A Little Town in Texas

by Bethany Campbell

  Nate Purdy was a frank man. “Can’t get the old pecker up?”

  To his humiliation, J.T. felt his face redden. “No!” he said. “I’ve just kind of—lost interest,” he muttered. “Got other things on my mind.”

  Nate nodded, but he knew he wasn’t getting the whole story. “You and Cynthia getting along all right?”

  “Yes,” J.T. insisted. He loved his wife passionately. She loved him. There was no trouble in their marriage. But if there was no trouble in their marriage, why was he in Nate’s office, feeling like a bug pinned, squirming, to a board? Chagrined, he said, “She’s not—happy with me.”

  “Because of sex?” Nate asked.

  J.T. made a dismissive gesture. “She hasn’t said much about the sex. But I know she wonders what the matter is. Hell, I used to be horny as a Brahma bull. And now…I know she wonders, that’s all.”

  Nate crossed his arms. “You don’t talk about it?”

  “Um. Not much,” J.T. said.

  “You mean you don’t talk to her about it at all,” Nate said out of the corner of his mouth. “Right?”

  J.T. felt trapped. “I’m not worried about talking. I’m worried about doing.”

  “The talking would help the doing,” Nate said. “I guarantee it.”

  He leaned against his counter and stroked his mustache wisely, as if it were a thing that gave him magical powers of perception. “I know your type, J.T. Real men don’t talk about their feelings. Especially real cattlemen. What do you tell her—you’re too tired?”

  “Mostly,” J.T. said dismally.

  “Afraid you can’t perform?”

  J.T. felt more insect-like than before. “I can perform—if I feel like it. I just don’t feel like it. Can’t you just give me the damn pills?”

  “No, I can’t,” Nate retorted. “You’re afraid you’re going to try to have sex and fail. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

  J.T. didn’t like having it stated in such bald terms. “I just want a little insurance, that’s all. I want to keep my wife satisfied.”

  Nate’s stern features looked almost sympathetic. “Tell me about Cynthia. You said she’s not happy. If it’s not the sex, what is it?”

  “She thinks I work too hard,” J.T. grumbled. “She’s nagging me to retire.”

  Nate arched one gray brow. “You’re sixty-five. She should nag.”

  A small sense of righteousness surged through J.T. “Who’d run the ranch? Tyler can’t. He’s leaving. Cal’s not interested. Lynn’s got her horses, and she’s still recovering from that failed pregnancy…”

  Nate cut off his litany of excuses. “Who are you married to, J.T.? Cynthia—or the ranch?”

  “That ranch has been run by a McKinney since 1837,” objected J.T.

  “Spare me the history lesson,” Nate said. “I know how long it’s been there. It’s how long you’re going to be here that worries me.”

  J.T. bristled defensively. “You said I was healthy.”

  “I said you were healthy as far as I could see. I can see only so far. I’m a doctor, not God. You might blow an artery tomorrow for all I know. You might get hit by a truck. An asteroid might fall on you. Then where’s the McKinney to run your precious ranch? Will Jennifer do it? A big job for a ten-year-old girl.”

  J.T. blinked in displeased surprise. “Some day—maybe Tyler can take over. When this California nonsense is out of Ruth’s head. But that time’s not now. For now he can’t be here.”

  Nate picked up J.T.’s chart, studied it, then set it down with an air of impatience. “Let’s get back to your talley-whacker problem,” he said. “I’m going to draw some blood and get a test on your testosterone level. But I don’t think your problem’s too little testosterone. It’s too much stress. This fool Fabian business is wearing you down.”

  J.T.’s spine stiffened in resentment. “It’s a fight that’s got to be fought.”

  “Not by you alone. And you act like the whole thing’s on your shoulders. You think like it’s on your shoulders. You know that you’ve lost five pounds since last spring?”

  J.T. snorted. “That’s good, isn’t it? With my ticker, I shouldn’t be carrying around spare weight.”

  “You didn’t need to lose it,” Nate said sternly. “Ranching comes with problems built into it—big ones. They’d run down a younger man than you. You’ve had one heart attack. The last thing you need is extra stress. And that, my friend, is what your pecker is telling you.”

