Titans (37 page)

“Never had no such thing before. Don't expect to have no such thing afterward,” his pessimistic foreman had grumbled in the meeting Trevor had called to apprise his team of the risky waters into which the company was headed, and all the others had nodded their approval. Trevor had explained that while Waverling Tools would be manufacturing much of the equipment used in the drilling process, there would be the major costs of labor, pipeline and road construction, storage tank rental, and wagon and rail transportation from the drill site to the refinery in Corsicana, not to mention ancillary expenses like feeding and sheltering the dozen or so men required to work a rig.

And then there was no guarantee the well would come in.

But all had hopped eagerly on board with faith in Todd's analysis for this first sortie into deep waters and hope that come December there might be an extra bonus in their company Christmas stockings. Trevor hoped that none around the table had seen his gulp when he looked at the new table of expenses his accountant had prepared. Railroad transport fees had gone up. The Texas and Pacific was charging more for oil tankers, since they were in short supply. The teamster company Trevor had hired to haul the oil to its destination insisted on placing a clause in the contract calling for compensation for animal injury. The manufacturer of storage tubs had increased its prices. For the time being, these particular cost hikes were a moot point if no oil was discovered at Windy Bluff, but he, too, shared in his employees' highly charged expectations for the company's future. How much of it had to do with his daughter living on the land he was set to drill—the opportunity it would provide to see her again—he could not have said, but there was an extra note of optimism in his voice when he addressed the now-attentive group.

“Gentlemen and lady,” he said, nodding at Jeanne, “I know it's late to call a meeting on a Friday afternoon, but I believe today, September seventh, 1900, marks the end of Waverling Tools as we've known it, and Monday will begin the company as it will come to be known. As Todd says, we're going into the oil business, not only to manufacture the tools and equipment essential to the industry, but to dig for the stuff ourselves. I believe we are on the eve of an unprecedented experience in Texas, one that will change our state as we know it, maybe even our lives. At the end of your reports, I will have Miss Beardsley haul out the champagne to toast our new beginnings. We have much to raise our glasses to.”

Good to his promise, after the last item of business was concluded, Miss Beardsley appeared with a tray laden with tall flutes of champagne. Trevor lifted his glass, never again to drink the sparkling wine without remembering the prophecy he uttered that would soon come to pass.

O
n Saturday morning, September eighth, Nathan woke to a disquietude whose source eluded him. When he lived on the farm, he could blame this kind of disturbance on his farmer's extra sense of perception. Something was coming. It was in the atmosphere. Hail, wind, flood? Locusts? Fire? An accident to human or animal? At such times, with his thumbs hooked in the straps of his overalls, he went outside to smell the air and listen to the wind, scrutinize the skies, and inspect the ground. His presentiments sometimes proved to be tricksters. They were not always true to him, but he never dismissed their warnings as unfounded. The calamities that failed to materialize did not mean they had not been of a mind to strike. They had simply diverted course, like the unseen rattlesnake that slithers off into the bush before an unsuspecting foot can feel its fangs.

It's a sort of sixth sense that comes from the farmer's honed mistrust of Mother Nature, son, especially when the old girl has been exceptionally kind
, Leon once explained.
The wavin' fields of wheat we see today might lie flattened by her hand tomorrow.

There were no fields of wheat to rouse his instincts here in this house in the city with the sounds of Saturday traffic floating in through his open window, Nathan thought. To shake free of his uneasy mood, he thought of Charlotte—he'd see her at her party tomorrow night—and the sparring match he'd have later this morning with his father. Nathan chuckled. He didn't know Charlotte well at all, but if she should be privy to his thoughts, he imagined her putting her pretty hands on her slim hips and saying in mock horror,
Nathan Holloway! You mean to say you thought of me in the same category as smelly old boxing gloves?
And he fantasized drawing her into his arms and saying,
Only because you both connect with the same punch.

Zak licked his face. Time to get up. Nathan let the dog outside through a hall door opening to an exterior set of stairs and heard the raucous cry of birds. Stepping out onto the landing, he looked up and saw a large formation of seagulls heading north. Benjy, in an undershirt, his suspenders down about his hips and his face lathered in shaving cream, had come out onto his apartment's small balcony on top of the carriage house, apparently attracted by the noise. He saw Nathan and hollered, “They must have come from the coast. Wonder what's up down there?”

“I think a tropical storm must be headed that way,” Nathan hollered back. “Telegraph and telephone lines were down in Florida and Louisiana last week.”

