Inez dropped to her knees at Rosemary’s feet. The young woman’s hands clasped hers. "Por favor, Senora, help us. I love your son. And he loves me — and needs me. Ayudanos! Help us!” Tears misted her darkly-lashed eyes.
She lifted Inez to her feet. "The third floor of the mill,” she began hesitantly as she made her plans. "Leave the dance tomorrow night — separately. I shall arrange for the Methodist circuit rider — he’s at Las Vegas now I think — to meet you at the mill. It’s two witnesses you’ll be needing. Your mother, Inez, and Stephanie. I’ll detain Stephen.”
Jamie took his mother’s face between his hands. "I love you, mother.”
"And I love you. Now go, both of you. I’ve much to do before tomorrow night.”
CHAPTER 32
Stephanie looked up into Wayne’s face and saw the grim lines carved at the corners of his mouth. She waited until he had whirled her past the musicians’ platform, away from the twang of the banjo and the scrape of the fiddle and the watching eyes of the matrons and retired soldiers too old to dance any longer, content to watch the younger people dance, and dream of another era.
A strained smile came to her lips. "I’m not forcing you to marry me, only seduce me. Am I that bad of a bargain, Wayne Raffin? After all, I am heiress to a kingdom, as you once reminded me. And I’m not that bad looking. Ask the master-sergeant over there. Already he’s asked me to dance twice this evening.”
Wayne had to smile. Well, compared to the cloddish daughter of one of the homesteaders I just danced the quadrille with, maybe you’re not so bad a bargain. Are you trying to bribe me into marrying you?” he asked, attempting to match her humorous sparring. "If you are, it won’t work. I’ve found I’m allergic to your bites.”
Her smile leveled into a serious line. "Wayne, we’d be good together! Can’t you see it?”
Embarrassment surfaced on his usually sardonic countenance. His eyes looked past her head. "I know only that you’re still a child in some ways, Stephanie. That you don’t see beyond your own needs and wants.”
Before the dance was even ending its last note, he dropped his arm from about her waist and escorted her back to her mother. Stephanie turned her back on him as he thanked her and rapidly began to fan herself. She was glad her mother was too preoccupied with Rita at the moment or she would have easily detected that something was wrong. But from the comer of her eye Stephanie hopelessly watched as Wayne bowed to Inez and heard him ask, in Jamie’s absence, for a dance.
Stephanie wanted to cry and stamp her feet at the same time. She knew every pair of female eyes watched her, gloating at her frustration. She raised her head and glared at the nameless faces about her. Her defiant gaze swept by the women, herded together like sheep for security, and on to the men at the room’s far side. She saw through their facade of nonchalance to their nervousness. And she saw Cody Strahan in lithe relaxation against a post, his watchful gaze on her.
With cool deliberation she snapped shut her fan and began walking across the sand-sprinkled puncheon floor that separated the two sexes like an enemy firing line. She heard the startled gasps even above the beginning strains of the music. She came to a halt before Cody, who raised one brow. "Will you dance with me, Cody?”
Cody took her in his arms and led her out onto the floor. It was the first time she had ever seen him dance, and she was surprised at his smoothness, for she had expected the usual awkwardness of the other cowpunchers she had danced with. Looking up at him now, she realized he was attractive in a rugged sort of way. He wore a dress-white linen shirt with the paper collar, and rather than his usual bandana knotted about his neck he had on a thin drawstring black tie.
"You’re grinning like a opossum, kid,” he said. "Does it hurt that much?”
She nodded, still smiling. "It shows, huh?”
He shrugged his shoulders. "I doubt the others know. I just been around you a lot maybe.”
"You can read me like you can read bear tracks, Cody Strahan, and you know it.” She looked up into the watchful gray eyes. "What am I going to do, Cody?” she asked in a pained whisper. "I want Wayne more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”
"And you’ve always gotten what you wanted, haven’t you?”
She stiffened. "Are you against me also?”
"Nope. No one is. But you’re headstrong. Like an unbroken colt.”
"I’ve had to be, Cody! What do you think it’s been like — growing up at Cambria where you count for nothing? Pet her, and she’ll go away and leave you alone. That’s my father’s theory. It’s always been Jamie this and Jamie that!”