  J.T. fought back a grimace. “Look, all I want is a prescription—”

  “You’re not getting it until you talk about it to your wife,” Nate said. “And I’d like to talk to Cynthia myself. Maybe the two of you should see a counselor about this. I can make an appointment.”

  “A counselor?” J.T. practically yipped. “My God, next you’ll have us on some afternoon TV show, talking to the whole country about my penis—”

  “Oh, settle down,” muttered Nate. “I’ve seen this coming since August. I didn’t know it’d show itself as a sexual dysfunction, but I knew something was going to give. This damn land war is eating you up. It’s affecting your health, and it’s affecting your marriage.”

  “I can get a prescription from somebody else,” threatened J.T. He felt he was protecting the essence of his masculine pride.

  “Fine. Be a damn fool,” said Nate. “You’ve got a beautiful wife who loves you. You’ve got a darling little girl. Take care of yourself, you can watch your daughter grow up. And you can have your sex life back.”

  He sighed, uncrossed his arms and moved to J.T.’s side. He put one hand on J.T.’s shoulder. “Or you can fret yourself to a frazzle. You can lose your health, ruin your marriage, never see your girl become a woman. You need to lighten up, J.T.”

  J.T. felt a wave of abysmal dismay. “But I—I—Somebody’s got to spearhead this fight against Fabian—I can’t—I can’t…”

  Nate squeezed his shoulder. “J.T., the land will be there forever. But you won’t. Let somebody else lead the fight. Cal. He’s young and scrappy. He came home to help you.”

  “Cal doesn’t care about it the way I do,” J.T. said with passion. “He wouldn’t bring the right fire to it—”

  “He’ll bring his own fire,” Nate said. “Don’t sell him short. You know, sometimes a man in a fix like yours, well, he starts to kind of resent a young buck of a son. Cal’s been waiting all his life for you to trust him with something. Maybe it’s time.”

  J.T. shrugged and stood. “I’ll think about it,” was all he said. His throat was too choked to say more. He might have trusted the fight to Tyler. To Cal alone? He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do such a thing.

  MEL’S CURIOSITY HAD got the best of him, and he did what he hadn’t wanted to do. He phoned Gloria Wall.

  He gritted his teeth and said, “You hinted Kitt Mitchell had a secret in her past. I need to know. Then maybe we can make that supper date.”

  Gloria, stone-cold sober, wasn’t as elusive as she’d been under the influence of margaritas. “Well, some people says Kitt had a baby by one of her stepbrothers, one of those Jasper boys. Reverend Blake fixed it so she could get away and go to school in Dallas. He told J.T.’s wife, and she fired Jasper. He and that brood of his left town.”

  Mel’s brow furrowed. Same basic rumor but an interesting variation. “When was she supposed to have this child?”

  “After she went away,” Gloria said airily. “I don’t know it’s true. Anything could have happened in that Jasper house. There was Bull Jasper and his two big sons—just lunks—and that slutty sister of his, Trina.”

  “Trina?” Mel’s nerves went on high alert. “Where’s she now?”

  “Bee Tree or somewhere,” Gloria said. “I don’t know what her last name is. She got married a bunch of times. When she was here, she threw herself at Cal McKinney. Then at Gordon Jones. But he upped and married Nora, and Trina got pregnant by—let’s see—Ollie Pollack—and then—”

  Mel listene
d, but he didn’t need to hear more. Trina Gilroy hated Nora for marrying Gordon Jones. She hated Cal McKinney for spurning her. And she hated Kitt because something concerning Kitt was bad enough to get Trina’s brother fired from the Double C.

  He promised Gloria to come to supper at some vague date in the future. He hung up the phone and stared at it. Then he took the cassette of Trina Gilroy, smashed it, tore the tape and threw it in the trash.

  He could never tell Kitt he’d checked on her this way. And he might never really know what had happened to her in the Jasper house.

  Suddenly he wanted out of the confines of his room, to sit alone at a bar and drink a lonely beer. And think on girls like Kitt, who had suffered and struggled to heal themselves, in spite of the long infection of rumor.

