He stroked her hands, then took the sack from her lap and the spike and walked away from her, hooking up cow pies. Watching him, she felt like crying again.
When the sack was filled, he pushed her back to the chuck wagon and would have kindled the fire but she reminded him of the rules. And she had to remind him not to help her up when she tried to stand with her crutch but instead fell at his feet. Knots rose along his jawline and his hands opened and closed at his sides, but he respected her wishes and stood clear as she struggled to rise. Mercifully, he left her to prepare supper and walked over to Grady’s remuda. Grady, she noticed, displayed no compunction about accepting John’s help with the injured horse. Remarkably she managed to cook an entire meal without giving it two complete thoughts.
When Dal rode in, he shook hands with John, and Alex saw him look from John to her with a knowing smile. Pink blazed across her throat. Was there anyone in this camp who hadn’t noticed the peculiar bond between herself and John McCallister?
Apparently not, she decided when Freddy came to the wagon to drop her plate into the wreck pan. Freddy slipped the vial of rose perfume into Alex’s apron pocket and smiled. “It appears you might be needing this.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she snapped, bearing down on the rag she rubbed briskly over her work space.
“It means I’m grateful that you didn’t judge and you haven’t asked any questions about Dal and me. It means that I want to repay your thoughtfulness by doing the same for you.”
The fight went out of her stiffened shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, balancing on her crutch and leaning against the worktable. “It’s just…” She frowned toward the fire, where John was sitting with Dal and the drovers.
“There aren’t many secrets on a cattle drive,” Freddy said gently, reaching to smooth a tendril of Alex’s blond hair behind her ear. “We all know John is here because of you.”
“He’ll leave in the morning.”
Freddy studied her. “He doesn’t have to. He could join the observers…”
Alex shook her head. “I know you mean well.” Surprisingly, she did know. “But you don’t understand.” She gazed into Freddy’s eyes. “There are reasons why I can’t let myself…”
“Your leg? Alex, the man was a doctor. If he cared about your missing leg, he wouldn’t have returned. You’re beautiful and courageous and caring. That’s why he came back.”
Lord, the tears flowed close to the surface today. She blinked hard. “I’m courageous and caring?” How odd to discover how deeply she craved her sisters’ approval and admiration.
“Yes,” Freddy said firmly. Embarrassed, she grinned and reached for a coffee cup. “And you fry a fine steak. Tonight’s supper was almost edible.”
Alex laughed, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Thank you,” she said, wishing she had two legs to stand on so she could give Freddy a hug without falling. Such a gesture would have shocked them both. She glanced toward John. “There’s another reason why I can’t…”
Freddy waited then she said, “If you ever want to talk about that reason…” she drew a long breath, “I’d like to hear it. Sometimes talking helps. Or so I’ve heard.”
She thought about Freddy’s offer while she finished cleaning up, and again when John pushed her chair to the shadowy line between light and dark. He removed a thin cigar from his vest pocket, sat down, and looked up at her, then when she nodded permission, he lit it.
“Payton smoked a pipe,” she said as a beginning, her gaze following the smoke floating in the night air. She had to tell him. Speaking around long choked pauses, she made herself begin the story by relating how she had met Payton at a lecture in New Orleans. “I don’t think he believed me when I promised I would run away and join him in Boston.” Looking back, she couldn’t imagine where she had found the courage to defy her father and run off to marry a man she scarcely knew. “To outsiders I suppose my elopement seemed romantic.”
But this was John, and tonight she would tell the truth about her marriage for the first time. Swallowing, she twisted her handkerchief between her fingers and continued, feeling his gaze on her face. “Payton was incredulous when I showed up on his doorstep. I knew at once I’d made a terrible mistake.” Tilting her head, she blinked up at the stars. “But he did the honorable thing. He married me.” These few statements glossed a universe of pain and humiliation.
“As you might guess from such a beginning, ours was a troubled marriage.” Another long pause elapsed. “But I enjoyed living in the East. I felt I’d come home. And I thrived in the closed society of academia. I believed my skills could be helpful to Payton in that regard, believed I could advance his career through social conquest. I wanted to feel necessary in his life, wanted him to be glad we had married.” She shook her head. “Maybe things would have been different if we’d had children, but we weren’t blessed that way.” She pulled at her handkerchief. “We argued about the cost of entertaining, about servants, about buying a carriage as opposed to hiring… Nothing was too insignificant to provoke a disagreement,” she added softly. “From the first, we seemed to bring out the worst in each other.
“Then, early last year, we received an invitation to dinner at the home of the University’s president. This was a triumph I had been striving to achieve for years.” She balled the handkerchief in her fist, and her voice sank to a strangled whisper. “Payton had a fever that night and wanted to send regrets. But I feared we wouldn’t be invited again if we declined. I argued, insisted. And finally, though he was ill and should have stayed in bed, Payton angrily agreed.
“I have relived that argument a hundred times. If only I hadn’t been so selfish… if only I’d thought more about him and less about myself… If only I hadn’t been so ambitious Payton would still be alive.” Struggling, she swallowed the lump in her throat. “It was raining and dark that night, and the driver’s cautious pace made me feel frantic that we would arrive distressingly late. I harangued Payton into ordering the driver to greater speed.”
