A Cowboy's Tears

by Anne McAllister

  Mace clutched the mug in a death grip and felt like a B-Western movie cowboy trapped in a box canyon with sharpshooters all around. The hero always got out alive. Mace had the feeling he wasn't playing that part.

  Taggart, oblivious to the melodrama going on in his friend's head, hooked out a rickety folding chair and sat, then shoved one in Mace's direction. Mace looked at it warily.

  "Sit down. I'm not going to badger you," Taggart said. "So relax."

  Uh-huh.

  Mace took a swallow of Loney's bitter, black coffee and waited for the assault, but Taggart had turned his attention to Loney and was watching him weld as if he was studying his competitors in a National Finals bull-riding round.

  Finally Mace slumped into the chair. He didn't look Taggart's way. He didn't say a word.

  "He teaches eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British lit," Taggart said, never taking his eyes off Loney. "Creative writing. Every now and then poetry."

  It wasn't Loney he meant.

  "I thought you weren't—"

  "I'm not." Taggart's voice was hard. "I'm just telling you. So you'll know."

  Mace sighed. Poetry. Swell.

  "He teach Baxter Black?" The New Mexico veterinarian-turned-cowboy-poet was the only poet Mace knew.

  "Likes his stuff." Taggart grinned faintly. "Doubt if he's taught it yet. Not sure they're that enlightened back in Ioway."

  Mace shrugged his shoulders against the cold metal of the chair and watched the sparks fly off Loney's welding torch. "Your wife doesn't mind when you malign her home state?" he asked after a moment, easing his way into conversation carefully, as if it were a swift-moving river full of rocks and shoals.

  Taggart shook his head. "I'm bigger'n her."

  "But I bet she knows you're ticklish."

  "Didn't take her long to find out," Taggart agreed. He sighed, then stretched, arching his back. "Not that we have a lot of time for that sort of thing these days."

  "Tell your company to go home," Mace suggested.

  "It's not him. He's helping out, actually. Gives us time to breathe now and then. Takes a turn with a colicky kid. Keeps Becky out of trouble. No small task that," he added.

  "Hey, don't pick on my shadow," Mace protested.

  Taggart grunted. "Don't get me started on your 'shadow.' She's as contrary as they come these days. Never just does what you say. Has to discuss everything."

  "She's growing up."

  "You're telling me. And I hear it's going to get worse before it gets better."

  "Be glad you've got her," Mace advised. He'd take her in a minute if Taggart was offering.

  "I am. She just drives me crazy, that's all. But, if Becky is a handful, she's a piece of cake compared to twins." He tipped the chair back, balancing it on two legs, and scratched the back of his head, then readjusted his hat and sighed. "I reckon the workload increases geometrically every time you add a kid."

  "I wouldn't know."

  Mace's knuckles were white on the mug and he stared straight ahead, watching Loney work as if he was Michelangelo.

  "Well, they are," Taggart continued, oblivious. "If one cries, the other cries. I don't know why it doesn't work that if one sleeps, the other sleeps. And then they spit up. And need changing. And have dirty diapers. And need changing again." He sighed mightily. "I hear things get better when they get older. But in fact, I reckon the problems just change—if Becky's any indication."

  "My heart bleeds," Mace said. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and stood up.

  "Wha—?"

  But Mace couldn't listen any longer. He thumped the mug down on the cluttered desk and started toward the door. "I gotta go, Loney. I'll pick up the hitch on my way back. You don't know how damned lucky you are," he said over his shoulder to Taggart.

  Then he banged out the door and he didn't look back.

  Brenna found him at the grocery store when he came in to buy a loaf of bread. It was the one thing he'd forgotten on his trip to Livingston. He was in town for maybe five minutes Wednesday afternoon.

  But there Brenna was.

  "Do you know what you're doing?" she asked him in the checkout line.

  "Buying a loaf of bread."

  "Don't be a wise guy, Mace Nichols. You had the best woman in the world, and you're throwing her away."

  Mace shut his mouth and opened his wallet. He paid for the bread and said, "I know what I'm doing," to Brenna and went on his way.

