“It’s a little run-down,” Trinity said, but his mind seemed to be on something else. “The house had been empty for two years when I bought it.”
“Do you intend to keep it?”
“I don’t know. I bought it on a whim. Unfortunately I didn’t check to see how much it would cost to put everything back in working order. I’m afraid the only way I could support the ranch for the length of time it would take to build up a herd would be to go back to prospecting.”
“What about the cows we saw on the way in?”
“I don’t know. I mean to ask Ward about that as soon as I can.”
They pulled up in front of the barn, and a thin, whipcord of a man ambled out of its shady depths. He wore his ill-fitting clothes with complete unconcern, but Victoria noticed they were clean and the man freshly shaved. Near-white hair showed from under his hat. He hooked calloused hands, the color of old learner, in his belt. A single glance at his face, and Victoria could tell he didn’t know what to think of his boss showing up with a woman in tow.
“What are Ben’s cows doing here?” Trinity asked without preamble.
“And a good morning to you,” Ward said, a hint of a smile about his lips. “It’s been right quiet around here, Too much work to do to go catting around. I trust you had a good journey.”
“Okay, so I’ve got bad manners,” Trinity said. The hint of a smile returned. “You knew that when you signed on, so don’t go looking for any sudden improvement now.”
“The house isn’t in very good shape, ma’am, but it sure will get you out of the sun. I’d be mighty pleased to help you down.”
“And I’d be mighty pleased to accept,” Victoria replied, delighted to see that all of Trinity’s friends seemed to treat him with complete disregard of his fearsome reputation. She would give a lot to see Buc’s face if he could have seen Trinity wrestling with Ben just like they were fourteen-year-olds.
Trinity coaxed his horse between Victoria and Ward. “Nobody’s going any place until you answer my question.”
“I might as well tell him what he wants to know, ma’am, or hell keep us out here until one of us gets a heatstroke. Seems he could ride through the frying pans of hell and not break a sweat, but I come all over dizzy if I stand in the sun too long.”
“I must have come all over dizzy to have ever thought you’d make a foreman,” Trinity said. “You’re as bad as Ben. The pair of you could talk the ears off a donkey. What are his cows doing here?”
“Said he brung you them cows because you had no business saddling him with that much trouble. In the first place, he didn’t want them. Too much work keeping them out of ravines, finding water, and running off rustlers and cougars.”
“He should have sold them.”
“Said that was too much trouble, too.”
“So he walked them a few hundred miles across some of the worst desert in the country.”
“Ben don’t mind desert. Says he likes it right fine as long as it don’t rain.”
Trinity looked ready to wring his foreman’s neck.
“Ill give him half the money when I sell them.”
“He thought you might say that. Told me to tell you he’d open up a bank account in your name.”
“I’ll give it to him in cash.”
“Said he’d bury it under your front steps.”
Trinity broke out in laughter.
“I guess I have a herd. Now if I can just find the money to fix up the buildings.”
“While you’re looking for it, mind if I take the little lady in out of the sun?”
Trinity jumped down and helped Victoria dismount. “The little lady has a name. She’s Victoria Davidge. And yes, she’s the killer I went to bring back to Bandera to hang,” he added when he saw the confusion in Ward’s eyes, despite the amiable smile which remained in place. “I made a mistake. She’s not guilty?
“So you brought her back here anyway?”
“She insisted.”
Trinity laughed at Ward’s incredulous look.
“Miss Davidge decided it was time to put an end to this unfortunate mess once and for all. Shell stay here while I look for a man who can prove she didn’t kill her husband. Ben has already gone looking for him.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Uvalde. I’m to meet him there in three days. He’s looking for Chalk Gillet. Ever heard of him?”
“No, but then I wouldn’t, not being curious as a female about every drifter between here and California.”
“How’s Diablo doing?”
“Mean as ever,” Ward said. “See for yourself”
Trinity led Victoria inside the barn toward a stall at the back. The dark cool of the barn welcomed her. The familiar small of hay and manure didn’t offend her nostrils.
“Why do you keep your horses inside the barn? My father never did.”
“We just keep Diablo inside. He’s a stallion and insists on fighting every male horse he sees, stallion or gelding. He nearly killed a couple of cow ponies before I got him here.”
A loud whistle made Victoria’s ears hurt. A magnificent black stallion stood in the stall, angrily stamping his feet.
“Is he wild?”
“No, just angry. I won him from a gambler who had won him from some Eastern breeder. He nearly beat him to death before I got him. Hell let me put a saddle on him, but he goes crazy when anyone gets on his back.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Tame him, I hope.”
“If you can’t?”
“Use him for stud. I could make a fortune selling his colts. Don’t get too close. He bites.”
“You wouldn’t bite me, would you?” Victoria crooned to the horse. “I used to have a horse a lot like you. Only he loved for the to ride him. I rode him every day.”
Trinity stood poised, ready to pull Victoria beyond reach of Diablo’s teeth. Much to his surprise, Victoria’s voice seemed to have a calming effect on him. She even put her hand through the bars. Diablo backed away, but he didn’t attempt to savage her.
