Beverly Byrne

by Come Sunrise

  She filled another cup and held it out. "We haven't talked any business yet," she said. "We were waiting for you."

  "Right." Tommy turned to his uncle. "Let's get to it then. "

  Varley picked up his briefcase and set it on the table next to the coffee tray. "I'll give you the bad news first," he said. "But I want you to know there's good news to follow."

  Amy braced herself.

  "I've talked to half a dozen banks. None of them wants to consider the loan. It's the war of course. Bankers become very tense when the world is so unsettled. I expect you understand about all that, Tommy."

  Tommy nodded. "Money's tight all over the city. I have clients that are climbing the walls to raise a few thousand. Men that would have had no trouble doing it six months ago."

  "Exactly. And all the latest news is bad. This chap Lloyd George who's taken over in England, people don't trust him."

  "Bit of a socialist, one hears." Tommy said. "May turn out to be like those madmen beseiging the Russian Tsar."

  "Please," Amy interrupted, "what's the outcome, Uncle Donald? How can we raise the money if the banks won't agree?"

  Varley stood up. He took a cigarette from a slim silver case and offered one to Tommy, but not to her. Then he began pacing the room, puffing smoke between each word. "I have spent some time and thought on this matter. It isn't just an ordinary business arrangement. How can it be? I'm executor of your father's estate"-with a nod to Tommy-"and until you married, I was your legal guardian, Amy. Moreover, Tommy is my sister's son. I've known him since the day he was born. All that changes things. You do understand?"

  The couple nodded their agreement. Amy thought Donald different than she'd ever seen him. There was great strain on his face. Normally he was a man made handsome by perfection. The silver hair and the small moustache, the erect bearing and the exquisitely tailored clothes-all bespoke sureness. Today he seemed inexplicably frayed at the edges.

  "I have decided to give you the money myself," he said abruptly. The announcement dropped into the void between the three, and remained there awaiting comment.

  "We can't let you do that," Tommy said finally. "It's too much to ask. We're taking a risk with this venture. Both Amy and I know that. Neither of us knows anything about ranching."

  "Yes," Varley said. "So the banks pointed out. But you see, I know the two of you. The bankers do not."

  "You mean it's our wonderful track record so far," Tommy said, leaning forward to place his empty cup on the tray. "Our history of success? Come on, we all know better."

  "Uncle Donald's being extraordinarily kind," Amy said quickly.

  "Don't talk to him like that."

  "It's all right, my dear. In fact, it illustrates my point. Tommy has brains and spunk. And you have both courage and imagination. I am prepared to believe that those qualities will prevail over the odds against you."

  "What terms are you suggesting?" Tommy asked. His voice was expressionless.

  "I am prepared to buy Amy's inheritance rights. For the amount required to purchase Santo Domingo--plus an additional ten thousand to give you some working capital. Sixty thousand dollars in all."

  "I take it you mean an outright sale," Tommy said. "Twenty-five thousand acres of New Mexico, in exchange for the Norman Diamond Mines. Is that it?"

  "Yes," Varley agreed. "If, of course the Norman mines exist after this damnable war ends. And if they are not conscripted as the spoils of victory by some triumphant government. I'm taking risks too."

  "I'd have to see the New Mexico property first," Tommy said. "You understand that, of course."

  "Of course," Varley agreed.

  Amy listened to the voices of the men. They seemed to come from far away. She had known it would be thus since the day she clipped the advertisement from the Times. It had seemed to her obvious that the only way she could buy a ranch in New Mexico was to sell Jericho. Then Donald and Tommy had begun talking about a loan. For a brief time she had thought perhaps she could have both.

  Now she lay on the couch and watched them, the older man and the younger one. They were united by blood, and by familiarity with a world of which she knew nothing. Business had a code of its own; it had laws and a language. Tommy and Donald knew the rules and the tongue. She did not.

  She rested her head on the arm of the sofa and studied the ceiling. Where it joined the walls there was a cornice. It was a simple trim of white wood, and it ran completely round the room. Amy stared at it and knew that she must leave this place. If she did not, all the rest of her days would be just like the cornice-featureless, with neither beginning nor end. Tommy would be embittered by jealousy, and she would always think of Luke and what might have been. She would grow old in this city crammed with buildings and people, all clustered around a pathetic park imitating nature.

  Tommy and Donald were discussing interest rates and foreign exchange. She cut through their words without apology. "Give me the papers, Uncle Donald. I'll sign them."

  "Amy, wait," Tommy said quickly. "I've got to go to Santa Fe and have a look at this ranch. We can't buy it sight unseen."

  "I can't wait," she said. She looked at him with pleading eyes that said, I cannot bear another disappointment. "Please, Tommy, try to understand."

  He understood all too well. Guilt was a sour taste in his mouth, and love of her an ache in his gut. Tommy looked at his uncle. "You tell her," he said.

  Varley knew what he was expected to say. but it was not the conservative prudent lawyer who spoke. "We've had an excellent unbiased report," he said. "And Amy has been through so much ..."

