Dust Devil

by Bonds, Parris Afton

  * * * * *

  Stephanie noticed that Consuela had cleaned the Springfield in the gun cabinet. Other than that, there had been no inquiry, no interest raised in the mysterious visitor who had killed Lario Santiago and sought to kill Stephen Rhodes. It was more or less presumed it was the work of avenging Indians, perhaps Geronimo’s renegades — maybe even Satana himself.

  Only Stephen Rhodes knew the killer’s identity, and, of course, he was totally paralyzed.

  In every face she read the sympathy for her, except in the faces of Ignacio and Julio when her mother fired them the next day. "I am accusing you two of theft,” her mother had told them, sitting in Stephen’s office, behind his desk. "It’s three days you have to ride clear of Cambria. After that I am instructing my hands to shoot you on sight.”

  The two Mexicans looked shocked and angry, but they wasted no time in gathering their gear and leaving.

  The word had spread rapidly after the doctor from Las Vegas had departed. El Patron will never walk! He cannot move a muscle! Imagine — not being able to speak! The women looked at Rosemary and thought — poor thing, to spend the rest of one’s days waiting on a bedridden husband. And the men, they looked and thought — how lonely her bed will be. Will she ever take someone to share it? And had her husband shared it? He was old, you know. How can such a woman exist without — and they would eye each other and wink in spite of their deep respect for the Anglo woman.

  Stephanie never said anything. It was all she could do to force herself to come into Stephen’s room. To look at the dry skin, the shriveled body. The room smelled. And she thought it was not just from decay. Could hatred have a smell, for surely it seemed almost tangible in the air? Stephen Rhodes’s eyes burned when she entered, and she thought the intensity of their hatred would blister her skin.

  She felt no pity, only revulsion. And she was ashamed of herself for the pleasure she took in his helplessness the few times she fed him, watching the food drool from the flaccid lips.

  Only a week had passed since the shootings; yet it seemed already like a year. Eternity loomed before Stephanie’s mind. An eternity of rising, waiting out the hours of the day, and sleeping. To this she and her mother were condemned.

  Even her anger at her mother was gone now, replaced by a great vacuum.

  The urge to escape was so overpowering at that moment, to run — anywhere — that she set the bowl of vegetable soup on the bedstand, ignoring the questioning in Stephen Rhodes’s eyes, and ran from the room out onto the veranda. Fresh, clean air. She had to have it. Her chest heaved as she sucked in the air in great gulps. She heard the sobs welling from deep in her chest, gurgling upward like the filling of a water keg.

  Stop it! Get control of yourself. You’re a grown woman. No longer a child.

  Weakly she leaned back against the veranda post, feeling now only a self-disgust. She felt unclean. Soiled. A dirty half- breed. Wasn’t that what people like her were called? What man would want her now? Not fastidious Wayne. She would have even been his mistress had he wanted her; but not now. He could only look at her with revulsion.

  And Cody? Would he have still wanted her had he known about her Indian heritage? Was he alive, perhaps at his ranch now . . . or were his bones slowly being bleached by the torturous New Mexican sun?

  Through heavy lids her gaze swept the sun-beaten countryside. If intense longing could produce a mirage, it seemed to her that what her gaze encountered that moment had to be. She straightened to her feet, her hand shielding her eyes. But the mirage continued to move closer. Too many times she had sat on the veranda steps as a child and watched the man ride toward her, his weather-stained hat slouched down over his eyes in just the same fashion.

  "Cody!” she cried. She picked up her skirts and ran toward the approaching rider.

  He dismounted and opened his arms as she threw herself against him. "Stephanie,” he rasped against her ear. His arms wrapped about her, though his hands were held awkwardly away from her body. It was when she pulled away to look at that wonderfully craggy face of his that she noticed the bandaged hands, the dirt-crusted strips no longer white. Her face paled.

  "They did it then?” she whispered, taking one of his hands between the two of hers. "Stephen told me what he planned. It must have hurt terribly!”

  Cody nodded. A grim smile settled on his face. “You might say that when I pulled free from the embedded nails. But not much more than what Juan Jesus and Dick are undergoing right now.”

