by Anita Mills
“I feel almost sorry for her,” she murmured. “She must have considered you rather daunting.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Here she was, this little spinster woman, saddled with a boy who’d been down a Comanche war trail. I was used to eating raw meat with my hands back then, and she was making me eat these dainty little meals off her grandmother’s china, telling me to how to use silverware.” His mouth twisted wryly. “Yeah, you could say I was a challenge, all right.”
“But she had to have done something right.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you speak English, and you can read and write.”
“She was determined about that, too,” he admitted. “Hired me a tutor with money she didn’t really have. He was this old fellow who’d been an actor before he found God, so I learned to read some of the damnedest things. But it worked, I guess. Every now and then, I try to throw some of those big words he taught me into my reports, just to get Hap going.” His smile broadened into an outright grin. “Last month, it was circuitous that got him. Yeah, I guess I owe Aunt Jane a lot.”
“I’d say so.” She hesitated, then blurted out, “Do you ever see her?”
“Not since the war. I was pretty rough on her, but we finally got to understanding one another. She even cried when I left, and I still write her when I’m out on the trail. A man’s got a lot of time to think then.” Straightening his shoulders, he turned to her. “Turnabout’s fair, you know. How’d you get from the Ybarra to Boston?”
“I went there for two reasons—to get a proper Catholic education, and to escape seeing Mama with Gregorio Sandoval. She married him when I was eleven, and I couldn’t understand how she could do that after Papa died. At first, I hated her for it.”
“But then you weren’t walking in her moccasins, were you?”
“No.” She sighed audibly. “No, I wasn’t. Now I regret that I left her, because Ramon said she and Gregorio weren’t happy, and if I’d stayed, she’d at least have had me. Now I’ve been gone so long that I feel out of place in the land where I was born. I don’t remember Texas being like this.”
‘That’ll pass once you’ve been back awhile.”
“Will it?” “Sure. At least it did for me, and I didn’t have a place like the Ybarra to come back to.”
She looked up, meeting his eyes. “I really don’t know much about cattle, Clay. Actually, I don’t know anything about running a ranch.”
It surprised him that she’d admit it. “Who’s running the place now?”
“Alessandro Sandoval—Ramon’s father. And somehow I can’t see him wishing to stay after I send his son to jail.”
“You’ll have to hire a foreman. Get someone who’s worked at Ybarra—or on another ranch.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be interested?” As soon as the words were out, she couldn’t believe she’d said them. “That is … well, I’ve got to find somebody, and I don’t know anybody out here,” she finished lamely.
The offer hung there for a moment before he shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t work out for you. I’m not the kind of man who can stay in one place and settle down, Amanda. The day I quit moving is the day I die.”
She felt like a fool again. “I guess I didn’t say it right. I wasn’t suggesting anything more than hiring you to help for a little while—until I know who I can trust.”
“You might ask Hap—he’s always wanted to be a dirt farmer somewhere. Maybe for a place like the Ybarra, he might raise his sights a mite higher and go into ranching.”
“I don’t know.”
“At least you’d know he was honest. He’s about thirty-six or seven by now, if that’s not too old for you.”
“Well, I wasn’t intending to marry him,” she retorted. “I was speaking of running my ranch. If I wanted a husband, I’d have stayed in Boston.”
“I suppose you had men lined up at the door,” he murmured, taking another bite of the pudding.
“No—only one. Aunt Kate had her heart set on him, so no one else got near the door to our house.”
“Was he rich?”
“Patrick Donnelly? Well, he wasn’t anything like King Midas, but he came from a fairly well-to-do, politically connected family, and he wanted a proper wife. He expects to be governor of Massachusetts at the very least, you see.”
“A man of ambition.”
“Exceedingly so.”
“And you came with the moneybags. Damned convenient for him, I’d say.”
“It was more than that. I think he believed he loved me.
He felt an unreasonable stab of jealousy. “But you weren’t interested in him?” he asked casually.
“Lord, no. If he were truthful with himself, he’d admit that his first love is himself—followed by politics. If I married him, the best I could come in would be third. A rather lowering thought for a woman, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. From what I saw in Chicago, a respectable woman expects a man’s heart and soul along with his money.”
“You were rather young to discover that then, weren’t you?”
He picked up his knife, balanced it in his hand, then drove the blade into the ground before he answered. “I was old enough to know I didn’t have much of either.”
“Money, heart, or soul?”
“Any of ’em—all of ’em.” He shrugged and reached to retrieve the knife. “Hap calls me a loner.”
“Everyone needs someone, Clay.”
Instead of responding, he poured a little pulke into his tin cup and drank it, washing the last of the pudding down. Squinting up at the sun, he estimated by its position that it must be about two o’clock. He reached into his pocket and took out his watch. As he flicked open the cover, she asked, “What time is it?”
“Five after two. You’d better put up that tent, if you plan on getting any sleep.” When she didn’t move, he regarded her lazily. “I figure you’ve got to be good for something.”
“Nothing you’d appreciate. I’m afraid my education leaned toward music, drawing, and reading classical literature rather than anything truly useful.”
