Dust Devil (27 page)

In the rear of the new Studebaker wagon Stephanie sighed and saw her mother’s sidelong glance. But it was impossible, Stephanie thought, not to feel some resentment. What was it about her father that made him so indifferent to her?

She thought it ironic she had her father’s same love for Cambria, while Jamie had always wanted to be a doctor. She could ride astride as well as any of the ranchhands and could even lasso a calf sitting sidesaddle. She’d like to see a wrangler do that! And the summer before, Cody had taught her to ride point and drag on a trailherd.  And what’s more, she had beat Wayne at Chuska.  Winning would never take a back seat to feminine wiles – not for her, alas.  Maybe that was her problem, she was too straight-forward.

She turned her head to the left on the pretext of watching a hawk swoop down and clutch a sidewinder in its talons, but her gaze covertly traveled to the wagon behind. With Don Jiraldo getting on in years, Wayne had volunteered to drive the Sanchez wagon. Her expert eye took in how well he handled the matched bays. The summers he had spent at Cambria had taught him well. But he did not belong there. He was not a backward ranchhand to be roasted and wrinkled by the elements. He belonged in a courtroom
— and later in the Governor’s Palace. And when that happened, she meant to be at his side.

While Stephen and Jamie argued the merits of the new Land Settlement Act,
she seized the opportunity to thank her mother for inviting Wayne to Cambria for the summer.

"I dinna do it for you, Stephanie.” Rosemary placed a hand over her daughter’s. "I fear you may get your heart broken.”

"Horsefeathers! I’m not so naive that I don’t know what a rake Wayne might be with the women, mama. But don’t forget I’m a Rhodes.” She saw her mother’s eyes cloud over, and she quickly added, "You know Cambria wouldn’t interest Wayne. The Raffins are doing very well as it is in the political arena.” She turned and looked straight ahead, her lips tight. "Besides,” she said after a moment, "he’s not even interested in me.”

Rosemary smiled gently. "Tis difficult being young, isn’t it?”

She looked at her mother out of the comer of her eye. Her pouting lips eased into a grin. "I can’t imagine life ever being difficult for you, mama. You seem to sail easily through troubled waters. I’m sure you were born knowing just what to do, when to, and how to do whatever you set your mind to.”

Her mother
laughed.  “If only you could have seen the frightened young girl who made her first stagecoach trip across the western wilderness. I’m afraid I had to earn my strength like everyone else. And adversity does wonders as a character builder.”

S
he made a face. "Thanks, but I’ll skip the adversity and settle for a shallow character.”

Her mother’s
laughter pealed like an altar bell. "Oh, Stephanie! I don’t think I was ever as young at heart as you are!” She hugged her daughter. "’Tis so good to have you home again. And you’re stronger than you realize. You just haven’t had a chance to test your strength.”

It was good to be home again. In her quieter moments at the finishing school Stephanie often thought that as she grew older Cambria would diminish in size and grandeur. But set in a land whose canyons seemed to gouge the earth’s center, whose prairies stretched beyond vision, and whose mountains climbed into the heavens, Cambria held its own
— because there was nothing that could compete with its uniqueness for a thousand miles in any direction. It was as much a part of the New Mexican grandeur as were the canyons, deserts, and mountains.

The wagon edged over the rise in the prairieland, and Stephanie could see the low-lying bluffs now, stretched out like a sleeping giant. Not much longer until the carriage rounded the rear of the giant’s head, and there, sitting on the knoll overlooking the bend of the Pecos, would be the Castle.

When the mammoth house finally came into view, she blinked back tears. She swore each time she returned she would not get emotional. But here was home. Excitement, security, danger, warmth. A contradiction of abstractions that made Cambria what it was . . . a life lived for each moment, not the stale existence of the effete East.