So his farmer's instincts weren't wrong, Nathan thought as he returned to his room. September was hurricane season in the Gulf, sometimes sending a backlash of rain and wind as far into Texas as the Panhandle and up into the Oklahoma Territory. He remembered that Sloan Singleton had begun baling his hay last week. Nathan hoped he'd gotten it into his barns in case rain was on the way. If it held off and the cutting wasn't finished, on Monday he'd pop over the fence from Las Tres Lomas and lend a hand to his men.

He hurried to wash and dress. He'd gotten his gym gear together last night: lightly padded gloves the old-timers still called “mufflers,” high-top lace shoes, boxer's shorts, and the leather helmet used for sparring just introduced to the sport. His father was a stickler for safety in the ring, despite his grandmother's expressed doubt there could be any protection “for two men bent on knocking out each other.”

“That's not the point of what we do, Mother,” Trevor tried to assure her. “I'm not training Nathan for competition. I'm teaching him to spar.”

“What's the difference?”

“The intent.”

His grandmother did not approve of the Saturday morning boxing sessions. They laid another bone of contention between her and her son. The tragedy of their relationship continued to sadden Nathan. His grandmother's days were numbered. He did not want her to die without knowing of her son's sacrifice to preserve her image of the son she'd preferred. And Nathan did not want his father to live without having known the expressed love of his mother. Nathan understood that pain. Trevor Waverling was a good man and a devoted son. A little shy of a father's attention to his daughter, maybe, but only because he hadn't the temperament to handle her. Did his grandmother not see that deficiency as a great burden to him? It was the saddest heartbreak of all to love deeply and not possess the right nature to express it. At times, Nathan could hardly keep quiet about the knowledge he possessed. The tragedy of his grandmother going to her grave with the suspicion that his father had killed her son burned in him like a lump of coal.

Trevor, I went along with your insane participation in that barbaric sport, but must you infect my grandson with your lust to hurt and be hurt?
she'd said in outrage when she first learned her son had invited Nathan to his boxing gym. His father had argued that inflicting bodily injury was not the goal of sparring. Its object was to develop proper head movement and footwork, evasive techniques like slipping and dodging, to build skills in bobbing, countering, and angling. Sparring trained a man to improvise, to think under pressure, and to keep his emotions in check.

His grandmother had told him to quit his jargon blabber. She hadn't the foggiest notion what he was talking about. Just tell her for what purpose was her grandson to be trained to “improvise, think under pressure, and keep his emotions in check.”

It was always good for a man to know how to deal with a fast, powerful, and determined attacker, his father had told her.

Nathan reduced her ire somewhat by explaining that sparring was really the
practice
of boxing and safe as long as the partners were friendly and no emotional tension was involved. He enjoyed exchanging punches, or better yet, learning the skills to avoid them, and the physical benefits of the ring were showing on him. He'd always thought himself a rather clumsy fellow, lacking grace. The training had improved his balance and coordination, strengthened and toned his muscles, slimmed his waist, and increased his energy. Nathan did not tell his grandmother that ringside observers agreed with his father's opinion that he was made for the sport. He had the big upper-body strength and strong legs boxing called for. Powerful punches and explosive movements all came from the calves, thighs, hams, and hips, the likes of which he possessed.

His painting of the brighter side of the Saturday sessions earned only an unconvinced
humph!
from Mavis Waverling, but she quit her harping with a final shot.
You're the mirror image of your grandfather in every way, Nathan, and thank goodness HIS father saw no need to subject him to “footwork in the ring” to improve himself
, she said.

Dressed, his bed made, Nathan grabbed his gym satchel. Maybe he and his father would get down to the breakfast table and be gone before his grandmother got up to see them off with her usual tight-lipped frown of disapproval. Lenora would let Zak in and feed him. His dog was getting old and was perfectly content to spend the morning curled up with Scat while Rebecca read poetry to them.

Along with the enjoyment of the sport, Nathan looked forward to these Saturday mornings spent with his father. They took the coach because Benjy liked to have breakfast in a little Irish café down from the boxing gym where they sparred. The waitress was sweet on him, he declared, and she'd add an extra potato pancake to his stack and slip him more applesauce without charge when his bowl was empty.
Best boxty this side of Cork County
, he would say, his brogue thick from the anticipated pleasure to his palate. The time alone with his father in the coach had become special to Nathan, because it gave him an opportunity to learn more about Trevor Waverling. On one ride, the thought occurred to Nathan that perhaps his father enjoyed their Saturday trips together because they gave him the chance to learn more about his son.

