by Brenda Joyce
James had tried to prevent him from leaving, though. Slade could still hear James's urgent voice and Edward's soft sobbing.
"You can't go. He didn't mean it."
"He meant it. I've got six marks on my back. He meant it." Slade's voice choked.
"Let me get Jojo," James said worriedly. Jojo was their pet name for the woman who had mothered them both. "She's in the kitchen, crying a flood over you."
Slade thought he might cry soon, too. At least she cared-she'd always cared. But tonight that just wasn't enough. He scowled at Edward, standing behind James, now hiccupping. The stable was dark and he was a small noisy shadow. "Tell him to quit it."
"Stop it," James commanded, but his voice wasn't harsh and his hand clasped Edward's shoulder. "It's not your fault. You told the truth."
"Slade's leaving because of me," Edward cried. "I should have been whipped, not him!"
"That's right," James said. "Just forget it. Slade, don't go. I'll be right back with Jojo. She can put salve on your back." His tone was desperate.
"No. She'll only cry harder." He turned, moving stiffly, his back hurting. He led the small roan out of the stable. Rick would probably be mad at him for taking the cow pony.
James grabbed him, whirling him around. "You can't go! You can't do this! You can't!"
"Yes, I can," Slade managed, trying to ignore Edward, who was crying again.
"I'm going to get Dad," James shouted. "Don't you dare!" Slade retorted. Yet half of him, wanted James to do just that.
From the shadows, Rick spoke, stunning them all. "He's like his mother. She wanted to leave and nothing could stop her. If he wants to go so badly, let him go." Those words were all he needed. Slade jumped on the roan. James tried to grab his foot but Slade kicked him, hard, when it was his father he would have liked to hit. And it was Edward who begged, "Please don' go. I'm sorry. Please don't go." Those were the word he wanted to hear from the man who had sired him, not from his brother.
He had ignored his brothers' pleas. And later that night, alone by a small campfire not far from San Francisco, with only the wind and the fog for company, he had cried like a baby. It was the last time he ha cried, too, until the day of his brother's funeral.
It was a little more than a month since he had bee alerted by Edward-not Rick-and had come home. He had made the short train journey in shock. To this day he could barely remember boarding in San Francisco on the journey south. Charles had been there, he thought, trying to comfort him. But he wasn't sure. His mind had been consumed with denial. James could not be dead, drowned, for God's sake, in a flash flood. Other men might die, but not James, never James.
Miramar was in mourning when Slade returned after Edward's summons. Rick had been closeted in the solitude of his study for days; it was weeks before he functioned, and then with an ashen pallor and the automatic movements and speech of a sleepwalker. He barely acknowledged Slade's return, and Slade hadn't been home in two years. Yet Slade could not feel bitter toward Rick. He even imagined comforting him. But Rick held everyone at arm's length, unable to share his grief, and later, he came up with his damned idea to see Slade and Elizabeth wed. Slade instantly realized that he had been a fool to feel any compassion at all for his father.
Edward managed to hide his grief with great self-discipline. Still, his smiles and witticisms were gone. Slade knew that beneath his smooth surface he was as anguished as anyone; there were no between the brothers. Even Victoria, Edward's mother, was somber. Slade was certain it was an act. And when she saw Slade she forgot her grief-if she really was grieving- and her eyes blazed with fury. She wasn't happy that he had come home. Then again, Slade hadn't expected her to be.
The funeral had finally been held four weeks ago, shortly after Slade's return. Until the funeral, the shock had been numbing. Until the funeral, James's death didn't seem real. Didn't seem possible. The eulogy was Slade's undoing; unlike most eulogies, which were bullshit, this one was not. Father Joseph was not exaggerating when he praised James for his extraordinary kindness and endless generosity, for his compassion and his morality. It was also true that James had been selflessly devoted to his family, to his father and brothers, to his stepmother, to Josephine, to Miramar. Such sincerity, devotion, and commitment were astounding in one so young. All life was God-given, but a young man like James was a very special and holy gift.
Father Joseph ran the mission at San Miguel and he had known James since he was born. He delivered the eulogy with teary eyes and a choked-up voice. He was only halfway through it when Slade lost all control. He wept. Restraint was impossible. Edward proved to be stronger and more disciplined, or perhaps he had already shed his tears, for he put his arm around Slade, offering him what support and sympathy he could.
Slade could not stop crying until the funeral was over: and everyone had gone, the coffin buried deeply in Miramar's rich red earth.