  Tommy's eyes narrowed. He glanced from his uncle to his wife and saw that the two of them had formed an alliance. He couldn't oppose it, not after what he'd done. "You're sure you're willing to sell Jericho out-right?" he asked Amy.

  "I'm sure," she said.

  Varley's palms were sweating inside his suede gloves. His hands had trembled when he wrote the check, but he didn't think they'd noticed. Now he clung to his briefcase as if it were life, and didn't set it down during the cab ride to Wall Street. The receptionist at the bank recognized him and sent him through to the president's office. He was shown in immediately. He put the briefcase on the other man's desk. It made a satisfying thump.

  "From the look of you. I assume your niece agreed."

  "Yes."

  "That's fine. If you'll just give me the papers...."

  Varley handed them over. "They're all in order."

  The bank president smiled a wintry smile. "Yes, I'm sure they are." He glanced through the documents, making little sounds under his breath. ". . . and all related holdings," he read aloud. "Yes, this will do nicely. I'll see that the transfer to your account is made immediately. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars. As agreed. Of course there's the matter of my commission and your overdraft, and the sixty thousand paid to Mr. and Mrs. Westerman. Still, you'll be in credit to the tune of thirty thousand or more. A tidy sum. "

  Varley felt weak-kneed, pulled between self-hate and relief. "It's not a tenth of what the Norman holdings are worth," he said softly. "You realize that."

  "Of course. But you're forgetting the element of risk. The world is a dangerous place just now. We bankers are willing to take chances, but we expect to be paid for them."

  Tommy scowled at the assortment of toilet things on Amy's dressing table, as if the black enamel objects offended him. "I think we've been had," he said. "I think Uncle Donald's pulled a fast one. You should have waited until I had a chance to talk to some people. I should go out and see that place before we buy it."

  "No," she moaned. "I don't want to wait that long; I can't. Please, Tommy ... We have sixty thousand dollars. It's what we need. That's all I care about." Her face was white and drawn where it lay against the bed pillows. She was staring at the watercolor of Jericho, and it was obvious that she cared about a great deal beside.

  "It's my fault," Tommy muttered. "Jesus, why do I make such a mess of things? If you believed you
could trust me, you'd have waited. If you hadn't lost the baby you might never have gotten this crazy idea."

  She was terrified of his guilt. She knew how much was really her fault, not his. "You're not to blame about the baby. You mustn't think so. But we have to get away from here. Please, can't we try to be happy?"

  "Yeah, sure," he said, managing a grin. "We're going to be happy. Why the hell not? I'll go downtown and get some train schedules. We can plan the trip. You'll like that, won't you?"

  "Very much. What did Western Union say? How long will it take for Mr. DeAngeles to get our telegram?"

  "A few hours, that's all."

  "Tell me the message again."

  He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and read aloud the wire he'd sent after Donald Varley left the house. "Agree to purchase ranch immediately. Please, confirm. "

  Confirmation arrived the next morning, after Tommy left to go to Pennsylvania station for more railroad information. Amy read the words on the pale yellow paper. Then she slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

  She went to the picture of Jericho hanging on the wall and removed it. Then she carried it to the window filled with thin, cold sunlight. The painting was covered by glass and the watercolors looked as fresh as the day Jessie Norman had stroked them delicately onto the paper. Some of the proportions were less than perfect. The long veranda framed in teak was actually broader than it appeared in the drawing. The roof had a gentler pitch. Amy smiled gently. Sheba, the pony, was badly done. "Mummy could never draw horses," she murmured. "She kept trying though."

  There were two faces in one of the ground floor windows. You had to look closely to see them. One was supposed to be her. The black hair and oversize brown eyes were recognizable. The other was Naduta, her nurse. It was just an ebony blob without detail. "I didn't do Naduta well at all." Jessie had said, laughing when she held the picture out for her daughter's inspection. Amy remembered that long-ago day. She remembered the sun and the sounds of the bush, and her mother's voice.

  "I don't care, I love it. It's the best picture ever," she'd said then. "The best picture ever," she repeated now.

  She wrapped the painting carefully in a flowered silk scarf and put it away to await packing.

  BOOK TWO

  1917-21

  13

  AMY WORE HER BEIGE SUIT FOR THE DEPARTURE. THE one she'd worn on her honeymoon. She had a new coat of brown Persian lamb trimmed with mink. Lil had given it to her as a going-away present. Amy was glad of its warmth on this first day of February.

  Lil and Warren came to the station to see them off. They huddled together by the platform gate, using chatter and forced humor as proof against nerves.

  At last a man walked beside them announcing, "Silver Arrow, track twenty-two. Pittsburgh, Chicago, and points west. All aboard, please."

  "That's us," Amy said.

  Their redcap came by. "Right this way, Mr. and Mrs. Westerman. I'll show you to your carriage."

  There was time only for hurried kisses and softly spoken blessings.

