Broken Spurs

by BJ James

  Jubal accepted the rebuke calmly. “That’s right, I am quite eager to see Lorelei. We settled that a minute ago.”

  The chair bumped down the incline, held in check by strong, caring hands. Reserved ringside seats, set apart from the others, waited for them. The Redmond and Benedict boxes were side by side, as they had been for years. Sandy, alone, waited in Jake’s, while Jubal’s spilled over with guests and acquaintances.

  “Got your usual welcoming committee, I see.” Jake’s head was high, his scowl deep. “Hangers-on, waiting to see if you made a fool of yourself or not this year.”

  “Not hangers-on, Jake. Friends, who came to cheer my good judgment.”

  “Bosh!”

  “Bosh?” Savannah repeated the odd comment.

  “Bosh?” Jubal frowned and shuddered.

  “Exactly,” Jake declared as his friend and nemesis wheeled him into the enclosure where Sandy waited. “Is there an echo in here?”

  “No more an echo than my judgment is poor.”

  “You’ll be singing a different tune when the squatter falls on his face.”

  “I’ve made mistakes in the past, but not this time.” Jubal paused before firing his next salvo. “He isn’t a squatter, the canyon is his honestly and aboveboard.”

  “Damn you, Redmond! You want him to succeed. That’s why you gave him the horse, and why you’re championing him now.” Jake huffed and puffed his indignation. “Some friend you are.”

  “That I am, believe it or not.” Jubal set the brakes and backed away from the chair as Savannah slipped by to take a seat by Sandy.

  “Then spare me from my enemies.”

  “Spare you from your greed,” Jubal said bluntly. “You’ve coveted the canyon for nigh on to forty years, when you don’t need it. Steve does. Given half the chance, he’ll make it a workable operation. Ultimately his success will reflect on all of us and be a benefit.”

  “Next you’ll be looking to pair him with a woman, to populate the entire countryside with Codys.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.” Jubal’s gaze strayed to Savannah. “He’s a fine young man. Reminds me a bit of another rancher who came here nearly forty years ago with only his horse, his saddle, the shirt on his back, and a dream of the Rafter B in his head.”

  “Bosh!”

  “We’re back to that again?” Jubal rolled his eyes at a silent Sandy, who only grinned.

  “You’re such an expert, Jubal Redmond, you tell me what woman in her right mind would want the upstart?” Jake paused and shrugged. “Especially if he was like me?”

  “Good question.” Jubal paused, too, for effect. “Maybe there’s a woman for him here. One with Camilla’s sterling qualities.” An eyelid dropped lazily over an eye. An infinitesimal move, but one that spoke more than a thousand words, and Savannah understood that everything Jubal Redmond had said and done in the friendly fire of his discourse with Jake had been calculated, and for her.

  “You have one of your grand Eastern ladies all picked out for him, have you?” Jake’s laugh was a deep chuckle that escalated to a shrill cackle as his merriment heightened. “I can see it now.” Wiping a tear from his eye, he chuckled again. “The squatter in his jeans and boots, stinking of dust and horses, whilst the grand lady cooks over an open-hearth fire in diamonds and pearls, drenched in Oh de Paree.”

  “Act the buffoon, if you will.” Jubal’s smile was tolerant. “I remember the grandest of ladies, who turned her back, not on diamonds and pearls or Oh de Anywhere, but on all she held dear to be your wife. Who are you to say Steve Cody can’t find a woman of the same sort?”

  “Camilla struck a business deal. Financial security for her impoverished genteel family, a wife for me.”

  “Maybe that’s all it was in the beginning, but what kept her here nineteen more years?” Jubal shot back as a vanguard of horses began to enter the arena.

  “Gentlemen.” Savannah used the term loosely as she touched her father’s arm. “The show we’ve all been waiting for is about to begin. This discussion would be better postponed for the time being.”

  “No need. It’s settled.” Jake swiveled in his chair to face her. “Jubal’s going to find the squatter a woman he thinks will stick. Then we’ll see if she does, any more than he will.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Jubal put in his two cents again. “He may be a young he-coon, but he’s the same as you were. He’ll find his own woman and, for him, she’ll stick.”

