by Denise Dietz
No, not thunder. Claude was filming the explosion. She felt the sound reverberate, saw horned larks rise above the bordering pine trees. The ground beneath her shook, bucking like one of Sally’s equine ruffians. Off balance from her bulky harness, Flo fell forward, into the river.
She tried to regain her footing but her drenched petticoats and padding kept her pinned to the bottom. On hands and knees she scuttled toward shore then realized she’d moved away from the muddy banks. Why hadn’t Claude told her the bottom yielded a few feet from shore? Was it possible that, like the mine, he hadn’t checked it out? Or had the dynamite charge broken the dam, causing a surge of water to swell the depths?
Cleaving the surface, she doggie-paddled. Why didn’t somebody pull her free from this frigid shroud?
Because they hadn’t noticed her distress. Everybody was farther up-river, watching the explosion from a safe distance. She could drown, and Claude would merely boom through his megaphone: “Where’s Flower?”
“Here I am!” Swallowing water, Flo submerged.
I want a funeral like Mama Min’s. A lavender casket and red roses dripping petals on my grave.
“Stop it,” she admonished, after scissor-kicking her way to the surface again. “The current is carrying you downstream, toward the campsite. Someone will see you.”
Rounding a bend, she groaned. The blast had dislodged tree roots, clumps of brush, and every loose branch in the vicinity. The sight of her bobbing head would be lost within the swirling debris.
Help, she thought. “I love you, Cat,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
Blinking moisture from her eyes, she watched Cat tread water. He looked like Neptune, his bare chest glistening in the bright sunlight. His dark hair was plastered to his skull and his jade eyes gleamed.
Was he real? Or was she dreaming?
“Help me, Cat. I’m drowning.”
“I won’t let you drown, Fools Gold.”
His voice was real—Cat’s voice.
“I’m so cold, Cat.”
“Put your arms around my neck and ride piggyback while I swim to shore.”
“Is Claude filming this?”
“Yes. Don’t talk. Save your breath.”
“Harness . . . heavy.”
She felt his fingers unfasten the slippery knots. Nimble fingers. Experienced fingers. Fingers that had oft untangled corset strings.
The cameras wouldn’t record the loss of her “pregnancy”—no more than her head and shoulders crested above the water. She shifted until she rode Cat’s hips. With her last ounce of strength, she clasped her numb fingers across his chest.
“The crew is gathering ropes, just in case,” he said. “Hang on. If we can make it to shore without ropes, we won’t have to film another rescue sequence.”
Impossible, she thought. They were so far away. “Are we going to die?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. She’d whispered her question into his deaf ear. It didn’t matter. Cat wouldn’t let her die. He wouldn’t let his baby die.
But she had told him there was no baby.
He didn’t believe her. She was a competent actress but a dreadful liar.
Or was she? Jack believed her. Edward believed her. Claude believed her. Only Cat could see into her soul.
They reached the slippery bank, and Flo felt hands lift her. Still somewhat dazed, she saw a huge tree branch caught in the current.
“Cat! Look!”
“Janey!”
“What are you doing? You can’t swim out again. It’s too cold.”
Cat ignored her.
She turned toward the cameramen. “Don’t just stand there. Help him.”
Nobody moved.
She watched Cat fight the strong current. He dove beneath the water, and it seemed an eternity until he emerged near Jane. Very quickly, he untangled her from the tree branch.
“Ride piggyback!” Flo shouted.
Jane’s hands clutched Cat’s neck and shoulders then fell, but he managed to hold her head above water until they reached the ropes. He tied one around her waist. After she’d been hauled to safety, he knotted another rope around his own waist.
Flo heaved a sigh of relief. Squeezing her sopping braids, she walked toward Jane.
Three crew members and Claude pulled on the rope with a steady motion. Cat waved reassuringly.
“Sorry,” Jane huffed. “Saw you. Didn’t think. Jumped in. Branch caught me.”
“You were very brave,” Flo said, still focused on Cat.
Wreckage from the explosion rushed downstream—tree branches, a miner’s cap, several picks and shovels.
