Beverly Byrne (37 page)

"Where
did he get these?" Luke asked.

"From
my father's lawyer in Dar es Salaam," Amy said. It was the only
possibility. "I wrote to him after the war and asked for the seeds. Tommy
must have intercepted his reply."

There
was not yet time to ponder why he had done it, or why he afterward preserved
the little package.

Two
days later they buried Tommy in the old grave-yard beside the mission church of
Our Lady of Guadalupe. Luke made the arrangements and calmed the ecclesiastical
waters. Thomas Westerman had been baptized a Catholic and died after receiving
the last rites of his religion. He was entitled to a funeral mass, and
interment in consecrated ground. The manner in which he had conducted the years
between birth and death was something he must settle before another tribunal.

Ultimately,
Luke explained, the Church does not pronounce anyone damned or saved. "She
never has and never will. Not even the pope can presume to know the final
dispensation of God's mercy, or His justice."

Amy
found the theology obscure, but she was grateful to Luke for making the
decisions.

She
went through the funeral with quiet dignity, a small but erect figure behind
her black veil. There were many people present at both the church and the
cemetery. Most weren't true mourners. They were voyeurs come to see the end of
a man who had "made a name for himself," and managed to die as
dramatically as he lived. It occured to Amy that Diego was perhaps the only
person present who felt sincere, un-mitigated grief. He had seen it all happen
and been beside Tommy from the beginning. Amy had already asked him to remain
as foreman and manager of the ranch. "It will belong to Tom Junior and
Kate someday," she told him.

"But
only you can preserve it for them. You know exactly what Tommy planned."
Diego had nodded solemnly and agreed.

Rick
had tried to persuade her to take the children to the funeral. "At least
Kate," he'd insisted. "She needs to see the end, Amy. Unless she does
there can never be a finish to her grieving."

Stubbornly
Amy refused. It struck her as a monstrous idea.

"You
told me how desolate you were when your parents died," Rick reminded her.
"You said it was worse because they never had a funeral."

"I
was seventeen," she insisted. "Kate won't be four until
November."

In
the end he couldn't convince her. She took both children to the nuns who looked
after Estella and asked the sisters to keep them for a week or ten days.
Las
Carmelitas
had come to know Amy, since she frequently visited Rick's
daughter. They did not refuse her this charity.

After
the burial Amy and the three men returned to the house. It was silent and cool
and beautiful. Amy was surprised to find how much a refuge it seemed. She put
away her widow's weeds and changed into a denim skirt and a white blouse. She
had gone through the formalities required; she would not descend into
hypocrisy.

She
made a pitcher of lemonade and took it and a tray of glasses to the patio. Rick
was there alone.

"I
want you to have these tablets," he said, handing her a vial of small
yellow pills. "They'll help you sleep for the next few nights. Don't take
one unless you need it, but don't hesitate if you do."

"You
won't be here, then?" She asked the question in a small voice.

"I
can't be away from my practice any longer,
querida
," he said
softly. "And I think you need to be apart from me for a time."

Amy
didn't answer. She busied herself pouring the lemonade, but when he took the
glass from her hand Rick didn't drink it. "I love you," he said.
"Nothing has changed, but everything is different. Once more all the
decisions are yours."

"I
don't know what you mean."

"Yes,
you do. I had one rival for a long time,
mi amor
. I don't propose to
spend the rest of my life fighting another one. "

She
started to say something, but Rick put his finger over her lips. "Father
Luke tells me he and his companion will remain here for a few days. You and
your brother-in-law have much to discuss." He looked at her closely when
he said, "There's one thing that won't wait. Do you plan to do anything
about Rosa?"

Amy
looked at him blankly, then understood his meaning. "Please see that she
has a lawyer. Not Lopez, a good criminal lawyer. She was acting in
self-defense. I'm sure of it."

"Yes,"
Rick agreed. "I'll get someone from Albuquerue."

"Make
sure all the bills come to me," Amy said.

"I
will,
querida
. And I'll see the sheriff and get word to Pedro, the
cacique at San Felipe. I doubt you'll have to testify or become involved in the
proceedings."

Wilkins
would be kind to the widow, Rick knew. And it would satisfy Pete's sense of
justice to finish the drama Beatriz had inaugurated. Westerman was dead, all
the loose ends were neatly tied. Ibanez sighed and rose to go.

Amy
waited for him to kiss her good bye, but he left without doing so.

Amy
went to her room and took one of Rick's pills and slept until the following
morning. When she came downstairs it was after nine. Luke was waiting for her.
"I'm sorry to press you, Amy, but James and I can only stay a short while.
I need to talk to you."

She
suspected something of what he wanted to say. She'd worked it out, along with a
number of other truths, in the days since Tommy died. The thought of discussing
it was unpleasant. "Perhaps tomorrow," she said listlessly.

"No,"
Luke insisted. "Today."

"Very
well, I'll meet you in the study in an hour."

