Beverly Byrne

by Come Sunrise

  She started to say something, then changed her mind. "It will be ready in a few minutes. Tommy, you mustn't go bare-headed out here. Never. It's the first thing people have to learn in a climate like this." She touched the broad-brimmed straw hat she wore. It was styled like a nineteenth century pith helmet. "I've got another one of these you can have."

  "No thanks. I don't fancy looking like a fugitive from Zulu land." He went back inside and came out wearing his fedora. It looked ridiculous, and she bit her lips so she wouldn't laugh.

  "You could get some clothes while you're in Santa Fe," she said over coffee and the watery gruel she had produced in an attempt at cereal.

  "I'm not ready to dress up in cowboy clothes," he said. "You may enjoy this charade, memsahib, but I don't." He spat out a mouthful of coffee, and it made a dark stain on the parched earth, then disappeared. "God, this stuff's awful."

  "I'm not much of a cook yet. I'll learn. I promise."

  He grinned at her. "Sorry I'm being so foul-tempered. It's not your fault. None of it."

  "Yes it is," she said softly. "You wanted to see the place before we bought it. I wouldn't wait. It is my fault. "

  "You had your reasons," Tommy said. "Good ones. Besides, Uncle Donald said we could trust this guy Lopez. Don't worry." He smiled. "It'll all come out ok. "

  She returned his smile gratefully and he added, "How come you had those African clothes with you? They can't have been your idea of what to bring to a girls' school in Boston."

  "They were. I packed all my bush clothes. Then Mummy found out and made me leave most of them behind. She thought it terribly funny. I remember the way she laughed." Amy picked up a pebble and fingered it. It was a perfect oval, red brown and beautiful. "She only let me bring this one outfit as a concession. It's the first time I've worn it."

  "I don't wonder," he said, looking at the flat-heeled sturdy boots that came halfway up her calf. Her legs looked slim and elegant despite them. "They look good," he admitted. "But I don't exactly see them as suitable for Fifth Avenue."

  She stood up and gathered the soiled dishes. "I wonder if I dare wash these in second-hand water? Maybe I can put it through some kind of strainer."

  He looked at her anxiously. "The water butt's full," he said, pointing to the storage barrel under the roof of a nearby shed. "I checked. Don't go drinking that used stuff."

  "Of course not."

  "You're sure you're going to be all right while I'm gone? You could at least ride into Santa Fe with me. We'll come back right after I've seen Lopez."

  "I'm staying here," she said firmly. "There's a lot to do. I've got to make a start."

  "That Indian must be around here somewhere." Tommy looked, but there was no sign of Diego. He had disappeared the previous afternoon. "What about the horses?" Tommy asked suddenly.

  Amy gazed in the direction of the corral. "Don't worry, I'll look after the horses." She tipped out the remainder of the inedible cereal. "I know more about them than cooking."

  He got ready to leave, and she made a list of things they needed to flesh out the meager supplies Diego had brought on the buckboard. "How long do you think you'll be?" she asked before he left.

  "I can probably do the trip in about three hours when I'm not following that damned buckboard. Still, there's Lopez. And I've got to go to the bank." He patted his breast pocket. It held the certified check that represented most of their working capital. "We've got to get this in an account so we can draw on it. And there's your shopping. Not until nightfall, I'd guess."

  "All right." She looked at him, then looked away, lest he see fear in her eyes. "I'm counting on you," she said softly. "I'll be waiting."

  He flushed and jerked angrily at the Model-T's spark and throttle lever. "Stop worrying. I'll be back."

  There was one outbuilding she hadn't inspected. It turned out to be a tackroom of sorts. The structure was as delapidated as the rest of the ranch, but the two saddles she found were well oiled and carefully hung. She took one from its peg and studied it, noting the features she wasn't used to. Then she carried it toward the corral.

  The horses were penned some distance from the main house, behind high adobe walls. There was a door, the only piece of wood on the place not rotted and splintering. Eight horses grazed peacefully inside. Amy selected a gray about twelve hands high and started toward him, carrying the saddle and making clucking noises under her breath.

  "I'll catch him for you," Diego's voice said from behind. She turned to see him sitting on the wall.

  He looked the same as he had yesterday. He had straight short black hair framing a round face, and he wore a faded chambray shirt and tight blue-denim trousers. There was a beat-up Stetson in his hand. He jammed it on his head when he jumped down into the corral. "You know how to ride?" he asked.

  "Of course."

  Amy stood her ground until Diego had hold of the horse; then she went forward. He took the saddle from her and fitted it expertly. Neither of them said anything.

  Amy led the gray to a nearby rock, obviously used as a mounting block, and swung easily astride. Diego continued to watch in silence. "Open the gate, please," she said.

  He did as she bid. Amy didn't look at him. She knew well the shape of the small drama they were enacting, and she was neither cowed nor alarmed. "When you go to a strange land and take what belongs to another man," her father had told her years before, "you must convince him you are worthy. And you must do it according to his rules."

