A Woman Clothed in Sun

by Jeanne Williams

  XVIII

  “I’m going to get some cattle!” Matt announced at breakfast next morning. He grinned at Rachel, who stared back, her fork half to her mouth. “If you have to keep those sheep, honey, we’ll run them on another pasture. No use wasting the meadow on them.”

  “Wasting!” Rachel slammed down her fork. “We clipped several pounds of wool off each of those sheep this spring!”

  “Fine,” he began. “But—”

  “And the sheep are still there to furnish meat, or if they’re fit for breeding, more lambs and wool!” She cut in breathlessly. “You can’t find a thriftier animal, not for this country!”

  His dark brows almost met above his nose. “Damn it, I didn’t come here to raise bare-bellies!” Rachel knew she should have bit her tongue and answered softly, but she simply couldn’t.

  “You haven’t stayed here long enough to raise anything!” she retorted. “And if Lupe and I hadn’t taken care of the place, there wouldn’t be anything left but a couple of derelict buildings!”

  His eyes darkened like a thundercloud, but she glared back. Lupe poured more dandelion root coffee. Juanito fidgeted, his lower lip thrusting out, plainly not liking these words between Tía Rachel and one of his new idols. Nels murmured his excuses and went outside. Quil sipped his coffee and said nothing.

  Matt sucked in a quick breath. “That money we got for the cattle we sold at Fort Davis! Did you pay it out for those sheep?”

  “No!” Rachel flung at him. “But I was ready to!” She stalked into the bedroom, returning with a pouch she tossed down by his plate with a heavy clank. “There’s all that money! Your money! Don Celestino gave me the sheep.”

  “That’s like him,” said Matt, half-grudging, half-grateful. “A gift from a hidalgo to a lady!”

  “He knew you didn’t like sheep,” said Rachel, still standing, furious because tears were forming in her eyes. “He must not have wanted you to feel cheated!”

  “Now, honey—” Matt reached awkwardly for her hand, turning it up and patting the work-scarred palm. “It’s been hard on you, and I’m sorry! I’ll do my damnedest to make it up.” His jaw hardened. “But this meadow’s for cattle. We’ll move the sheep as soon as we can, and when the grass is fit for cows, we’ll bring some in.”

  Rachel kept her face turned away. He just came back like a medieval lord and master and took over! After a moment, Matt dropped her hand. Shrugging, he rose to his tall lean height. “Quil, let’s have a look for sheep pasture. Want to come along, Juanito?”

  When they were gone, Rachel took the money pouch back to the bedroom chest, glanced up to find Lupe watching her with frowning, puzzled eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” Rachel asked defiantly.

  Lupe raised her shoulders, let them fall. “It’s sad that you and Mateo start with a quarrel.”

  “Quarrel?” Rachel gave a bitter laugh. “He just walks in and commands! I suppose he thinks he’s humoring me not to sell off the sheep straightaway or slaughter them!”

  “Maybe he knows the sheep are truly only yours,” said Lupe, spacing her words.

  Rachel blinked. Could Lupe guess about Don Celestino? But her friend seemed guileless enough as she added, “Truly, Rachel, it’s not an ill thing to own such a flock! Let Mateo and Quil get cattle! That will keep them happy and give them something to do. Can you imagine either man tending sheep?”

  Startled at this approach, Rachel thought a moment, laughing reluctantly. “It doesn’t seem to fit, does it?” She gave Lupe an almost playful hug. “All right! You and I will be dueñas of all those sheep and loan our grand cattlemen money when their cows get rustled or can’t forage!”

  “That’s it,” Lupe agreed.

  Rachel gave her a close scrutiny. “Has Quil said anything yet?”

  The warm copper of Lupe’s skin colored even deeper. “No. Maybe he’s changed.”

  “Of course he hasn’t!” Rachel scolded. “He watches you like a hungry bear does a honey tree! He’s just afraid of getting stung.”

  “I—I’m a little afraid, too,” Lupe murmured. “It’s best we get used to each other, perhaps, before we think beyond that.”

  “It won’t take long,” Rachel laughed.

  In a way, she envied the other woman. It would be so much easier with Matt if they didn’t have to make all their adjustments at once.