  She raised a questioning brow, and he said, "I never made it to Las Vegas. After I got free, it took me two days to catch up with them, and when I did I wasn’t in too good a shape, but the Spencer carbine — it made me more nearly equal. I didn’t kill them, but their miserable souls were hanging by threads when I left them — staked out on the Alkali Flats.”

  The words "staked out” reminded her. "Cody, things have happened since you left.”

  "Fill me in,” he said, putting his arm about her shoulders as they walked toward the house.

  By the time they reached the veranda she had related the shooting of Lario and her father’s subsequent shooting and resulting paralysis. "And no one knows who's responsible?” he asked.

  Pedro’s approach saved her from answering. While the young man and two more wranglers heartily pounded Cody on the back, she waited aside, listening as Cody lightly shrugged off their concern for his hands by explaining they had been rope-burned. She wondered if she should reveal the discovery of her real father to Cody. But she was afraid that would open an avenue to other questions that might easily lead to the identity of Lario’s murderer — of which she was not entirely certain herself.

  That night, after the few visitors who had drifted through Cambria left the dinner table, Cody told her mother, "I want to take Stephanie back with me to Loving’s Bend. We’ve got to start somewhere on our own. And here, working for Cambria . . . ” he looked down into the dark liquid in his coffee cup, "here there’d always be talk I married Stephanie for Cambria.” He looked up, and his somber eyes met those of Rosemary’s. "I hope you understand.”

  Her mother was silent as her fingertip traced the curve of her coffee cup. "I don’t know how I shall be getting along without you after all these years, Cody. You be like a younger brother. But I shall manage. Pedro's experienced enough to take your place now. With time,” she smiled and shrugged her delicately rounded shoulders, "perhaps we shall make it.”

  "What about Stephen?” Cody asked. It was the first time the name had been mentioned except when Cody first offered his condolences.

  Her mother took a sip from her cup, waiting for the warming tea to go down, as if buying time. "Stephen’s helplessness should not keep Stephanie from the happiness she deserves. And I shall be happy here at Cambria. It’s what I want.” She turned to her daughter. "What I want to know — is this what you want? Running away never solves anything.”

  Stephanie glanced at Cody, but nothing in his face mirrored any anxiety he might have felt about her feelings for Wayne. She knew Cody was calmly waited for her to deny that love.

  At last she smiled at him. "It’s what I want.”

  * * * * *

  It was supposed to be a small, simple wedding that took place two weeks later in Cambria’s old adobe chapel. But it seemed that every breathing soul in the northeastern part of the Territory had turned out for the wedding, so that when Cody, dressed handsomely in a black frockcoat, and Stephanie, gowned in her mother’s rose-satin wedding dress, exited arm in arm from the chapel there was a sea of faces to greet them. Stephanie laughed, turning her radiant face up to Cody’s. "It was a simple ceremony,” she said.

  Father Felipe had ridden all the way from Las Vegas on his prized cream-colored mule to officiate at the wedding. Later, after he removed his vestments and put away his sacred vessels, he came in to join the friends Rosemary had invited to share in the celebration. Rita, a wealthy widow now, was among them. Rosemary looked forward to the evening’s end when she a
nd Rita could talk over a glass of wine, as they had in the old times.

  Rita was now quite plump, and her blue-black hair was streaked with gray. Still, with the lines of laughter dimpling her skin and the twinkling eyes that always looked for the positive in everything, it was an arresting face. Yes, the two of them would have much to talk about . . . except for the subject of Wayne and Inez. Rosemary longed to ask if Inez was happy and sincerely hoped her godchild was, though she had her private doubts. It was, of course, best for everyone concerned that Wayne had sent his apologies expressing his and Inez’s disappointment at not being able to attend.

  And Grant. Rosemary’s gaze moved to him and Libby. In middle-age Grant was even more distinguished. Silver highlighted the golden hair at his temples. Rosemary thought she could detect a certain look of melancholy in the bright blue eyes, making him seem more human than he had in his youth when his features were Apollo-like. And she smiled as she noted the way he held in his stomach. Yes, he would definitely have a problem with a paunch in not too many years. She looked at stodgy Libby at his side, who had not changed, then turned back to Father Felipe as he toasted the newlyweds with the imported champagne.