When they were underway, Trevor asked suddenly, “Are you happy with us, Nathan?”

Surprised by the question, Nathan could not immediately answer. A mood had come over his father. He'd seemed thoughtful and distracted at breakfast. How did Nathan reply to his question? Happiness was something he'd never thought too much about. Contentment, yes. He knew what it was to be contented.

“I would have to say I am,” Nathan said.

“Do you miss your half brother and sister?”

“I don't know that I miss them,” Nathan said, puzzled by the question. “I think about them often, wonder how they're getting along without me. I was always there to look out for them.”

“Do you suppose they miss you?”

“I wouldn't doubt it. That is, until somebody else comes along and gives them a shoulder to lean on.” Nathan smiled to say that he did not hold their fickleness against them.

“It takes a special man to always be a brother, Nathan. For most men, other loves and responsibilities come along to take the space siblings fill when they are growing up. Wives, children, jobs, interests, not to mention the separation of distance, can make strangers of brothers and sisters. But with a man like you, I sense that once a brother, always a brother, and that's a comfort to me.”

“Oh, I'll always be around for Rebecca, Dad. Have no fear of that.”

“I have no fear of that. It's simply that I wish—”

His father bit off whatever he had meant to say and turned his head to stare out the window. What was going on with him this morning? Nathan wondered. He'd been in a mild blue funk since their inspection visit to Las Tres Lomas. “Wish what, Dad?”

His father shook his head. “Nothing, son. Just an old father's wish that things could have been different, that's all.”

He's referring to Rebecca, Nathan thought, feeling sympathy for him. He must wonder what would happen to Rebecca once her grandmother and father were gone. Who would take care of her? Was it fair to impose her on Nathan, burden the son he never knew until six months ago and his eventual wife with a retarded half sister? Nathan leaned forward and tapped his father on the knee. “You're worrying about Rebecca's future welfare for nothing, Dad. I give you my word that no matter what, I'll see after Rebecca as long as she lives.”

Trevor stared at him, and Nathan, shocked, glimpsed a shimmer of tears in his father's eyes, quickly blinked away. “Thank you for that assurance, Nathan,” he said. “I've come to believe I can expect no less from my son.”

Rain began falling Sunday morning as the Waverling family was seated in their pews at church services. A strong wind latched on to the ringer of the church bell just as the choir was finishing “Fairest Lord Jesus,” ruining the ancient anthem's blissful conclusion and the results of a week's rehearsals. The bell continued its erratic clanging during the distribution of the offering plates, and murmurs of dismay rose from those who had walked to services and those whose carriages leaked. The citizens of Dallas had not been warned of a rainstorm coming. The Waverlings' Concord was weatherproof, but Mavis and Trevor and Nathan cast worried eyes on Rebecca and hoped someone was sent to silence the bell's crazed tongue before it jangled her from her absorption in a new book of poetry Charlotte had sent over with a note to Nathan that had thrilled his heart:
Looking forward to seeing
you tonight.
Rebecca could not abide certain kinds of storms. Easy, gentle rainfall did not disturb her, but those that shook the heavens sent her into a state of great agitation. Her adored uncle had died during a day of frenzied wind and rain.

Whispered concerns strengthened when a deacon quietly slipped from a side door to the altar and spoke into the ear of the minister who had been about to rise to take the pulpit. The reverend nodded grimly in apparent understanding and approached the lectern.

“My dear friends,” he said, “word has just now reached us that a huge hurricane struck Galveston yesterday, causing enormous damage and loss of life. Telegraph and telephone lines are down, and train service no longer exists in that area. The storm's aftermath has arrived here. I propose we immediately conclude with the benediction and adjourn to secure our homes and the safety of our animals. As we pray, let us remember the devastated city of Galveston and its citizens.”

The benediction was brief. When eyes opened, the congregation hurriedly stood to depart, all but Rebecca. Her family stared at her. The book of poetry lay open in her lap and she had covered her ears against the bell's clangor and the sound of the slashing wind and rain. “
Lord of the winds!
”she chanted, rocking back and forth. “
I feel thee nigh / I know thy breath in the burning sky! / And I wait, with a thrill in every vein / For the coming of the hurricane!
”

“Good God!” Trevor muttered.

“I didn't think she was listening,” Mavis said, quickly folding Rebecca's cape around her granddaughter's shoulders.

“She was,” Nathan said. “Let's get her home to Zak.”