Follow The Wind

by Janelle Taylor

  Jessie sensed the turmoil in Navarro. She read it in his worried gaze that he always seemed to try to keep impassive. Here was a troubled man, a man who didn’t know his value and appeal, a man who bore resentment and scars from life’s cruelty, a man in bitter conflict with himself and others. He was so confident and strong in some areas, and so weak and vulnerable in others. He must have known anguish and rejection many times in the past. Could he change? she wondered. Did he long to become different? Or was he so set in his ways that it was too late? Jessie wanted him, but it was too soon, if ever the time would be right with this tormented drifter.

  If she enticed him, it could lead anywhere, nowhere. The time and place were wrong for seeking the truth of why they were drawn to each other, in both a physical and emotional way. If she did expose willingness, he could reject her, become angry at her wantonness, could run for cover far away. Also, he could think she wanted to surrender to him just to make certain he aided her cause. He already considered her self-sacrificing. She needed more time to get to know him, to get closer to him, to let him do the same with her.

  “You think it’s safe to leave now?” Jessie asked in a strained voice.

  “Yep, the sooner the better.”

  Both stood and brushed off their dusty clothes. They went to the waiting horses and mounted. They wound their way through the dense mesquites and headed down the deserted road again.

  They reached Horsehead Crossing. They crossed the wide and shallow Pecos River, journeyed to the Comanche River. Near it, the yuccas, mesquites, and cactus were joined by oaks and cottonwoods. Mesas lifted heavenward from the harsh terrain of rocks and light-colored sand. Fluffy clouds decorated the sky today. Ten miles above Fort Stockton, they followed a branch off the main river and found a safe and secluded campsite. They were stopping early this evening, but it was necessary. They didn’t want to halt too near the post and town, and it would take too long to get miles beyond them. They dismounted and glanced around the lovely setting.

  Navarro unsaddled the horses and tended them while Jessie collected scrubwood. After lighting a fire, the redhead went to the water to wash her face, hands, arms, and hot feet. It felt good to her to clean and cool her dusty parts. When she returned to the campfire, the handsome male had coffee perking and their meal in progress. Jessie was surprised and pleased by his participation in the chores tonight. He looked up as she approached. When she smiled and thanked him, he responded with a one-sided grin, as if he were only first learning to smile. Jessie took over the cooking, and soon they were eating a common trail meal of beans, fried meat, skillet bread, and coffee.

  Little talk took place between them. When they finished, Navarro helped her wash the metal cups, plates, utensils, and cook pots. Supplies were put away for the night, and bedrolls were laid on areas swept clean with a brush limb. Each realized there were only two more hours of daylight. Each was aware of their strengthening attraction and of the night ahead.

  As they both needed something to occupy their hands and minds, Jessie suggested, “How about a few hands of poker? I brought cards along for me and Big Ed, but we never got around to playing any games.”

  “You know how to play?”

  “The boys taught me. It passes time when you’re on the range guarding herds or while you’re waiting for a mare to foal. We only play for fun—no gambling. I can use leaves for money, and you can use small stones. How about it?”

  “Fine. A handful or certain number of stones and leaves?”

  “Fifty each, so we can keep count.”

  “If you win, you want to know it, huh?”

  Jessie laughed. “Don’t you?” she teased.

  “Yep.”

  They collected their “money” and sat down on Jessie’s bedroll, facing each other. They heard the rippling and rushing of water as it passed rocks and twigs in the stream. The fire crackled and sent wisps of gray smoke heavenward. The odors of their meal left the area as an occasional breeze wafted through camp. The most noticeable smells were the dusty dryness of air belonging only to the desert and the smoke drifting upward from a dying blaze.

  As Jessie shuffled the cards, Navarro pointed out the porcupine who had come to drink downstream from camp. The spiny, rotund creature took his fill and waddled off into the trees on the other bank, paying little attention to the couple. The paint and the sorrel were at ease, whinnying softly ever so often, their hooves making noise as they shifted about as they grazed and drank. It was a pleasant evening and tranquil setting.

