Renegade Man (16 page)

“I’d like to see
Mr. Kingsley,” she told the maid. Her courage was failing her fast, and she
half hoped that, even though it wasn’t roundup time, C.B. would be staying at
the ranch. “Tell him Ms. Randall is cal¬ing.”

The maid took in
Rita-lou’s jeans and sneakers. “I’ll see if he’s busy.”

After the woman
left, Rita-lou looked around, noting that not that much had changed. The
hallway and the one room visible from its double doorway were still all
chinoiserie and willow-pattern china, lush chintz and rococo plaster, echoing
the stamp of Mrs. Kingsley. C.B.’s domain had been the den, and of course the
Split P’s ranch house, where it was rumored he had taken his occasional
mistresses.

She thought of
C.B., all alone in the big Victorian house since Mildred had died. Rita-lou
hoped he was as lonely now as he had once made her. She thought of other
things, too. Of upstairs and Chap’s bedroom. Of Chap’s microscope and science
fiction novels, where C.B. had wanted football trophies and hunting guns. And
of her own small cubicle in the carriage house. She had missed living with
Grandpops during those months, and had worried about how he was doing without
her to care for him. But then Chap had come to her . .. ,

Haunted
memories, sad memories, of things and times wasted. She pushed them into the
closed-off areas of her mind. She thought of that lovely summer when they had
talked of a love only two young people could share, a love that had made her
cry because he was so gentle. She thought of that long, lonely autumn and
winter after she had left Silver City, of her attempt at changing love into
indifference, of the transformation of a young, wounded heart into one that
could withstand pain.

The maid soon
returned, and Rita-lou expected to be told that C.B. wouldn’t see her. “Mr.
Kingsley is waiting for you in the den. Follow me,
por favor, se nora
.”

Rita-lou knew
where the den was, but she had never done more than peek inside. Her eyes had
to adjust to the dimly lit room. At first she didn’t even see C.B., because she
was transfixed by his precious trophies mounted all over the redwood-paneled
room: a boar’s head; a wild turkey in flight; a pronghorn antelope; a brown
bear rug; and, in one corner, a cougar held for eternity in its stalking
crouch.

The painting of
Chap at sixteen that hung over the fireplace provided the one touch of warmth
in the room. Then she saw C.B. Imposing as ever, he sat in a large leather
chair, pushing a ramrod in and out of the barrel of a Winchester 30-30 he held
between his knees. He set an open can of bore solvent on the coffee table in
front of him and picked up the broken-open rifle. He looked down the cleaned
barrel at her. Refusing to be intimidated, she faced him squarely.

After a moment
he raised his head and said, “Thought you’d have left town by now, girl.”

The Winchester
was still pointed at her. “You should know me better, Mr. Kingsley. I don’t
give up easily. The stampede two weeks ago last Thursday didn’t scare me away,
and nothing else will, either.”

“Stampede?”

There was a
coiled diamondback rattler mounted on a flat rock sitting on the coffee table.
She tugged her gaze away from the snake’s mesmerizing eyes to focus on C.B.
again. The lamplight falling on the chair revealed the sallowness of his skin
and the hate that throbbed at his temples, where the hair was iron gray. “Don’t
feign innocence with me,” she said, her voice as cold as ice. “Your code of
honor surpasses a rubber band for flexibility.”

He looked
faintly amused. His cheek was still pressed against the gunstock. “I hate to
spoil your scenario, but I play poker every Thursday night with Sheriff Windham
and several others. Right here in my den.”

Her lips twisted
contemptuously. “Oh, I have no doubt of that. But you were responsible,
nonetheless. Don’t you understand that there’s nothing you can do to hurt me
anymore?”

Slowly,
deliberately, he tightened his finger on the trigger. It clicked loudly in the
room. “Don’t be too sure of that, girl.”

She dug into a
pocket of her shoulder bag and tossed a plastic-coated photo on the coffee
table. “You never once tried to find out about him in all these years. How
could you be so callous?”

C.B. rested the
rifle against the sofa arm and stared mildly down at the photo, then glanced up
at her again. “Who is it?”