  “There’s good sheep range all around,” Matt said over the supper table. “But if they feed pretty near the river, they can water there.”

  “And if they don’t drown, maybe someone will steal them back across the Rio where people like mutton,” Rachel sniffed. “Don Celestino is a cattleman and a grandee, and he runs sheep!”

  Matt ignored her. Lightening his tone, he grinned at Nels. “Better change your mind and stay! You can be a sheepman, a cowman or some of both!”

  “It’s tempting,” said Nels. His dark silver eyes came to Rachel, who was surprised to feel dismay at his next words. “But I promised to meet Jo Shelby down in Mexico.”

  “Mexico?” echoed Rachel, and there might have been no one else in the room.

  “Maximilian, the Emperor of Mexico, has promised Confederates their own colony,” explained Nels. “General Jo Shelby never surrendered to the Yanks. He crossed the Rio and hopes to raise a force to win back some of the South, or at least shape a new Confederate state in Mexico.”

  “Hasn’t there been enough war?” demanded Rachel.

  Nels raised an eyebrow. “Too much, yet not enough, I guess, for those of us who lost.”

  “There’s been enough for me,” cut in Matt. “When Lee surrendered, he sure as hell spoke for me, too.” He put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Forget Mexico, Nels! Don’t waste more life and energy! Stay here and be a pardner. Quil says it’s fine with him.”

  “Or you can be my pardner with the sheep,” said Rachel, feeling herself blushing hotly.

  Nels smiled at her, slowly shook his head. “You’re all more than kind. But I reckon I have to cross the Rio. I’ll help you move your livestock, first, though, provided you’re going to do it within the next month.”

  “Oh, we are,” said Matthew. “Those bare-bellies shift their range in the morning.” He hesitated. “Nels, don’t be insulted, but it sure would be a relief if you’d keep an eye on them while Quil and I go to Mexico for cattle. Time we get back, they ought to be settled down and the meadow able to carry cows.”

  “I’ll do my best if Mrs. Bourne and her shepherd will tell me how,” said Nels.

  Rachel brought bowls of peaches sprinkled with winelike seeds of pomegranate. “That’s very kind of you,” she told Nels. “I’m—sorry you feel you can’t stay.”

  His hand brushed hers. He watched her with those clear fathomless eyes. “I’m sorry, too,” he said softly. “But I’m sure it’s best.”

  The men rode after the sheep being herded out of the meadow by the guardian dogs and Santiago. Rachel, watching from tumbled rocks by the pass, put down her head and wept. It was as if her work, her plans, her efforts were being rejected by her husband. The sheep were still hers, but they wouldn’t be where she could see them easily.

  When she looked up the valley toward the spreading house where they’d carefully built room joined to room, she almost hated it, rebelling against the years she’d clung to that house made of earth and tried to make it home. The house suited Matthew; her sheep didn’t, so he’d moved them out.

  Lifting her head, angrily blowing her nose, Rachel looked into bead eyes, a tiny wrinkled throat and face crowned with a pointed diadem.

  “He’s my best horny toad, Tía Rachel.” The horn toad basked on Juanito’s open hands, a tiny spotted dragon. “You can keep him if you won’t cry.”

  She laughed through her tears, patting Juanito’s cheek, then stroking his offering with great care. “He might squirt blood at me out of his eyes, ’Nito. Thousand thanks, but you keep him.” She scrambled up, sweeping the boy along with her.

  “Don’t cry ab
out the sheep,” Juanito urged, trotting beside her, the leather hard soles of his feet whispering on the rocks. “I’ll be your shepherd! We’ll have the best flocks anywhere in the world!”

  Such a strange thing for a little river boy who’d never been more than thirty miles from here to say. Rachel ruffled his coarse black hair. “But you’re our vaquero, ’Nito! You like to rope and ride. When the men get cattle, you’ll forget the sheep.”

  “No, I won’t!” Juanito squeezed her hand in his till the horned toad wriggled in protest. “I’ll help with cows and sheep both!”

  Well, who could say he wouldn’t, this son of Lupe?

  “We’ll see,” promised Rachel. “Anyway, I’m glad you want to try.”