She lowered her head. “And that is why the accident occurred. Because I forced my ill husband to go out when he did not wish to and because I insisted on speed when the road conditions urged caution. Because of me, my husband died that night. I killed him.”
When John tried to take her hands, she pushed him away, her eyes hot with anguish. “I wish I had died that night and Payton had lived. That’s how it should have happened. That would have been just. But he paid the price for my foolishness, and I lived. I can hardly bear it.”
John’s grey eyes filled with sympathy and compassion. He tried to take her hands again, but she would not permit it.
“My punishment is here,” she said, touching her right knee. “And here.” She touched her temples. “And here,” she whispered, placing her palm against his chest. “I can’t live as if that night were just an accident, because it wasn’t. It was a tragedy that didn’t have to happen. My husband died because of me.”
And she could not forgive herself. Could not permit herself to seek happiness now or in the future. Each time she made things easier by using the crutch, she rewarded herself when punishment was what she deserved. Every time she enjoyed something or forgot herself and laughed, she trivialized her husband’s death. And when she gazed at John McCallister with longing in her eyes, she betrayed the husband she had killed.
“That is why you cannot stay. You tempt me with happiness that I don’t deserve and will never have.” Finally, she let him take her hands and she clasped his fingers. “If you care for me a little, then please, I beg you, leave.” Gently he withdrew a hand and touched his fingertips to her lips. Alex pulled away, tears glistening in her eyes. “You touch me and I feel… guilt,” she whispered. “I look into your eyes and ache with despair. Please. The only way I can atone for what I… I mustn’t think about…”
Blinded by tears and pain, she gripped the wheels of her chair and savagely thrust forward, running away from him toward the be
droll that Grady had laid out for her. Long after the rest of the camp slept, she lay awake, staring through the darkness at the figure sitting on the grass where she had left him. Weeping silently, she prayed he would be gone when she awoke at dawn.
But he wasn’t. After breakfast, John climbed up on the chuck wagon beside her. He touched her hand and smiled.
“How is it possible to be happy and this miserable at the same time?” she whispered.
‘You’re worrying me,” Freddy said before she swung her saddle up on Walker’s back. Reaching beneath him, she caught the cinch and buckled it tight. “You ought to be happy now that we’re off drag, but you seem,” she frowned, “about as unhappy as a person can be.”
Les closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Cactus’s warm side. “I’m sorry I shouted at you last night. I’m just… I have a lot on my mind.”
Not an evening went by that Ward didn’t slap her or hit her when he discovered she hadn’t lost any longhorns. And God help her, there were times when a muley peeled out of the herd and she was tempted to let it run off just to spare herself one night of rage and bruises. Shame colored her cheeks that she could even think for one small moment about betraying her sisters to save herself a little pain.
Freddy placed a boot in the stirrup then swung into the saddle and Walker reared and bucked and raced away from the remuda, kicking his heels and doing his best to fling Freddy into the dirt. When she rode back toward Les, flushed and laughing, she looked pleased that she’d kept her seat.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she said, studying Les. “There’s something I assumed you knew, but maybe you don’t.”
“Is it about Ward?” Les’s stomach tightened in dread.
“I’ve been noticing the way Luther looks at you, and Les, he’s always looked at you that way. Luther loves you, and I suspect he always has. Did you know that?”
“Luther?” Her mouth fell open, and she stared at Freddy in astonishment.
“If you could see your face!” Freddy laughed, then she turned Walker in a circle and rode out toward the herd.
Luther?
“Oh, my God.” Her hand flew to her lips and her eyes widened in shocked understanding. The young lady who would have considered Luther too dull and too old, the young lady who had accepted someone else… she was that young lady.
A sudden tumble of memories overwhelmed her. Luther giving her flowers on his way into the house to see Pa on business. Luther bringing her a book from his library, his face turning pink with pleasure when he learned that she had enjoyed his choice. Luther, watching her dance with the young swains of Brush County, his expression wistful, or gazing soft-eyed at her across a formal dining table. Blushing violently red when he accidentally touched her. Stammering when she smiled at him.
She sagged against Cactus. How could she not have guessed?
Because, she thought, staring at the ground, he had been right. Since she hadn’t dared hope that someone like Luther would be interested in someone like her, she’d made herself think of him as her father’s business associate, and as a friend. Not as a possible suitor. After Pa married Lola, she’d turned her gaze to younger men, and she had not seen Luther.
And now it was too late.
Raising her head, she looked toward the observers’ camp. Both Ward and Luther were standing near the coffeepot, but it was Luther she saw.
He was taller than Ward, and ten years older. He never thrust himself forward, never bragged about his accomplishments, which were considerable. He was unfailingly thoughtful and kind, considerate and fair. Respected by all who knew him. Les usually thought of him as retiring, but that wasn’t entirely true.
It had been Luther who pulled Ward away from her and hit him in the mouth the night everyone had seen Ward strike her. Luther who had restrained Dal on at least two occasions that Les could recall.