“Your grandson,
Trace. Damn you, C.B.!”

For the first
time since she had come into the room his detached attitude deserted him. His
expression hardened. “I don’t have a grandson.”

Fury engorged
her veins, swelling her heart with rage. She swept up the photo and jammed it
back into her purse. Then, before she could stop to think clearly, she grabbed
the open can of bore solvent and dumped its contents over the mounted rattler.

As she strode
from the room, his shouted curses and threats followed her. It had been a
childish act, she knew, destroying the snake, but it had eased the accumulated
frustrations of a lifetime. Outside, she stood in the sunlight, letting its
warmth seep through her chilled body. She was shaking. But she wouldn’ back
down; she wouldn’t run away from Silver City again.

What had she
expected? That C.B. would want to see his grandson after he saw Trace’s photo?
How stupid of her!

As she turned
the Chevy toward Livingston’s Food and Mercantile, tears slid unchecked down
her cheeks. She needed to buy her share of the groceries, since supplies were
getting low, but with her eyes red and her nose running, she certainly didn’t
want to enter the brightly lit new Furr’s Supermarket. And she could count on
Livingston’s being relatively empty.

Unable to see,
she wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands, then fumbled in her purse
and, after finding a tissue, blew her nose noisily. “You silly woman,” she
mumbled.

Old man
Livingston was behind the counter, seeming like a permanent store fixture.
“Afternoon, Rita- lou.”

“Good
afternoon,” she murmured, then reached blindly for a shopping cart, an old one
that clattered on the uneven linoleum floor. She tried to think of what they
needed. Milk and eggs, certainly. Cheese, bread, potatoes—

“Well, hello,
Rita-lou.” Nelda, pert and vibrant, stood at an open frozen-food locker.

Rita-lou managed
a weak smile. “How are you, Nelda?”

“On the run, as
usual. Got a 2:30 customer to clip.” She paused, then gestured at her own
half-filled shopping cart. “This is a good place to come when you only have two
to shop for, isn’t it?”

Rita-lou
understood. Nelda was asking if Jonah and she were living together. “Yes, it
is.”

Nelda canted her
head and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You’ve been crying.”

“No. I’ve—I’ve
just got an awful cold.”

Nelda pushed her
cart forward until she was abreast of Rita-lou. “Listen, hon,” she said, her
eyes searching Rita-lou’s face with sincere sympathy. “Working at the
barbershop, I deal with all sorts of men. Day in, day out. I know their types
better than I know myself. Jonah’s a man’s man. And every woman would like to
have him, including me, if I’m honest. But he’s done a lot of wandering. It’s
in his blood. And he’ll wander some more. Men like Soren Gunnerson will settle
down. With Soren, you’ve got something you can be sure of.”

Rita-lou was at
a loss for words. “Look... it’s not that way, Nelda.”

The strawberry
blonde bit her lip, then smiled. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have been handing out
advice like that. With bartenders and barbers it becomes a habit.” She patted
Rita-lou’s hand awkwardly, then headed for the checkout counter.

Rita-lou hurried
through the store, randomly selecting cans and boxes. She wanted only to get
back to excavating now; the dig would take her mind off C. B. Kingsley and
Jonah and everything else that was wrong. But the Fates weren’t finished with
her for the day.

As Livingston
rang up her purchases, he grumbled, “Be sure of? Being sure is for cowards.” He
peered steadily at her over his dust-spotted spectacles. “Catch hold of a man
you’re sure of, and you’ll rot from boredom. Hhmmph!”

She didn’t
answer him, but she wanted to cry out,
Yes, but I need to be loved and
cherished
. As she had been by Robert. She missed that sense of belonging,
of mattering to someone, and she knew she would never settle for less.

* * * * *

Steadily, grimly,
Jonah worked beneath the water’s surface, moving the rocks, chucking them
behind him as he prowled the riverbed in search of his golden dream. It had
long been one of man’s obsessions. Because of gold, Coronado’s conquistadores
had marched to the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola in what was later to become
New Mexico. Fool’s gold was all they had found—seven Zuni villages whose adobe
dwellings glowed with a golden light at sunup and sundown. Just so much mud to
Coronado and his warriors.