“What’s taking them so long? Oh, no!” Flo raised her hands, as if to ward off disaster. Her throat clogged. For the second time in her life she couldn’t scream.
The river had become a spinning vortex, and surging water created high peaks of foam. A pick rose above the foam and struck at Cat’s face. The sharp points flashed then tumbled into the whirlpool. Cat floated, facedown. The men increased their pressure on the rope.
Flo forgot her exhaustion. She helped the others lift Cat’s body and place him on the bank. His eyes were shut, his lids blue-tinged. Blood streamed down his face.
She knelt. “Claude, bring every blanket and jacket you can find. There’s brandy inside the supply wagon. Someone heat water. Hurry!” As she spoke, she found a seam on her skirt and began tearing cloth. Her nails shredded along with the material. The wet calico was nearly unmanageable, but abject fear gave her an almost superhuman strength.
Loose strips of skin showed a portion of Cat’s cheekbone. His forehead and eyes seemed to have escaped the pick’s attack. Thank God!
With a moan, he came to as she bathed his face. His eyes were a pale green. “The baby,” he said hoarsely. “Is the baby all right?”
For a moment she just stared at him.
“He thinks he’s William and you’re Minta.” Jane sat on her heels. “He thinks you’re really pregnant.”
Flo’s blood-soaked fingers rested limply across her knees. She watched with detached interest as her hands began to tremble. All she could smell was blood.
Accepting the brandy flask from DuBois, she leaned over Cat. “The baby is fine,” she said. “I feel no pain, none whatsoever.”
“If it’s a girl, name her Tonna. Promise.”
“I promise.” Flo tightened her grip on the flask. “I have to pour this over your face, Cat, to avoid infection. I don’t want to hurt you. As God is my witness, I never wanted to hurt you.”
He closed his eyes. She emptied the flask’s contents and knew she’d dream about his agonized scream for the rest of her life.
“You can’t die, Cat,” she pleaded. “You’ve survived so much. The rodeo. Romaine’s motorbike. The cave-in. You laughed at death then. You must laugh at death now.”
She continued talking, needing her own voice to fight off the terror that coiled inside her belly like a snake.
Only after they had carried Cat away on a litter, did she slump prone on the ground. She heard the roar of the river. She felt pebbles caress her cheek. She smelled mud, tasted dirt.
“I never faint,” she whispered, and fainted.
Thirty-Two
Colorado Springs: 1918
Confronting Cook in the kitchen, Flo said, “Food Administrator Herbert Hoover has called for one meatless day, two wheatless days, and two porkless days each week.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ignoring Hoover—and Mrs. Flower—Cook prepared her own menus, which usually included one meat dish, one wheat dish, and one pork dish each day.
There was no fixed routine at Aguila del Oro. The maids, butlers and valets had a grand time.
“Mrs. Flower gave me her peg-top skirt.” Daisy’s snub nose quivered like a bunny’s as she cut into her pork chop. “Mrs. Flower says it don’t fit no more. Ain’t she sweet?”
“She promised me a glad rag, too,” Grace said, her glare insinuating that a certain peg-top sk
irt was the glad rag she’d hungered for.
“Lower your voices,” Cook admonished, her plump cheeks apple-red. “As long as Mr. Edward’s not bothered, Mrs. Flower treats us fair.”
The downstairs maid, Suzette, agreed. In fact, Suzette was very agreeable. If there was an unfinished chore, she finished it, then shrugged off the gratitude of Daisy, who wanted to meet Harry down by the stream, or Cook, who’d been on her tootsies since sunrise and needed to prop her swollen feet atop a hassock.
The servants hummed about Suzette entertaining the master’s son, who lived at the estate, but they didn’t want it brought to Mrs. Flower’s attention. Who’d finish up the dusting if Suzette was dismissed?
The Great War ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Christmas followed, and Mr. Edward insisted on handing out the gifts personally. After pocketing their money packets, the servants joined hands around the wassail bowl and sang.
Mrs. Flower sang loudest of all. She was getting fat, said Cook, even though she didn’t eat much. Daisy said the missus might be carrying a bun in her oven. Grace said she’d read about a hundred-year-old man who was still making babies.