  She reflected wryly that it was a lot more than Matt would do.

  Quil and Matt would ride on to Tres Coronas after cattle once they’d pastured the sheep. Nels would stay with the flock, helping Santiago get them used to their new place. But Rachel resolved not to give complete charge of her sheep to anyone. She’d ride over every few days to see all was well, and at lambing time, whatever Matt said, she’d stay with the flock. Rachel suspected he’d moved the sheep partly to force her attention away from them, but it wouldn’t work that way.

  The morning after the sheep were moved, she saddled Lady and rode toward the river. The sheep browsed between the water and first range of barren foothills on reasonable graze broken with willow thickets and rock outcroppings. Some stood with their heads tucked under each other for shade, for it was much hotter at this level than in the raised basin of the meadow.

  This would be a good place in the winter, but Rachel decided she must find a higher pasture before next summer and move the flock with the seasons.

  When Santiago heard Rachel coming, he came forward, white-haired, his skin like smoked leather. A slingshot hung from the woven sash girdling his coarse homespun shirt and trousers, which were villainously dirty and smelled stronger than sheep since the scent of animal was coupled with that of man.

  He bowed to her and turned, spreading his arms toward the sheep, smiling. “They will do well here, Madama.”

  She talked with him awhile and rode on to discover Nels helping up a fat ewe who’d lain down to rest in a hollow and got too much on one side so when she’d tried to get up, she’d rolled helplessly backward. As the ewe scuttled up and made for the flocks, Nels dusted off his hands and grinned at Rachel.

  “Now I see why these things need a keeper! Too dumb to lie down where they can get up again!” He eyed her quizzically. “Well, Mrs. Bourne, are you pleasantly surprised to find me scrambling? I bet you didn’t trust me to look after your sheep!”

  Rachel blushed. “They’re a lot of trouble. I thought I should see if they were settling down here.”

  “Nonsense! You were afraid I’d be snoozing under a bush while Santiago tried to keep the sheep from wandering off to feed all the coyotes and mountain lions in the Big Bend!” His eyes danced, and he took her reins. “Shut your eyes and I’ll show you what else I’ve been doing.”

  He seemed to be leading the mare a long time. “May I look now?” Rachel asked.

  “Just a minute!”

  He stopped Lady. There was the smell of mesquite wood and roasting meat. “Keep your eyes shut till I tell you to look,” he ordered. “Here, let me help you down.”

  Feeling vulnerable because she could not see, Rachel let him lift her to the ground, which he did more slowly than necessary. He was amazingly strong, and as he steadied her a terrible flash of awareness shot through her and she quickly stepped clear.

  It wouldn’t do to feel this way; it wouldn’t do at all.

  “Now?” she asked into the taut silence.

  “Now.”

  She looked at the start of a house made from limestone daubed with river clay, built against a small bluff that formed the back wall. Half the west wall was up. Two birds grilled over a small cook fire were in the shelter of the bluff.

  “Do you think the door should face the east or south to the river?” asked Nels.

  East were the pink, gold and purple of the Sierra del Carmen. But south ran the Rio with the ruined eagle’s nest above. “Can you leave the door in the southeast corner?” asked Rachel. “Then it can look both ways.”

  “I’ll try,” said Nels. “Santiago would like that.”

  Of course the house was for the shepherd. Of course Nels was leaving. Must leave. If he stayed—Shaken, Rachel turned away.

  “What’s the matter?”

  For a moment she had almost imagined the house was theirs, that he was building it for her. Rachel shook her head, trying to laugh.

  “You shouldn’t go to all this work, Mr. Layne. You won’t be here long enough to benefit.”

  A strange light glowed in his eyes. “Perhaps I will. Can you eat with me?”

  “Why, yes, but—Santiago—”

  “He’ll eat later.” Nels brought her into the angle of bluff and wall, made her sit on his rolled blankets while he turned the spitted birds, and got out ripe tunas he’d stored in a tin cup. Deftly skewering a squab onto a sharpened stick, he passed it to her, and put dried dandelion root coffee to boil in a battered pot that she could easily believe had accompanied him through the war.

