Comanche Rose

by Anita Mills

  It seemed almost reasonable. Finally, she nodded. Carrying it to her lips, she took a tiny sip, then made a face "Ugh!"

  "Here." Leaning forward again, he handed her the sugar. "Put some of this in it."

  Sweetened, it wasn't bad. And it was warm, almost comforting once it hit her stomach. By the time she'd finished the cup, the atmosphere in the kitchen was pleasant, mellow, with the smell of steam, the heat from the stove.

  He was feeling it, too. He'd done it only to help her, he told himself, and yet as he watched the tension ebb from her body, as he saw the wariness leave her eyes, he was intensely aware of his own desire. And yet he knew he had no right to touch her, to push her into something she didn't want. She'd hate him for it.

  "Think you could sleep now?" he asked in a voice not his own.

  "I don't know—maybe."

  "Want a little more?"

  Not wanting to return to the loneliness of her bedroom, she hesitated. "Just a little," she finally decided.

  He poured it for her, added the whiskey, then leaned back to watch her, his expression lazy. "We're a real pair, Annie—a real pair."

  "How's that?" she asked, her gaze meeting his over the cup.

  "We're both crippled. Only you can see it on me."

  "But you're getting better. You're getting well."

  "Am I? If I am, I sure as hell can't tell it."

  The way the light hit his face, he didn't look anything like his thirty-seven years. With that tousled hair and almost sleepy blue eyes, he seemed more like a little boy in need of comforting. Her heart went out to him.

  "You've got a lot of living left in you, Hap," she said softly. "You're not done yet. You haven't made half your mark on this world."

  His mouth was dry as he watched her, and he wanted to see her move, to take in the grace of her slender body. "You're running out of tea. Would you like some more hot water?"

  "I can get it." She rose unsteadily, and the effect of the whiskey hit her as she turned toward the stove. She caught the edge of the table as the room tilted, then waited. "Whoo," she managed. "It's the liquor, isn't it?"

  "Probably. Making you giddy?"

  "Yes." Seeing the humor of being tipsy in her own kitchen, she giggled. "I feel downright silly, Hap— downright silly."

  "Anybody ever tell you how pretty you are when you laugh?" Even as he said it, it sounded stupid to his ears, but he couldn't help himself. She was about as lovely a woman as he'd ever seen. And he was feeling the effect of her even more than that of the whiskey. "You ought to laugh more." With every inch of his body acutely aware of what he wanted, he stood up behind her. "Annie," he said thickly, "you're not dead, and neither am I."

  She turned around at that, and as she looked up, her breath caught in her chest. He was too close, and with the hot stove at her back, there was nowhere to go. She stood there, almost paralyzed, as his finger traced the edge of the flannel ruffle at her neck. The sleepiness was gone from his blue eyes, replaced by open desire. As he bent his head to hers, she could feel the heat of his breath against her cheek.

  "You're beautiful, Annie," he murmured huskily.

  Her throat constricting, she closed her eyes at the warmth of his lips touching hers. His arms slid around her shoulders, drawing her brittle body against his. She felt a wave of panic rising within her, possessing her even as he kissed her, his tongue teasing her lips, seeking the depths of her mouth. For an awful moment she was drowning, but as her hands came up to fight him, he left her mouth to whisper hungrily against her ear, "Let me take the pain away, Annie. Let me make you whole. I can make you forget, Annie."

  A wrenching sob broke free, sending a convulsive shudder through her, as she returned his embrace for a moment. Then she pulled away, leaving him bewildered. "No!" she cried, ducking beneath his arm. "Don't touch me—don't touch me!"

  Before he could stop her, she'd run from the kitchen. He stood there, trying to master his still raging desire, then went after her. By the time he reached her bedroom door, he could hear her weeping hysterically. Disappointment warred with shame, and shame won as he listened to her. Subdued now, he felt an intense need to comfort her.

  "Annie... he said gently, approaching her bed.

  She way lying facedown, her head buried in her pillow, her shoulders shaking so hard the whole bed shook. Feeling lost, helpless, he sat on the edge of the feather mattress and leaned over her.

