After depositing both horses they continued down the hay-strewn aisle, toward a light that gleamed at the far end. At least, she suspected that was their destination. She had no one to ask.
No more than a pinpoint at first, the light grew as they neared, coming finally into a large space that was sparsely furnished with a table, some chairs, and a huge fireplace fitted with cooking rack and pots. Spicy aromas combined with wood and cigarette smoke.
Several people gathered around the fireplace. A couple of women tended a spit on which an animal too small to be a calf roasted. They wore loose black dresses, with coarse black rebozos wrapped around their shoulders, the ends dangling almost to the rock floor.
“What are they cooking?” she tried.
“Cabrito,” Tyler responded.
“What’s that?”
“Goat.” He eyed her sternly. “I expect you to treat these women with respect.”
Her trepidation grew, and along with it, her ire. In spite of her fear, she could not hold her tongue. “How dare you, sir!”
“Don’t sir me, Maddie. I’m gettin’ damned tired of it. If you want some food go ahead. They’ll serve you a plate.”
He didn’t introduce her, and she was so angry she wasn’t sure she could remember enough Spanish to accomplish the task. But she needn’t have worried. The women introduced themselves.
“Soy María,” the younger woman said. “Bienvenida, Maddie.” She sang Madolyn’s name so it came out sounding like Mad-dé. Turning to the older woman who stooped over a huge copper kettle that bubbled on the coals, she explained, “Mi mamá, Hortensia.”
“Hola, María. Hortensia.” She took the offered plate and thanked them, while Tyler disappeared into the darkness without a word. Where he went was a mystery. A group of men sat just beyond the circle of light, she could see the glow of their cigarettes and hear their low murmurs. If he joined them, she couldn’t make out his voice.
When she removed her brown Stetson her hair fell around her shoulders. Most of her hairpins had been lost somewhere between Tyler’s dugout and this faraway place. She placed the hat on the table and sat in the chair María motioned her to and began to eat. The meat was stringy and delicious, although bear meat would probably have tasted good on this night. She was that hungry.
But even as she ate the cabrito, beans, tortillas, and drank thick black coffee, she felt empty inside. Now that they were around others, strangers though they were, her fear began to dissipate. Taking its place was a mounting sense of loneliness. She knew she should be grateful that he hadn’t left her in the countryside. That hadn’t worried her.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t ridden or walked off and left her before. But recalling those other times now, she knew there was a difference. A vast difference. She had done more than stretch his patience this time. She had offended him, intentionally. She had taken his precious gift of love, his offer to make her whole, and had flung it back in his face.
And she was sorry; she wanted to apologize. She wanted to tell him he was right. She loved him. Oh, my, how she loved him. But in the long run, that would only hurt him more. For she could never give herself to him—and she could never explain why. He was, after all, a man. A man who caused her heart to race and set her pores on fire, true. But a man, nonetheless. No, this way was best. The more distance she kept between them, the better for both of them in the long run.
Although her newly acquired knowledge of the language did not extend to domestic chores, Madolyn made herself useful by washing her plate in a bucket where Hortensia had washed others. When she continued to wash the accumulation of dishes, the women tried to stop her, but she steadfastly resisted.
“No.” She shook her head, trying to smile. The women left her to her task, and in the ensuing stillness, the men’s talk floated toward her like campfire smoke drifting on a breeze. She recognized Tyler’s voice now. He spoke with that lovely fluency she had observed the day he drove her out to Morley’s.
That first day. How long ago it seemed. How far away. For the first time since they left his dugout, she recalled the struggle to reunite Buckhorn. Were the women still working on their Independence Day demonstration? She hoped so. They needed her help. She wondered whether she would return in time to help them. She wondered whether it really mattered or why she cared or how she would survive in this foreign land with only an angry, sullen man as a guide.
And he was angry. There was no doubt about that. When at length he came to her and indicated with a jerk of his head that she was to follow him, her first impulse was to refuse. But she rose in spite of herself, and in spite of herself, hope sprang to life in her breast.
“Where are we going?”
He nodded toward an open archway that led out into the black night. Her heart thudded against her ribs. She was afraid.
For the first time since she had known this man, she was afraid of him. But she followed him out the door, like she had good sense. He wouldn’t hurt her, she insisted. Not Tyler.
He carried a lantern, and she followed him around the side of the building and up a flight of stone steps, her serape gripped in tight fists against the chill of night, against the chill of fear. This is Tyler, she reasoned. He loves you.
He won’t stay angry forever, her mother’s voice whispered through time and memory.
At the top of the steps, they entered a large, vacant room with a floor of rough-hewn logs that had been worn smooth by time. It smelled of hay and only faintly of horses, a bit dusty, but clean and smoke-free. By the light of Tyler’s lantern, she saw her bedroll in a far corner, and next to hers, his own.
Her suspicions turned to certainty, when, with another jerk of his head, he motioned her toward the bedrolls. Whether he intended for her to sit or lie, she had no idea. But she knew what he would do.
At least, she thought she did. Everything in her past prepared her for what was to come—an experience she had vowed would never be repeated in her own life.