  BY EARLY EVENING, Kitt needed to move. Heart-thumping, blood-pounding, physical, sweaty movement.

  She hadn’t been able to run that morning. Now she felt a primal need for it, a yearning in her bones, a twitching in her muscles. All afternoon she’d sat in her hotel room, studying Shelby Belyle’s folders and maps until both her mind and body rebelled.

  It was five-thirty, and she wasn’t due at Nora’s for two hours. She shucked off her working clothes and slipped into her yellow shorts and tank top. She laced up her shoes and pinned her hair atop her head.

  Crystal Creek was small but had a large city park. She would run there, until all tension was driven from her body and her brain was clear again. She left the hotel and set off at a slow jog toward the park. The sky still hung low and dark; the air was still thick with humidity.

  She skimmed along First Street, past businesses that had been there since her childhood: Schwartz’s Barber Shop, Keller’s Appliances, Andy’s Handy Hardware. There was only one new business, Hutch’s Chili Parlor.

  She reached the residential section and came to the little house where Dottie Jones had once lived. Nora owned it now and rented it out. It was the house in which Mel predicted Nora and Ken would end up retiring.

  Kitt didn’t remember the neighborhood being so modest or the house so tiny. Would Nora work her heart out at the Longhorn only to end her days here? She had lived here with Dottie before she married Ken. For all her labor, would she go only in a circle, coming back again to Dottie’s place?

  Kitt began to jog faster and was relieved when she reached the park. It was a pretty expanse of land, rolling and dotted with trees. She took a path that led to little Lake Arden and began to run.

  Thunder rumbled, and she ran harder. She didn’t want to think of the swelling creeks, the makeshift dam, or Shelby Belyle’s troubling charts and maps. As she reached Lake Arden’s edge, fat drops of rain began to fall.

  She kept pounding down the path. But by the time she was halfway round the lake, the rain poured down with such vehemence she could hardly see. Lightning cracked the sky open, and the thunder made her ears ring.

  Suddenly a bolt of lightning brighter than the others slashed down and struck a pine tree, splitting it in half like a giant ax. It shivered, sent a shower of chips and splinters through the air and fell so hard that the earth shuddered beneath Kitt’s feet.

  This storm had gotten dangerous, and she was in the most dangerous place possible, next to the water, which drew lightning as a steel draws a magnet.

  Damn! I need to get out of here! She knew the park had pavilions, roofed shelters for picnickers, and she headed for the nearest. She was drenched and half-blinded.

  Again lightning struck nearby. It dazzled her eyes, making her see bright spots, and she caught a whiff of brimstone. She fought her way to the shelters at the park’s north end.

  There were two of them between the playground next to the park’s main road. She took cover in the one nearest and sat down on a concrete bench, dripping and shivering. The water drummed on the roof’s shingles; it whipped in past the cedar supports. She hugged herself, cursing Texas and its Texas-sized weather.

  It might have been an eternity, or five minutes later that a pair of headlights appeared. They looked ghostly and wavery through the curtains of rain, and they slowly approached the shelters.

  Kitt squinted against the unexpected brightness, putting her hand to her eyes to shield them. Then the car crept abreast the shelter and stopped, a dark hulk with two great yellow eyes. Some other fool got caught out here, she thought miserably. He’s lucky a tree hasn’t blown down on him.

  The lights suddenly blinked out, and she heard the slam of a car door. Why would anyone leave the snugness of a car in this deluge? But a figure appeared at the pavilion’s edge, and a voice called her name. “Kitt?”

  It was Mel. A shudder that had nothing to do with cold ran through her, fluttering her stomach. She hugged herself more tightly. “What are you doing here?” She struggled to keep the quaver out of her voice.

  “Looking for you, you idiot,” he said scornfully. He moved nearer until he stood in front of her. His height made him seem to loom. But when he spoke again, his voice was unexpectedly concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m dandy. I’m hunky-dory. The only thing that would make me feel better would be gills.”

  He sighed in disgust and sat down next to her. In the dim light she could see that his hair was damp with rain. A dark forelock hung over his brow, and his white shirt was splotched with wetness. He said, “I guess the classic question applies. Don’t you know enough to come in out of the rain?”