The whiskey wasn't doing its job. Tonight the grief was as painful and raw as it had been that day at the funeral. Father Joseph had said it would lessen in time. Common sense said the priest was right, but at the moment common sense was no consolation. He had never missed James more. It was even more heartrending to face the fact that he was never going to see his brother again-to finally comprehend the utter finality of death.
Eventually the big bubble in his chest began to deflate. He had weathered this latest crisis. He looked around at the dark cantina with its less-than-respectable patrons, so caught up in his grief and memories that he was briefly surprised to find himself there. Edward was right in more ways than one. In San Francisco he wouldn't be caught dead in such a place, but when he came home he didn't think twice about joining this kind of crowd. Even at the age of twenty-five, he still came home determined to rebel. The thought, laced with whiskey, made him slightly uneasy.
He wondered what had happened over at the hotel. Did he really have a doubt? It was obvious that she was Elizabeth Sinclair, not some other woman. When her memory came back, would she grieve, too? Had she loved James? The marriage had been arranged and they had only met a few times because she'd been away at school in London, until last summer. Her father had died and she had come home for the funeral, staying the summer. James had courted her. He had gone to San Luis Obispo as often as possible to see her. Slade knew; James had written all about her. James had sure as hell loved her. Slade's gut grew tight when he imagined their courtship, which had ended in the fall when Elizabeth had returned to London for her last year of school.
He thought about what Rick expected of him and it was almost funny. He was the oldest now. Rick wanted him to inherit Miramar. Rick expected him to inherit Miramar. It was tradition, real old-fashioned Californio tradition. But there was a catch. He had to marry the heiress, Elizabeth Sinclair, to do so. Be
cause Miramar was cash-poor, real cash-poor, as it had always been, and she was bringing all the cash they'd ever need to the union.
He did not like recalling her wide, trusting, grateful eyes. Especially not now. He didn't want her looking at him like that, not ever. He wasn't going to marry her. Slade would never agree. He wasn't staying, he wasn't inheriting Miramar, and he wasn't marrying Elizabeth Sinclair. Rick, who had never asked him to stay the few times he'd come home to visit, would have to do a lot more than ask him to stay now. He'd have to beg. As if he would. And as if it would matter.
It wasn't that he didn't love Miramar. He did. He always had. He always would. But Miramar had belonged to James, just as Elizabeth Sinclair had belonged to James. And he loved James, his death didn't change that. He wasn't going to betray James, not even in death.
Tomorrow he would return to San Francisco, where he had worked for Charles Mann for almost ten years. San Francisco was his home now. Rick might not have James, but he had Miramar, and Edward could take over when Rick got too feeble-which wouldn't be for another twenty years, Slade imagined.
But the irony was that Slade knew he could turn Miramar around and pull it out of the hole it was in. They'd been cash-poor since he'd been born, because times were changing. Slade was no longer a green boy. He'd traveled enough, worked enough, and seen enough to know that it was time to get rid of the old in favor of the new. He saw it up north. The old ranchos were not making ends meet. Modern industry, technology, and agriculture had come to California with a vengeance. The great self-sufficient ranchos like Miramar were obsolete, empires which belonged to the past, dinosaurs which could not survive in the future. They were no longer viable. The future belonged to other enterprises such as mining, lumber, farming. Already there were vast agricultural enterprises in California that were making big profits in oranges and lemons, wheat and barley. Miramar had an abundance of land, and plenty of it was fertile. The few orchards they had yielded the sweetest fruit in the county, the best wine. They had forests aplenty, too, and with careful management Slade knew that a portion of them could be harvested, cultivated, and regrown, not raped and destroyed. It was time to make changes, to take Miramar into the twentieth century, and it was the ultimate irony because Slade knew he could do it, but he wasn't going to.
Instead of turning Miramar around, tomorrow he was going to ride out of town right back to the big city where he now belonged.
When Slade returned to the hotel it was after dark. HJ was sober. He'd gone to the cafe, which had been closing up. Mrs. Burke had seen who it was at her door and had immediately invited him in and fixed him up. She had served him a thick rare steak, which he'd washed down with lots of strong coffee. He'd even managed m eat half of a piece of her apple pie. She seemed to tall pleasure in hovering over him, although he couldn’t understand why, because as a boy he'd pulled a few good pranks on her, too. She was his own age. He finally decided she was so friendly because she felt sorry for his loss.
"Come back now, Slade," she whispered at the door when he left.
He nodded, thanking her, feeling her staring after him. He finally understood her invitation, but not why it had been issued. She was pretty enough, but he could not imagine ever taking her up on it.