  Rosemary looked at the bride, flesh of her own flesh. Forgive me, my child. I have loved you so much. And hurt you so much. Why? Is it true we hurt the ones we love the most? I must tell her and Cody before they leave tomorrow that I am keeping Cambria for them . . . and their grandchildren . . . if they should change their minds.

  And Rosemary thought of Stephen, alone in his room listening to the noise of the wedding celebration, and knew that bile as black as miasma must be rising up in his throat to choke him. So many years, so many people maneuvered and trampled on to gain one end . . . and now the hopes of a pure Anglo to rule the Cambria kingdom had been thwarted.

  "What were you saying, Father? I’m sorry.”

  "Disgraceful!” the old priest shouted at her ear as near-deaf people have a habit of doing. "There is no reverence for anything sacred anymore. At the last Novena of High Masses would you believe a gang of cowboys out of the Lazy B Ranch rode right into the Cathedral and defiled the font! Urinated on it!”

  "Disgraceful!” Rosemary agreed in a polite murmur. But her attention had already moved to the stairway where Stephanie, with her back turned, tossed her bouquet of baby’s-breath to the crowd of young ladies, mostly daughters of the Cambria employees. There were shouts of chivalry and song, and an accordion and harmonica played riotously as Stephanie shyly placed her hand in Cody’s and let him lead her up to the bedroom they would share on their wedding night.

  "That could have — should have — been us twenty years ago,” Grant said quietly, suddenly at her side.

  CHAPTER 40

  It was only a mild intoxicant, the bubbly champagne. Still, Stephanie’s blood thundered in her ears. From outside came the noise of shouts and pistol shots as cowboys circled the house in the traditional chivaree. Her lids lifted and closed heavily. She tried to make her eyes focus on Cody as he extinguished the gas lamp and came toward her, the paleness of his sinewy body gleaming in the room’s sudden darkness.

  In the two times they had come together she had known the quickening of her heart, the singing of her blood, the ache of desire in her loins. Cody had that sexual power over her that made her weak just in waiting for him to come to her. And on this night, mixed with the passion, there should have been a special joy, she thought. But she felt only a pervading sadness, like the slow seep of oil from the ground. It’s the champagne, she told herself, as her hands slipped around his taut waist and slid up to the corded shoulders.

  But she knew it had been the sight of Wayne’s father and Inez’s mother that had brought back all the frustration, all the years of wanting and yearning, to culminate now in a marriage with a man she did not love. I'll learn to love Cody, she thought. He’s a good man, and he loves me.

  And as Cody gently kissed her lips, his mouth searching, asking, Stephanie felt the shame of her treachery wash over her. How could she condemn her mother’s adultery when she was just as adulterous?

  Ah, Wayne, would you come to me now, knowing the taint I carry in my blood? A half-breed? A bastard? An adulteress, if not in thought, then deed?

  The hopelessness of her life stretched out like a frozen, barren land behind her closed lids. Yet as Cody drew his lips from the hollow of her neck, moving lower to tease one full breast, Stephanie felt herself responding against her will, felt as if it were Wayne she was betraying with the soft, purring moans. Or was it Cody she was betraying? All the champagne — she couldn’t think straight. She could only think now of the mounting pleasure as Cody’s tongue lashed relentlessly at the small, hard core of her femininity.

  At last, when she could wait no longer, he slid up over her. His lean body, hardened by the years of range riding, began to move against hers, first in a gentle, slow tempo. And then, as her own body arched to meet his with each stroke, the cadence of their passion increased. Pounding, throbbing, rising, falling . . . Wayne, Wayne, Wayne! her body cried out, matching the tempo of her growing ecstasy.

  Brilliant colors exploded behind her lids, coinciding with the tremors that racked her, one after another. "Wayne, Wayne!” she gasped. "Oh, don’t let it stop now!”

  Cody pulled away from her. The darkness hid the hurt in his eyes, but not IN his voice. "Damn your cheating soul!” He left her spent and shaken body alone on the bed as he dressed and left the room. The cool night breeze poured through the fluttering chintz curtains to chill her bare flesh and dry the tears on her cheeks.