Yet, here she was. Run! she cried inside. Run! Down the stairs, into that room full of people. Run!
But she didn’t. This was Tyler. Inside her, anger built rapidly. Anger at herself. Anger, that she could not keep herself from submitting to this moment—to this man. Yet, she loved him and in the name of that love, she had followed him to this room, leaving herself open to whatever form of retaliation he intended to extract.
Night after night she had seen this script played out. She knew it by heart. Like a theater patron who had witnessed the same play a thousand times, she knew what to expect. Night after night, year after year, she had watched her mother climb the stairs behind her father. She thought she had learned from the despicable experience. Yet, she hadn’t. For she followed this man to this dark, secluded room, and she remained here, incapable of running from him. In the name of love.
“Sit, Maddie.” Without waiting for her to obey his command, Tyler sat on his own bedroll, cross-legged. He placed the lantern on the floor at the head of their beds.
She sat, too, although everything inside her screamed for her not to, for her to run, run for her life. He had never seemed so large. His presence loomed before her, heavy, oppressive. Her arms trembled and she held onto them to keep him from seeing her fright.
“Now, talk,” he ordered. “And none of that highfalutin nonsense about Miss Abigail. I want to hear about you. What happened to you? I want to know.”
“What?” The word quivered out, and she thought suddenly that now she would learn the answer to a debate that raged at the society: Which enraged a man more, defiance or weakness?
“Start talkin’, Maddie. I’m prepared to sit here till hell freezes over.”
“Sit here?”
“Right here. Now talk.”
“Talk?” As a preliminary to what? Did he interrogate his victims before extracting vengeance?
“Talk!” he shouted.
“Then what?”
He didn’t respond for a time. When finally he did, his lowered ton
e emphasized his exasperation. “All I’m interested in is the truth. You owe me that. So get started.”
Comprehension came slowly. “Just talk? That’s all?”
“Hell, isn’t that enough? You’ve resisted talkin’ about this for the last time, Maddie. Like I said, I’ll sit here as long as it takes. And you will, too.”
Relief shot moisture to her eyes. She quelled it with the admonition that this confrontation was far from over. But relief would not be denied, and it took the form of anger.
“How dare you?” she cried in a choking whisper.
“How dare me what?”
“Frighten me like that.”
“Frighten you? What did I do?”
“You’re angry. You’ve been angry ever since we left that ledge.”
“Damn right, I’m angry. Mad is a better word. Way I see it, I have every right to be mad as hell.”
“Don’t talk to me about rights. I should never have come up here with you. I should never—”
His voice softened. “What’s goin’ on, Maddie?”
“You’re angry.”
“So what?”
Reality closed in, smothering her. She gripped her arms tighter. “I know,” she whispered.
“What do you know?” he asked gently.
“What men do when they’re angry. Don’t deny it.”
For a long time he just stared at her. “Hell! If you’re talkin’ about…If you thought…Hell.” He shook his head as if unable to believe what he had heard. “For your information, I have never struck a woman in my life.” He sounded offended.
She watched him, wary.
“That’s the honest-to-God truth,” he swore. “I have never struck a woman.” When he reached toward her, she dodged his hand. “I sure as hell wouldn’t start now…with you.”
She wanted to believe him, and part of her did, for she sat there, unable to run, angry at herself for it. She kept her eyes on the strip of floorboard that stretched between their bedrolls, her senses acutely tuned. She tried to think she was poised to flee, ready to jump up from the bedroll at a moment’s notice. But she wasn’t sure she would be able to. You had to want to run away from someone, she realized now. She didn’t want to run from Tyler. She wanted, desperately wanted, to believe him.
Worse, she wanted to throw herself in his arms. Was that the reason her mother followed her father into their bedchamber night after night? Were women indeed that stupid, that dense, that hungry for love?
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Tyler was saying. “That’s what happened to you.”
She glanced up, confused. Tears spilled from her eyes. She tried to blink them back.
“Who was it, Maddie? Who hurt you? Your father?”
His voice was tender, gentle; it held her mesmerized. For a moment she forgot he was a man, a hated, feared man. He was Tyler, tender, gentle, loving Tyler.
No! her brain resisted. He’s a man! She ducked her head. When his fingers touched her chin, she tried to keep him from lifting her face, but he was the stronger.
Men always were.
“Did he beat you?”
She heard his voice break somewhere in the middle of the question. She dared not meet his gaze.
“That damned Morley. Did he run off and leave you in the hands of an abusive father?”
She found her voice, although she was still unable to stem the flow of tears. “He didn’t beat me.”
Before she knew he had moved, Tyler held her face in his hands. His gentle hands. They stilled on her cheeks at her reply. “God! What did he do?”
“He…he beat her.”
“Her?” Tyler’s hands relaxed; his voice broke, in what sounded like relief. “Your father beat your mother?”
She tried to reply, but the dreadful admission choked in her throat. She nodded, her eyes downcast, from both fear and shame.
“Tell me about it.”
“No. I can’t.” Suddenly she was no longer able to control her trembling. Truth and fear tumbled together, shaking every part of her. Her entire body trembled and she could do nothing to stop it. Tears poured from her eyes, and she could not stop them, either.