Another obsession
had taken hold of Jonah. An indomitable woman whose warm brown eyes burned like
the welcome fires of the home he had never known. Why was his need to be
foremost with this woman so overpowering, so unreasonable? Without wanting to,
he thought about yesterday, about seeing Rita-lou in Soren’s arms. Soren was
his friend, but the vision of Rita-lou in the man’s embrace smite Jonah like a
plague of locusts.  No, worse.  Bibically speakng, he was consigned to the
belly of a whale.

His anger,
gathering like thunderheads over a peak, almost caused him to miss a large
black crystal. Not pnly was a garnet of that size valuable, but it signified
the likelihood of a heavy gold deposit.

But any
satisfaction he might have felt was dampened by a vague discontent. No, it
wasn’t vague. It was as obvious as the nose on his face. But how had a purely
physical lust for Ritz changed into this yearning to be the only man in her
life? It didn’t make sense to him, and he didn’t like it.

When he returned
to the camper an hour later, bushed from staying up all night and fighting the
current all day, the domestic scene that met his eyes—Ritz putting away canned
goods—all but destroyed his previous craving for her.

“Making yourself
right at home, aren’t you?” he snapped.

Slowly she turned
to face him, and her hurt expres¬ion made him silently curse his inability to
control his temper. “It looked to me as if we were getting low on groceries.”

“Where are you
going to put everything?” He waved a hand in the direction of the counter, his
eyes stony. “Your boxes of relics take up every bit of space.”

Her slender body
stiffened. “It won’t take me fifteen minutes to get my things together,” she
said quietly. Too quietly, too calmly.

He felt like a
son of a bitch for hurting her. He reached out, but she flinched away from his
touch. “Hey, listen Ritz, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound that way.”

 Her oval face
was pale, and when her wounded eyes settled on him, he bitterly condemned
himself for his thoughtlessness. “You meant it to sound just like that, Jonah,
because you don’t like anyone getting too close. Then you start feeling
cornered, don’t you? And when that happens you’re not in control anymore, are
you? You know, you were right last month—when you said we would have been a
mistake together.” She turned away to pull her duffel bag from beneath the
bunk.

He felt as if
he’d been run over by a tank. He mouthed an obscenity and spun her around by
the shoulders. “Level with me! Did you ever care about me? Or was I just a
stand-in until Chap took notice?”

Her lower lip
trembled, and she stilled it with teeth that left a thin, blood-red mark. “You
never did understand, did you, Jonah? Don’t you see? Chap needed me. You
didn’t.”

She pulled away
then and went back to packing her things. Dumbly he watched her. He wanted to
stop her, to keep her with him for as long as he needed her, but a demon
whispered,
Caring...loving...they don’t last. It never did. Not with your
father . . . not with her. You’ve been alone all your life, and the night will
only be darker if you let her inside and then have to watch her leave.

After she let
the screen door bang shut behind her, he remained where he was, listening to
her call Magnum, hearing the dog’s responding bark, hearing the sound of her
Chevy’s engine dwindling in the distance. She was in the room long after she
had gone. She was a heaviness around him.

Then the silence
closed in on him. He had lived for a long time with the silence of the
underwater world, but this silence was totally different. It was an invisible
sea beast that ate away at his heart.

Ghosts of her
chiming laughter and her dog’s frisky yelps rose to haunt him, and with another
profanity he swung open the screen door and headed back to the dredger. He was
in a temper. For the rest of the afternoon he worked furiously: cleaning the
tailings from the dredger’s burlap-carpeted riffles; shoveling the fine sand
concentrate through the screen into a tub filled with river water; then
resieving the concentrate into a riffled gold pan.

Sweat poured off
his brow and ran into his eyes, but still he worked. Using the old
forty-niner’s method, he shook his pan carefully, sweeping off the lighter sand
with water. Sightlessly he stared at the pieces of lead and flakes of gold he
found.