"Are you jealous of Jamie?”
"No, no one could be. I love him, Cody, and I don’t think he’s been any happier with the life that’s been forced upon him.”
"So, you think you should’ve been the boy.”
She looked away. "I never wanted to be. It just seems easier.”
"Hey, kid — you’re just as beautiful as your mom . . . but in a different way.”
She looked up shyly. "You mean it?”
He laughed out loud. "Don’t play the coquette with me, Stephanie Rhodes. I’ve known you too long, kid.”
She laughed, enjoying herself in spite of Wayne’s rejection. Too soon the waltz finished, and when Cody returned her to the benches of watching women, Rita was there with Inez.
"Cody — my Inez, she does not feel so well,” Rita said. "Maybe you and Stephanie can take us back to Cambria, no?”
Cody cocked an eyebrow at Inez, taking in the girl’s pale appearance.
"Rosita can return with Esteban and Jiraldo tomorrow morning as planned,” Rita continued.
"I’ll clear it with mama and papa, Cody,” Stephanie added hastily, "while you bring the wagon around.”
Cody caught her arm. "No, I’ll clear it with them. You three wait.”
She searched his angular face and saw the knowledge in his eyes that something was afoot. "Cody, please,” she whispered. "This isn’t for me. It’s for Jamie.”
He glanced at Rita, and she nodded imperceptibly. "Your mom and pop don’t know about this, kid?” he asked.
"Mama does. Please, Cody.”
Cody hesitated, then said, "I’ll be waiting outside. Make your good-byes.”
Nervously she twisted the ends of her shawl as she approached her father. At her side Inez said, "I do feel so sick now, Stephanie. My stomach, it chums like butter.”
"Good!”
"Callados!” Rita hissed. "Hush, you two. Inez, hang your head. Chiquita, I shall do the talking.”
At the women’s approach Stephen turned from the group of Las Vegas businessmen and their wives who surrounded him and Rosemary. He pinched his daughter’s cheek. "You be looking as bonny as your mother did at your age.”
"Why, Inez,” Rosemary said, taking Inez’s two frozen hands between her own, "you look like you don’t feel well, doesn’t she, Stephen?”
"Con su permiso, Esteban,” Rita said, "we thought we’d return to Cambria early, if Cody could take us. Inez, she has been complaining of a dolor de cabeza all evening.”
"A headache, huh,” Stephen said. "Maybe we should rouse the fort’s surgeon. Have him examine her.”
"That probably would be unnecessary, Stephen,” Rosemary said. "Inez just needs a little rest, I’m sure.”
"I’ll return with you, mi amor,” Don Jiraldo said. "These fiestas that last todo las noches are too much for a man my age.”
Stephanie opened her mouth to protest, not knowing exactly what she would say, but her father spared her the worry, saying, "I’m sure Rosemary and Rita can take care of Inez, Jiraldo. Besides, we still haven’t finished the deal on the Encino Silver Mines. Get with Hubbard and finish off the details while I walk the women to the wagon.”
Outside there was the usual nip of coolness in the evening air, and the women hugged their shawls close about them. From nearby Las Vegas could be heard the explosion of fireworks. At noon that day Fort Union’s cannon had fired thirty-eigh
t salvos, one for each state in the Union.
Rita, Inez, and Stephanie climbed into the back seat of the wagon, and Stephen helped Rosemary in next to Cody. "Rosemary,” he said, releasing her waist.
Rosemary heard the challenge in his voice. How many times had she faced it over the twenty years of their marriage, most of the time losing, sometimes winning? At times she thought Stephen had actually come to enjoy their marriage, enjoy the challenge she brought to it. "Aye, Stephen?”
"The Methodist circuit rider, Reverend — what’s his name? He won’t be at the millhouse.”
Simultaneously the three women drew their breath in sharply. Stephen continued, "Oh, yes. I knew.” Then to Rosemary, "You should know better after all these years than to underestimate me. Sending Pedro to Las Vegas to visit a clergyman — you should have realized it would not be going unnoticed.”