  "Annie... Annie..." His hand smoothed her tangled hair over the flannel wrapper. "I'm sorry."

  The apology had no effect on her. It was as though she hadn't even heard it, as though she didn't realize he was touching her. She was somewhere he couldn't reach, and yet he had to try. He sat there, stroking her shoulder without passion, as though she were a child. His desire gone, he was completely sober.

  "I guess I had too much to drink, Annie. Believe me, I never intended to scare you. I wanted to love you, Annie, not to hurt you."

  It seemed like forever, but the crying finally stopped, and she lay quietly beneath his hand. Now there was a dead, empty silence within the room, broken only when he sighed.

  "Look, I don't blame you for not wanting me," he said finally. "If I'd had any sense, I'd have known it was too soon. Hell, I did know, but I was looking at you, wanting to think you could look twice at me." Unable to put his own loneliness into words, he straightened up, then stood. "Well, I just want you to know it won't happen again— that's all."

  She waited until he was nearly out of the room before she turned over. "No," she said, her voice breaking, "it isn't you—it's me." As he turned back to face her, she swallowed, then nodded. "You're not a cripple," she whispered. "I am."

  "Yeah, I know."

  "I don't want to be like this, Hap."

  "You got a long time to be alone."

  "I don't want that, either. I'd give anything to start over."

  "Yeah." He squared his shoulders, then exhaled heavily. "Good night, Annie. If I'm not here when you get up, I reckon I'll be on my way to the Ybarra."

  "You don't have to go. You can still stay for Christmas."

  "No. You aren't the first woman I've made a damned fool of myself over, but at least I've got a rule about it— it's never the same woman twice."

  The door closed behind him, shutting her in darkness. As she lay down again, she felt utterly lost. And when he left, she was going to be utterly alone. All she'd have left would be her dream of finding Susannah, and she wasn't sure that was enough to sustain her. But it had to be.

  It was a long time before she slept, and just as she was about to leave the conscious world, she felt tiny steps coming across the covers. And in the silence of night a small, furry body settled against her shoulder, purring loudly. Her hand crept to stroke the long, silky fur, gaining the reward of a sandpaper tongue on her neck. Telling herself it was enough, she gathered the animal close. And yet when her mind wandered again in the netherworld before sleep, it was Hap Walker's voice that haunted her.

  Let me take the fain away, Annie. Let me make you whole.

  If only it was that easy. If only she could have let him. But that part of her life was over. For now. Forever.

  CHAPTER 17

  Spring came early at the Ybarra-Ross Ranch, with temperatures reaching well over eighty by mid-March. That was one of the things about Texas—if a man didn't like the weather in one part, he could travel a hundred miles and find something different. And Hap was about as restless as he'd ever been in his life. He was more than ready to travel. Somewhere. Anywhere.

  Right now it was looking like it'd either be Blanco or maybe Karnes County. Both places had offered him a sheriff's job, Blanco at forty dollars a month, with a place to live behind the jail, Karnes at sixty-five, but he'd have to find his own lodging. Blanco County lay in the hill country—with hot weather, rough ground, and big stock ranches. Karnes had Helena, a tough town situated near the Chihuahua Trail and the San Antonio-Indianola Road, filled with cowboys, drifters, gamblers, and gun-fighters.
For a lot of them life in Helena was short and cheap. He knew that firsthand—he'd been there.

  As soon as Amanda had the baby, he'd feel that he could leave Clay and get on with his own life. Clay wouldn't much like it, but Hap was thinking about taking a long, hard look at Helen's offer. His last letter from the town council there had indicated they might be willing to go another ten dollars a month "to engage someone of your reputation." It wasn't much pay for a man's life, but he didn't need the money. What he needed was the action.

  It'd be different being a county sheriff, with just a county seat and a little land to police. Facing rowdies in streets and saloons required different skills than tracking Indians and outlaws through canyons and deserts. But he hadn't seen anybody he couldn't face down yet, and when he did, he figured then it'd be time to retire. Not now, not while he still had his nerve.