  After Navarro cut the deck, Jessie passed out five cards each, facedown. They studied their hands and plotted strategies. Bets were made, and other cards replaced unwanted ones. Two rounds of raises ensued before Navarro called her. Jessie grinned as she pulled the winnings—leaves and pebbles—toward her with a hand of three jacks against his pair of kings.

  “You are good. Never trust a woman smarter than you are, I’ve always heard.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear; it was pure luck of the draw. I was going for a pair, but that third jack leapt into my greedy grasp.”

  As Navarro shuffled the cards this time, he asked, “How big is your ranch?” He hoped that talking would distract him from his rising desires for her.

  “Three hundred thousand acres. It’s green land with rolling hills and lovely trees. There are some mountainy regions, but mostly beyond our boundaries. We have the Calamity River coming from the south, and the Alamito along our western side. Our grasslands are some of the best in Texas. It’s beautiful, Navarro.”

  After dealing their cards, he continued with, “How much stock do you run?”

  Jessie arranged her hand and decided which cards to replace. “One hundred thousand head of cattle and horses. We had more, but several periods of hard times thinned us out. We’re rebuilding and strengthening the herds now. The panic in ’73 devastated many ranchers. Papa was hurt by it, but not destroyed like many were.” Jessie opened, Navarro matched, and she exchanged three cards.

  “What happened?” The desperado asked. He had been in prison in ’73 and hadn’t heard about a panic. Keep her talking and not tempting you, man.

  “The railroads were competing heavily for business from ranchers. The market was so good for beef the season before that some ranchers drove every head they could to Kansas stockyards: cows, heifers, yearlings, and immature steers. I don’t know how much you know about ranching and breeding, but those are called stock cattle. The best cattle to market are four-year-old steers, males castrated as calves.” Jessie raised Navarro’s last wager. “Trying to get rich, some ranchers flooded the market, but the buyers didn’t want stock cattle, just big and healthy steers, and few of them at that time. Most of the regular buyers didn’t even come to town that season. Papa didn’t have an advance contract from a packing house, army post, or Indian reservation, and we arrived late, the end of September, because of rustlers on the trail.”

  Navarro checked his hand and raised Jessie’s last bet. “What happened?”

  “All the ranchers could do was hold the cattle there, fatten them in stockyards, and hope to sell them the next season. Or they could return home, if they could afford to pay for another cattle drive, Supplies, wages, losses, and incidentals can add up to an unaffordable price. So can using stockyards for a long time. Most of the men had to borrow from banks to survive and to feed their herds. Their loans were due in October. When the Panic started back East, it moved here fast. The banks couldn’t loan them more money or extend their notes.”

  Jessie matched Navarro’s last bet, but didn’t raise it. “What made it worse was the terrible corn crop that year. There wasn’t enough to feed and fatten such large herds over a long period of time. What corn there was, was priced high. On top of that, the season had been rainy, so the grass on open range was bad. Some men shipped cattle ahead with hopes of making sales once their herds reached the East; it didn’t work and they took awful losses. The Cattlemen’s Association said the losses amounted to over two
million dollars.”

  As Navarro planned his next move, Jessie related, “A lot of cattle had to be sold off just for tallow and hides. Many ranchers and bankers lost big. News came that the easterners didn’t need or want more cattle. Papa divided and sold our herd to small buyers because we had good steers. Prices were low, but we had no choice. It was too hard on the cattle to drive them back home, and too expensive. Better to earn a little than to spend or lose more. The buyers knew it and took advantage of everyone. Usually a mature steer weighs around twelve hundred fifty pounds and sells for about three cents a pound. Papa got ten dollars a head instead of thirty-five to forty. He was trying to raise money that year to buy more shorthorns and blooded bulls for better breeding.”

  When she stopped talking and checked her hand, Navarro called her:

  As she laid down the cards—two sixes and two aces—for him to view, Jessie said, “In a way, we were luckier than most ranchers; at least we still had our stock cattle at home, and horses for army sales.”

