Beverly Byrne (32 page)

He
saw her shiver, despite the heat of the midday sun. "I don't know,"
she said. "I don't know why I'm doing anything these days."

The
conversation with Tommy was still fresh in Rick's mind. He had a sudden urge to
say, "I wasn't in love with Beatriz, I'm in love with you," but he
didn't. He said nothing.

Amy
broke the painful silence. "I'm a fool to think I've any right to an
explanation. Your private life is your affair." Her tone belied her words,
and her jealousy was impossible to hide.

"You
have a right to any part of my life that you want,
querida
." He
moved toward her and took both her hands in his. The touch of her flesh burned
his fingers. She leaned toward him with a movement that seemed beyond her
control, a response to a magnetic field neither of them could escape.

"What
am I to do?" she whispered. The words seemed more for herself than for
him.

He
let go her hands and took her face between his palms, forcing her to meet his
eyes. "I know what I want you to do," he said. "But the decision
must be yours. "

She
moistened her lips with her tongue, as if preparing to speak words that parched
her mouth. Rick was suddenly afraid. His first instinct had been the right one.
This was not the time to talk of the future. "Don't," he said. Then,
because he wanted to smother a declaration that might be irrevocable, and
because he couldn't resist, he covered her mouth with his.

For
a moment she didn't respond, and it was as if he held a ragdoll in his arms,
but suddenly she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her body against his.
A shock of recognition passed through each of them. The knowledge that here was
fulfillment and peace and the satiation of all hunger passed from one to the
other, and welded a union that seemed, for a brief moment, unbreakable. Until
Tommy's voice broke it.

He
wasn't on the patio with them, they merely heard him in the house, speaking to
one of the hands, but Amy pulled away with a fierce movement that bespoke
rejection and fear. Rick let his hands drop to his sides. "I don't want to
make you afraid," he said. "That's not the way I want you."

"I
know, but ..."

"No,"
he interrupted quickly. "Don't say anything. There's time,
querdia
.
A better time than this one."

"Yes,"
she nodded. "A better time."

The
memory of that moment's revelation remained between the two of them, a shared
secret neither spoke aloud. Amy knew that Rick was waiting for her to choose
the "better time" they'd promised each other. Sometimes she was
half-wild with anticipation and hope, sometimes she despaired. Once before
she'd dared to dream of a life of love. It had been pointless then and it was
pointless now, she told herself. She'd made her choice and she must suffer the
consequences. Whatever Tommy had become was her fault. How could she hope for
happiness built on a wreckage she herself had made?

* *
*

Two
months later her evaluation was confirmed. She was pregnant again. Once more
she carried Tommy's child in her body. This was a life conceived in anger and
loveless lust, the fruit of Tommy's half-rape the night of the party and the
kidnapping. It had to have happened then, for he'd not touched her since. But
whatever its origin, it was a life. The circumstance served to convince Amy
that there was no way out of her dilemma. Once more she had given a hostage to
fortune, and once more she must pay the penalty and protect the innocent.

She
wanted to tell Rick, but the thought that now he might cease even to be her
friend was terrifying. She kept promising herself that she'd do it "next
week," then the week after. The right time, a moment when her courage and
her sense of honor would converge to overcome her fear, never arrived. Neither
did she tell Tommy. He was away most of the time, working hard to consolidate
the three ranches he'd made into one, and he seemed hardly aware of her
existence. There was a kind of peace in the limbo in which she found herself,
and having nothing else, Amy was reluctant to give it up.

Toward
the end of April she finally accepted that she must tell both men that she was
expecting. She was starting her fifth month. Few of her dresses fit, and she
could not continue to disguise her pregnancy. Besides, a few days previous,
Rick had been on the verge of pressing her for a decision.

They'd
gone riding, one of the rare times they were together without the children, and
when they stopped to admire a particularly beautiful view, he'd lifted her down
from her horse and not Jet her go. They stood together for many seconds
enjoying the silent symphony of their touching bodies. Then he'd kissed her
again.