  Tess got him at the dentist's. Noah tried his luck in the hardware store. Even Felicity said, "You'd better think twice, Mace."

  One way or another, he figured he'd met them all now—all the people who had a stake in his past, in his marriage, in trying to rattle him, irritate him, provoke him—even unintentionally—but basically to make him change his mind.

  He'd weathered them all.

  He'd forgotten about Shane.

  It was easy to forget about Shane. His younger brother by three years, Shane blew in and out of Mace's life like the wind. He was a professional rodeo bull rider, who rarely spent two nights in one place.

  Mace would have hated his life-style. Shane loved it.

  And the best part, he'd once told his older brother, was that it was just "one movable party goin' down the road."

  Life was only worth living, in Shane's view, if he could be here, there and gone again. In Mace's view, only his brother's unpredictability was predictable.

  So why was he surprised when a week after his encounter with Taggart in the welding shop, four days after running into Brenna at the grocery, three days after seeing Tess at the dentist and Noah at the hardware store, to have the door to the cabin burst open and Shane stand there, demanding, "What in hell do you think you're doing?"

  "Mending tack," Mace said from where he sat at the table. He made no move to get up.

  Another time he'd have shaken his brother's hand. He wasn't shaking hands with anybody who looked this wild-eyed.

  "Mending tack," Shane spat. He said a short rude word. "Don't be an ass, Mace. I'm talking about the divorce! Divorce!" He spat that, too, and slammed the door for emphasis, then stood glaring at his brother. "What the hell are you doing, getting a divorce?"

  "Who told you?"

  "Who do you think?"

  A barroom gossip, he'd hoped. Some nosey rumormonger Shane just happened to run into as he traveled down the road. But he knew from the hard look on Shane's face just exactly who his brother had been talking to.

  "You saw Jenny."

  If it had been the rumor mill, Mace could have done a little damage control, laid his own groundwork, told things his way. But there was no controlling the damage if the news had come from Jenny.

  "She told me you moved out. I didn't believe it. Then she showed me the divorce papers some fancy lawyer sent and—"

  "He's not a fancy lawyer. It's Anthony Hollis from Livingston. A standard, run-of-the-mill—"

  "I don't care if he's F. Lee Bailey! What the hell are you doing, divorcing your wife?"

  The small cabin wasn't big enough to contain Shane's intensity. He was like a self-propelled cue ball, caroming off the walls. Mace just watched him, not saying a word.

  Finally Shane stopped and came to loom over him. "Answer me, damn it!"

  Mace shook his head. "It's not any of your business."

  "The hell it's not! I'm your brother!"

  "And this is between me and my wife."

  "Your wife doesn't act like it's her idea!"

  "It's not."

  "Then—"

  "But it's for the best."

  Shane slapped a hand against one of the cabinets, making the dishes rattle. "Whose best? Yours?" he sneered.

  "Yes," Mace lied because Shane would never believe in his form of altruism. "And Jenny's." That, at least, wasn't a lie.

  "She doesn't agree with you."

  "Someday she will. She probably already does," he said after a moment's reflection. "She went out with somebody else, you know."

  "What?
"

  "Felicity's brother."

  "And you let her?"

  Mace lifted his shoulders. "It's up to her."

  Shane kicked a chair so hard it fell over. "You are seriously crazy, you know that? You divorce the one good thing that ever happened to you, and you act like you don't give a damn!"

  Mace's jaw locked. He stared straight ahead and didn't answer.

  Shane jerked the chair upright and plopped down in it. He didn't speak right away. In fact, he seemed almost to be tamping his emotions down, drawing himself together. Then, after a long moment, he rested his forearms on the table and stared across it at his brother. "Why?"

  All the flame was gone from his voice now. The fire was banked, but no less intense. He fixed Mace with an intense stare, the one that demanded answers.

  Resolutely Mace shook his head.

  Shane made a grinding noise with his teeth.

  "I don't understand why you're so upset about it," Mace said finally, not quite able to keep the edge off his voice. "I mean, it's not like you're some paragon of matrimony yourself. Hell, you haven't even come within a mile of getting engaged. You're always off running somewhere."