He took his key from the hotel clerk and went slowly up the stairs. He grew intensely aware of the fact that Elizabeth's room was at the top of the stairs. The exhaustion which had settled over him quickly lifted. He was more resolved than ever to leave the county tomorrow.
But he paused in the corridor and glanced at her door. His body tightened. He was instantly assailed by an image of her heart-stopping face, her wide golden eyes. The question he had avoided all evening rushed in upon him. His traitorous mind dared to wonder if she were someone other than Elizabeth Sinclair.
He didn't want to think the thought. Not now, not again. He was too tired to hope, but deep in his heart, there was hope. How foolish could he be? He made a fist, the key digging into his hand. Tomorrow he was going back north. She would solve her own problems. He tried not to remember her weeping in his arms, clinging to him, regarding him hopefully as if he were a hero. He was the farthest thing possible from a hero.
A door further down the hallway opened. Rick stepped into the hall, a tall, powerful figure clad in thin red wool pajamas. 'Thought you were out here." He eyed his son.
Slowly Slade looked at his father. "I'm going to bed." But he waited, waited for Rick to reveal what he knew about her identity.
"You been over at Dom's?"
Slade nodded.
"Take a bath. You smell of smoke and liquor and cheap perfume."
Rick was imagining things, because he certainly did not smell of a whore's perfume, but Slade did not refute him. If he wanted to think the worst, he would. "So what?"
"I don't want Elizabeth seeing you like this."
"At this hour she's sleeping." So she was Elizabeth. So she was James's fiancйe.
"I want to talk to you."
"I don't want to talk. I want to go to bed."
"Looks like you've already been to bed."
"What the hell do you care?" Slade bristled. Rick always thought the worst of him. "What I do is my business, not yours."
"Wrong. You have the morals of an alley cat and you always have. I don't want Elizabeth finding out."
Slade stiffened. Sometimes he felt like telling his father the truth. But Rick wouldn't believe him. It would be pointless. "It doesn't matter if she finds out," he gritted. "Because I'm not marrying her."
"Then you're not getting Miramar!" Rick roared.
"I don't want Miramar!"
"You liar. You want it. You always have. And now's your chance to have Miramar." Abruptly Rick grabbed Slade's arm and pulled him into his room. Slade shook him off as Rick shut the door.
"You miserable old bastard," Slade hissed. "Now is my chance! Is Miramar all you can think of? Your son is dead. James is dead. Miramar belonged to him. You think I can step into his shoes so easily?"
"I think you have no respect," Rick raged. "No respect for me, for your grandfather, for Miramar, for tradition. You have no choice. You're the oldest now. The oldest inherits. It's always been that way in our family. Always. My father was the second son, but he made something of himself! He fought in the war for Mexico's independence, and later was rewarded-with Miramar. He worked hard from the day he gained title until the day he died, but not for himself. He worked to leave a legacy for me-for you. You are my heir now, and one day your son will be your heir! That is tradition, and tradition doesn't change!"
"You're living in an age that doesn't exist! Give up! Move on! Forget the past! For God's sake, in a few months we're going to be in the twentieth century!" 'Then do it for James," Rick shot back. "He knew how much you loved Mir
amar. We'd discussed it. He would want you to take over now. He would-"
"Don't you speak about him as if he were still alive!" Slade was enraged. James had always been Rick's favorite, always, but then he had been the heir. In that instant it occurred to Slade that Rick really loved Miramar best-better than his own son.
Rick gripped Slade's arms. "If you don't marry her, we're losing Miramar."
Slade went still. "What kind of bullshit is this?"
"The rancho has been mortgaged. I had no choice. Times have been bad and getting worse. The depression of '93 really hurt us. But I never thought it would come to this."
Slade stared.
"I haven't been able to make a mortgage payment in over two years. But that was fine-until six months ago when some fancy banker from New York took over the Bank of San Francisco. They've threatened to call in their loan. They only changed their tune because of James's impending marriage-and the dowry Elizabeth is bringing to us. They don't know James is dead. When they find out, all hell will break loose. They'll foreclose in a flash. They won't try to operate the rancho. They'll break it up, sell it, all of it, in tiny little pieces. You've got to marry Elizabeth, and soon. If you don't, they're going to take Miramar away from us."
Slade was shocked speechless.
"It's the truth," Rick said, releasing him. He paced away. He turned to look at his son. "We're not just broke. We're bankrupt."
Slade stared in disbelief.
"If you don't marry her, then Edward will. We need her money and we need it now."