Renegade Man (9 page)

She had so
rarely dated that she felt awkward making conversation, and Soren didn’t appear
to be any more at ease than she was. During lunch, at the crowded Red Barn
Steak House, she got him to tell her about his job. He seemed to relax then.

“...if Rolistof
lasts much longer, that is. Although it employs more than a hundred locals, the
townspeople are up in arms, claiming it’s polluting Bear Creek. But they’re
wrong. Even the Environmental Improvement Division says that Rolistof has
satisfied all the state requirements.”

She managed to
pass up the chocolate torte and settled for an after-dinner coffee. “Well,
since I don’t get the Daily Press out where I live, I’m not familiar with local
politics.”

“Then let me
tell you all about the city these days,” he said with a warm smile. “Do you
have to be back at Tomahawk Flats right away?”

She shook her
head, and he said, “Good. A walk in Big Ditch Park ought to be just the thing
for a nice summer afternoon.”

But as they
walked along the lush, tree-shaded path along Main Street Gulch, Soren talked
about his wife, who had died two years earlier. “I didn’t realize it would be
this lonely. It’s hard starting life over at thirty-seven. I suppose that’s
really why I came back to Silver City. Now that Stephanie’s gone, it’s the only
home I have left.”

They were
crossing a picturesque footbridge, and they stopped simultaneously midway. “I
understand that bottomless pain at losing someone you love,” she said, leaning
against the railing. “My husband Robert died three years ago. I think what you
miss most of all is that sense of belonging. I have a son—Trace— but he’s at
UCLA, so sometimes I just can’t help getting lonely.”

Soren took her
hand in his big one. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Rita-lou.”

* * * * *

A slight breeze,
still carrying the heat of the boiling June afternoon, rustled the oak leaves
above the redwood picnic bench Jonah used for testing his mineral finds.
Because its fumes were deadly, he had to heat the mercury outside his camper,
and he was careful to stand upwind. Once the quicksilver in his riffle pan
separated the gold from the minerals usually found with it—mostly garnet,
pyrite and mica—he only had to boil off the mercury and funnel the remaining
gold flakes into small jars.

Mercury was so
expensive that he was often tempted to resort to the old-timers’ simple method:
splitting an Irish potato, then hollowing out one side and placing the mercury-covered
gold in it. After that the potato halves were put back together and wrapped
with wire. The potato was baked in a campfire, and the gold nugget was removed,
free of mercury. Then the old-timers squeezed the potato and recovered a large
part of the mercury for using again. Of course, the potatoes hadn’t come
cheaply in those days, either. And from the looks of the tailings, he wasn’t
getting exactly rich himself.

He began to
separate what he had, carefully sorting the lead from the flakes of gold. Years
of rigging and disarming bombs had made his fingers as highly sensitized as a
watchmaker’s.

Not even a
nugget. His dark brows slanted down over eyes that had gone a flat green. Flour
gold. At this rate, not even enough to pay for the dredger. Maybe he should
move on, look for richer ground elsewhere. But no, his gut instinct told him
that he would eventually hit pay dirt in the Renegade.

At his feet,
Magnum suddenly whined. Jonah heard the purr of a car engine. Through the
trees, he caught a glimpse of a late-model blue Lincoln, heading for Ritz’s
campsite. Didn’t take too much calculating to figure out what was going on.
Magnum only came over when his mistress was absent. Twenty bucks said Ritz had
gone somewhere with Soren Gunnerson.

Magnum was off—a
greyhound after a mechanical rabbit—streaking across the fiats toward the two
tents a quarter mile away. Jonah continued his tedious work, wishing all the
while that he was swinging an ax or cleaning a hull or something just as
arduous. Something arduous enough to take the kinks out of his muscles and his
thoughts off Rita-lou Randall.

Vietnam had done
that. The Navy had been all too glad to get recruits and hadn’t asked questions
about their age. Chu Lai and Da Nang, death and war, years and a parade of
women, had wiped out Ritz’S face.