Then she was in his arms. He held her tightly against his chest. Tighter than ever before. Yet, gentler, too. Tighter, gentler, it didn’t make sense.
None of it made sense. Here she was in a foreign country, a world away from Boston, years away from the trauma she had endured, yet she felt it as plainly as when it first occurred.
“There, there, Maddie. It’s okay. I won’t ask you again. Not anymore. It doesn’t matter.”
Gradually her brain began to clear. Her lifelong determination to deny the past a purchase on her life and Miss Abigail’s doctrine on self-reliance came face to face with Tyler’s extraordinary compassion, teaching her another truth on this night of truths. Love was stronger than fear. “I have to tell you. You deserve to know.”
Moving out of his protective embrace, she sat on her bedroll, he on his. Their knees touched through her baggy duckins and his, as she sat cross-legged, like he did. Unladylike, improper, the first time she had ever sat that way in her life. That she allowed herself to do so now, added to the gradual sense of power that had begun to seep into her.
“In the beginning I didn’t realize what was happening. Mother always made up some story to account for her tears and injuries. Even when I was young, I didn’t believe her. I thought I had done something to hurt her.”
Tyler reached for her, but she offered only her hands, which he clasped and held tightly between them.
“In time I understood that I didn’t have anything to do with her pain.”
“But it had already affected you.”
“Yes. I hated her for submitting to him. Oh, I pitied her, too, and I loved her. But I hated what she was, her submissiveness. Tonight, for the first time, I understand.”
“Tonight?”
“I followed you up those stairs. I sat where you ordered me to sit.”
“I wasn’t goin’ to hurt you.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Of course, you knew that.”
“No, I didn’t. You were angry, and I climbed the stairs behind you, just like my mother climbed the stairs behind my father night after night. All he had to do was nod toward the bedchamber and off they went. I used to make up excuses for her to stay behind—
“‘You haven’t heard my sonata, Mother.’
“‘You haven’t seen my embroidery.’
“Inside I was screaming, ‘Don’t go! Don’t go!’
“She understood. She heard my silent pleas. ‘I’ll hear it tomorrow, Madolyn,’ she would say. ‘It’ll be all right.’
“Then Papa would order me to my room.”
Tyler’s eyes widened as the tale grew. Horror played across the planes of his face. When she finished, he sat, silently squeezing her hands. What was he thinking? Had the tale made him sick? Sick with shame, like she had been for so long?
“You came up here, thinkin’ I was goin’ to…?” His voice was low, husky, and it broke several times. “God, Maddie, that’s so horrible, I can’t even say it.”
“I know. All my life I swore I would never, ever submit to a man; I vowed to spend my life saving other women from such relationships. And I meant it, Tyler. I still do, I guess, but when you jerked your head toward the back of the stable, I rose and followed you, and when you told me to sit on this bedroll, I sat on it.”
“You knew I wouldn’t hurt you,” he insisted again.
“No, I didn’t.”
Before she could stop him again, he pulled her across the space and into his arms. He pressed her head to his heart, and she felt it pound. He buried his face in her hair; she felt his lips on her scalp, then his tears, hot and wet. He held her so tightly she began to feel safe.
“I’m not like your father, Maddie.” He spoke against her head; his voice rasped into the stillness. “Please listen. Please hear. Please believe me.”
S
he sat back, but remained in the loose shelter of his arms. “It wasn’t just Papa. I’ve worked with women who were abused. You can’t imagine how many there are.”
“You can’t imagine how many decent husbands and fathers there are, either.”
She touched his face with the tips of her fingers. “I want to believe that. I wish I could.”
“You can, love. I’ll teach you. I won’t ever give up. I love you, Maddie. Don’t ask me not to say it; I can’t keep the words inside. I love you. And I want you so bad.”
“I want you, too, but…”
“No buts. I want to marry you.”
Terror swept through her like an icy wind. “No, please…Don’t say that again, not ever.”
“Okay, okay. I won’t say it again. Tonight.”
“Not ever,” she insisted.
“Don’t ask me that, Maddie. How ’bout we take things one day at a time?”
“Okay.”
“And one night at a time.”
She tensed. “No.”
“Beginnin’ tonight, love.”
“No.” Her heart beat to a wild and terrified cadence.
“There’s nothin’ to be afraid of, Maddie. Nothin’.”
“Having a baby.”
“You won’t have a baby. I promise.”
“You’re full of promises.”
“And you’re full of doubts.” His lips touched hers, setting off a fiery streak of yearning. A shudder raced through her, releasing some of the tension that had built while she told her awful secret. His lips covered hers. Inside she began to glow.
“Let me help you, Maddie,” he mumbled against her skin. “Let me free you.”
By the time he had her clothes unfastened, her head was buzzing, but when he tried to lay her back against the bedroll, she found strength to resist.
“No, Tyler…” He stroked her breast; she ached for more. “No…”
“How ’bout we leave your clothes on?” He kissed her lips, little passionate nips. “And mine.” His lips moved down her neck. “I won’t even unbutton my duckins.”
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