  The speaker blared again, the announcer asked for quiet. Jubal settled in a seat between Jake’s chair and Savannah, rather than joining his guests in his own box. He sat ramrod straight, his face bland as he stared directly ahead. Only a surreptitious pat on her knee offered Savannah a mix of encouragement and consolation.

  Lights dimmed, a spot focused on the arch leading from the stockyards. In the end of the day the air was cool and crisp, but not cold. Twilight deepened, excitement arced through the theater like the spark of an electrical charge. The audience fell silent, holding its collective breath. A hoof struck stone where no stone should be, a stallion as black as the night, as iridescent as the stars, stepped into the arena and stood in the circle of light.

  Gitano. Bold and majestic. An uncivilized creature tamed by his rider’s touch only because he wanted to be, standing poised and cool, waiting for a signal.

  Fifteen seconds passed. Twenty. Thirty, without a quiver or ripple of the magnificent hide. Steve lifted the reins, brushed the sleek flank with his spurs. A low murmur of awe rose from the crowd and Gitano began a slow, graceful canter.

  “Damnation,” Jake exclaimed in a strangled whisper.

  “Not damnation!” Jubal corrected on a lost breath. “Bravo!”

  “Amen.” From his seat on Savannah’s right, Sandy concurred. “And hallelujah.”

  “Yes.” Her spellbound whisper was a prayer of thanks, and vindication. Without looking away from horse and rider, she reached out to clasp a hand of friend and foreman in each of hers.

  “What did I tell you?” Jubal clapped Jake on the shoulder as applause thundered and the lights came halfway up. “A clean sweep for the Broken Spur. Best stallion, best mare of show, and best working horse. The Lady is something to behold, isn’t she?”

  “Which one?” Jake asked sourly. “The one that wore the saddle, or the one hanging on the squatter’s arm?”

  “Well, now, that depends.” Jubal turned his attention back to the arena. A moment before Steve Cody had been standing apart, letting a stockman hold Gitano while rancher and breeder alike circled the handsome stallion. Now he’d been joined by a voluptuous blonde who preened in the edge of the spotlight, clinging to him like a limpet.

  From a distance, she appeared young in dress and manner. Her hair was worn long in a girlish, fly away style. Her body gave the impression of being taut and controlled. A stunning woman, but to the connoisseur in Jubal the sum of her impression was all wrong. Puzzled, he glanced at Savannah, who hadn’t looked away from Steve.

  Leaning close, he murmured for her ears alone, “Is this someone to be concerned about?”

  Savannah didn’t answer at once, as she watched Angie slide her arm through Steve’s, hugging the bulging muscle against her breast.

  More than comfortable in his natural silence while Jubal jousted with Jake and Savannah refereed, Sandy cleared his throat. Tugging his hat to a sharper angle, he offered a terse explanation, “An ex-wife, looking for few more bucks.”

  Jake grinned. Jubal’s brows shot toward his hairline.

  “Came in a week ago,” Sandy continued as tersely. “Holed up at the Silverton Hotel with a two-bit cowboy on a short rein.”

  “I repeat my question.” Jubal’s face was grave as he watched Savannah’s expression turned as blank as stone. “Is this someone to be concerned about?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by concern,” Jake put in. “But from the looks of her, she wants more than a few more bucks. I reckon any fool could guess that’s what
she wants most, but she’d sure take the squatter in the bargain.”

  Sandy touched Savannah’s shoulder, a subtle expression of encouragement. “I reckon Steve will have something to say about that.”

  Jake’s laugh was a cackle. “From where I sit, he ain’t exactly fighting her off.”

  “Would you have him cause a scene?” Savannah asked softly.

  “Steve Cody is a gentleman.” With another pat on her knee, Jubal offered comfort to accompany his observation.

  Feeling rather like a kicked puppy to be stroked and petted, but loving these tough, hard-bitten men who knew no other way of showing they cared, Savannah agreed. “Angie’s counting on it.”

  Casting a worldly eye at the woman whose performance made her more tawdry than beautiful, Jubal grimaced. “That is as obvious as the lady, dear heart, but even gentlemen have limits.”

  “Not where she’s concerned.” Savannah raked an agitated hand down the long coil of her braid. “Or so she thinks.”

  At the low comment, Jake’s head swiveled toward his daughter. “You seem to know a mighty lot about this ex-wife of the squatter.”