  Amy prodded the gray lightly. He moved forward. She walked him for a few yards, getting the feel of his gait and the unfamiliar saddle. After a minute she urged the horse into a trot; then she stopped and pulled on the reins to see how well he backed. The gray was obedient. Amy started to canter and soon to gallop. In minutes she had left the ranch behind. She was no longer performing for Diego's benefit, but for her own. This was riding as she had been born to it, wild and free, with nothing but herself and the horse and endless open earth and sky. It had nothing in common with prancing along a bridle path in Central Park.

  She returned in an hour. Diego was waiting for her by the corral.

  He helped her to dismount.

  "You're good," he said. "But I was afraid you'd get lost. You went pretty far."

  She looked at him scornfully. "Not without sighting landmarks," she said. "I've been doing this, in a place every bit as tough as this one, as long as you have. Since I was born." She adjusted her hat and tucked up a couple of strands of hair that had come loose. "Water him," she said. "And the others while you're about it."

  "I already watered the others."

  "Very well. Take care of the gray. Come see me after you've put the saddle away."

  He joined her while she was trying to make some order out of the scant supplies. "You didn't bring enough food with us," she said. "And where did you disappear to yesterday?"

  "I figured your husband didn't want me around. And I didn't bring more 'cause I didn't think you'd stay. "

  "Mr. Westerman," she corrected. "Don't say 'your husband.' And we are staying. Do you want to work for us?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  "What did Mr. DeAngeles pay you?"

  "Sixty dollars a month and my keep."

  "We can't afford that. Not until things are sorted out. Fifty dollars."

  "And my keep?"

  She grimaced. "That's not worth much. I'm a terrible cook. Where do you sleep?"

  "Bunkhouse out back." He pointed to yet another delapidated adobe hovel.

  "Very well. We have an agreement, then. You can begin by telling me how we find these cattle that are supposed to be ours."

  He went away and came back with a long-handled branding iron. He stamped it into the sandy earth, and Amy studied the imprint. "That's your mark," Diego said.

  The brand consisted of the letters SD, enclosed in a circle of punctated dots.

  "Your cows are marked on the right hip," Diego explained. "And their right ear is notched."

  "But wh
ere are they?"

  He looked exasperated. "I told you. On the range. Have to have a roundup if you want to get 'em counted. Take a lot of men."

  The enormity of it depressed her. Maybe Tommy would have some success with Mr. Lopez. "Where did you get the water to fill the butt?" she asked, changing the subject.

  "There's a well 'bout a hundred yards away. Mr. DeAngeles's pa drilled it a long time ago. I ain't never seen it dry. This is the best place for water between here and the Pecos river. No cause to complain 'bout that. "

  ***

  Tommy reported a similar reaction from the lawyer in Santa Fe. He told her about it as he stood near the small fire she'd made against the evening chill, drinking her terrible coffee. "Lopez practically laughed me out of his office when I mentioned complaining to the bar. According to him he told Uncle Donald the exact truth. Plenty of water, three thousand plus cattle at the last official counting and structures in need of repair due to Mr. DeAngeles's recent illness. Lopez still insists we got a bargain."

  "Diego said the same about the water. We're lucky in that respect apparently."

  "I take it he came back."

  She told him the story and motioned to the bunk-house where Diego slept. "We need help. And he knows the place. Mayas well keep him on."

  "Yeah, I guess so. Particularly now he's so impressed with your skill as a horsewoman."

  She felt a moment's regret at having told him that part of the story. "I'll help you unload," she said, starting for the car.

  "Don't bother, I'll do it."

  She insisted on helping. When they'd transferred the flour and bacon and canned goods Amy saw another box at the rear. She dragged it toward the car door. It was three cases of pure malt whiskey.

  16

  TOMMY TOOK TO SITTING AT THE FAR EDGE OF THE ranch buildings, his back propped against an adobe wall, and silently staring at the land from dawn to dusk. He kept a bottle of whiskey by his side, but he was never reeling drunk. When Amy asked him about the future all he said was, "Leave it to me. I'm thinking about it."

  That first week Amy began clearing the debris from the main house. She wanted to believe that when she removed the crumbling clay, the vermin droppings, the discarded nests of creatures long grown and gone, and the tin and paper and glass rubbish of former human occupation, then there would be a transformation.

  Diego provided old burlap feed sacks rescued from one of the outbuildings. After she filled them with refuse, he hauled them away. Lizards and snakes and nameless insects scurried ahead of her onslaught. Diego warned her about scorpions. She listened gravely and made him describe in detail the appearance of the poisonous ones.

  "What about snakes?" she asked.

  "Most of 'em won't harm you none. Course, if you see a rattler, you'll know it. You just stand real still and ..."

  "I know how to deal with snakes," she interrupted. "It's just the local varieties I'm unfamiliar with."

  He looked at her speculatively and watched with disbelief her exhausting attack on the house. It remained as much a ruin clean as it had been dirty.