Afterward
Amy needed only to close her eyes to feel once more the joy of it. His lips on
hers were infinitely gentle, and the taste of him was an aching sweetness.
She'd pressed close and clung to his strength and the promise of delight in his
touch. She wanted to drown in the beauty of it; she wanted to melt and open to
him, to deny him nothing of herself that she might have all of him.

But
she'd done none of those things. Instead, once more she'd pulled away.

For
a few moments he'd stared at her and waited. Then he'd said, "You can't
sit on the fence forever,
querida
. You've got to make up your
mind."

"I
can't," she'd said hoarsely, knowing even as she spoke that it was a lie.
The decision had been made for her. Only she couldn't bear to communicate it to
him. "Not yet," she'd whispered. "Please not yet."

So
another opportunity for truth had passed. Now the end had come. She must face
reality or make Rick hate her as a liar and a cheat. That would be worse than
saying goodbye to him forever. Amy prepared herself to deal with the
inevitable.

A
golden spring Sunday dawned. Amy woke alone in the big bed and heard Tommy
downstairs playing with the children. She glanced at the clock. It was after
nine. If Tommy planned to ride out, he'd already be gone. Very well, she'd tell
him today and see Rick tomorrow.

She
stretched out her hand and felt the warm sheets Tommy had vacated. Nowadays
they never touched.

Even
in sleep they stayed rigidly apart, like two strangers forced by circumstances
into the imitation of intimacy. Amy sighed and swung her legs over the side of
the bed. It was then the pain attacked, a roaring beast whose name she knew the
moment it bit. Amy felt blood running down her thighs and she screamed.

"I'm
having a miscarriage. Get Rick," she cried between gasps:

"I'll
carry you downstairs," Tommy said. "We can drive to the hospital in
town."

"No."
She couldn't say more.

Tommy
looked at her, then ran from the room yelling for Diego and Maria.

When
Rick arrived she was hemorrhaging and close to death. His surgery was of
necessity drastic and final.

"No
more children," he told Tommy when he emerged grim-faced from the bedroom.
"She's had too many pregnancies too fast. We're lucky she's alive at
all."

"Yes,"
Tommy said. "I guess we are." He looked pointedly at the other man.
"Just as well, I guess. I'd never be sure if it was your kid or
mine."

Rick
clenched his fists, but his voice was cool. "You're pure bastard, aren't
you? There's no room for truth or decency. "

"What
is truth?" Tommy laughed mirthlessly. "Sorry, I never can resist the
apt quotation."

Ibanez
wanted to punch the smug face opposite him. He didn't because he knew that
would make it worse for Amy. He spun on his heel and returned to his patient.

During
his wife's convalescence Tommy moved out of her bedroom. He never returned.

For
a while Rick was her doctor first and the man who loved her second. He wouldn't
let her talk about anything until she was again up and beginning to regain her
strength. Then one day he said simply, "I want to take you away from here,
querida
. Are you ready to go?"

Amy
folded her hands in her lap and looked at him with all the love in her heart.
"I can't, my dearest," she said softly. "I never can."

"In
God's name!" he exploded. "Why not? What else does he have to do to
you?"

"It's
not Tommy's fault that I lost the baby. You know that. "

"All
right, but you're begging the question."

She
shook her head. "Don't shout at me, Rick. It won't do any good. I'm sorry
if you think I led you on. I never meant to do that. But I'm Tommy's wife, and
I can't change it. I made my choices a long time ago. Losing another baby,
losing even the chance to have any more, just confirms it."

He
stared at her in anger and pain and stormed out of the house without saying
another word. Three days later he came back. "I was on the verge of
transferring you to another doctor, of never coming here again," he
admitted. "I couldn't do it. What we have what we could have together-it's
too precious to give up."