Used to be he’d
think of a woman and he’d wonder what she’d be like in bed. Receptive,
innovative, giving, tigerish? With Ritz, his thoughts never got that far,
because they got mixed up by his sensory cells. Just watching her walk fouled
up his thought processes. Maybe it was all that outdoor working, but she moved
freely, with easy strides. And then there was the way she smelled, as if
sunshine had a smell.

If that wasn’t
enough, his usually acute sense of hearing was thrown out of whack whenever she
was around by all those old Orbison songs spinning through his brain. 

Hell, he wasn’t
getting any work done, and the sun was already setting. He flicked off the
mercury burner and started putting away jars and vials in an old tackle box. With
fleeting satisfaction, he heard what he had been waiting for – Soren’s car
headed back along the dirt road for Silver City.  Then, a moment later, he
heard a short scream. He shot up from the bench and then sprinted across the
clearing and downriver as fast as Magnum had done fifteen minutes earlier.

Jonah broke into
the open where Ritz’s tents were pitched. She was wearing some kind of sexy
spaghetti-stringed dress and was facing away from him, toward the tent. Her
arms were wrapped around herself, and she was trembling. She appeared unhurt,
although he couldn’t see her face. He observed all this in the few seconds it
took him to race across the graveled flat that separated them.

At his approach
she whirled and threw herself into his arms. He was too astonished to do more
than just hold her. Absently he stroked the sleek of her hair. “What is it,
Ritz?” he murmured inanely, thinking all the while that he could eat that pink
sundress off her in three easy bites.

She shuddered.
“A bat! In my tent. Hanging from the ridgepole.”

He liked the
feeling of her in his arms, so he said nothing. After a minute she tilted her
head back and stared up at him. “Well, aren’t you going to do any¬thing?”

Exasperated with
himself and his foolish fancies, he said, “It’s only a bat, Ritz. Get a broom
or something and chase it out.”

Her lips
compressed in a straight line of disgruntle- ment. “Big help you are.”

“Look, Ritz, if
you’re going to rough it out here with the big boys, then you’d better be
prepared to handle anything.”

“Rough it with
the big boys? Rough it?” Her expression was furious. “Ohhh! You ought to know
about rough, Jonah Jones. You’ve never gotten past the rough edges of your own
background!”

“I don’t
remember asking for a character analysis, especially from someone who didn’t
exactly excel in character in high school.”

He saw the
stricken look in her eyes and felt like a real SOB. What really upset him,
though—even frightened him—was that he would never have let his anger get the
better of him if he hadn’t been falling for her again. Damn! How could he be so
stupid as to let himself get tangled up with her once more? For all his fluency
in languages, he couldn’t come up with any kind of intelligent explanation for
his behavior. If he tried, he’d end up babbling like an idiot. So, without a
word, he swung away and stalked off across the flat to peace and privacy—and
safety.

Chapter 6

C
arefully
Rita-lou spread the black tarp over the grid she was digging. Magnum knew
better than to disturb the excavation, but the wild animals that prowled at
night—raccoons, foxes and cougars—didn’t. Then too, an occasional and
unexpected rainstorm could do as much damage as night predators.

What she heard
next was no night predator, but the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves. She
straightened, rubbing the small of her back, and watched Magnum trot past her
parked Chevy to see who was approaching. The Lab’s ears were cocked, and his
tail was stiff. A low growl preceded the appearance of a man astride a
magnificent buckskin quarter horse.

When the rider
came into view, Rita-lou’s mouth tightened into a thin line. C. B. Kingsley.
She might have known he wouldn’t let her alone for more than two or three days.

As he stared
down at her, the evening sun was b¬hind him, making his silhouette shimmer like
some ghost from the past. The brim of his hat didn’t hide the bitterness in
eyes hooded by wrinkles. “How’s the digging going, girl?”

She folded her
arms. Beside her, Magnum paced nervously, sensing the antagonism that crackled
in the twilight air. “I didn’t know you had an interest in anthropology, Mr.
Kingsley.”