As they passed through the town, children waved and men removed their hats. Miguel stood in front of the store, and she blew the old man a kiss. The winding road crested the knoll where several of the Mexican women were sweeping the driveway. On the veranda railing Cody sat waiting for them. He smoked one of those horrible-smelling Mexican cigarettes, and
she smiled, thinking of the gift she had for him, a package of the new Hooks Machine Cigarettes — a continuous roll of cigarettes that could be cut into separate lengths.

She often wondered how Cody knew to expect them. But it was just like everything else
—he seemed to be attuned to some natural telegraph that told him when it was going to rain, what time of day or night it was, where the puma lay in wait.

Consuela came out on the veranda and shielded her eyes against the setting sun as she watched the wagon’s progress. Cody tossed his cigarette away, and together the two employees came down the veranda steps to greet everyone.

"
Nietos
!” Consuela cried, addressing Stephanie and Jamie as if they were indeed her own grandchildren and wrapping her ponderous arms about them. But as always her concerned gaze sought out her mistress, reassuring herself that
La Patrona
was all right.

Stephanie pulled away from Consuela and said, "I’ve brought you a timer, Consuela
— a clock that will tell you when to remove the bread from the oven. This way you won’t bum it anymore.”

"
Ejoli, nieta
, I never bum the bread!”

Stephanie laughed at the old cook’s pretended indignation and turned to Cody. "I’ve a gift for you also.”

His slate-gray eyes smiled out of his leathery countenance. Tall, gaunt, with fine squint lines fanning out from the comers of his eyes, he had the longest legs, and Stephanie had called him High-pockets as a child. He removed his worn Stetson to wipe away the perspiration with his sleeve. The forehead above the sweatband line was white, his skin below the line the color and texture of rawhide.

At her four years of age, his
nineteen years had seemed very old to Stephanie. Now, at eighteen, she looked at Cody Strahan from a different viewpoint. He was only two years younger than her mother. She wondered if he, like every man who met Rosemary Rhodes, was infatuated with her. And somehow the idea piqued Stephanie, for Cody seemed to always have been especially hers, like a well-worn teddy bear.

"If your gift’s that pomade you tried to get me to use on your last trip home, forget it, kid.” He chucked her under her chin, then after greeting the rest of the family, turned to Jamie, who pumped his hand.

"Cody Strahan, you old bronc-buster! Are you going to ride the hell out of me and Wayne this summer?”

Cody’s brows quirked. "Wayne?” He watched as the tall,
slender man got out of the Sanchez wagon. "Grant’s boy’s back?”

"He’s not a boy anymore,” Stephanie said.

Cody laughed and clamped his hat over her head. "So that’s how the land lies, eh?”

"Cody, I hope you don’t mind,” Rosemary said. "I thought with the Murphy-Dolan gang rustling cattle and that bear killing off the sheep, you could use another hand.”

"’Course he doesn’t mind,” Stephanie said.

Wayne extended his hand. "Good evening, Strahan.”

"Evening,” Cody said.

She watched h
is light, keen eyes take in the handsome young man who had grown almost as tall as his own six-foot four-inch frame. And she knew that at that moment Cody was all too aware she had fallen for Wayne. With irritation, she caught the glance Cody flickered to that of her mother’s and must have noted the troubled look that mirrored his own. Stephanie wanted to tell him to keep his personal opinion out of it.  He he had ridden herd on her for so long, she knew, that he couldn’t get out of the habit of keeping check on her.

Well that time was over.

* * * * *

Stephanie drummed her fingers on the windowsill. The window was so deeply set in the thick sandstone wall it made a perfect seat in which to curl up. But she was in no mood for sitting or leafing through the Montgomery Ward’s catalogue her mother had picked up at the Las Vegas post office.

After three minutes of idly turning the pages she flung herself from the window seat to once more pace the room. Her divided riding skirt of soft leather swirled about her cowhide boots as she suddenly spun about and stalked out the door.  As she stormed into her mother’s small office, her mother looked up from the ledger. "Mama, why didn’t you let me go with the men after the bear? Papa would have if he were here.”

