Wayward Lady
Page 46
“Anybody else think my wife is less than a lady?” he said, slurring his words.
There wasn’t a sound. The man with the withered arm standing at the end of the bar waited for Austin to turn his back. His judgment sorely impaired, Austin did just that.
Tom shouted at him, but it was too late. Norman Taylor put a bullet in the center of Austin Brand’s back. Before Austin slumped to the floor, Tom killed Taylor. Austin, his eyes already glazed, crumpled. “Did you get him?” Austin asked Tom when his old friend bent over him.
“Yeah, Austin, they’re both dead. You killed Red Wilson. Norman Taylor plugged you, I killed Taylor.”
Austin lay on his back. “Tom, you laid me in a puddle of water. My back’s wet.”
“I did.” Tom said, fighting back tears, “I’m sorry Austin.”
Austin grabbed Tom’s shoulder with what little strength he had left. “Promise me you’ll watch after Suzette for me, Tom. You know she’s just…she’s only a…she’s my little girl and I…”
Tom nodded, the tears running freely down his weather-beaten face now. Austin Brand never finished the sentence.
The cold winter rains continued throughout the funeral. Austin’s big coffin, draped with a Confederate flag, lay under a huge tarp. Suzette, seated in front of the casket, could hear the big drops of rain pelting the canvas above her head. She was sure it would turn to sleet by nightfall.
That thought triggered her tears. She’d not yet cried. Now as she sat saying good-bye, she remembered the cold January day that Austin had driven her through the sleet into town to make her his wife.
A lone tear slid down her cheek, but it was quickly followed by others. She bowed her head and wept. When the dreary service had ended and the huge crowd was departing, Suzette noticed Anna and Perry standing under the tarp. They came forward, but it was obvious they’d come out of their high regard for Austin; after no more than a handshake, they made their way to their buggy.
Suzette gripped the Confederate flag in both hands and walked to the coffin, oblivious to the stragglers watching her. When a strong hand grasped her shoulder, she looked up into Tom’s creased, sympathetic face. She blinked her eyes in acknowledgment. Then she knelt before the big bronze coffin and put a gloved hand out to it.
“I’m sorry, Austin,” she whispered as she leaned forward and kissed the cold metal.
“Are you certain you want to do this, Suzette?” Tom Capps stood in the library, warming his hands in front of the fire.
“Yes, Tom.” Suzette opened the heavy drapes to let the bright March sun stream into the room. “You’re to immediately start the search for a buyer. Let’s try to find a syndicate or individual that will leave all the men in place. I don’t want to see anyone out of work. If it takes some time, that’s fine. I’ve no real plans, so there’s no rush.”
“Ma’am, I wish I could change your mind. Austin left it all to you because it’s your home. It’s where you belong.”
Suzette walked over to Tom and looked up at him. “Tom, you were his best friend. You two talked so you must know about Kaytano.” She lowered her eyes briefly, then took a deep breath, lifted her head, and continued. “I just don’t feel right about living here. It’s not my home. I don’t deserve to live here. You see, I wasn’t a fit wife to Austin and I…”
Tom threw up his hand. “Don’t, Suzette. That’s not true. The whole terrible ordeal is in the past. You couldn’t help what happened.”
“Tom Capps, you’re a fine, understanding man. No wonder Austin thought so much of you.” She smiled and touched his shoulder. “Sell the ranch for me, Tom. I’ll see you get a healthy commission and retain your place here with the new owners.” She hesitated before she said quietly, “I don’t want to live here, Tom. I’ll move to Fort Worth or Dallas. People look down on me here. I want to get away.”
“I understand.” Tom nodded sadly.
Suzette took one last look around the blue bedroom. “That about does it, Kate,” she said to the helpful woman closing the big trunk.
“Don’t go, Mrs. Brand,” Kate tried.
Suzette smiled. “Oh, Kate, I must. The new owners will be arriving next week.” She went over to the woman and slipped an arm around her thick waist. “Now, you’re going to love the Morrisons. Mrs. Morrison is a lovely woman, and with three little girls she’ll sure need your help.”
“I suppose,” Kate conceded. When Suzette turned to leave the room, Kate stopped her. “Won’t you let me cook you a birthday supper?”
“Kate, you’re thoughtful, but thanks, no. I’d just as soon forget today is my birthday.”
Suzette hurried down the stairs and into the library. The Prairie Echo was on the desk where Denis Sanders had left it. Holding her breath, Suzette snatched it up, hoping against hope that she would read of another daring escape by her beloved Kaytano. She was sure he’d slip from their clutches again.
