Titans (41 page)

S
amantha finished writing a note of condolence to Nathan Holloway and his family and withdrew her address book from a desk drawer. The book did not contain the address of his residence, but she'd recorded the mailing information of Waverling Tools. The note was so little to offer at a time like this, but at least it satisfied her need to do
something
to express her sympathy. She would have liked to attend Rebecca's funeral, but unlike Galveston, where the skies cleared on Sunday morning as the hurricane's forces pressed northward, the rain had continued on and off. The roads were still muddy and unsafe for travel, and Samantha had no details of the time or place where Rebecca would be laid to rest. She didn't even know when the weather would be dry enough to allow her to mail her letter.

Melancholia pressed around her, smothering as a blanket, gray as this fourth day of dwindling rain, with no good news on the horizon to relieve her depression. Over the telephone, the lines miraculously having survived the storm, her mother had read to her the
Fort Worth Gazette
's articles about the horrific death toll, property destruction, and reprehensible behavior of looters in Galveston. Friends' relatives and friends had been lost, their homes destroyed, the hotel where Samantha and Sloan had honeymooned washed away. Anne Rutherford had spearheaded a disaster relief campaign in which Estelle had participated, and volunteers had sent a train car loaded with collected food, clothing, blankets, and medicines to the devastated city.

The losses of the Triple S were as dire as expected, and the ranch hands were working round the clock to salvage and repair what could be saved. Las Tres Lomas had suffered higher losses. The Triple S was on a greater elevation, and in times of floods, water flowed downhill rather than stood stationary until it soaked into the ground. Sloan had aged five years in less than a week's period. His Thoroughbred had broken a leg and had to be put down, and Saved was missing.

One weak light shone through the darkness. Sloan's animosity toward Daniel had dissipated somewhat, at least temporarily, owing to the shoulder that Daniel had willingly put to the wheel in assisting him and the ranch hands in the brutal and endless hours of cleanup and restoration. He had put his smithy, carpenter, and ironmonger's skills to work, and within a few days had repaired several faulty pulleys necessary to haul bales of hay into the barn loft, hewn fence posts, and reconstructed two lean-tos over feeding bins. He'd addressed a number of items on Samantha's household list and adjusted the hinges on the oven door, hammered out a collar for a leaky pipe in the kitchen, and built a new shelf for the pantry.

“Not a lazy bone in his body, I'll give him that,” Sloan had said.

Daniel was not bad company at the end of the day, either, though Sloan would not go so far as to admit it. A couple of nights the five of them simply sat around the fire in the great room, the women mending or knitting, the men, their legs stretched out before them, too tired from the day's work to concentrate on a card game. Of all of them, Daniel was the better read and more informed on current affairs, but he did not trip out his knowledge like many men with less education and refinement would have in the company of those supposedly having more of both. It was from Daniel they learned that two brothers from North Carolina had designed a man-carrying glider they planned to test soon to prove their theory that man could fly and control an air craft that defied gravity.

“I'm convinced they'll do it,” Daniel said. “Maybe not this go-round, but in time I'm positive we'll see flying machines manned by men.”

Samantha had held her breath that Sloan would ridicule the idea as absurd, but he'd leaned forward interestedly. “When is this test supposed to take place?”

“Sometime in October at a place in North Carolina called Kitty Hawk. The Wright brothers—Orville and Wilbur—have been experimenting with their idea of an airship for years.”

“We'll have to keep a lookout for news of it,” Sloan said. “Wouldn't that be something—a manned flying machine. What gave those brothers the idea for their glider?”

Daniel launched into the history of the brothers' attempts to put a craft into the air by observing buzzards in flight, then designing kites to simulate birds' wing movements—gliding, soaring, banking, flapping—in relation to air currents that enabled them to stay airborne. It was called wing warping, Daniel said. Samantha could not follow Daniel's aeronautical explanation for the distraction of worries over the fate of the ranch, but she and Billie June, pleased that their men were getting along, winked at each other over their needlework.

Samantha turned to the page where she'd listed Trevor Waverling's company address. It was the last to be recorded. Above it was the imprint of Bridget Mahoney's name and address in San Francisco, the information still vaguely discernible because of the failure of her India gum “plug” to erase it completely. She had forgotten that she'd written down the address, then tried to rub it out after throwing away Eleanor Brewster's letter. Last April fourteenth seemed so long ago in light of all that had happened since. She heard the weary boot tread of Sloan coming up the stairs, then his tired sigh as he entered the bedroom and bent down to kiss her neck. “Nice to touch something clean and fresh,” he said. He had refused to let her participate in the field cleanup. “Men's work,” he said, and Samantha had not overridden him. Her job, along with Sloan's sisters, had been the daily and constant bottle-feeding of motherless calves. Consuela and the domestic staff had been allowed to stay with their families during the rain, and the household work had fallen to the women. Samantha reached up and drew Sloan's head down to press her cheek to his. He smelled of mud and rain.

“Who are you writing?” he asked.

Samantha told him, and he said, “A sad business, but I've got some good news for a change.”

“Finally. Let's hear it.”

Sloan unbuttoned his shirt. “I talked to Wayne today. Neal's boys found Saved. Guess where?”

“No idea,” Samantha said with a thrill of relief. She had imagined the worst.

“First crack of thunder, the boy must have hightailed it back to the ranch and got himself a nice little berth in one of the hay barns. They found him sound and dry. Had all the feed he could eat.”

Samantha laughed. “Sounds like him, the big spoiled baby. Did you ask Wayne how Daddy is getting along?”

“He's worried like everybody else. Their damages are far worse than at first thought, honey. Neal is really counting on that well coming in.”