"Does Jamie know?”
"To be sure. He and I had a father-to-son talk. I think he understands now I will never allow a marriage between him and Inez.”
Rita bounded to her feet. "And for what reason? They are in love! Why do you stop them?”
"Because her background is not impeccable enough,” Rosemary answered tiredly. "Her ancestry must be as Anglo as Stephen’s Hereford cattle.”
"Mierda!” Rita swore.
Inez cried out, "Where is Jamie? I go to him. No matter what you say!”
"I think not.” Stephen’s smile was benign below the calculating eyes. "It’s already arranged between your father and Grant Raffin — you are to marry Wayne next year when he returns to practice law.”
"No!” Stephanie screamed. She sprang up and threw herself at her father. "I won’t let you control Wayne and myself. Not us, too!”
CHAPTER 33
There came only the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves on the grooved road that groped its way in the night between Fort Union’s foothills and Cambria’s high plains. Beneath the heavens’ star-seamed canopy the wagon’s five occupants sat in silence, each preoccupied with Jamie Rhodes, wondering where he had gone when he had ridden out from the fort into the night’s concealing darkness an hour earlier.
"He’s just angry at being thwarted,” Stephen had said, mildly irritated at Rosemary’s smothering concern for the boy. "When he realizes I’ve done the best thing for him, he’ll turn up. Jiraldo and I will be coming home tomorrow sometime after we’ve finished business here with the Englishman, Hubbard.”
Occasionally Inez’s muted crying would puncture the night’s silence. "We must find Jamie!” she would beg of Cody.
Only Stephanie felt her worry surmounted by other feelings. Bitterness. Betrayal by Wayne, her father, and even her friend, though she fully realized Inez had no part in the betrayal; that Inez’s love for Jamie was as deep as hers for Wayne. Still it hurt, like the sting of a scorpion, each time her imagination flashed a picture of Wayne and Inez sharing the bridal bed.
When the Castle finally came in sight, dawn tinted the sky a boiling orange. Inez and Rosemary did not wait for Cody to halt the wagon before the veranda steps but stumbled down from their seats as it was still rolling and ran into the house. Rita followed, cursing all the way. "Esteban and Jiraldo, they are bastardos! Pigs!”
Stephanie sat listlessly in the wagon, listening to Rita’s epithets trail off into the great house. What could she say to her brother that would be of any consolation? She knew too well how he felt. Helpless frustration and a killing rage. Had she a pistol she would have shot her father at that moment; yet she felt greater anger and hurt toward Wayne. He had sold himself, she was sure. How much had her father paid Grant and Wayne Raffin to accept Inez Sanchez y Chavez into their family?
Her fingers curled, biting into her palms, and she was unaware of Cody lifting her down from the wagon, guiding her into the house that had come alive suddenly with lights. Her mother stood at the foot of the stairs, her face as white as the plastered walls. It was the first time Stephanie could remember seeing her mother so distracted. She whirled on her and Cody. "Consuela says Jamie has not been here at all.”
Rita came out of Jamie’s room and leaned over the banister. "There is nothing missing, Rosita. No clothes gone. His carpetbags are still here.”
"Jamie would not leave without me,” Inez said, coming up behind her mother. She bit her lip, looking at the man and two women below. "Where would he go?”
"It may be that he’s not up to facing everyone right now,” Cody offered. "He could be at one of the camps. I’ll saddle up and look for him.”
Rosemary put out a hand to Cody. "Calm him down. Tell him everything will work out all right.”
Cody was already saddling his horse when Stephanie caught up with him. He eyed her blue satin gown bunched behind by the bustle. "Don’t tell me you’re going, too,” he told her coldly.
"No, I’m telling you I don’t think you need the horse!” she snapped. "I think I know where he is.”
He sighed. "All right. Where?”
"At the millhouse. Remember how we used to hide out there when mama threatened to paddle us?”
Within minutes they covered the distance that separated the corral from the mill. It loomed dark and forbidding against the morning sky. "He’s here,” Cody said and pointed to the grazing pinto. Cody looked down at her. "You wait here.”
"Let me go with you.”