  “Whitewing dove,” he said, taking half the other bird in one bite. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have gone fishing or put on a pot of those beans you gave me, but I don’t fool with much cooking on my lonesome.”

  The tangy cactus fruit gave zest to the dainty meat. Usually, Rachel wouldn’t have eaten the doves, but this wasn’t an ordinary meal. It reminded her of the ones she and Matt had shared on their flight from Gloryoak, but she’d been too ridden then with guilt and despair to relish the outdoor food.

  And that was long ago. A war ago. Lives ago.

  Nels poured the brew into the cups. “Careful,” he said as Rachel reached for hers. “Don’t burn yourself.” Their eyes met with a shock that made each turn away, sip cautiously at the hot drink and look from changing mesas and chasms in the east to the towering rock wall on the other side of the river.

  “Don’t seem to be any eagles in that nest,” remarked Nels.

  “No. Something happened to the male, and the female died this spring. I was awfully sad about it, but if she were alive, we couldn’t keep the sheep here at lambing time. Baby eagles have to be stuffed, and I don’t want the stuffing to be newborn kids.”

  Nel shook his head and laughed, studying her.

  Confused and disquieted, Rachel said, “Why are you amused, Mr. Layne?”

  “It just seems crazy. You being here in this place and tending sheep!”

  She looked down at her stained hands with their ragged cuticles and nails. She must seem a scarecrow, a parody of the women he’d known. How could she have dreamed Nels was attracted to her?

  “I suppose it does seem laughable to you.” She put down her cup and rose, her skirts clinging stickily to her legs. “Thanks for the lunch.”

  “Wait!” He was beside her in a flash. “I only meant—Oh, hell! Instead of slaving, you ought to be taken care of, live in a big house—”

  “I lived in a big house! I didn’t like it!”

  She started past, but he caught her hands. “Rachel.” He smiled at her and touched her cheek in a lingering way that made her tremble. “Rachel, maybe you haven’t been with the right man.”

  She couldn’t answer. He gave her a little shake. “Do you love Matthew?” he demanded. “Are you happy with him?”

  “I—I—Let me go!”

  “Tell me you’re happy,” he said relentlessly.

  “Nels—”

  He brought her to him, finding her mouth. Sweet fire, delicious weakness, ran through her. His hands trembled at her throat, lowered to her breasts. They came together like mountain currents, separate, at first opposed, then mixing in a whirlpool neither could escape.

  That was the way of their passion, an irresistible force merging them togeth
er even when only their eyes met, a longing for each other as painful as if they’d each been half of a sundered whole. Hunger, madness, healing, delight. Rachel couldn’t believe it when she was away from him, or believe anything else when she was near. For two weeks she met him every day. They made love in the steadily growing house, in the grotto, in the grass by the river where hawks screamed.

  Lupe and Juanito were shadows at which Rachel smiled vaguely. Matt seemed like someone remembered from a dream, a man who was by now at the home of his former mistress by whom he’d had a child. Rachel felt real only in Nels’ arms. They played and laughed like children, reveling in each other, stroking, caressing, teasing, as if there had never been other hands or eyes or mouths and these discoveries must be explored, tasted, marveled at.

  But at the end of the second week, Nels raised himself from her to gaze away to the south. Rachel felt swept by a chill wind and she put her hand on his. He kissed her fingers, then held them firmly.

  “Rachel, come with me.”

  She gasped, staring at him until he let go of her hands. “Is that such a surprise?” His tone was harsh. “We can’t go on like this!”

  “I—hadn’t thought about it—”

  “My God, I haven’t thought about much else! You’re my best friend’s wife! I’ve had plenty of women, but I swear I meant to leave you alone. Then I thought we’d both do better to get it out of our systems. What’s happened is I don’t think I can get along without you.”

  “Can’t you just—stay here?”

  “And steal a few hours with you sometimes when Matthew’s not looking?” Nels shook his head. “I can’t play that game. I feel like a dog as it is. I’m going to Mexico. If you won’t come with me, I don’t want to see you again.”

  “Nels!”

  He gripped her shoulders hard. “Do you love Matt?”

  He held her face in his hands, searching her eyes. “Are you paying Matt back for leaving you so long, for moving your sheep? How do you really feel about him?”