  It'd be a little out of his way, but he was going to stop at San Saba just to see how Annie Bryce fared, nothing more than that. It was funny—she'd been on his mind a lot lately, more than he'd expected. He guessed he wanted to know if she was making it on the farm, if Willett was getting her corn planted as he'd promised. No, he was lying to himself again. He wanted to see if she was as pretty as he remembered, if she still had the same effect on him. Or if it'd be like Amanda.

  He was over Amanda now, had been ever since he got back to the Ybarra. He'd come in between Christmas and New Year's, expecting to feel like the odd man out, but he hadn't. He'd looked at her, admired her for what she was—Clay's wife—and felt nothing other than relief. That was the way it ought to be, and it was. Maybe he'd look at Annie, and he wouldn't feel anything there, either.

  "You've turned awful sober on me, Hap."

  "Huh?"

  "You're not yourself."

  He looked up, seeing Clay. "Man can't raise hell all the time," he responded noncommittally.

  "Something's eating on you."

  "No."

  "You haven't had a bottle in weeks."

  "That ought to tell you something-—if something was eating on me, I'd be damned drunk. Besides, look who's talking. You don't drink much yourself."

  "Amanda and I don't want you to leave," Clay said qui-etly. "That's what's on your mind, isn't it?"

  "I'm not much of a cattleman," Hap muttered.

  "You don't have to be. I'm not asking you to be."

  "That's about all there is around here. Not much need for anything else."

  "With me over at Austin so much, I need you to kind of look after Amanda and the baby when it gets here. You're the closest thing to kin we've got, Hap."

  "She does all right on her own, Clay. She doesn't need me—and you don't either. You just want me underfoot where you can keep an eye on me." Hap heaved himself up from the chair and walked to the window. Looking out over the wide brick-paved courtyard to the hazy purple mountains in the distance, all he saw was Ybarra land. "You don't need to take care of me, Clay."

  "You're like a father to me, Hap."

  "I'm nine years older, that's all."

  "You can't go back to the rangers—it's a young man's job. Hell, I'm too old for it. You paid your dues. You spent your time in the saddle."

  "I'm not going back to the rangers," Hap muttered. "If that's what you're afraid of, I'm done with era."

  "There's something going on, I can see it. Every day you've been riding out into the desert, practicing your aim—practicing your draw."

  "Yeah."

  "And all this mail. You never were much to write when I was a kid. All the time I was in Chicago, I think I heard from you twice."

  "I figured Miss McAlester was talking good care of you."

  "I missed you back then. I didn't like Chicago." Clay came up behind him. "Two more letters came for you today—one's from Rios."

  "That where you got the notion I was going back to the rangers?"

  "No. I've seen this coming ever since Christmas."

  Still staring outside, watching the sleepy activity of several Mexican ranch hands, Hap exhaled heavily. "You know, I never tried to rein you in, Clay. Even when you were a wild youngster, and I was taking a lot of griping about it, I never tried to rein you in. I always kinda figured you had to find out who you were and what you wanted to do."

  "Yeah."

  "And when you wanted to follow me, I never tried to stop you, even though I wanted to. Every time you left out, I knew it might be the last time I'd see you, but I didn't figure I had the right to tell you you couldn't do it."

  "No."

  " 'Way I look at it, you think the boot's on the other foot now. You think maybe I'm not what I used to be, that I'll go out and get myself killed, don't you?"

  "I worry about that leg, Hap. It damned near got you twice, you know."

  "The leg's fine. All I got's a limp left. And that don't bother me like it used to. I reckon I've come to accept it, just like I was born with it." Hap swung around to face him. "If you care about somebody, you don't hogtie 'im, you know. If he gets careless and gets himself killed, you got a right to mourn 'im, but that's about it. Now, have we got that straight between us?"

  That he was right didn't make it any easier. "Yeah, I guess so."

  Hap's eyes narrowed as he studied the younger man's face. "You understand, don't you? You aren't just wanting me around because you're here, are you?"

  "No."

  "You never want to go back out yourself?"

  Clay found himself looking away. "Yeah, sometimes I do. I guess there's always going to be that wildness, that meanness in me. Sometimes I just ride out to those mountains and sit up there, looking up toward the Comancheria."

  "Then it wasn't fair to marry her."

  "That why you never married?" Clay countered.