  * * * * *

  "You’re a fool, Stephanie!”

  Rosemary bit back her railing. Her gaze rested sorrowfully on the bent head and thin shoulders of her daughter, who sat hunched over, her chin buried against her knees. Stephanie, who had been the stronger willed of her two children, was wasting away before Rosemary’s eyes; going each day to sit beneath the cottonwood and look out upon the sweep of the Pecos.

  Did people actually die of heartbreak? Rosemary wondered. She had survived more than fifteen years of heartbreak. Or had she? Some part inside her had died, withered away with Lario’s imprisonment. And the rest of her . . . her soul, her heart, her spirit, whatever one called it . . . had begun to decay the day Stephen had castrated Lario. Regardless of how wrong what she subsequently did might have been, the vengeance she took did dilute the bitterness that poisoned her.

  Perhaps she should take her own life, ease the agony that greeted each morning she awoke. Yet, she knew she could not. Something in her fought back, would continue to fight. Life was too precious. It was a gift that should never be taken for granted.

  There had been many brief moments of happiness for her over the years. Stephanie’s first words, "I love you”; Jamie’s graduation from law school, her deep friendship with Rita. These were things to be treasured.

  But perhaps because of her own numb heart, she could not understand her daughter’s suffering. Rosemary sat down beside Stephanie, spreading her skirts over the grass that grew sparsely beneath the tree’s thick branches. She waited, letting the moment stretch into peaceful silence. A dove chirped out his song from a branch high above, a buzzard soared lazily beneath the midday sun, and Stephanie’s fingers listlessly plucked at a lone brown leaf.

  Fall was fast approaching, Rosemary thought. Then winter and another year. And another. What do I want for my own life? And without looking she saw the Castle behind her, as clearly as the first day she had seen it as Stephen’s young bride. She knew then that the love for Cambria had been as strong as her love for Lario. Only in a different form.

  And she knew that Stephen, bedridden — a shell of the once-powerful man — had triumphed in his own way. Her love for Cambria would consume her life now.

  Satisfied with the realization of the direction her life would take, she leaned her head back against the narrow girth of the cottonwood trunk. She closed her eyes, seeing the face of the man she had loved for so long and
knew that she must set his daughter free.

  Perhaps it would be Stephanie’s children, Lario’s grandchildren, who would return to live at Cambria. A smile touched her upturned lips. What a twist of irony . . . Cambria owned, controlled by an Indian’s tainted blood.

  "Stephanie,” she began, unsure of what to say. Was not the truth always simplest? She laid her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

  Stephanie jumped, torn from her stupor of despondency. "Mama, what’s left for me?”

  It was a desperate whispered plea for help, and Rosemary sighed inwardly with relief. "You can stop pining away for something that doesn’t exist,” she said softly. "Wayne —t he man you’ve painted in your mind since childhood is just that . . . a one-dimensional caricature that does not exist anywhere except on the mind’s canvas. The truth about Wayne is — ”

  Stephanie raised her eyes to meet her mother’s hard gaze. "Mama, don’t. I know I am a fool. I know Wayne’s a weakling.”

  And more, Rosemary thought.

  "But I don’t know what to do, where to start. For days now I have felt like I’ve been in a deep hole. I’m so confused!” Stephanie buried her head in her arms. "I’d like to wipe out that last night . . . “ she faltered.

  "Why don’t you go to him — to Cody. Loving’s Bend isn’t that far.”

  Stephanie looked up. Her lips trembled. "What if he doesn’t want me?”

  “What if . . . what if Cody didn’t go back to his ranch? What if I get to Loving’s Bend and there’s another woman with him already? What if . . . what if he won’t take me back?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  * * * * *

  Tired and dusty from two days of traveling in the stagecoach, for the railroad did not follow the Pecos River that far south yet, Stephanie found it difficult to converse politely with the other occupants — two elderly sisters making their second daring trip to Mexico City and a middle-aged man in a black derby with a worn, black case in his lap. A traveling salesman — a drummer — she was sure.