  "That's why I care," Shane said. He pulled his chair closer and leaned toward Mace. "Because you an' Jenny are all the family I've got. Yeah, I run around. Just like you said, I'm always off somewhere. But when I go home, I come here." He paused, letting the words sink in. "To you. And Jenny."

  "Might've known it was pure selfishness."

  "Like hell it is. I want you guys to be home to me, but that's not all I want. I want what's best for you, damn it, Mace—and it isn't divorcing Jenny!"

  Mace didn't answer. There wasn't anything to say.

  Shane never listened, anyway. Never had. He just went off half-cocked and did what he wanted, thought what he wanted.

  And he was the last person Mace could tell the real reason to. He'd spent the better part of his life trying to be an older brother that Shane could look up to—a real man.

  He had a very good idea what his brother's opinion of a guy with a zero sperm count would be.

  Shane just sat there staring at him. Minutes passed. Mace lowered his gaze, went back to repairing the bridle.

  "You're gonna do it, aren't you?" Shane said at last. His voice was flat and fatalistic.

  "That's right. I am."

  "And you're never gonna tell me why."

  "I'm never gonna tell you why."

  "You are one cold son of a bitch."

  Mace's fingers curled into fists. He forced himself not to react more than that.

  Shane pushed himself up from the chair and stood staring down. Then he shook his head and walked to the door. There he turned and took one last shot.

  "I looked up to you, Mace. All my life. We were different, yeah, but to tell the truth, I always thought you were better."

  Mace's eyes flicked up to meet Shane's in astonishment.

  Shane didn't even pause. "Someday, I hoped I could be like you," he said. "I thought if I was lucky I might find the right girl and settle down—be like my big brother."

  "You never—"

  "I did. But I'm sorry I did. Because frankly, Mace, now I think you're an ass."

  "She went out with him again." It was never ending.

  He'd survived Shane, had thought that had to be the end of it. And now, two days later, Becky was back.

  Mace fixed his eyes on the bridle he was still trying to mend, and didn't even look up.

  "I know you think you don't want to hear it, but it's getting serious." Becky had turned a chair around backward and was resting her chin on her fingers as they gripped the chair back.

  "You're right. I don't want to hear it," Mace said.

  "They went to Livingston for lunch and to look at this new art gallery." Becky went on as if he hadn't said a word.

  Mace's eyes focused on the leather. His mind didn't. He didn't want to know. Didn't. Want. To. Know.

  "What art gallery?" Since when had Jenny taken up going to art galleries?

  "Dunno. Some Indian art one. And tomorrow they're drivin' down to Yellowstone for the day."

  Head bent, Mace pushed the awl into the leather.

  "They're gonna go see Mammoth Hot Springs. And take a nature hike."

  "Like we don't have nature around here?"

  "That's what I said. Dad told me to mind my own business." Becky sighed. "I could go with 'em."

  Mace frowned. "What? Why?"

  The look she gave him said he wasn't too bright. "Because if I was there they couldn't, you know, do anything." There was a world of ten-year-old knowledge about adult behavior in those last two words.

  It set Mace's carefully reined thoughts running wild.

  "They aren't gonna—" His voice rose irritably, then fell. He sucked in a sharp breath. "It doesn't matter what they do."

  He could say it in his sleep. It was getting to be a litany. It doesn't matter what they do.

  "Of course it matters!"

  "Not to me." He jabbed the awl through the leather and narrowly missed putting it through his own hand.

  "You don't care?"

  "I don't care."

  "Liar, liar. Pants on fire," Becky chanted.

  Mace's head jerked up, a scalding flush rising on his neck. "What?"

  "You heard me," Becky said defiantly. "You do care. You just don't want to. You're a chicken."

  "A chicken?" A ten-year-old girl was calling him chicken?

  "Well, go ahead. Be that way." Becky got up and thumped the chair around frontward, then shoved it under the table. "See if I try to help you anymore. Sometimes I think maybe it'd be better if Jenny did marry Uncle Tom."

  This time the awl did pierce his hand.