"Not this time. A hysterical female ain’t going to help his disposition none.”
"You know I’m not that way.”
Cody looked into her eyes. "No, I don’t know that. Not anymore, at least. Now do as I say and stay put.”
She fidgeted, feeling the cool morning air ice her clothes. Even her skin. The early dawn’s mist cast an eerie haze over the sun. After a few moments she heard Cody’s spurs clink on the mill’s wooden stairs. Then another silence. Impatience seized her, and she ran inside. Whatever Jamie could tell about Wayne, she wanted to hear. The cornmeal dust coated her skirts as she ran up the first flight of stairs. On the second floor it was warmer.
"Cody? Jamie?” she called, out of breath. She could not see anyone in the darkness among the paraphernalia of rotted saddles, greasy blankets, and worn hides.
"For God’s sake, Stephanie,” Cody bellowed from the floor above, "go back downstairs!”
She heard the agitation in Cody’s normally lazy drawl and took the stairs two at a time, ripping the lace at the hem of her dress.
"Dammit, I told you to — ” But he broke off, knowing she had seen the horror he tried to conceal.
The scream tore through her, echoing again and again throughout the tower. From above and behind Cody’s tall frame a man’s body swung gently, suspended by a rope from the timbered ceiling.
* * * * *
The glass exploded in purple-dyed shards against the office wall, and Stephen’s belligerent and drunken voice could be heard throughout the house. "Consuela! Linda! Pedro! Another wine bottle. Ahorita!”
Stephanie huddled deeper against the window seat. She had always considered herself brave though she stood in awe of her father’s black Irish rages. Now, she felt only an angry grief as gloomy as the late summer rain that fell outside her window, streaking the panes in dusty rivulets.
For three weeks, since the morning after Jamie’s burial beneath the cottonwood, she, along with the rest of the household, had listened to Stephen’s drunken bellowing that mixed with his morose soliloquys and occasional bouts of crying.
Only her mother seemed unperturbed by Stephen’s frightening behavior and dared enter his chamber of mourning.
For Stephanie it had been three weeks of a loneliness she had not known existed. All her life Cambria had been a fairytale land. Hundreds of her father’s employees to adore her and thousands of acres to roam with no restrictions. Oh, the dreams she and Jamie and Wayne had created there. The buffalo they had shot and the Indians they had vanquished! The pirates they had dueled. When she had gone off to school, she had felt a pity mixed with dismay at the cloistered lives led by her
schoolmates. Years of needlepoint, piano, and singing. Boring!
But now there was only the vast emptiness of the land to swallow up the house. Jamie was gone forever. And Wayne, back to Virginia. But then, after he finished law school, he would be returning to marry Inez. Inez and Rita had at least escaped the forlorn atmosphere that claimed the Castle like quagmire, pulling it and its occupants ever deeper into despair.
The weeks of accumulated inactivity were more them Stephanie could bear, and at last she sprang from the window seat and went to the wardrobe. There in the back of musty, long-unused clothing she found her yellow slicker. She would ride. Ride until she had ridden the bitterness and hurt and grief out of her system. She would let the rain wash away the ugliness that seemed to eat away her insides. Then, maybe then, she could think of Wayne without the terrible hurt.
Maybe then, and her spirits began to flicker with life again, she could think of a way out of all this, think of a way to regain Wayne. She would not accept her father’s dictum for her as docilely as Inez accepted her ordained marriage to Wayne. Rita wrote that Inez had lost all will to live, walking about the hacienda like a zombie of All Souls’ Day. Worse, Jiraldo had suffered a stroke and was not expected to survive.
As Stephanie passed by her mother’s room the sound of her name on her mother’s lips slowed her, and she paused at the open door, not comprehending at first.
"You never took the time to include Stephanie in your plans, did you, Stephen? You unwisely centered all your hopes and plans around Jamie. How unbusinesslike for a man such as yourself, placing all your eggs in one basket! I wonder if you even ever loved our son!”
Stephanie heard the tears of agony in her mother’s voice and turned to leave, when her mother said, "But I won’t let you do the same to Stephanie. I won’t let her be used as you did Jamie!”
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