  “No.” She stared into the distance, away from the arena, away from Jake’s narrowed gaze. “Not a lot.”

  “If that was her ace card, she played it in the wrong game.” Sandy’s comment was almost a crow. “The lady, and I use the term loosely, just got her comeuppance.”

  Startled, Savannah looked down in time to see Steve peeling Angie’s arms from his neck and setting her firmly from him. As she stood in the spotlight, face a ghostly rictus and breasts heaving in short, furious breaths, he lifted a forearm to his mouth to wipe a smear of lipstick from it. With a finality that needed no interpretation, he turned his back on the woman who had been his wife and walked from the arena.

  “Damn you, Steve Cody!” Angie’s raging cry soared above the rumble of the crowd, silencing it. Every gaze was glued to her, mortified for her, but if she knew, she didn’t seem to care.

  “Damn you!” she shrieked again as Steve walked without looking back. “You’ll pay for this. By God! I’ll see that you pay. When I’m done, you’ll have nothing. No ranch, no horses. Nothing.”

  Her tantrum ended, all her allure exposed as tarnished and false. Angie stood awkwardly, pinned like a tattered butterfly in the unforgiving glare of the spotlight. No one in the audience moved, no one spoke. Then, in an act of compassion, some kind soul pulled the master switch, plunging the arena and the woman into darkness.

  One by one the voices began. Gossip hummed like a tuning fork as the slow procession from the amphitheater commenced.

  “Well, well, well.” Jake chuckled and gloated. “Our all-American ro-day-o hero ain’t so lily white after all.”

  “Shut up, Jake!” It was Sandy who snapped the command a second before Jubal could. And Sandy who fumbled in the dark to take Savannah’s cold hand, offering the warmth of his own. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, so for once in your life, just shut up.”

  She was dressed for the dance. Music throbbed in a rhythmic beat. Paper lanterns circling the wooden platform erected precisely for this special evening lent the night a festive air. But an hour of preparation in the Benedict suite at the Silverton Hotel couldn’t wipe the tragicomedy played out in the arena from her mind. After deliberately dallying over her hair and makeup while Jake and Sandy joined Jubal’s coterie for drinks, she walked to the dance alone, feeling anything but festive.

  “Hey, boss lady!” A cowboy, cleaned up and slicked down after the afternoon and evening events, fell into step by her. “Save me a dance?”

  Drawn from her wandering and her thoughts, she looked up, blinked owlishly, focused thought and vision. “Jeffie?”

  “In the flesh.”

  “Good grief! You’ve grown, Jefferson Cade.” Indeed he had. Taller, broader, more confident. Had she seen him in the months since the day the Lawters attacked Steve? Surely she had, but she couldn’t remember. “You must be every inch of six feet.”

  “Yes, ma‘am, Miss Benedict, ma’am.”

  Savannah almost laughed aloud. If she hadn’t recognized Jeffie before, she would now. “Is this your first festival?”

  “First as a real cowhand instead of a kid.” He blushed a little and shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly shy after his euphoric greeting. “I got my star.”

  “Already? Show me!” She stopped dead center in the walkway and, when he lifted the heel of his boot for her inspection, admired the perfectly carved star sincerely. “I suppose this means you don’t belong to the saddle soap and neat’s-foot oil brigade anymore.”

  “No, ma’am.” Jeffie’s blush deepened. “Fact is, I’ve sorta been filling in for you, what with you being so busy with Mr. Cody’s horses and all.”

  “So busy—” Savannah cut short her comment. “How did you know that?”

  “Well, ma’am, it wasn’t a hard thing to figure, once I saw how it was between you.”

  “Once you saw what, Jeffie? When?”

  She spoke gibberish, but it made perfect sense to the boy. “The day he first come to the barn at the Rafter B. I wasn’t spying or nothing, but I saw how it might be. Later when he was hurt and you took out across the range like a bullet, I saw for true how it was. I ain’t told nobody though. I mean, it wasn’t any business of mine, so I didn’t say nothing.”

  Savannah stared at him. Out of the mouth of a fledgling cowboy, she heard the facts of her life. What might be, what was, and couldn’t be denied. Wouldn’t be denied. So what was she waiting for?