“You can sing?”
“And play the piano. You?”
“Can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but I can beat out a war dance on drums.” He leaned forward, then heaved his body up. “Well, I see I’m going to have a fix my own place to sleep. Whatever happened to ‘I’ll do anything you ask’?”
She colored uncomfortably. “That was to get out of Two Owls’s tipi.”
“Even if you had to share my blanket?” It just sort of slipped out before he knew it. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” Rather than look up at him, she focused on a mesquite-dotted, distant hill. “If it had come to that …,” she said, her voice trailing off. As her face went hot, she caught herself. “But I’m not ever going to drink any more mescal with you.”
“Me neither.” He leaned over, reaching a hand to her. “Come on—if we don’t sleep now, we won’t cover any ground tonight.”
She let him pull her up, then she dropped her hand self-consciously. While she watched, he unsaddled both horses and let them drift off toward where Hannibal already pulled at clumps of grass. He returned carrying his bedroll.
“The saddle blankets are too soaked to be any good, so all we’ve got is this,” he observed, shaking out the roll.
Surveying a small stand of scrub oak, he chose his place, then moved to drape a worn army blanket between branches. In the shade it formed, he spread out the rest of his bedding. It was then she realized that she was going to have to lie beside him. And after what had happened between them, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that. Not now that she was out of the Comanche camp.
He dragged his saddle over and placed it at one end of the bedding. “It’ll be a little crowded,” he told her. When she made no move at all, he thought he knew the reason. “Look—I’ve go
t two blankets on the ground. If you want, you can roll up in one, and I’ll take the other. But whatever you decide, there’s only so much shade I can get from the one I’ve got strung up here.” With that, he lay down, and using the saddle for his head, he turned on his side, facing away from her. “You shared my blanket last night,” he reminded her.
“Last night I was drunk.”
“Suit yourself.”
She hesitated, then took another look at the scorching sun before making up her mind. Walking to the other side of the spread-out blankets, she eased down to her knees. Seeing that his eyes were already closed, she carefully stretched out beside him. He didn’t move.
“Want half my saddle?” he asked.
“No—I’ll use my arm.”
It wasn’t all that much cooler in the shade, but at least she was out of the sun. She lay there, staring up at a hole in the army blanket, waiting for him to go to sleep. But he was too close, so much so that she could feel the heat from his body—and the steam from his sweat-soaked shirt. There was a distinct masculinity to it.
She was lying there, taut as a bowstring, and the tension between them was almost palpable. “What’s the matter now?” he asked, rolling onto his back.
“I’m too hot.”
“I’d tell you to take off the shirt and sleep in your chemise and drawers, but you’d take it wrong.”
“Yes.”
Sighing, he sat up, leaned forward, and clasped his hands around his knees. “This isn’t going to work, is it?” he said finally.
“No.”
He exhaled heavily. “Then I guess we might as well ride. I can’t sleep either.”
The prospect of doing that was even more daunting than that of sharing the closeness of the shade with him. As hot as it was, she reached behind her and pulled her blanket over her head and shoulders.
“I’ll manage somehow,” she muttered.
“Amanda, you’re a hard woman to please—you know that, don’t you? You don’t even try to make it easy on a man.” When she said nothing, he took a deep breath, then went on, “I’m not asking for gratitude—I don’t want it. But you wanted to come so damned bad that it looks like you could pull your load.”
“I don’t belong here,” she said tiredly. “It would be like your coming to Boston.”
“Or going to Chicago. Do you think I belonged there? Do you think I wanted to be captured? I was a little kid, for God’s sake! And do you know what’s the first thing I remember about it?”
“Your parents dying?”
“No—mercifully, I can’t remember that. But I do remember that the first night out they gave me bloody milk from the udder of a cow they’d slaughtered, and I couldn’t drink it. Then they tried to force me to eat the raw liver, but it wouldn’t go down. But you know something? It took me about a day and a half to get over it, and when they killed one of the horses, I was ready to fight for the raw meat. And by that time, it tasted damned good.”
“How awful for you,” she managed, lifting the blanket off her head.
“It’s what you get used to. But I’m talking about more than food, Amanda—I’m talking about survival. And it wasn’t easy, I can tell you. Remember that fight you had with Little Doe? Well, it’s a hundred times worse for a boy brought into a camp. The women beat and threaten him with knives, the boys fight him, and the men watch to see if he survives. If he does, they keep him. If not, well, he wasn’t worthy of being a Comanche.”
“So they kill him? How very civilized of them.”
“Usually.”
“And yet you love them.”
“I came to love the life. Was it dirty? Yes. Was the food godawful? Yes. Did I like having fleas and lice? No. But once I was adopted, I learned what it is to be free, Amanda. Really free. I rode the length of Texas with the wind in my face. I learned how to defend myself against nearly anything you can imagine. They taught me to be a man.”
“You don’t have to tell me this.”
“I want to. You look at them and see the dirt and filth. You look at me, and see the same thing. Well, just because you don’t like what you see, I’m not going to be ashamed of what I am.”
