The Baron Brand
Page 33
Martin nodded. “I’ll go in with you. I want to say good-bye to Dr. Purvis.”
The two men went inside.
Before Dr. Purvis and Al left, Oltmen pressed the badge into Martin’s hand.
“That’s yours,” he said. “I couldn’t give it to another man. If you don’t join us, that’s all right, too. The badge is yours to keep.”
Martin took the badge without looking at it, put it in his trousers pocket.
After the doctor and Ranger had left, Martin walked upstairs. Through an open door he saw Esperanza in her room with Lazaro and Talia, one of the ex-slave girls who now worked for him, along with Socrates, Fidelius and his wife, Petunia, and Elmo. The other Negroes worked in town and were doing fine, he knew. Roy Killian had hired on the young men, Pluto and Lucius.
He walked to Caroline’s room, knocked politely.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
“Come in.”
Martin opened the door and walked inside the bedroom he had once slept in with his wife. He closed the door softly. The room smelled of unguents and oils.
“Did you speak to Dr. Purvis?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry, Caroline.”
“Umm, yes. It’s bad news for me. Good news for everybody else.”
“Please, hon.”
“Hon. You haven’t called me that in a while.”
“I know. I’ve been a bastard.”
She sat next to the window on a chair he had bought for her. She was still wearing her nightgown. He could not tell by the way she looked that she was dying. “The sun is setting. It will be dark soon.”
“Yes.”
“No,” she sighed. “I shut you out. I kept you away. I didn’t want you to see the marks of my sin on my body.”
“You don’t have to talk about that,” he said.
“All right. What did Roy Killian want? I saw him ride up last night, then ride away again. You didn’t say why he came all the way over here.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Marty, I saw his face. That man carried a lot of worry with him.”
“He said Matteo Aguilar was putting together an army of his Mexicans.”
“Are they going to start the civil war everybody’s talking about?”
“I don’t know. No. He’s mad because I took his slaves.”
“So, he’s going to fight you. Me. Us.”
“I doubt if it will come to that. Probably all bluff.”
“You know Matteo better than that. He’s a snake. And, he doesn’t bluff. If he says he’s going to do something, he does it. That family.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Martin said.
“I know you will.” She arose from her chair and came close to Martin. She looked into his eyes. For a moment, she seemed free of disease, almost beautiful. He felt a wrenching in his heart as she studied his face. “You might want to go into town and bring that cannon back out here. It worked against the Apaches. It ought to work against Matteo.”
“But …”
“I know,” she said, waving his unsaid words away, “I’m over that. Besides, what difference could it make now? I’m dying, Martin, and you won’t have to live with my madness anymore. I won’t have to live with it, either.”
“Caroline …”
She turned away from him abruptly.
“Martin?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Will you do me one last favor? I promise not to …”
“Sure. What favor?”
“Sleep in my room tonight. Sleep with me. One last time.”
“You don’t have to ask, Caroline.”
“Yes, yes I do. I don’t want you to do anything. You can’t. But, I would just like to have you in my bed before I die.”
He heard her choke back the tears and he felt his own eyes brim up, start to sting.
“Now, go, will you?” she said. “Come back tonight.”
“Let’s have supper together,” he said.
She turned, wiped her eyes. “Yes, I’d like that,” she said.
“Damn, Caroline … .”
“Just go for now, will you? I want to dress up for you.”
He left the room and heard her loud sobbing after he closed the door. He choked back his own tears and walked down the stairs. As he passed Esperanza’s room, he noticed the door was closed. He could hear whispering inside and wondered if they knew about Caroline’s condition.
Martin walked out on the front porch, sat in one of the chairs. He needed to be alone, to think. The wicker seat was turning cold as the sun stood behind the house. The eastern horizon was still and gray, as empty as his heart.
Then, he saw the horse with two riders emerging out of the long shadows of afternoon. There was still sunlight on the high ground so he could see that it was Peebo and Anson riding in. He stood up, walked to the railing.
He knew he had been cold to Caroline, never forgiving her for letting Bone violate her. He knew that it probably wasn’t her fault, but she could have fought him off. That’s what he thought, and yet he still had doubts about what had really happened.
It was long past time to forgive and forget, he knew. Caroline was dying and he must forgive her sin. He was sure that God already had, because she had suffered the past few years for that sin and deserved no further punishment.
“Anson, Peebo,” Martin said as the two rode up. “A good way to wear out a good horse.”
“We had some trouble,” Anson said.