  Navarro grinned as he spread out a straight of two, three, four, five, and six.

  Jessie eyed the cards and teased, “You had my six. I needed it for a full house. That would have beaten a straight.”

  “I’ll only help you beat Fletcher and his gang, not defeat me, woman.”

  “One last hand to break our tie?” she hinted.

  “Yep. You deal. Don’t cheat, ‘cause I’m watching you close.” As she shuffled, Navarro remarked, “That was smart of your father not to drive his whole herd to market to get rich quick.”

  Jessie worked with the cards again. Hoping Navarro would open up more if she did, she kept chatting. “Papa’s taught me a lot about breeding and marketing to prepare me for the time I take over the ranch one day. He’s had a hard time over the years. He’s faced hardships and failures many times, but they’ve never broken him. He lost two sons and my mama, and that hurt him deeply. Jedidiah Lane is proud and tough, but I think you’ll like him. He’s determined to succeed with the ranch and to hold on whatever it takes. Don’t be upset if he’s standoffish at first. He hates for others to fight his battles for him, but it can’t be helped this time. He’s been there twenty-six years.” Jessie dealt five cards each. “Just as things look bright for him, dark clouds move in. He almost failed another time in ’68 to Spanish Fever. Sometimes people call it Texas Fever. It was a hard time.”

  “How so?” Navarro inquired, watching her closely. She was so beautiful and tempting, and their conversation wasn’t distracting him like he’d wanted.

  “A lot of Texas longhorns were sold and shipped back East that season. Nearly every shorthorn they came into contact with died. The eastern ranchers, feeders, and butchers went loco; some lost everything, and blamed longhorns and Texans. They tried to pass quarantines and laws against shipping longhorns out of our state. Railroads began refusing to ship our cattle. When we tried to drive them to markets, we weren’t allowed to travel over certain lands or use ponds for drinking. People became afraid longhorns would spread the disease everywhere.”

  After the opening round of bets, unwanted cards were put aside and others taken. A slow series of raises followed as they talked.

  Jessie continued her explanation. “You see, Spanish Fever rarely troubles or kills Texas-bred cattle. But if you mix the herds or let eastern cattle graze the same land behind longhorns, the other herds die fast. For a while, people were afraid to buy or eat Texas beef. The easterners hated longhorns and Texans. We couldn’t ship or sell our steers, because Papa mostly had longhorns. We only survived ruin because of beef and horse contracts with western posts and Indian reservations. That’s when Papa got into crossbreeding.”

  “What kind of crossbreeding?” he asked.

  “Papa bought two Durham bulls. Shorthorns gain faster on corn and certain grains, but longhorns grow faster on grass. Crossbreeding high-grade bulls with female longhorns improves the bloodline, quality of meat, and sales. There’s a good change in their color, shape, and size. Some of the best and largest steers are crossbreeds. If you don’t know a steer’s been crossbred, you have to look close and be smart about it to realize the half-breed has Texas blood of the mother.”

  The word “half-breed” stung Navarro. To conceal his reaction, he asked, “If your bulls are so important, do you keep them guarded from Fletcher?”

  “We have two Durhams, one Booth, and one black, hornless Galloway. Papa keeps them near the house. Luckily the crossbreed looks like a shorthorn, but he’s not endangered by Spanish Fever, like his Texas mother isn’t. Matt makes certain the boys keep an eye on the bulls. We can’t afford to lose them.”

  “Who’s Matt?” he probed, catching a new softness in her voice and expression.

  “Our foreman, Mathew Cordell. He’s a lot like you—quiet and serious,” she explained at his surprised look. “You’ll like him. Matt’s easy to be around. He’s been with us since I was a child. I call.” She spread her hand: a flush of clubs.

  Navarro exposed his cards one at a time: a full house of two fours and three queens. The last card revealed was the queen of hearts. As it touched the sleeping roll, his gaze locked with hers as if sending her a subtle message.