The
study was the square spacious room in the rear of the quadrangle that formed
the house. It had one window that looked out to the patio, and another that
faced the corral. It was furnished with a big desk and a long oak writing table.
The chairs were all hard-backed. They had curved arms and wide red leather
seats and looked as if they might have come from the governor's palace in Santa
Fe, or some Spanish library. It was a room for solitary thinking or serious
talk; an appropriate setting for the business which Amy and Luke discussed.

"What
bothers me," Luke said, "is that you may misjudge Uncle Donald. He
robbed both our estates, yours as well as mine and Tommy's, I'm not denying
that. But at the same time he tried not to see any of us hurt. "

"I
figured out that the reference in your letter had to mean that. But I don't
understand what it signified, or how you found out. I don't even know when he
died. Tommy never told me."

"Three
years ago," Luke said. "In 1918."

"That's
the year Tom Junior was born." Amy said.

"Well,
small wonder Tommy didn't name him for Donald." It was a weak attempt at
humor, but they both managed a smile. "If he hadn't died just then.
nothing would have been discovered," Luke continued. "When the
lawyers were sorting out his estate they found the papers relating to the
purchasing of the Norman mines from you. At the same time the war had ended,
and your father's attorney had written from Africa to say that he'd had an
offer of half 8 million dollars for the diamond mines and the house. He thought
that you still owned them." He paused and looked at her, but Amy didn't
say anything.

"It
was obvious that the sixty thousand Donald paid you was patent robbery. They
probed further and discovered the banker who'd helped with the swindle. It
turned out that the bank wanted to make private restitution rather than risk a
scandal, and Tommy and I agreed. There wasn't much point in dragging the whole
family through the dirt." He peered at her. She was pale and wide-eyed and
she sat very still. "You must know all this. You had to sign the
papers."

"No,"
she said. "This is the first I've heard of it. Tommy never told me."
She was repeating that phrase so often it sounded like a litany.

"But
that's impossible! Your signature was on all the documents. The loans from the
bank in Albuquerque were made on the strength of them. I know that. It was all
so intertwined that I had to sign a lot of things too."

She
shook her head. "I never signed anything. If my name was on any papers,
then Tommy forged it." She didn't wait to see his reaction to that.
"This bank loan you speak of, what year was it made?"

"Nineteen-eighteen.
Everybody knew it would take a while to get the capital out of Africa. And
Tommy said you needed the money right away."

Amy
stood up and gripped the back of the chair. "He needed it. He wanted to
get exclusive rights to the waterhole, and buyout two other ranchers. That's
why he agreed to sell the mines, and Jericho. That's why he didn't mention it
to me. All his hopes and dreams were tied up with this place. He was afraid
that mine were still in Africa."

"And
he never gave you the chance to prove otherwise," Luke said quietly.
"I'm sorry," he added, as if it were his fault and he must still
defend his little brother.

"So
am I," Amy said. She was not referring to Jericho. That wound had healed
long ago, at least as much as it ever would. But somehow Tommy had not realized
that. So he had cheated her, and his guilt had been the bitter finale to
whatever remained of their union.

"There
was one thing that wasn't sold," Luke said. "In the light of what
you've told me I don't know what to make of that fact." He reached below
his scapular and brought forth a chamois bag tied with a drawstring.
"Tommy has been negotiating to get this from Dar es Salaam to New York for
nearly three years. It arrived a few months ago, and he asked me to bring it
out here. That's why I came."

Amy
took the offering with trembling fingers. She felt its weight, and the familiar
texture of the velvety leather. She had held this bag before. "This
belonged to my mother," she said. "It was usually kept in the  bank
vault in Dar es Salaam, but sometimes she had it at home."

"I
see," Luke said. He had opened the bag earlier, but now he was going
through the experience with Amy, seeing it with her eyes. It seemed entirely
possible that some new and mysterious thing would be revealed when she looked
inside.

They
didn't speak while she unloosed the drawstring and spilled out the contents.
Four stones tumbled silently onto the leather-edged blotter on the desk. Three
of them were overshadowed by the fourth. Even in the casual heap in which they
lay the Jericho diamond announced its presence as with a fanfare of trumpets.

When
Roland Norman found the stone thirty years earlier it created a furor. Since
then, larger diamonds had been discovered, but the Jericho remained one of the
wonders of the world. It was a flawless blue-white gem. Norman had taken it to
Antwerp for cutting. When the artisans were through it was seventy-two carats
of fiery perfection. Amy held it. She gazed into its depths and saw all her
childhood, and all that had happened since.

The
only sound in the room was the ticking of a grandfather clock. Seconds passed.
The clock chimed the hour. When the sound had died away Luke said. "Its
extraordinarily beautiful." It was an absurd understatement, but he felt
he must say something.

"It's
more than that to me," Amy said.

She
put the Jericho diamond down and picked up the three that had accompanied it.
In the company of the great stone they were only handmaidens to glory. Seen by
themselves each would have the power to excite.

They
were of graded size; ten, eleven, and twelve carats. Jessie had shown them to
her daughter numerous times. "When you grow up we'll make these into a
necklace for you, or maybe a tiara," she'd said. Amy had wondered where
she would wear a tiara in the African bush, but she had taken part in the game
with glee. "Yes, and I'll have a satin gown with a long train."