"We
have to give it up," she said. "Oh, Rick, please believe me. I'd give
anything if it could be different, but it can't be."

"I
think you're mad," he said grim-faced. "I think that bastard's
bewitched you."

"I'm
sane. Maybe for the first time in my life."

"What
do you want me to do, then?"

"Whatever
you want," she said dully. "Whatever you think you must do. But I'd
be very happy if we could still be friends," she added in a small and
wistful voice.

"Friends,"
Rick said, as if it were a foreign word. "When I touch you you tremble
like a leaf in the wind. Do you think we can simply be friends?"

"I
don't know. I'd like to try."

He
made a wordless sound of disgust and turned away.

Amy
stared at his back and saw the way his shoulders rippled beneath his shirt. She
wanted desperately to go to him, but she made herself be still. Losing another
baby, almost dying herself-it was a warning from the vengeful God whose face
she had glimpsed in New York. Amy understood that now. Her hands remained
clenched in her lap. If she reached out to Rick, they would all fall into some
terrible destiny.

Not
just the two of them, the children as well. Amy clung to her resolve and their safety,
a tenuous thing she gripped in her slender fingers.

"Very
well," he said at last. "Not because I think it will work, only
because I won't let you throwaway everything we might have together." He
turned to look at her, and he managed a smile. "I'll wait a little longer,
querida
, but I won't wait forever."

She
closed her eyes in relief.

24

THE
CADENCES OF SANTA FE LIFE ARE GENTLE AND slow to change. The rhythm of the city
is determined by a history which, however dramatic, took place when life moved
at a slower pace. Nonetheless, things were different after the war. The
cowhands congregating on the plaza around Joe Turner's barbershop discussed the
alterations.

"Some
smart boy in New York says we're livin' in the roarin' twenties."

"Looks
like they're gonna roar right by New Mexico."

"President
Wilson says we ain't never had it so good. "

"Don't
matter what he says. He ain't runnin' again, and Harding's bound to beat that
democrat, Cox."

"Ain't
gonna matter none to us who's president if the price of beef keeps goin'
down."

The
man who knew the sobriquet applied to the times knew too why cows were suddenly
cheap. "The war's over, so the federal government ain't buyin'. And they
cut off the ranchers' credit, cause now we're not an 'essential war industry.'
"

"You
blamin' the drought on Washington too?"

"No,
but I sure blame 'em for that Stock-raising Homestead Law."

Inevitably
at the mention of the odious law the men fell silent and drifted apart. Some
things were too painful to talk about.

In
1916 Congress promised six hundred and forty acres to anyone willing to raise
cattle. After five years, if they survived, the land was theirs. Nobody
mentioned that it was arid desert land and six hundred plus acres could support
no more than sixteen head. If a homesteader was lucky enough to find water, it
was likely to be four hundred feet deep. The cost of digging and maintaining
such a well was prodigious.

They
moved across the horizon of Amy's world, these land-hungry Easterners heading
west. They came in beat-up motorcars and antique wagons. Eventually almost all
were forced to make the return journey. It was a sad and tragic epic.

"Fifty
million acres!" Rick railed one afternoon. They'd taken Estella and Kate
and Tom Junior on a picnic, and were forced to watch yet another defeated
family dragging themselves and their pitifully few belongings back to wherever
they'd come from. "Those loco fools in Washington have no idea what this
place is really like. But they've managed to take fifty million acres of it out
of the control of those who could use it, and give it to people they might as
well poison. Worse, poison would be quick."

It
was a few weeks short of Christmas 1920. Amy had lived long enough in New
Mexico to understand. In a drought every inch of grassland was precious.
Ranchers who had the skill and the manpower could move their herds and find
forage. But guileless homesteaders put up fences, thus taking vast tracts of
land out of circulation.

"Barbed
wire is going to be New Mexico's shroud," Rick said bitterly. He looked
quickly at Amy, then looked away. It was one of their unspoken rules. They
didn't discuss Tommy. But Amy knew what Rick meant.