  A few times Amy discovered some entrancing architectural detail of carved wood or inlaid tile that indicated what once had been. She ran to call Tommy. Each time he came slowly, looked, and said little.

  On the fourth day Tommy announced that he was going again to Santa Fe. He put a bottle of whiskey in the car and drove off with no further explanation.

  That day Amy worked more rapidly as an antidote to anxiety and despair. The effort made her arms and legs leaden with fatigue, but it didn't divert her. Tommy returned at nightfall, no more inebriated than usual, and still offered no excuse for his journey.

  He brought with him a letter from Lil, collected at the Santa Fe post office. It was full of chatter about relatives, including Luke, who was said to be well and happy in his priory.

  Lil added that there was yet no sign of a buyer for the Eighty-third Street house. Amy knew that; they'd also had a letter from Donald Varley. She thought Tommy had received one from Luke, but he didn't offer to let her read it.

  On the first day of their third week on the ranch Diego suggested that he and Amy ride. "You should see the waterhole and some of the boundaries, so's you know where they are," he said.

  She packed a lunch, and he stowed it in his saddle-bag. Then she mounted the gray, and they rode off. Amy had told Tommy she was going, but she didn't think he heard.

  "What's this beauty's name," Amy asked, patting the gray's neck with affection.

  "Always just called her the gray."

  "I'm going to call her Sheba. It's the name of a pony I had back home."

  They rode east. Amy wanted to see the Rio Grande, but it was seventy miles west of the ranch, and not the area Diego wanted to show her. Gradually the vegetation became thicker and greener. "Good grazing land here," Diego said. "Up ahead is Pintada Creek."

  Amy searched for a sight of the cattle she purportedly owned, but only once did they see the dust of a herd off in the distance. "Thought maybe I could find a stray and show you the brand," Diego said, patting the rope at his waist. "No luck. Take a couple of days if we set out to do it purposeful-like."

  The waterhole was a broad hollow sump, filled with murky brackish liquid that looked undrinkable. Amy's disappointment was plain on her face.

  "It ain't never been dry since I knowed it," Diego explained. "Maybe you don't realize how important that is. Must be an underwater spring here. It ain't a gusher, I'll grant you that, but it's steady."

  She nodded and looked again for cattle, but saw none. They rode back along a route Diego identified as a portion of Santo Domingo's southern border. Amy sited the landmarks carefully, but with a sense of despair tempered only by her delight in the infinite horizon and the endless space.

  "Where the hell you been?" Tommy's speech was heavily slurred. He was crouched by the gate of the corral, clutching an empty bottle.

  "I told you before we left. We went out to see the waterhole." Amy slid quickly from her horse and tossed the reins to Diego. "I'm sorry if you were worried. Come up to the house. I'll get some dinner ready."

  He pushed off the hand she laid on his shoulder and staggered to his feet. "You told me nothing. And I want something ..." He faltered as if his tongue were too thick to form the words. "Something clear. My wife doesn't go off with any Indian. Never!" His voice rose to a shout. "Never, you hear me?"

  Amy looked at neither him nor Diego, but walked toward the house. Tommy stumbled after her. "I'm talking to you, lady! Don't you walk away from me!"

  He caught up with her and spun her around. "Where did you go?"

  "I told you. To see the waterhole."

  "Waterhole? Twelve miles due east of here? That's where it is, isn't it? Answer me, damn you!"

  "I guess so," she murmured. "I didn't keep track of the miles."

  Without warning he slapped her hard across the face. Amy clutched her stinging cheek and stared at him speechless. It was the first time he had ever struck her. In all the terrible scenes of their nine months of marriage he had done nothing like that.

  "Don't start showing your Indian blood, you bitch!" he hissed at her. "You act like a decent white woman, and keep pretending you're a lady, or I'll kill you!"

  She turned and ran for the shelter of the shed. She knew that she could outrun him, and she had some half-formed idea of barricading herself in the room where they slept. By the time she reached it, sobbing and panting, she realized that he wasn't following. She heard the motor of the Model-T.

  She changed direction and ran to where the flivver was parked. "Tommy, for God's sake! You're too drunk to drive. You'll kill yourself. Where are you going?"

  "Get out of my way, bitch. I'm going to see this famous waterhole. Going to take a look myself, and see if it's worth fifty thousand dollars." He drove off in a cloud of dust.

  By morning he had not returned. Amy was sick with worry and disgust and something akin to hatred. It didn't prevent her from go
ing toward the corral carrying Sheba's saddle. She couldn't leave him alone out there, no matter what she felt.

  "I'll go," Diego said, taking the saddle from her limp hands. "I know the country better."

  "He said he was going to the waterhole. He seemed to know exactly where it was."

  "Yeah, I heard." He didn't look at her. "Flivver probably got stuck somewhere. I'll bring him back. Don't worry, just wait here."

  He returned three hours later with an unconscious Tommy slung over the front of his horse. "Car's stuck in the sand. He's all right, just passed out." He carried his employer into the shed and dumped him on the cot. "I'll go dig the car out and bring it back."