  They followed the porter and his wheeled cart down the long open platform to a car marked "Pullman" in golden letters with elaborate scrolls. "Dining car's three forward," the black man said. "Club car right behind you. Here you are, compartment fourteen." Amy had a swift impression of pristine order and faultless comfort.

  Finally they were alone and the train inched forward. Amy looked out at Pennsylvania Station, and then at the blackness of a tunnel.

  "Goodbye New York," Tommy said. "C'mon, let's go to the club car and celebrate, or hold a wake. I'm not sure which is called for."

  Dawn of the journey's third day carried them across the Mississippi into St. Louis. Tommy had planned the trip for a minimum number of train changes, but they could not avoid one there. With a small sense of loss Amy packed her case. Compartment fourteen had become comfortable and familiar.

  They drank coffee and ate pancakes and cornmeal muffins at a Fred Harvey restaurant in the station. Then they followed another redcap across a bustling expanse of gates and platforms to the boarding point for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line.

  The train was a duplicate of the one they'd been on. The Pullman car had the same lavish and comfortable appointments of mahogany and brass and starched white linen. Only when they chugged forth from St. Louis did Amy slowly realize that she had entered a different world.

  By late afternoon she was sure of it. They reached Kansas City and moved out across the fat flat plains of Kansas. The land was planted with winter wheat, short and straw colored and asleep; still the power of boundless fertility rose up and engulfed the passing train.

  "Breadbasket of the nation," Tommy murmured.

  "It's so , .." She groped for the word. "So precise."

  "God's always doing geometry," he said. She smiled with delight, and he added, "Not original. Plato said it first. "

  That night Amy couldn't sleep for excitement. When the porter knocked softly to announce, "Topeka in half an hour folks," she was up instantly.

  They had to change trains once more. This time there was no Pullman car. In the deep dark before dawn they boarded a coach train that turned south into a sky streaked with pink and red, then hurtled into a mantle of sunlight spread across the border lands between Kansas and Oklahoma. As the vast empty spaces unfolded Amy felt reborn.

  Tommy watched her glowing face, but did not share her joyous excitement. Instead he stared straight ahead and drummed his fingers nervously on the armrest between them. At one point he produced a silver hip flask. "A little brandy soothes the nerves," he said, offering it to her.

  "No thanks. I'll have a cigarette though."

  He lit one for her and for himself, and she kept darting glances at him through the smoke. Tommy took a long pull of the brandy, then put the flask away. She wondered about his mood, then concentrated on the scenery.

  For two days they rode thus. Then, in the sunsoaked early morning of the sixth day since they'd left New York, they started to climb. Amy's heart pounded wildly and her breath came short and sharp. In an hour they had scaled the cliff and were poised on the edge of a canyon looking into the Raton pass.

  She closed her eyes because it was too beautiful to look at, then opened them because it was too beautiful to miss. The train started downward. It passed miraculously unharmed between sheer, tawny rock faces; it hurtled through a landscape honey-dipped and bejeweled and glittering, beneath a fiery red sun in a limitless blue sky. They had arrived in New Mexico.

  At Lamy, ten miles southeast of Santa Fe, they were met by the lawyer who had reported on the ranch to Donald Varley, and subsequently handled the purchase. His name was John Lopez. He was a small dark man who wore a white linen suit and a narrow braid around his neck in place of a tie. The braid was held together by a silver clasp. It flashed in the westering sun. So did his glasses. He seemed to shine. Amy was conscious of her rumpled suit and Tommy's trousers, which no longer had a crease.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Westerman, welcome to your new home!" They shook hands, and he asked them about the journey and at the same time took the stubs for their luggage and handed them to another man slouching in the background. "Diego will get your things and load them on the buckboard. Don't worry about any of that. You must be exhausted. Too late to go out to your place today. I've reserved a room in a hotel in town. "

  He led them to his Model-T Ford. "Railroad passed by Santa Fe years ago. We have to drive from here."

  The men chattered during the journey. Amy was silent with awe. By the time they drove into the fabled plaza, she was dizzy with excitement.

  "It's small for a place with so much history." Lopez said. "Are you disappointed? Folks sometimes are."

  Amy was unable to answer. She looked at squat adobe structures painted white and etched with black shadows where dark wooden beams thrust through their walls. Gray-green cottonwood trees hugged the buildings close. A brown-skinned woman squatted by the roadside guarding a pile of decorated clay p
ots. Across the way a similar figure hovered over a collection of brightly woven blankets. Familiarity was a wordless song in Amy's head, a sense of homecoming that made her tremble.

  "Sometimes folks get here and they think about the Santa Fe trail and the old Camino Real, and they're disappointed because the plaza is so small," Lopez repeated.

  "What does Camino Real mean?" Amy demanded. She felt that she must learn everything right away, that nothing in this place must remain strange to her.

  "Royal road," Tommy supplied. "It's the name given to the route the conquistadors traveled up from Mexico. Like the Santa Fe trail, it ended here."

  "Well, I'm not disappointed." she told the lawyer breathlessly.