  “You win again. That was fun, Navarro. We’ll have to play again some time. It’s almost dark so we’d better get some sleep. We have one more night and a day and a half on the trail.”

  “You restless to get home?”

  Jessie couldn’t tell him that the responsibilities of home seemed far away and almost unreal at this moment. How strange, she mused, that only Navarro and this setting seemed real. It was as if they had been together for a long time. She wished she could spend more time alone with him, but duties and dangers called to her from far away.

  Navarro was aware of the past six days between them, and of what little time remained before they reached the ranch. He wanted to hold her tonight, as he had in the ravine. He yearned to feel their lips and breaths mingle, to have her bare flesh against his, to have her murmuring his name, to unite their bodies in sheer pleasure. He warned himself he should run fast from this impossible situation, but he couldn’t, not until she was safe from Fletcher and his gunmen.

  The cards were put away. The horses were checked. The fire was down to embers, creating a soft glow. Night birds and insects sent forth their tunes and cries. A frog went “plip” as it jumped from a rock into the stream. Limbs and leaves moved in a gentle breeze, creating shadows and shapes on the ground. Stars twinkled overhead as if dancing in place against a darkening backdrop. Jessie and Navarro claimed their bedrolls and remained silent.

  Jessie heard her own breathing. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She glanced at the shape that she knew was Navarro lying on his side away from her and the fire’s last glow. A coyote howled in the distance, but she didn’t fear it. She asked herself what she wanted and needed in life, from life. What would her father say if she chose this mysterious stranger to share it with, to share the ranch Jed had created from sweat, blood, hardships, and toils? What if she wanted Navarro, but couldn’t win him? What if her father rebelled at their union? What if her father was willing, but something stood between them?

  Jessie wanted him to be with her, to stay at the ranch. She wanted him as a friend, a helper, a lover, a husband. She had known many men who worked on the ranch and those she’d met in town or on cattle drives. But this man reached her, touched her, awakened her as a woman as no other man ever had. This was the man for Jessica Lane, she decided. He wasn’t perfect, but who was? This was a man to whom she could give her all, a man whose children she wanted to bear, a man whom she could love and labor side by side with for the rest of her life, a man worth fighting for. She envisioned him laughing, talking, and being with her. She saw his smile, the glow in his hazel eyes, the tension gone from his body and mind. Those images filled her head as she drifted off to sleep.

  Navarro propped on his elbow and watched Jessie. Her breathing told him she was asleep. He knew she had been
restless since the sensual episode in the ravine. His troubled past seemed so distant tonight, as it had since meeting Jessie. But it was real, and he shouldn’t allow himself to forget that for even a moment. The threat would never disappear; he had escaped prison, killed a man, and stolen from others. How long did he have with her before he must be on the run again? How should he handle that insufficient time? If only he could have her for a while—even once would make the coming dangers easier to accept. It would be unbearable to never have anything good or special in his life. Didn’t he, didn’t everyone who had been cheated by life, deserve a few of those bright corners she had mentioned? Trouble was, he could get entrapped there. Was helping and being with Jessica Lane for a short time worth the risk of his freedom and his life? He must decide soon.

  * * *

  Navarro and Jessie awakened; their gazes met across the space which separated them. A twig broke, capturing their attention. Both glanced that way and saw a pronghorn at the stream with her young. Jessie smiled at the sight of mother and child. She hoped Navarro wouldn’t want to kill them.

  The desperado wasn’t even tempted. He recalled how the Apaches often captured birds and animals to give to their children to torture. The women in particular enjoyed watching their children learn that skill. Mercy was a rare thing for some tribes to feel or show, especially to their worst enemies, the Mexicans and whites. That was another way in which his Apache blood was not strong. Killing for survival was natural and necessary, but torturing for sheer pleasure was not.

  Navarro shook such thoughts from his head. He stood and flexed. “Up, sleepyhead,” he told Jessie, who hadn’t moved from her supine position. She was far too tempting lying there with her unbound locks flaming around her lovely face.