‘They’re murderers and thieves, Clay—they killed my mother.”
“Maybe. But they have a different set of rules for living. Before your mother’s people came here, the land was theirs. And just because those who would take it from them had guns didn’t make it right. They’ve watched your people and the Texans kill off the very lifeline of the Comanche, Amanda. It used to be that one herd of buffalo could cover thirty miles, and now they are nearly gone. Wasted for greed—pure greed.”
“They tortured my stepfather to death, and they killed Mama. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It was their land.”
“Not anymore.”
“Unlike other tribes, the Comanche have never signed any treaties with the whites. They don’t believe any one band has the right to make deals for the others.”
“If you believe this so strongly, why are you a Texas Ranger?” she countered. “Why don’t you just go back to them?”
“I’ve been gone too long. I don’t belong there anymore. I guess it’s like you said—I don’t seem to belong anywhere anymore.”
She could almost feel his sense of loss, and it surprised her. “I’m sorry, Clay,” she said softly. There was an awkward pause, then she dared to ask, “When you were with them, did you kill for them?”
“I was one of them, Amanda.”
“But you were just a boy.”
“The first time I followed the war trail, I came home with two scalps—one belonged to a scared old man, the other to his son.”
“Mother of God.”
“It’s a warrior society, Amanda. A boy learns to ride and shoot almost as soon as he learns to walk. His ultimate purpose is to make war, and to be damned good at it. A good Comanche brave gives no quarter, nor does he expect to get any.” When she didn’t say anything, he looked down at her. “Hell, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I don’t usually talk much about it.”
“No, I’m glad you did,” she assured him.
She had to be lying, he was sure of that. It was impossible for a woman like Amanda Ross to understand the things he’d done or the reasons for any of it. He lay back down, cradling his neck with interlaced fingers, looking up at the worn blanket. All he’d probably done was send her opinion of him even lower.
“I guess you’ve decided to share the blanket,” he said finally.
“Yes.”
“Then you’d better get some sleep. In another four or five hours at the most, you’ll have to get up. And the trail gets a whole lot rougher.”
“It couldn’t possibly.”
“Quanah hides out in those canyons. I hope to God you aren’t afraid of heights, because you’ll be looking into holes that you’ll swear go clear to hell. And we’ll be going down them in the dark.”
“I’ll manage somehow.”
Her flesh was cooking beneath the wool blanket she’d wrapped around her. She threw it off her shoulders and sat up. Modesty was one thing, suffering quite another. Turning her back to him, she unbuttoned the shirt and pulled it off, baring her arms. The hot, dry air felt almost cool on her damp skin. She adjusted the shoulders of her chemise, straightened her drawers, then lay down again.
“Just don’t say anything,” she muttered.
He didn’t. As she turned her back again and rested her head on the crook of her arm, he closed his eyes, praying that the peyote vision wouldn’t come to him again. But he knew it would.
She lay very still, trying to ignore the man behind her, but she couldn’t. She found herself listening to him breathe, and she wondered what he was thinking, if he felt as taut as she did. He was a strange, complicated man, more so than anyone she’d ever known. She’d seen his violence, felt his gentleness, and known his passion, but she didn’t understand him. No
body, not even Clay McAlester, could really want to be that alone.
She came awake slowly to the smells of smoke, coffee, and food. Stretching and yawning, she rolled over and opened her eyes. McAlester was turning something on a makeshift spit.
She yawned again. “If you’d awakened me, I’d have tried to help,” she murmured.
He turned his head, and he was actually smiling. “A herd of buffalo thundering by couldn’t have done the job. You were unconscious.”
She sat up and pushed her hair off her face. “What’s that?”
“Supper by McAlester.”
“I meant the meat.”
“Prairie chicken.”
“You went hunting?”
“You might say that.” He turned the spit over, then stood up, wiping his hands on his buckskin pants. “I’ve got some yeps roasting in the coals.”
“Yeps?”
“Indian potatoes.”
She eyed the fire curiously. “Are they anything like real potatoes?’
“Well, they’re dug out of the ground, but that’s about as close as they come. They’re pretty good.”
“I hope so.”
“They are.”
He walked over to his packs and picked up a flat-bottomed pan. Coming back, he handed it to her. “Here—pour yourself some water and wash up. I left the soap out for you.” When she hesitated, he added, “Just pull down the blanket on one side and use it for a curtain.”
“Thanks.”
He reached into a pocket and drew out a comb. “You’ll be needing this, too.”
She looked down at her chemise. “I … uh, I think I’d like to wear my dress.”
“It’s over there with the soap. I kinda figured you might want it.”
“I just wish I could wash the rest of my clothes.”
“We might find water come morning.”
Digesting that encouraging bit of information, she picked up the pan, the canteen, the soap, and her dress, then ducked behind the blanket. Yanking the bottom of it, she managed to pull it within a foot of the ground. Satisfied she was out of view, she poured about an inch and a half of water into the pan, then peeled out of her clothes. There was no doubt about it—they were rank.