“I have an
interest in everything that happens on my land.” His voice was rough, like a
dirt road corrugated by wear and weather.

“This piece of
land hasn’t been in the Kingsley family for years, not since the turn of the
century.”

“But the grazing
rights have been, and in my mind that makes this Split P land. Anyone in Silver
City’ll tell you the same.”

She was
thirty-five years old, but standing before the imperious old man, she felt
fifteen again—and just as frightened and alone as she’d been then.

“You know, girl,
I remember the first time you showed up at our house, asking for a job. Your
black eyes all hollow, tangled yeller hair, cast-off clothing. My wife thought
you looked like a stray cat. She felt sorry for you. But I knew better. I saw
through you. Tough and out to get your own way, that’s what you were. I knew
you’d be sashaying around the place, arousing my son.”

“That’s not
true!”

 I warned
Mildred. And by God, didn’t it go and happen! Next thing I know, you’re
prancing up and down the stairs with Chap’s high school ring dangling on some
kind of cheap chain around your neck like some gol-durned trophy.”

Her old anger
surged back, hot enough to break through the shell of control she’d built. “And
you took his ring from me!” But he hadn't taken the ring she had given Chap,
her grandmother’s Eastern Star ring, which Grandpops had left her. Chap had
kept her ring hidden inside his shirt, next to his body, that warm, smooth,
beautiful body.

Did Chap still
have her ring?

In the dying
sunlight, Kingsley’s eyes glowed with rage, and the blue veins in his temple
pulsed. “And you took Chap from me, just as surely as if you two had run off to
marry!”

She moved a step
closer and caught his buckskin’s bridle. “You drove him from you, trying to
control him, trying to control everyone and everything. But you’ll never
control me!”

“Girl, what—”

“Ms. Randall.”

He grunted.
“What happened is over with and past and there’s not a—”

“No, you’re
wrong there, Mr. Kingsley. It’s still very much alive in my mind. You insulted
me, offering me money to leave town after Chap told you he wanted to marry me,”

“The money was
for the kid.”

“Your
grandchild, Kingsley!”

The old man’s
face seemed to sag. “Why didn’t you just take it and go, girl? It would have
spared a lot of heartbreak all the way around.”

She stared at
him, knowing he was right. Either way, he would have talked Chap out of
marrying her. And God knew she could have used that money those first four or
five years, when she didn’t even have enough change for bus fare. She had been
a fool not to take the money.

What it had come
down to was a matter of pride, because that had been all she had left.

Kingsley’s
gloved hand swept toward the tarp-covered pit. “Why don’t you just pack up your
gear and leave? No good is gonna come from this!”

She raised a
mocking brow. “Are you going to offer me money again?”

“Would you take
it this time?”

“No.”

The cattle baron
shook his fist at her, and in response Magnum barked menacingly at him. “You’re
making a mistake, girl.”

“Is that a
threat?”

“It’s a
warning.” Tugging on the reins, he backed the horse away. “You didn’t learn the
first time, but you will now. Mark my words.”

With uneasiness
prickling her flesh, she watched him ride away. C. B. Kingsley hadn’t ridden
over to see her just to vent old feelings. Out of the dusk, a bat swooped down,
emitting its tiny, shrill cry and breaking into her gloomy thoughts.

Disgusted with
her own timidity, she whirled and stalked into the main tent, where she banged
the skillet and coffeepot down on top of the burners. After a few minutes her
temper burned itself out. While corned beef and hash browns fried and coffee
perked, she wrote in her journal. Every professional kept a journal of the
day’s findings, but most of the time personal asides crept in, too.

There were
certain principles that she held dear, and one of them was that she enjoyed
speaking correctly and writing badly. She believed a person should use the
King’s English in conversation but write any damned way she pleased. A writer
should have the right to use colons, semicolons, dashes and anything else she
pleased as whim dictated. She figured if the newspapers could delete sentences
in their entirety, then she should be able to dangle participles till hell
froze over. And she did.