  “Jeffie.” She caught his arm, her hand shaking but her mind set on its course. “I’ll take a rain check on that dance.” Framing his face in her palms, she rose to kiss his soft young mouth. “But we’ll have it, I promise.”

  Spinning in a whirl of her skirt, she rushed down the walk. In another whirl she turned to walk backward. “Jeffie.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Nothing.” Her laugh was giddy. “Nothing except, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, I’m suit.” With his hand lingering over his mouth he watched her hurry on. A fingertip stroked the exact spot her lips had touched, and he wished he understood what he’d done, so he could do it again.

  She was lost in the crowd when he ventured a guess at her new destination. A smile displaced awe. “Good luck, boss lady.”

  The stockyards lay in shadow, the still darkness broken by random bands of dim light filtering from the adjacent grounds. But she found him there, where she knew he would be. The stables were quiet, tired horses drowsed with drooping heads. Only Gitano stirred, handsome and glittering in a shaft of pale radiance as he snuffled at Steve’s shoulder.

  Savannah stopped beyond the arrow of light, her step muffled by fresh straw, her heart aching for this man who seemed so alone when he should be celebrating. Yet, she asked honestly, wasn’t this where he should be, with his horses, where he was most at home?

  Watching him, listening to his low croon, she felt like a trespasser blundering into a private moment. The elated conviction Jeffie had sparked wavered. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t intrude on Steve’s joy or his pain. She’d lost that right weeks ago, thrown it away like a fool.

  Daring not even a rustle of her skirt, she backed away, taking each step carefully. Retracing her steps in slow motion.

  A noise, a whisper, a guttural sigh rent the quiet, freezing her in place. Standing as rigid as marble, she probed murky corners for the cause of the stealthy disruption. There was nothing, no more sound, no unfamiliar shapes, yet a subtle shifting in the air scratched at her nerves and prickled at the back of her neck.

  Calming clamoring instincts, she looked down the corridor at her back, hoping the disturbance hadn’t been another rancher checking his animals, or an anxious breeder stealing one more peek at coveted stock. Studying the empty passage, she prayed fervently the stalls were as empty, that she might yet retreat as unobtrusively as she’d come.

&nbs
p; No one was there. She was certain, and scolded herself for being silly. Everyone was at the dance, only she and Steve...

  A coughing grunt stabbed through her speculation. A thud and a muffled screech sent shivers lurching through her. She barely bit back a scream as a form as black as Hades burst from the gloom. Ears flattened, tail waving like a banner, the yowling creature scurried over her foot.

  A cat! A mouser come to its own festival.

  Laughing silently at her silly notions, she breathed a sigh of relief. Relief that was to be short-lived.

  “Savannah?” Steve stood in her path, blocking her escape. “What the hell are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the dance?”

  Of course he had heard, of course he had investigated. She was an unthinking simpleton not to expect it. Looming over her, he was a fearful figure, but she was done with fear. Her chin angled a bit, her throat bobbed putting the last of paralytic fear away as she answered honestly. “I came because I knew you would be here.”

  “It wouldn’t take a mastermind to make that deduction.” The sharp rise of a night breeze carried the raucous cadence of a line dance to them. The deep, booming notes built to a crescendo, then easing and softening, segued without missing a beat into the poignant notes of ballad. The change went unmirrored in Steve. There was no relenting in him, no ease, no softening. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “I came because I thought you might need me.”

  “Ah, you thought I might need a friend, and that you might be that friend.”

  His bitterness lay like a burden on her heart. She met his harsh stare with every shred of poise Camilla had instilled in her. “The thought crossed my mind.”

  Laughter as grating as a steel trap ripped from him. “I have my horses and a few trophies to set on a mantel, why would I need a friend? Why you?”

  “Why me, indeed?” A sound of hurt too low to be perceived trembled in her throat. Bowing to it only briefly, she muffled a sigh. “I can see I was mistaken.”

  His look swept over her, no detail escaping him. Not the circular crinkled skirt falling away from a tightly cinched silver belt—filmy georgette, clinging to narrow hips as only georgette could. And certainly not the peasant blouse, its neckline gathered discreetly, then tied loosely over the swell of her breasts. A simple costume, but worn as Savannah wore it, a study in innocent seduction stronger than pain. Stronger than betrayal.