair to tell you that. But after meeting you, seeing the type of person you are, and the pride you’ve taken in your home I want you to stay until we hear from the court and it’s settled once and for all who is the owner of the Double M.”
Her anger flared. “That’s generous of you. You’d have a hell of a time getting me out of here, Mr. Mahaffey.”
“I know that, but I’ll do it if I have to. I’ve trained myself never to accept defeat about anything, Victoria.”
“You’re afraid I’ll turn the men against you!”
“I’ve also trained myself to be a good judge of character. You won’t do that. Neither will Stonewall. Ruby is another matter. She’ll fight dirty or f
air for what she wants. I don’t want to see more killing. I’ve seen enough to last a lifetime.” He drew on the cigarette, got up from the edge of the bed and walked to the open window. Reaching out he snuffed the fire against the rough logs of the house before flipping the butt out into the night. He came back across the room and stood beside the bed.
“I’m sorry for the trouble Dora has caused. She needs a woman’s firm hand, but more than that she needs the secure feeling of belonging to a family. When that happens she won’t feel the need to do things to draw attention to herself.” When she didn’t speak he stood silently for a moment and then said, “Nellie loves beautiful things. She feels very sorry about what Dora has done.”
“I won’t leave my things here for anyone else—if I have to go. Some of them were my mother’s and some Papa gave me.” The sob came back into her voice.
“Nellie would be the first to understand that.”
Why doesn’t he go? The silence dragged and for want of something to say she asked, “How old is Nellie?”
“Eighteen. She looks much younger, doesn’t she?”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“After our parents died she was made to stay with a woman who forced her to sit in an attic and make lace all day. She was fed almost nothing. Nellie was weak and sick from lack of good food and exercise when I found her. She would have been dead by now if I hadn’t come back when I did.” He gritted his teeth as he spoke the painful words.
Suddenly he was kneeling down beside the bed and his hand came out to loop the hair behind her ear. Mindlessly she held her breath and waited.
“I know how you feel, Victoria.” His voice was the merest of whispers. His thumb made a gentle swipe beneath her eye and wiped away the wetness there. “Things could always be worse. Let’s take it one day at a time, shall we?”
She wasn’t dreaming because she could feel his breath, cool on her wet face, and she could smell the tobacco on his breath. She cringed and moved back against the pillows, trying to forget the warmth and security she had felt while being cradled against his chest, trying to keep herself from reaching out for him again.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Victoria.” He drew her name out on a long breath and the word vibrated through his chest. “Go to sleep. Things will look better in the morning.” His voice was strained and light, his face a blur. His hand moved to cup her cheek, then slid down to her chin and away. He stood; then, abruptly, without a sound, he moved to the door, opened it, and still without a sound closed it behind him.
Victoria moved down on the bed until her head rested on the pillow. It was strange, but she wished he hadn’t gone. She lay listening to the silence until her body’s weariness overcame her churning thoughts.
CHAPTER
* 4 *
At least two dozen men were seated at the long oilcloth-covered tables when Mason, followed by the twins and Doonie, walked into the cookshack. He had been checking over books half the night. The first thing had been to find out just what he had bought, and he discovered it was plenty. Thirty thousand head of cattle, according to the neat entries in the books. A far cry from the five thousand head of branded cattle Robert McKenna has assured him went with the ranch. This discovery should have made him jubilant; instead it added an additional doubt to the fast-growing list of doubts regarding the legality of the sale.
“Mornin’.” Ruby set a platter of fried meat down on the table. “Get yore coffee ’n’ sit. Gopher, ya got another pan a biscuits?”
The men at the table ate with gusto, drinking great draughts of coffee to drown each mouthful. Idle talk had ceased abruptly when Mason and his brothers came into the room, and the men kept their eyes fixed on their plates.
“Wal…dig in. Ain’t nobody goin’ ta wait on ya,” Ruby said to the Mahaffey men.
Stonewall nodded to Mason but continued to chomp his food, his big jaw swinging up and down as he ate. “Lud, there’s a lot to be done,” he said after he’d swallowed. “Take Kelso and four other men and head for Potter’s Bluff. There’ll be some of our stock up there. Everythin’ a wearin’ our brand is ta be throwed back across the river.”
A big florid-faced man at the end of the table started to object angrily. “Potter’s Bluff? Why that’s way up north.”
“I know where it’s at,” Stonewall said calmly.
“That’s the best grass on this whole goddamn range. What ya doin’ that for? Ya gettin’ soft in the head, Stonewall?” The man’s small eyes flicked over the faces at the table, seeking support.
Stonewall leaned back in his chair. “I was talkin’ to Lud, Kelso. Yore job ain’t to tell me how to ramrod this outfit.”
“You givin’ up that range?”
“We ain’t givin’ up nothin’.” Stonewall looked past the red-faced drover. “The rest of you work south along the edge of the mesa to Black Hole Ridge. Bring the cattle down. Shouldn’t take more’n a week. Gopher’ll bring out a chuck wagon. Canon, yore in charge. I’ll be out in a day or two to see how yore makin’ out.” Stonewall finished eating and took a final swallow of coffee. Abruptly he got to his feet. As he picked up his hat, he let his eyes light on a man in ragged buckskins at one end of the table. “Yore welcome to put yore feet under this table, but if’n yore able ya can lean on that thar woodpile ’n’ cut Miss Victory some firewood.”
Mason followed Stonewall’s gaze. The man had sunbleached hair and a narrow, sardonic face. He didn’t turn his eyes away when he found Mason studying him. After a moment the pale blue eyes flashed from Mason to Stonewall and back again. A crafty gleam came into the man’s narrow-set eyes.
“Ain’t I seen you somewhere?” Silence fell on the room.
“Maybe. I’ve been around.” A long thin-bladed knife appeared in Mason’s hand and he flipped it, spearing a biscuit.
“Yore a ranger, ain’t ya?” The man half rose out of his chair and rested his hands on the table. He wore his guns waist high.
“Ike!” Stonewall’s big frame dwarfed the man. “Yore welcome here on the Double M longs you keep them guns sacked. You ain’t got no right to be throwin’ out questions. Ain’t nobody askin’ you nothin’.”
“I ain’t a likin’ it that you brought a lawman in,” Ike snarled.
“I’m not a lawman.” Mason stood and took a step back from the table.
“And I’m a sayin’ ya are.”
With a move as powerful and sudden as a whirlwind Mason turned, swinging one arm as he came around. The fist caught Ike full against his thin throat, hurling him backward, leaving him sprawled on the floor with his arms and legs pointed at the ceiling.
As quickly as he had turned, Mason backed off a pace, drew his gun and covered the men who had been sitting near Ike. Mason knew that when Ike’s head cleared he would more than likely go for his gun, but it was important now to watch the reaction of the other men.
A rangy, flat-backed man, long of leg, taut and compact about the hips, got to his feet. Much of his weight was carried in the strong arch of his chest and the solid width of his shoulders. His cheekbones were high, giving an angular cast to his features. His eyes, squinting a little against the glare of the lamp, were a cool blue against his skin, Indian dark from wind and sun.
“I got no quarrel with you, but I don’t care for a man a drawing down on me.” His voice had the slurred softness of the deep South.
“Are you with him?” Mason nodded toward the man on the floor.
Forever, Victoria Page 6