But you could tell the master’s health was failing, said Nomi, a French femme de chambre who brought Edward his dinner trays. Just look at the portrait above the fireplace. Monsieur didn’t appear thin as tissue paper, or how-you-say? Saggy-faced.
“Didn’t the missus take good care of the master?” Daisy said. Mrs. Flower was once a movie star. Now she hardly ever stepped out.
The missus took good care of the horses, too, said Little Toby. He had never worked for nobody who treated them horses like they was human. And now the master’s son had told Old Bully-Ben there’d be a new horse coming. A chestnut mare with a posh name. Old Bully-Ben was surprised because he was in charge of the stables and he’d looked the mare over and told Mr. Edward that she was mean-tempered and skittish. But Mr. Ned told Bully-Ben to mind his own beeswax, and the mare Mrs. Flower called Ruby-yat would arrive next week.
* * * * *
“She’s pregnant, Ned.” Suzette stood before the bureau mirror, securing her ash-blonde strands with hairpins.
“Servant’s gossip, my dear. It’s impossible.”
Suzette covered her elaborate coiffure with a ruffled white servant’s cap. “If your father’s not responsible, some other man pierced her tender flesh, and I know who. John Chinook.”
“You’re crazy. Flower hates Chinook.”
“Don’t call me crazy. Watch their movie, especially their love scenes.”
“There are no love scenes.”
“Yes, there are. Watch the way Minta leans against William. Study her eyes. A woman can always tell.”
“What do you know of love, Suzette? You honor your body, not your heart. That’s why we get along so well. Just the same, it had to be somebody else who, as you so delicately put it, pierced her tender flesh. Edward’s heart would have failed in the attempt.”
“What a splendid way to die.”
“Shut up, or you’ll know how it feels. I’ll wring your neck during a climactic moment.”
“What do you know of climactic moments? Since you’ve taken over from Claude DuBois, your movies are a big joke. Jane Percival even signed with another studio.”
“I’ve been trying to make a statement. It’s not my fault if the public doesn’t appreciate great art.”
“Great art? Three reels of a man who thinks he’s a spider and chases a fly around the room?”
“The fly was symbolic, illustrating a moral principle.”
“If you must show white people killing colored people, don’t turn them into spiders and flies. In any case, Dollyscope hasn’t had a hit movie since Heaven’s Thunder.”
“Shut up!”
“Shut up yourself. Are you planning to wring my neck like a chicken and dig a shallow grave beneath your stepmother’s roses? I’m not Ruthie Adams, and my cottage isn’t some miner’s shack stuck out in the middle of nowhere.”
“How . . . how’d you know about Ruthie?”
“Luke told me. I don’t care if you killed a whore, Ned. Whores die all the time.” With a snaggle-toothed grin, she handed him a bottle of whiskey, stolen from Aguila del Oro’s liquor cabinet.
“I’m glad you’re not bothered by a little thing like murder, Suzette. I’ll need your help.”
“Luke will be furious if his Flower fades before he can have his way with her, so you’d better make it worth my while.”
“You’ll get Flower’s diamonds. After my father dies, I’ll hand over fifty thousand dollars. What can Luke offer to match that?”
“Nothing. His assets are frozen. When Chinook cut his handsome face to ribbons, he returned to the ranch and resurrected as Cat McDonald. Luke says he’s gonna lie low a while and let Cat rebuild the family fortune. Then he’ll strike.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Wish I did. By the way, when do you plan to kill your stepmother?”
“That’s a dilemma. Flower believes the wild mare a gift from Edward, but Old Bully-Ben and Little Toby know I bought her. I don’t want to strike too quickly since I would surely be suspect, and yet I can’t wait too long. If you’re right and Flower is pregnant, she mustn’t be allowed to whelp.”
“Haven’t you learned that I’m always right? Flower’s blossoming, even though she tries to disguise it with loose peignoirs. I don’t understand why she’s hiding the blessed event, since your father, ill as he is, will hear the squalls of her brat once it’s born.”