  "Damn it to hell!" Mace dropped the awl and grabbed his hand to stanch the blood. "Sorry," he muttered at the sight of Becky's stricken face. For the language, he meant.

  "'S all right. Daddy says worse than that when the twins start crying." She dug in her pocket and pulled out a Band-Aid. "Here."

  "What'm I supposed to do with that?"

  "Use it."

  "I don't—"

  "It's not sissy if that's what you're worried about." She thrust it in front of his nose. "Hurry up, before you bleed to death."

  "I'm not gonna bleed to death." But he was sucking blood out of his hand and looking for some place to spit it.

  "Spit in the sink. Then wash your hand."

  "God, you're bossy." But Mace hauled himself to his feet and ran his hand under the cold water faucet. "Use soap."

  The only bar of soap, so far as he knew, was in the shower. His glance around the sink must have conveyed that notion.

  Becky let out a long-suffering sigh, twisted the cap on the dishwashing liquid and squirted it on his hand. "Rub it in. Good." The last word wasn't approval; it was a command.

  Mace tried, as best he could with one hand.

  Becky sighed. "Here. Let me." She took his hand in hers, poked it under the water again and scrubbed it like she was sanding a floor.

  "Ow!"

  "Don't be a baby. You gotta get the dirt out." She cast a hard glance at the offending awl. "You don't know where that thing has been."

  Mace knew exactly where it had been, but he kept his mouth shut as she gravely rinsed his hand under the faucet—hot, this time—almost hot enough to scald him. Then she towed him into the bathroom, where she got a clean towel and dried his hand with a gentleness that belied the rough scrubbing.

  "Do you have any antiseptic?"

  "I travel light."

  She rolled her eyes. "Men," she said, disgusted. Then she took his hand and very gravely and carefully put the Band-Aid in place.

  "Women," Mace said, gently teasing with the same tone of mocking disgust.

  Becky's eyes flicked up to meet his, and a very elemental electric awareness arced between them.

  All the years that they'd been friends—since the moment of her birth, practically—all the years he'd b
een aware of her crush on him, which seemed scarcely shorter than her lifetime—all the years he'd watched her grow and develop and had wished someday he'd have a daughter as wonderful—all her worrying about him and Jenny now seemed crystallized in this moment.

  And the moment went on. And on.

  Neither of them looked away.

  Becky's eyes were awash with unshed tears. He found himself blinking back his own.

  And then she surged forward, and her arms went hard around his waist, and she hugged him so tight he thought she might squeeze the breath right out of him;

  He decided it wouldn't be a bad way to go.

  His own arms wrapped around her thin shoulders, hugging her, too. His lips rested atop her silky brown hair.

  "Care, Mace," she urged fiercely into his shirtfront.

  Anguished, he shook his head. "I can't, Beck."

  "You got to." She looked up at him then, her green eyes beseeching. "Try. Please. Then it'll be all right. I know it will."

  Do you? he wanted to ask. How? He didn't ask.

  He ought to have told her she was wrong. He ought to have told her nothing would make this all right. But he couldn't.

  So he shut his eyes and prayed for the optimism of youth.

  "Why don't you come to dinner here?" Jenny found herself saying when Tom called to ask her to go out on Saturday night.

  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  She'd gone so many places with him in the past couple of weeks that she was afraid things were moving too fast.

  They'd had a wonderful time at the art gallery. Other than attending Brenna's shows, she'd never really gone to one. It wasn't nearly as culturally daunting as she'd feared. And if Tom had taken the lead there, explaining things about art that she didn't know, a few days later when they went to Mammoth Hot Springs, it was her turn.

  He seemed to enjoy the hot springs and the nature hike as much as she'd enjoyed the art gallery. They had things to teach each other, and on the way back to Elmer from Mammoth that afternoon, she'd said so.

  And Tom had smiled over at her and said, "I have a lot of things I'd like to teach you."

  Jenny might not have been on a lot of dates, but she wasn't entirely unused to innuendo.

  She'd flushed scarlet, and Tom had laughed delightedly and squeezed her hand. "All in good time," he'd promised. "All in good time."