“Step down, son. I need to talk to you. Peebo, you come to supper after a while, will you? Lucinda should have it ready soon as the sun goes down.”
“Thanks, Martin,” Peebo said.
Anson slid off the horse’s back and walked to the porch as Peebo rode toward the barn.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Better sit down for this, son.”
Anson climbed the steps, threw down his saddlebags, which were nearly empty. He sat in one of the chairs. Martin turned and leaned against the railing, pressing his butt up against it for support.
“You ran into Dr. Purvis,” Martin said.
“I did. Was he here?”
“Left a while ago.”
“Ma?”
“She’s dying, Anson. Maybe you ought to go upstairs and …”
“Christ, Pa.”
“She’s dressing for supper.”
“How long does she have?”
“Hard to tell. A day, a week, a month. Doc didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. Me too.”
“I don’t know what to say to her,” Anson said.
“I can’t help you there, son. She’s your mother. You’ll think of something.”
Anson sighed and stood up.
“I’ll go on up and see her. She coming to supper?”
“Yeah. I’m going to stay with her tonight.”
“That’s good, Pa. Damn.” Anson opened the door and left his father alone on the porch. He listened to Anson’s footsteps until they faded away.
Then, he walked down the steps and around to the side of the house to watch the sun set. The tears started to well up in his eyes and he let them spill over and course down his cheeks.
The sun sank below the western horizon and the clouds pinked to a soft pastel that deepened to a reddish hue. There was a golden rim on the underside of the largest cloud and the rays stood in the sky like a fan made of airy streamers.
“God, please take care of her,” Martin said, and the tears gushed from his eyes and he shook from the great sobs that burst from his throat like the strangled screams of souls damned to eternal hellfire.
47
MARTIN WAS STILL awake. Caroline had fallen asleep several minutes before. It was full dark outside and the moon was waxing full as it rose in the velvet sky. He wondered if she would see another day. She looked so tired, so frail.
She turned over in her sleep like something sleek and sweet, like a gr
aceful seal rolling lazily in the ocean. And he looked at her in the dark of the room, saw the moon shed light on her face and arms as it streamed through the windowpane, magnified, streaked through her dark hair with pewter fingers.
At that moment, he thought she was beautiful because the dim moonlight softened her, took away her age, ironed out the wrinkles in her face and sculpted her to a youthful, graceful woman in repose.
This was the time to look at her. This was the perfect moment to forget the bitter quarrels, the words laden with anger that coursed between them like arrows barbed and cutting, like sharp stones shot from a leather sling. Here, in the calm silence where good thoughts were born, where the bad past could be forgotten, where memory and history could be altered to reflect a kindness he had not shown her in the past few years.
Finally, he thought, he could love her again. He could love her without any screen between them, any animosity. He could think of her as the child she once was, as the innocent, before the world and its ways corrupted her. Now, he thought, it was a sweet, clean love and she was as beautiful in repose as a woman in an old painting. She was forever, now, somehow timeless, wonderful to behold.
He wondered if she knew how much he loved her. He had tried to tell her after supper, when they were alone. But, there really was no way to tell her how much he loved her. Not now. Not after so much time had passed without any expression of love between them.
It was too complicated now, so confusing. He could feel the love, as he felt it now, but to express such feelings was beyond his ability with words. Maybe this was the best way. Look at her asleep and let the love he felt wash over him, wash over her. Like healing waters, like balm.
He looked at her and it seemed he could feel her love him, too. He wanted her to love him. Like this, quietly, and without boundaries, without restrictions, amendments, qualifications. Maybe, he thought, such love could only exist at night, when the world was invisible, when only the two of them were alive. But that was only a small part of love, not even half. You had to love during the hard times, too. The bad times. And, she had done that, he thought. But, he had not. He had been wrong. You had to love in the harsh light of day as well as in the soft spell of evening.
He wanted to awaken her, but he knew that if he did, it would all go away. Most of it, anyway. No, let her sleep. Let her be like this and tomorrow he would tell her how he had looked at her, and brushed a hand across her face, stroked her hair, nestled against her, secure in the darkness.
Tomorrow. It might never come. He might close his eyes and never awaken. No, Caroline might not awaken. He felt terribly mortal just then. She seemed so close, yet so far away. She was lost to him, lost in the ocean of sleep, unaware of his presence or his thoughts.
“I love you,” he said softly into her ear. She did not stir and he wondered if the words could go through sleep, could penetrate the subconscious and work through the dream, become part of memory. “I love you,” he said again, more loudly and she stirred, turned away from him.