"But your father and Don Jiraldo are back in Santa Fe,”
her mother said patiently. She turned her chair around to face Stephanie and laid aside her pen. "I know you’re bored, but there’s the Fourth of July dance at Fort Union next Saturday.”

"That’s five days away, mama!”

"You’re not needed at the bear hunt, Stephanie! Let Cody and the boys take care of that. You could better apply your time sewing on the gowns you and Inez will be wearing.”

"But Inez isn’t sewing,” Stephanie persisted. "She and Tia
Rita are taking
siestas
, and you know I dislike
siestas
as much as you do. It’s because you hate killing, isn’t it?” she challenged.

"That has nothing to do with it.”
Her mother sighed and looked away. “Perhaps I
am
doing the wrong thing in trying to protect you, Stephanie. All right. Go ahead, pet. But please be careful.”

S
he hugged her mother and ran from the room. She knew where to find the three men. If they had not tracked down the bear yet, Cody would call a halt for lunch at the Conchos buffalo wallow. She took a breech-loading shotgun from the gun cabinet and went to the stables to saddle her notch-eared roan.

Within half an hour she was in the foothills. Her excitement mounted as she neared the watering place. She would make Wayne notice her
at last! Each time she saw him her breath was taken away, as if someone had slammed a fist in her stomach. If only his work did not take up so much of his time. And at night either her father or Don Jiraldo monopolized his time with talk of politics. A month of the summer already gone and he had yet to kiss her!

Her horse topped the rim of the Conchos, and she spotted the three men squatted beneath the sparse shade of a scrubby juniper. The three pairs of eyes watched her approach. Cody wore a frown of irritation, though Stephanie could not imagine why. Before, he had always been as permissive as her father in allowing her to do anything the men did.

All three rose when she dismounted, and Jamie said, "Sis, you shouldn’t be here.”

"What, you too!” She turned angrily on them. "What’s going on around here?”

Cody took the reins from her, saying, "You might as well eat now that you’re here. There’s some cold beans and jerky in the pack over there.”

"No!”
she snapped. "I want to know why you don’t want me along. A week ago you were all for me riding fence with you.”

"Sis, this is a killer bear. He’s not going to run and hide when he sees you.”

"I can shoot as well as any of you — and you know it!”

Wayne handed her a rope of jerky. "Why not tell her?” he asked the other two. The brim of his hat shadowed his eyes, but she saw the cynical twist of his lips. "As of two weeks ago you were put on the marriage market.”

"What?” She dropped to the ground beneath the juniper and tugged off her Spanish crowned hat. Her expression was wary as she looked from one face to the next, expecting a joke. "What do you mean!”

Cody hunkered before her. "The Apaches have taken up the warclub again. Geronimo’s been seen in the vicinity
— and one of his sub-chiefs is Satana.”

"Yellow Dog’s son?” S
he shuddered, remembering the old chief’s annual visit two weeks back. Her father still plied Yellow Dog with gifts, though there seemed no longer any reason to fear the murder and depredation of earlier years from his band. Now it was only a matter of protecting herds of cattle and flocks of sheep from the pilfering Apaches. "But what has this to do with me?”

"On his last visit Yellow Dog claimed the gift your father promised him seventeen years earlier.” Cody’s eyes narrowed so that the pupils looked like pure flint. "You.”

She looked to Jamie, then Wayne. "I don’t understand.”

"He means your father promised you in marriage to his son
— this Satana,” Wayne said. "In return for the continued safety of Cambria. My God, it sounds like something Bret Harte would write — a dirty redskin and an English heiress!”

Her
gaze flicked from Jamie to Cody. "Papa would do this — just give me away to Indians? I don’t believe it.”

Jamie
’s sigh was explosive. "I think father thought Yellow Dog would forget. But the point is, Sis, Yellow Dog did not forget. And that means we’ve got to keep you hidden when Yellow Dog comes back for you next month. Father felt that by then she would have a solution to all this mess.”