Faced
with numberless cows dying of starvation, many ranchers banded together and
sent a delegation to Washington. Negotiations with the Mexican government
followed. Recently the land south of the border had received rain when none
fell to the north. Chihahua, for instance, had knee-high grass, but scarcely an
animal left to eat it. To feed his rebel army, Pancho Villa had stripped the
country of cattle.

So
a great migration was organized. Stockmen loaded their herds onto trains and
sent them south under bond. The theory was that they would feed and fatten in
Mexico. When rain resurrected the American range, they would be brought home.
It was a scheme born of desperation, and most who took part knew they'd never
see their herds again. Tommy Westerman didn't participate.

Tommy
had a different vision. He had no sentimental attachment to the old golden
days. And he had water. Even with the water table getting lower by the week,
the hole at Santo Domingo wasn't dry. Tommy deepened it, and covered it to
reduce evaporation. He kept armed guards there day and night. His entire eighty
thousand acres, a relatively small spread by southwestern standards, was fenced
with barbed wire and vigilantly patrolled. It didn't make him popular, but it
was making him rich.

At
the end of the war three-year-old cows had brought sixty to eighty dollars a
head. Now their price had dropped back to thirty. Tommy sold yearlings at
twenty. "They're going to develop a taste for veal back east," he
said. They did.

Amy
knew all this, but she lived her life somehow apart from it; just as she
separated herself from the rest of her husband's behavior. Tommy still kept
Rosa Mandago in the house near the Pecos Trail. He had other girls as well.
From Albuquerque to Santa Fe, Westerman was known as a womanizer and a hard
drinker, and famed for his lavish parties. He didn't use the hacienda as a
venue, instead Tommy would hire the entire floor of a hotel.

Somehow
he managed to sidestep the law of prohibition passed in 1919. There was plenty
to drink and plenty to eat, and often he'd entertain all comers for two or
three days at a stretch.

Stories
of these bacchanals reached Amy, but she ignored them. They did not prevent
Tommy from attending brilliantly to his business, thus providing security for
her and the children. She had Kate and Tom Junior, and she was often a
surrogate mother to Estella, whom she had grown to love. Most important, she
had Rick. For a brief space of time it seemed as if he would be content to go
on under the terms she'd stipulated. Only when he took her hand or gazed
questioningly into her eyes did she face the fact that she'd only built a
temporary barricade. The tide of passion still threatened to overwhelm them
both.

One
day in the summer of 1921, Rick called at the ranch after visiting patients in
the pueblos. He was hot and tired, and his customary patience was frayed at the
edges.

"
Hola
,
Don Rico!" Maria greeted him with a smile and hurried off to summon Amy.
Rick went to the living room and poured himself a drink. When Amy came he was
staring into the empty fireplace.

"Rick!
What a nice surprise. I was thinking ..." Her voice trailed away when he
didn't turn around. She noticed how stiff and tense he was. "What's the
matter?"

He
spun round and faced her. "You and me, that's what's the matter."

"I
don't understand."

"I
can't believe that." He tossed back the drink and put the empty glass on a
table. "For God's sake, Amy, how long is this charade going to
continue?"

She
twisted her hands together, conscious of her wedding ring and the sapphire that
had belonged to Tommy's grandmother. "I'm married, Rick. I have two
children. I've told you how it must be. What in the world can you expect me to
say?"

He
wouldn't give in. "One thing only," he said quietly. "Go or
stay."

"Now,
you mean? Tonight? Tommy's away, but he might be back this evening."

"No,
that's not good enough!" He crossed the room and grabbed her roughly. His
lips punished hers, then they were clinging together in mutual desire.
"Oh, God," he moaned. "Amy, Amy, stop torturing us both! Leave
him and marry me. The two of us, the children, we'll be so good together.
..."

She
tore herself away and tried to still her trembling. "I can't," she
whispered, "I can't ever leave Tommy."