“I should have killed Flower a long time ago. With Flower dead, I’d become Edward’s heir again.”
“Not if she has a child. If she gives your father a new heir and anything happens to her, the bulk of his fortune will be held in trust for the child.”
“I wish I could determine how pregnant she is.”
“The servants will know soon. I’ll keep my ears open.”
“And such lovely ears they are, Suzette. Won’t they look even lovelier sporting Flower’s diamonds?” Ned stomped to the window and stared out toward the stables. “I never should’ve bought the mare she calls Rubaiyat. When Edward learns his Flower was fertilized by another man, he’ll send her packing.”
* * * * *
Flo tied back the drapes, but the additional light showed just how wizened Edward had become. Only his blue eyes seemed alive.
She opened the window, hoping the March breeze would find its way inside and dissipate sickroom smells. Then she walked to the chiffonier and stropped a straight razor. “Take back your gold, for gold can never buy me,” she sang, stirring lather with a brush. “Make me your wife, that’s all I ask of you.” Spreading the white lather beneath her nose, she sculpted a handlebar mustache.
“An apropos song,” Edward grumbled. “I offered you a bribe to obtain your consent for our marriage, even though you are more nurse than wife.”
“That’s not true. I consented freely, without the offer of a bribe. In fact,” she said with a smile, “I had no choice. You wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
She wiped the foam away with the sleeve of her gray velvet robe. “Remember when we watched the Kentucky Derby? I had such fun. I can’t thank you enough for Hugo and Rubaiyat. I’m not dissatisfied with my life. Here, let me prop another pillow behind your shoulders so you can sit up more comfortably.”
“When’s the baby due, Flower?”
“What baby?”
“Did you honestly believe avoiding public appearances and clothing yourself in loose robes would hide your growing belly?”
“Edward, please don’t get upset . . .” She paused when he realized he wasn’t upset.
“Chinook’s the father,” he stated.
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“My heart is failing, darling girl, not my eyesight.”
“Jack would say I had chutzpah. That’s Jewish for brazenness.” A new thought occurred. “Your Denver trip.”
/> “I wanted you to have three days of perfect love without fear of discovery.”
“But you came home early.”
“I’m fallible. I began to wonder if I’d gone too far and you’d leave me.”
“How can I explain? I told you about the attempted rape. Cat . . . I mean John rescued me.”
“I know Chinook is Cat McDonald. You mentioned living near the McDonald spread, so I contacted my retired Pinkerton. He’s local, and it took him less than a day to ferret out Chinook’s true identity. Was the cave-in the first time?”
“Yes. I thought about asking you for a divorce—”
“I wouldn’t have agreed. I’m not that magnanimous.”
“You want me to be your wife, even knowing that I carry his child?”
“Absolutely. I shall claim responsibility.” A wicked gleam flickered in his eyes. “I plan to speed up my recovery, if only to enjoy the raised eyebrows. Please don’t tell my pompous heart specialist the baby isn’t mine. Perhaps he’ll compose a paper for one of his medical journals.” Edward sighed. “It’s another bribe. Our son or daughter will never want for anything. He or she will be raised at Aguila del Oro and bear the Lytton name.”
“Name! I promised . . . would you mind terribly if I named a girl Tonna?”
“That sounds Indian.”
“Navaho. It means weaver-of-dreams.”
“I won’t object if you add my mother’s name. Gay.”
“Tonnagay. How beautiful.”
“What about a boy? There are too many Edwards. Do you want to call him John?”
“And you said you weren’t magnanimous,” she chided. “No, although I do appreciate your generosity.”
“We could call him Jaygee’s funny Jewish word.”
“Chutzpah Lytton?” She laughed. “Goodness, Edward, you sound much better.”
“I feel much better. Would you do me a big favor? Forget about shaving this old face, and stitch up a pretty gown that shows your belly?”
“Thank you,” she said, her throat clogged with tears.
“Poppycock! Assemble the servants. They are consumed with curiosity, and I shall bask in their satisfied smirks. Thank you, Flower.”
* * * * *