  “I guess the classic answer applies,” she said. “Go to hell.” But then her body betrayed her, because such a chill went through her that her teeth actually chattered.

  “Oh, come here,” he said. He put his arm around her and drew her close. His body heat was not just comforting, it was delicious. Sinfully so. She tried to fight enjoying such forbidden pleasure.

  “Don’t,” she protested feebly. “You’ll get all wet.”

  “I’m already wet,” he muttered, pulling her more snugly against him. “My God, what a drowned little rat you are.”

  “Enough of your slick flattery,” she tried to say, but her jaw twitched and her teeth chattered again.

  He sighed against her hair. His breath made her first warm, then cold. He said, “I should have come with a keg of brandy around my neck, like a St. Bernard.”

  A lightning flash and another blast of thunder made her flinch. She heard the crash of another tree toppling to the ground. “Steady,” he said, stroking her back.

  “How d-did you know I was here?” she asked.

  “I was having a beer at Hutch’s place. You jogged by, headed this way. It’s the logical place to run. I almost came here myself this morning.”

  She shivered again, and he brought his body more fully against hers. She shouldn’t let herself drink in his warmth this way, but couldn’t stop herself. She let her arms slip around his waist so she could nestle closer.

  He said, “I was leaving Hutch’s when the sky opened up. I was getting in my car, and I thought of you. I came looking.”

  It had been kind of him, and she should thank him. She was afraid to. She just rested against his chest, feeling guilty for liking it so much.

  He said, “When the lightning started, I figured you’d be smart enough to take cover. I drove from one shelter to another. This was the last one. I was getting ready to start over. I was lucky to see you. You’re such a runt.”

  She jerked back sharply and gave him a killing look.

  “Ah,” he said, drawing her back against his chest, “I thought that’d get your blood pumping again. No, you’re little, but you’re wearing bright yellow. Easy to see.”

  She settled against him, grateful for his heat and strength, ashamed for wanting it. “I shouldn’t do this.”

  He stroked her wet hair back from her face. The motion was so tender that it nearly undid her. In her ear he whispered, “Yes, you should. So should I. I meant what I said about New York. When this is over, I want to be with you.”

  This is impossible,
she thought. Resignation to that impossibility chilled her more than the cold. “No.” She pulled back from him with more determination. “I can’t afford to let this get personal. I have an assignment. Part of it’s to watch you. I don’t like what you’re doing here.”

  “Change has to come to Crystal Creek some time,” he said, taking her hand in his. “The time is now.”

  “Not this way,” she said. “Not Fabian’s way.”

  But she found she was clinging to his hand in spite of herself. It was as if she couldn’t sever the link between them. Not completely.

  “Fabian’s way is better than some,” he said. “He doesn’t just want to create a development. He wants to create a community.”

  “Create a community by tearing this one apart?” she said. “Turning people against each other? And their own heritage?”

  He bent nearer, his voice earnest. “Who’s going to own the Hill Country, Kitt? A handful of privileged ranchers? Or the people? Couldn’t a piece of it ever belong to somebody like you? Or Nora? Or Rory?”

  It was a question that nagged her, but she dodged it. “I don’t want to own a piece of it. I wouldn’t have it if you gave it to me.”

  “No,” he said, more gently, stroking her knuckles with his thumb. “And why not? What happened to you here that soured you on this place? I know something happened. And that’s why you went to Stobbart.”

  A deeper, more painful cold pierced her, and she snatched her hand away. She turned from him to stare out into the darkening streams of rain. As often, when she felt threatened, she went on attack. “This isn’t about me. It’s about other things—including this rain. Bad things are happening to the land. You and Fabian are letting them happen.”

  “You mean the water rights and the temporary dam?”

  She whirled to face him. “Exactly. I talked to Shelby Belyle today—your sister-in-law.”

  His manner went stony. “The noted tree-hugger?”

  “She knows what she’s talking about. And Fabian’s not going to create a happy community if he makes all the landowners around it despise him. They’ll hate him and everything he stands for if he causes a flood. And they’ll hate the people that move onto the land.”