Suddenly she remembered Prince Charming coming into her tent to hold her hand and whisper words of love. Had she dreamed that incident, or had it been…
Despair washed over her in a wave of blackness, and she stumbled against Cactus’s side, blinking at tears.
She wished Freddy hadn’t told her.
Riding flank position was a hundred times better than riding drag, Freddy decided, enjoying the morning. When she thought of Charlie and Peach eating dust and trying to nudge Mouse and Brownie into keeping up with the herd, she laughed out loud. But she missed Les. Except for the times when Dal circled the herd, she rode alone all day.
Thinking about Dal took the edge off of her good mood. And of course she thought about him morning, noon, and night. It hurt and annoyed her that he hadn’t referred even once to their night together in Fort Worth. Nor had he attempted to touch her or kiss her again.
Looking ahead, she fixed her gaze on his back. He was easy to spot as he rode the tallest in the saddle and wore his hat at a jaunty, arrogant angle.
As she did a dozen times a day, she tried to figure out why he seemed to be avoiding her. He knew she had gone unwillingly to the hotel; therefore, he might reasonably suppose that he had discharged his duty, that was the end of it, and that’s what she preferred. Maybe that was it.
On the other hand, he had to know that the night in Fort Worth had been the most thrilling experience in her life, had to sense that she wanted to be with him.
Or maybe he’d looked beyond Abilene and saw himself riding toward Montana, where she didn’t want to go, and imagined her boarding a train for San Francisco, where he didn’t want to go. At no point did their futures intersect.
Without a future, theirs could only be a relationship of brief duration. But no decent woman entered into an affair knowing that was all it could ever be, and she was Joe Roark’s daughter, a decent woman. She was also a woman on fire with desire, and there was the dilemma.
Looking ahead through the light haze of dust that existed even on flank, she remembered his hard-muscled body and his mouth crushing hers and the warm texture of his skin. She remembered his rippling flat stomach and his hands and his tongue on her body and…
“Stop this,” she muttered sharply.
Squinting, she spotted the chuck wagon and the observers’ wagons up ahead. In the distance, she saw Alex out on the range hooking up cow pies. Alex had wandered far from camp, undoubtedly because the cooks with the outfits ahead of theirs had already stripped the ground of dried pies closer in.
Then she saw something that she didn’t at first recognize as trouble. Five men suddenly appeared, galloping up out of a deep gully. Still not alarmed, Freddy watched them speeding toward her and the herd. She hoped they had the sense to rein in, hoped they knew better than to charge the herd and risk startling the beeves.
When she saw them pull up bandannas to cover their faces and draw their pistols, she sucked in a sharp breath. Instantly she stiffened, and her hand dropped to the six-shooter at her waist. But she stopped in a panic of indecision. If she fired a warning shot to alert the other drovers, the sound of the shot would stampede the herd.
The decision became irrelevant when one of the men shot at her. The bullet whizzed past Freddy’s ear, close enough that she heard the whine and felt a streak of heat. She had a second to snap a glance over her shoulder and see one of the beeves drop, then the stampede began.
Two thousand cattle simultaneously went mad with fear. In the blink of an eye, they were running crazily, fleeing an unknown terror. Freddy’s job in this situation was to gallop alongside the crazed steers and try to hold them together until the point men could turn the seething, clacking, pounding maelstrom into a mill. Her instructions didn’t cover what to do when outlaws were firing at her during the stampede they had started.
Figuring things couldn’t get worse if she fired her six-shooter now, she leaned over her horse’s neck and fired at the outlaws through clouds of billowing dust, wishing she were a better shot. She didn’t have much hope of hitting moving targets, but she sure as hell tried.
When she ran out
of bullets, she gave up on the outlaws and concentrated on trying to squeeze down the herd and keep the steers from fanning out. Then she made the mistake of glancing ahead, and her heart stopped on a spasm of icy horror. She had been wrong. Things could get much worse.
Instead of curving to the right and away from camp, the herd had veered left, away from the outlaws and gunshots. Two thousand maddened steers were bearing down on Alex, who was alone in their path and helpless in her wheelchair.
Chapter 19
At first Alex didn’t understand what was happening. The ground was bumpy and pocked with holes. Her first thought was that she must have braked on a small ridge or at the edge of a prairie-dog hole and an unstable position explained why her chair began to shake and vibrate. Then she registered the thunder of running hooves and an explosion of gunshots. The gunshots didn’t make sense, but the growing rumble did.
Her heart leapt into her mouth and her hands shook violently, but she managed to wrench her chair around then wished she hadn’t. Horror widened her eyes and scalded her chest. The herd had swerved toward her, was perhaps half a mile away and closing the gap fast. Gripping the wheels of her chair so hard that her palms bruised, she swung a panicked look toward the chuck wagon and understood at once that she could never reach it in time.
Terror blotted her vision, and her heart shuddered with fear. She couldn’t escape. The rampaging steers would trample her. She would die an ugly death alone on the prairie.
Dizzy with horror, she stared at the oncoming tide of destruction and for one terrible instant, she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. And then a numbing calm stole across her mind.
The Best Man Page 28