“You seem to have a way with horses,” Trinity said. “He won’t let anybody but me come that close without attacking.”
“He’s not mean,” Victoria said as she stepped back from the stall. “He’s just been badly treated. If you bring him along slowly, he ought to learn to trust you.”
“That’s what I’m doing” Trinity said, ushering her outside again, “but he responds to you better than anyone else. Maybe you can help me. It’ll be something to keep you busy while I’m gone.”
They hadn’t discussed his leaving. His departure affected her in several ways which they hadn’t discussed either. In fact, Victoria realized, they hadn’t discussed anything at all. Except for the death sentence hanging over Victoria’s head, they had talked only of things which meant little to either of them.
That would have to change. As long as he had been a cowboy drifting through, as long as he had been a bounty hunter taking her back to Bandera, what he was doing didn’t really mean much to her. But all that changed along the way.
She knew she loved him. She knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She didn’t know how he felt about her. She didn’t know what he felt about marriage. He had never mentioned Queenie after that night. She didn’t know if he could forget Queenie, and all the other emotions tied up with her, long enough to fall in love. She was afraid it might keep him from being able to settle down with any woman.
If only she knew how to fight Queenie’s ghost.
She wasn’t even sure Queenie’s being dead would be enough. Trinity felt he had failed because he hadn’t been able to punish her for her crime. If she were dead, she would still have escaped his vengeance. His load of guilt was so enormous and bitter, it had forced him to take up a profession he hated, to accept the reputation of a bounty hunter though he wasn’t one, all in an attempt to exorcise the guilt that still rode him.
Victoria swore she would help him.
The house looked so much the same Victoria felt she had stepped back into the past.
“This is our furniture,” she exclaimed upon entering the north parlor, known as the ladies’ parlor. Her parlor. “I remember sitting here every Sunday waiting for Daddy to come down so we could go to church. The bank sold it with everything in it except the few tilings I took to the Tumbling T”
“The Daltons sold it the same way just to get rid of it.”
“It wasn’t lucky for your father either. Why did you really buy it?”
Trinity thought for a moment. “I suppose because it was the only place from our past my father could call his own. Bob Slocum still owns the Triple S. Our homestead on the Trinity got washed away by a spring flood, and there was no place in Colorado I wanted to call home.”
“And now you don’t know if you can keep it.”
“Those cows will make a big difference, but I’m not worried about that now. First thing I have to do is find Chalk Gillet.’
Victoria walked over to one of the windows. It looked north in the direction of San Antonio. “What are you going to do with me in the meantime?”
“You can stay here.”
Victoria’s heartbeat increased instantly. It was the one thing she wanted, and the one thing she’d been afraid to ask for.
“I figured you’d feel more easy in your mind if you were some place familiar. And of course I don’t want Judge Blazer or the sheriff to know we’re back. Not until I’ve found Gillet.”
“Can I see the rest of the house?” she asked.
“Sure. I’ve got a few things to check on, but I imagine you’d rather see it by yourself anyway.”
He was right. She felt like this was her home rather than his. It would take her a little while to accustom herself to the fact that all the familiar objects weren’t hers any longer.
Yet, despite the weight of sadness, she felt like a young girl coming home after a long journey. She’d never missed the house until now, but now she wondered how she could have ever been content to live anywhere else.
The formal parlor, dining room, her father’s office, and the kitchen looked like they always had. It was almost like she had never left.
The stair runner was more frayed and worn than she remembered. Maybe it was her imagination, but even the stair rail seemed to have been worn a little thinner. It wasn’t her imagination that all the windows were in desperate need of a good cleaning. It was surprising any light got in at all. She doubted they had been touched since her father died.
Her father’s room looked just the same as it always had, except that Trinity’s things could be seen decorating the room. He was just as neat at home as he was on the trail. Everything appeared to have a precise place and to be in that place. Since she doubted Ward had ever straightened anything except a harness in his whole life, she assumed Trinity had done it.
Apparently he never left anything to chance. He had probably never lost anything in his life. No wonder he had been able to come up with the money to buy this ranch. There wasn’t any gold in the world smart enough to hide from a man this organized.
She looked in the other bedrooms. A curtain here or there had been changed. Blankets, quilts, and bedspreads were new, but the furniture was the same.
She stepped into her old sitting room. It had been a luxury for a sixteen-year-old girl to have her own sitting room, but there had been so many rooms that her father had insisted. She had spent many happy hours here, planning her future, planning her wedding, looking forward to the fruitful years as a wife, mother, and lover.
She opened the door to her old room. It was empty, as empty as her dreams. All her furniture had gone with her to Blazer’s Tumbling T. The Judge had wanted her to be surrounded by familiar things. He had wanted her to be happy. He had wanted her to look forward to her marriage.
Now he wanted her dead.
Victoria closed the door. She would sleep in one of the guest rooms. It didn’t matter which. The less she was reminded of the loss of her dreams, the better.