"Then
at least tell me why. I keep thinking about it. You can't be worried about the
scandal; you must know we're already talked about." She shook her head and
his voice grew hard. "Are you surprised by that? Don't be a child, Amy.
Everyone says that you're my mistress. Even Tommy thinks so." He laughed
softy.

She
dropped into a chair. "Why are you doing this? Why do you want to hurt
me?"

"Hurt
you!" Rick knelt beside her and took hold of her hands. "
Querida
."
he whispered. "I would never hurt you. But you are destroying us both. You
must make up your mind."

"I
have made it up," she said tonelessly. "It's all tied up with things
you don't know, things I can't talk about."

"You
want me to go, then," Rick said. He stood up. "Very well, the choice
is yours."

"I
never said that!" She was suddenly desperate. The thought that he would
disappear from her life was insupportable. "I couldn't survive without
you! Why can't we go on as we are? Can't we be friends? Isn't that
enough?"

The
word no formed in his mouth, but he didn't utter it. Rick looked at her. She
was beautiful, fragile, alone for all intents and purposes; she was the woman
he loved. He could not say that he would go away and never see her again
because it wasn't true; he did not have that much strength. "My dearest
friend," he said softly, taking her face in his hands. "Claro,
mi
nina
. That is all you will give, so I will try to be satisfied."

It
was once more an uneasy truce, but Amy was grateful for it.

She
suspected that Rick sometimes visited the house of Dona Zia, where men could
buy pleasure, but she would not allow herself to dwell on such thoughts. Physical
love was something she could never have, she told herself. The thought of Rick
in the arms of some other woman, even a tart whom he paid for the privilige,
was agony. It was worse than the surge of jealousy she'd known when she'd
realized that he'd been Beatriz Ortega's lover. But how could she be angry with
Rick for seeking elsewhere what she repeatedly denied him?

There
was something else. Deep as were her feelings for Rick, Amy didn't trust them.
She had loved Luke, and he had rejected her. Tommy had loved her, and she had
married him because of that, not because she returned his love. Now she must
repay that injustice with the rest of her life. It was all a painful tangle of
wrong choices and what might have been. Often Amy wondered if the true flaw was
in herself. Perhaps her peculiar heritage had marked her forever.

Most
of the time she succeeded in burying both the past and the simmering dangers of
the present. Only once, when Tommy was home and drinking more than he usually
did at the ranch, did Amy lose her control.

"Have
a drink," Tommy said when she went into the living room. She'd thought him
in bed, but he was sitting with a half-empty bottle by his side. "Bathtub
gin," he said, gesturing with his glass. "Illegal rotgut, but it's
all there is at the moment. Have some."

She
shook her head and murmured something about going to sleep.

"Never
do anything illegal or immoral, do you?" he said with a chuckle.
"Pure as the driven snow, that's my wife. Come off it baby, I know
better."

"You're
drunk. I don't think we'd better talk anymore. Good night." Instantly he
was out of the chair and had hold of her arm. "Don't you turn your back on
me, lady." His voice was quiet, but full of menace.

Amy
could not summon fear; too much had passed between them for her to be afraid
now. "What do you want, Tommy?" she asked tiredly.

He
cocked his head and studied her.

"Now
that's a good question. How about a faithful wife? Will that do for
openers?"

"You
have that."

He
threw back his head and laughed. "You and your spic boyfriend just hold
hands. Is that what you're saying?"

"I
don't know what you're talking about."

"The
hell you say! It's all right, baby." He dropped her arm and turned away.
His voice began to slur, as if the quantity he'd drank had just caught up with
him. "I don't give a damn anymore. You're a whore. I know it and you know
it. Not even able to produce more kids. I don't give a damn what you do."

Amy
fled upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom. That night she had terrible
nightmares, and when she woke she remembered a dream in which Rick had made
love to her, and when it was over he looked at her with disgust and loathing.