Maybe she knows, he said to himself. Maybe she knows that I feel this way about her all the time. But, I buried it in hatred, buried it all so that she never knew that all the time I did not touch her, I loved her, wanted her.
He put an arm across her waist, closed his eyes.
He vowed to tell her about all this. Tomorrow, he would tell her that he had looked at her while she was sleeping and that he had felt a great love for her that had built up over the years. He would wait until she was wide awake and had had her coffee. That’s when he would tell her how he had felt looking at her as he had.
He did not sleep for a long time because he kept trying to put all of it in words and none of the words said what he had felt. The words kept getting tangled and mixed up and he finally gave up.
“Good night, sweetheart,” he said and those were the right words, finally.
“Good night,” she replied, turning over, taking him into her arms. “I love you.”
And there it was, the loving nocturne he could not put into words because it was too complicated. He opened his eyes and kissed her, but she was already back to sleep. Fast asleep, a smile on her face barely showing in the soft light of the rising moon.
During the night, Caroline stopped breathing and, for some reason he could never explain, her stillness awakened him. He took her lifeless body in his arms and held her tightly until his arms ached. And, then he laid her by his side and smoothed her hair and brushed his lips against hers.
“Good-bye, my love,” he whispered.
It seemed to him, then, that he heard her voice, from some faraway place, heard it in his ear and in his heart. And, hearing it, he felt at peace with himself even as he felt empty inside, hollow, as if a part of him had been torn out and flung into the vastness of the night sky where, in his grief, he thought Caroline might be, might even take with her that part of himself that had been part of her from the first moment he saw her and fell in love with her.
The love that he thought he had lost was now eternal and he knew he would carry his love for Caroline forever in his heart.
Cast of Characters
The Box B Ranch
Martin Baron—patriarch of the Baron family
Caroline Baron—Martin’s wife
Anson Baron—son of Martin and Caroline
Lazaro Aguilar—blind boy raised by Caroline
Esperanza Cuevas—Lazaro’s nanny
Lucinda Madera—works for Caroline
Ken Richman—Martin’s friend
Ed Wales—publisher of Baronsville newspaper
Peebo Elves—works for Anson
Jorge Camacho—cowhand
The Lazy K Ranch
Ursula Killian—widow of Jack Killian
Roy Killian—son of Jack and Ursula
David Wilhoit—Ursula’s friend
Wanda Fancher—Roy’s friend
Hattie Fancher—Wanda’s mother
The Rocking A Ranch
Matteo Miguelito Aguilar—Jaime’s son by Pilar
Luz Aguilar—Matteo’s wife
Others
Mickey Bone—a Lipan Apache
Dawn Bone—Mickey’s wife, a Yaqui Indian
Jules Reynaud—a Frenchman from New Orleans
Will Hamson—a friend of Roy Killian’s
Tom Harris—nighthawk
Seth “Cullie” Culbertson—nighthawk
Culebra—chief of the Mescaleros
Nancy Grant—new schoolmarm
Doc Purvis—town doctor
Al Oltmen—Texas ranger
By JORY SHERMAN FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
The Barons of Texas
The Baron Range
The Baron Brand
The Baron War
The Baron Honor
The Ballad of Pinewood Lake
Grass Kingdom
Horne’s Law
The Medicine Horn
Song of the Cheyenne
Trapper’s Moon
Winter of the Wolf
“Sherman certainly knows how to make a Western gallop, but his real skill is in his gifted creation of gritty characters who must pay the price of greed and ambition.”
—Publishers Weekly
“An outstanding storyteller. Sherman portrayed the characters, their problems, and scenes so well it brought back memories of people I’ve known and ranches I’ve visited.”
—Tulsa World
“Sherman paints pictures with remarkable skill. His characters come to life against a rich historical background.”
—Janet Dailey
“Sherman’s descriptions of daily life and the landscape ring true.”
—San Antonio Express News
“The Barons of Texas grabs the reader by the throat … . A rousing good story with larger-than-life characters and a sense of place so strong the reader can smell the mesquite if he closes his eyes.”
—Roundup magazine
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events
portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE BARON BRAND
Copyright © 2000 by Jory Sherman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
eISBN 9781466827332
First eBook Edition : July 2012
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-5944-5
ISBN-10: 0-7653-5944-8
First Edition: January 2000
First Mass Market Edition: January 2001
Second Mass Market Edition: October 2007