  "No. I was always looking at the wrong woman."

  "I've got no real regrets, Hap. If it was a choice between anything out there and Amanda, she'd win. When I get real restless, I just look at her, and I know I don't want anything else."

  "Well, I don't have that. I'm going back out, Clay. I've got me a job lined up, and I'm inclined to take it. I may not walk straight, but I can sure as hell still shoot straight." As Clay looked up, he nodded. "Yeah, they're wanting a sheriff down at Helena. It's not the rangers, but at least it's in the right line of work."

  "I see."

  "I don't need your blessing to take it."

  "I thought you wanted to farm once. You even saved your money for it."

  "Four thousand dollars. And I've still got it."

  "If you need more—"

  "Clay"—Hap's mouth twisted wryly—"how the hell do you think I'm going to walk behind a damned plow?"

  "The same way you're going to walk down the street with that Peacemaker strapped to your leg. But there's no talking to you, is there? Here—here's your damned mail," Clay said, handing him the two pieces. "I should have known you weren't going to stay. Rios said you'd be worse than me when it came to settling down."

  Hap waited until he was nearly out of the room. "I'm sorry," he said simply.

  Clay swung around, and his smile warmed his blue eyes. "Vaya con Dios, Hap. I'm giving you what you gave me—but when it's done, and you can't complain about it, I'll be dragging your dead carcass back for burial at the Ybarra. I want you to know that."

  "I guess that's fair enough."

  "Amanda's planning on you being here for the baby, you know.

  "I don't know about that," Hap responded evasively. "He'll get here without my help, anyway."

  "It's the closest you'll ever come to being a grandpa."

  "Maybe. But I'll tell you one thing: If you name that kid after me, I'll disown the both of you."

  "I don't think that's on the list, Hap. If it's a boy, it'll be John—probably John Ross, for her father."

  "Good. That's got a real nice ring to it. I always thought Horace sounded like a damned sissy."

  As Clay's footsteps receded on the hard stone floor, Hap turned back to the window. It was a mighty big plac
e the Ybarra-Ross. Clay'd done well enough for himself that Hap could leave him on his own now.

  Almost as an afterthought, he remembered the letters in his hand. Looking down, he saw Rios' handwriting, but it was the other envelope that intrigued him. Crudely printed in a hodgepodge of small and capital letters, addressed to HEP WOKKER at the EBARA—ROSE, it stood out.

  Thinking it probably came from an illiterate cohort from his days at the state police, he ripped it open and read it.

  Deer Mr. Wokker,

  Jim sed I shud writ becuz we ar worrit abowt Annie Brice. The stade wudent hep her so shes gowin bak to th Injuns to luk fer her liddle gril. She pud a ad in th papr fer hep, but twar no anser thet we no uf. She wonts tu go annyhow. We wuz hopin yu cud hep owt and mebe git Cly Malster to do hit fer her. She tol Jim she wuz leevin cum th ind of th munth. Hop you ken hep.

  It was signed simply "Mary Willett." If she couldn't spell anything else, the woman at least got her own name right. Scarcely believing what he'd just sounded out, Hap read the remarkable message again. If the Willett woman could be believed, Annie Bryce had made up her mind to go back to the Comanches rather than abandon her daughter to them. It wasn't rational, but he could see her doing it.

  "Damn!" He balled the letter up and started to throw it across the room, then smoothed it out for yet another look. "She's lost her mind! She's lost her damned mind! How the hell does she think she's getting there?" he shouted to the empty room.

  The Willetts wanted him to ask Clay. They were wanting Clay to ride up into the Comancheria on a wild goose chase for a kid that was probably already dead. Well, he wasn't going to ask him. Not now, not when he had his own baby coming. No, Clay had too much to lose. His days of riding off into the desert to track anybody were over.

  Hap had to talk her out of it. He'd offer to take her to Austin himself so she could appeal to the legislature. He'd offer to approach the rangers for her. Anything to keep her from getting herself killed. Jesus, what could she be thinking of? But even as the thought went through his mind, he already had the answer. She knew time was running out, that she couldn't wait for a bunch of bureaucrats to decide to help her.