Trinity brought up the saddlebags containing her clothes.
“Where do you want these?”
“Is anyone using the bedroom above the norm parlor?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll take that room.”
“The empty bedroom was yours?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to your furniture?”
“I took it with me when I got married.”
“Did you take the china and silverware, too?”
“No. Daddy sold it. He liked the Judge’s much better.”
She didn’t even get to choose her own china and silverware, Trinity thought. They probably hadn’t let her choose her linens either.
“I’m afraid there’s not much here to make you comfortable. I wasn’t here long before …”
“Before you went after me.”
Trinity nodded.
“It’s just as well. A person ought to live in a house for a while before he tries to furnish it. He needs to have time to discover its character.”
“I thought the house was supposed to take its character from the owner.”
“Most houses do, but not this one.”
This place has brought ruin to a lot of people.”
“I think all men who suffer ruin have the seed within them long before it comes to flower. If a man doesn’t want to be ruined, he won’t be.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of you.”
Trinity looked nonplussed.
“Who had more reason to fail than you did? Who tried harder man you to fail? Yet it wasn’t in you. You wanted to quit. You just didn’t know how. You even tried to give away a herd of prize cattle and couldn’t do it. You’ll make something of this ranch just as you’ll gentle that stallion.’’
Trinity didn’t know what to say. He’d never had anyone show much faith in him. Most of the time, people said he was the luckiest man in the world to still be alive. Otherwise how would he have brought in eighteen wanted men and not gotten himself killed. Of course, they said the same thing when he found gold, though he’d never made anything but modest strikes. He only had enough gold to buy the ranch because he never drank it up, gambled it away, or spent it on women.
But in all these years, Victoria was the first person to see his success as anything but an accident.
“You may think differently when you take a look in the kitchen. There’s hardly anything fit to eat, and it’s too far to go to town.”
“We have our supplies left.”
They’re not fit to serve at a table.”
“Maybe not, but I’d rather eat bacon and beans than go without supper.”
“I think we can do a little better than that if you can figure out how to handle that stove.”
“Is that big blue stove still here?” Victoria asked, remembering the many times she had helped their Spanish cook prepare meals.
“It’s the biggest monster I’ve ever seen.”
Take everything to the kitchen. While Ward catches you up on what’s been going on while you were away, I’ll see about fixing dinner. Then I want a bath. Can I get someone to put a tub on the stove and fill it with water? It can heat while I cook. There used to be a copper bath upstairs. Do you know what happened to it?”
“No, but I’ll find out.”
Victoria had happy memories of this kitchen. Blue and white dominated the room, from the everyday china to the enameled finish of the stove to the oil cloth that covered the work table to the cloth which lined the shelves. There was even blue and white in the coarse rugs which covered the wooden floor. The sun had long ago bleached the irises from the curtains, but she could still see traces of the blue floral pattern. But the best part about the kitchen was the four huge windows which let in the outside world. Even in winter, they made her feel like a part of the vast open spaces.
By the time Victoria had gotten the fire going and started frying the bacon,
Trinity had returned with a large tub which covered most of the stove top. Using the pump at the back steps, he proceeded to bring in bucket after bucket of water until it was full to the brim.
“Weird found the bathtub. Somebody has been using it as a water trough. He’s washing it now?’
Victoria quelled a shiver of disgust.
“Make sure he scrubs it out real good.”
Trinity grinned. “He will.”
“I hope he means to eat with us.”
“He won’t be here. I’m sending him to town. We need supplies if you’re to stay here. The trip takes two days even with a couple of packhorses. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to impress him with your cooking.”
Victoria didn’t have any thoughts to spare for her cooking. All she could think of was she and Trinity were going to be in the house alone for a whole night.
Dinner was tense, but it had nothing to do with the food or its preparation. The tension between them was even greater when Trinity helped her wash up. Now, as they sat in the stuffy, formal parlor, waiting to go to bed, it was worse than ever.
He sat across from her, uncomfortable on one of her mother’s family’s high backed sofas. He seemed very ill-at-ease in this setting of polished wood, velvet and candlelight. Even his clothes seemed slightly out of place.
Victoria’s entire being concentrated on Trinity. Her skin felt so hypersensitive she was aware of each piece of her clothing, the texture of the material, how it swathed her body, the points of contact. Her nerves were strung tightly.
“I’ll have to leave for Uvalde as soon as Ward gets back if I’m to meet Ben on time,” Trinity said.
“When will you be back?” Why did he want to get away from her? He had spent the entire afternoon with Ward. He didn’t come in until supper was on the table. Now he couldn’t wait to leave for Uvalde.
“In a couple of days, I hope. It’ll depend on how long it takes me to find Gillet. You don’t have to be afraid the sheriff will find you. Ward can take care of you just as well as I can. As long as you don’t go into town, nobody will ever know you’re here. And if anything should happen, go to town and make the sheriff put you in jail. You’ll be safe there until I get back.”
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