But this time the front page bore his fate—and her own: KAYTANO TO HANG TODAY! She didn’t bother to read the article.
A week ago, under heavy guard, Kaytano had been transported back to Fort Worth from the federal prison in El Paso. There, on this seventeenth day of May 1881, he was to go to the gallows.
In the early afternoon, Suzette rode over to the old Foxworth ranch. A family named Bates occupied the house; the man was an employee of the Brand ranch. Suzette was greeted by Mrs. Bates, who was busy making lye soap in the backyard. She assured Suzette that she was more than welcome to visit the small enclosed plot where Blake and Lydia Foxworth were buried.
Suzette looked down at the identical headstones, then began to speak. She was dry-eyed as she told her parents how much she loved them and how she had made arrangements to have their resting place tended. She knelt and gently laid a rosebud across each grave.
When she neared her horse, she saw a pretty young girl run out of the house to meet a young cowboy. The rider swung down from his mount and rushed to the blond girl, wrapping his long arms about her slim waist. Suzette smiled. Sixteen-year-old Betty Bates was shyly embracing her beau, an eighteen-year-old horse wrangler named Denis Sanders. The youngsters never noticed Suzette’s presence. She mounted and rode away.
She rode directly to the small graveyard on the Brand ranch. Beneath a giant oak tree, three graves had been placed side by side. One had new dirt on it, but already the spring grass was claiming it for its own. Austin lay buried beside Beth and his beloved daughter, Jenny. Suzette stood under the big tree, the breeze lifting wisps of hair about her face, then bent down to touch the smooth, cool marble headstone marking the newest grave.
“Austin,” she whispered, “dear Austin.”
At sundown Suzette sat alone on the long gallery, rocking in Austin’s favorite chair. Her fingers held the wooden arms as she laid her head against the high caned back, her eyes moving restlessly over the rolling prairie.
A decade ago this very day she had turned sixteen. Suzette sighed wistfully. It had all been in front of her on that sweet spring night. Now it was all behind her. At twenty-six, her life was over.
Suzette lifted her head and shook it soundly. No! Life was not over. She was alive and she’d keep pressing on. And if nothing wonderful ever happened to her again, didn’t she have more glorious memories than one woman deserved?
Her handsome daddy and beautiful mother handing her the tiny gold locket on her sixteenth birthday as she vowed to wear it forever.
Luke Barnes, so young, so full of life, proudly tying the red bandanna about his neck.
Austin Brand, elegant and handsome in dark evening clothes, sweeping her up the steps to Delmonico’s on a cold New York night.
Romantic midnight suppers aboard the Alpha.
Kaytano holding her on his shoulders beneath Capote Falls.
Kaytano splashing through the fountains outside their Cielo Vista bedroom. Kaytano prowling through the cloud forest in breechcloth and moccasins, his dark hair tied back with a headband. Kaytano’s dark, lean fingers dropping a red c
hip on top of hers at the roulette table. Kaytano. Kaytano. Kaytano.
The sun had slipped below the horizon, but an orange glow still lit the sky. All was quiet except for the occasional lonely call of a whippoorwill. Suddenly the cry of the whippoorwill sounded like…like…Suzette strained to listen. The call was louder. The bird flew away and all was quiet again. Suzette relaxed.
Again she heard it, but she saw no whippoorwill. The sound was nearer and Suzette’s heart began to pound. Clear and distinct, the eerie call she remembered so well drifted toward her on the still evening air. Suzette began to smile. And she began to eagerly scan the horizon.
Over a ridge to the west a lone rider loped into sight. The horse he rode was coal-black, his sleek, powerful body shiny. The tall, slim rider was dressed all in black. Hatless, his blue-black hair was as shiny as the horse’s coat. The rider was urging his steed toward the mansion. And he was whistling—a spine-tingling call that brought happy laughter to Suzette’s lips.
Lifting her skirts, Suzette fairly tumbled down the porch steps. Across the big yard she ran, trying in vain to pucker her lips and answer his call. It was impossible: she was laughing too hard and her lips refused to obey her.
She was out of the yard now, running swiftly across the rolling green plains. The rider galloped to meet her. In seconds he reached her and a pair of strong hands reached down and lifted Suzette easily up into the saddle in front of him. His arms surrounded her and pressed her close to his hard chest as they thundered across the prairie, heading southwest. Laughing and crying, Suzette clung to the rider and covered his dark, smiling face with kisses, joyfully shouting his name.
“Kaytano!”
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