The tone of Sloan's voice told Samantha to prepare for even more dire news than their own when she would see her father the next day, her first opportunity to visit him since the storm. The distance had been too wet and muddy for safety, and she'd been needed at the Triple S. At least there was money in the bank to cover the ranch's losses, but they would wipe out the surplus and put Las Tres Lomas back on the teetering line between the red and the black, a position her father loathed.

Out of his soiled clothes, Sloan tugged the long plait of her hair trailing down her back. “I'm hitting the tub. Feel free to come scrub my back if the spirit moves you.”

Samantha said something about flying pigs and finished addressing the envelope to Nathan Holloway at Waverling Tools. Maybe tomorrow one of the boys could run it to the post office in Fort Worth. She capped the ink bottle and put pen and paper away. It was time to help her sisters-in-law prepare supper. Samantha started to close the address book, but the faint trace of Bridget Mahoney's name held her eye. Samantha thought of Rebecca and the suddenness of her death. Had there been things her family meant to say to her, do for her, but delayed, thinking there was always time for words and deeds tomorrow for one so young? Would they regret the opportunities allowed to slip away? Samantha's throat closed. The midwife was the very last connection she would ever have to learn the truth about her birth. Was the woman still alive? She would be elderly now. Did she still live in San Francisco at this address or had she moved on? Or had time run out on Bridget Mahoney? Would Samantha one day regret letting the opportunity go by to contact the midwife while there might still be time?

Spurred by a sense of urgency, she drew out pen and paper again. She could now write to the woman without fear that her reply would be intercepted by her father or mother. Bridget Mahoney's letter would be placed in the Singleton post office box, not in the Gordons' or delivered to her mother's town house. Her parents need never know of her correspondence to the woman who'd assisted in her delivery. What were the chances that her letter would reach her anyway? Or that she would respond? Quickly, before she changed her mind, Samantha uncapped the ink bottle and dipped the point of her pen into the black liquid. “Dear Mrs. Mahoney,” she began.

She had finished the letter and folded it when she heard a hammering down the hall. Sloan came out of the bathroom dripping water and fastening a towel around his waist. “What in blazes is that noise?”

Licking the envelope, Samantha said carelessly, “Oh, that's just Daniel, replacing the doorjamb of the Christmas closet. Now maybe we can open it without using a crowbar.”

“What?!”

Before Samantha could register his outburst, Sloan had flung open their bedroom door and stomped off down the hall in his bare feet yelling, “Lane, what the hell do you think you're doing?”

Samantha heard Daniel's calm reply. “What does it look like I'm doing?”

Samantha jumped up to defuse the situation before it got out of hand. What on earth had gotten into Sloan? She rushed out into the hall to see that Billie June, too, had come out of her room, expression bewildered. Millie May had already gone down to start the evening meal, but in the kitchen Samantha was sure she could hear her brother shouting in what sounded like the beginning of a ruckus. When Samantha reached them, the two men looked as if they were about to square off at each other.

“Who gave you permission to fix that door?” Sloan demanded.

Daniel stepped away from his task, hammer in hand. “Your wife. It's on her repair list.”

Billie June put her hands on her hips, her face tight and angry. “For goodness' sakes, Sloan,” she said. “You ought to be thanking Daniel rather than dressing him down. That door has needed fixing for years, a job
you've
never taken the time to do! And speaking of dressing down, what are you doing out here in a bath towel?”

Millie May had come to the foot of the stairs. “What's going on up there?” she called.

Samantha eyed Sloan. “Yes, Sloan, what's going on?”

Sloan suddenly looked like a man knocked unconscious who'd had cold water splashed into his face. Dazedly, he shook his head. “I—I'm sorry,” he said. “I… overreacted.”

“I'll say you did,” Billie June snapped.

“It's just that… Billie June, you know we have that angel Mother made for me one Christmas stored in there and… some other breakable things of hers. I was afraid of what the hammering might do to them. Look, I'm… sorry, Daniel.” Sloan offered his hand. “Thank you… for fixing the door. It… was good of you.”

“No apology necessary,” Daniel said, accepting Sloan's hand. “I just fixed the jamb. I don't think the hammering would have damaged your mother's things.”

“But you're finished now, right?”

“Yes, I've finished.”

“That's that, then.” For good measure, in demonstration, Sloan opened and closed the door. It swung easily both ways with no sticking or sound of squeaking. “Very good. Fine job. Now let's go down and have a drink before supper, shall we?”

“Fine with me, but… uh, like that?” Daniel glanced down at the towel.

Sloan peered down. “Right. Later then.” With embarrassed dignity, he struck off down the hall, leaving wet footprints, and sailed without word or nod to Millie May, who'd reached the top of the stairs. She stared after him in astonishment.

“What just happened?” she asked the trio at the hall closet.

Billie June explained and Samantha said, “Tell me about this angel. I don't ever recall seeing it on your Christmas tree.”

“That's because we haven't taken it out of the cupboard in years. It's made of papier-mâché and probably almost dust by now. Our mother made it for Sloan, her baby boy, the last year of her life when he was four years old. It's very special to him.”

“Is there a chance I could see it before it completely disintegrates?”

“Of course,” Millie May said. “We'll need to clean out this storage cabinet anyway, see what all we can keep and what must be thrown away in case…” Her voice dropped. Silence fell, the meaning of
in case
hanging heavy in the void. Millie May said, “We'll sort through things tomorrow morning after we feed the calves. No telling what's in there.” She turned to Daniel. “It was awfully good of you to fix the doorjamb, Daniel. Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure,” Daniel said with a thoughtful glance at the storage cabinet before packing up his tools.

I
n the great room where all had gathered after an almost silent supper, the gloom of worry, sadness, and lingering embarrassment of the scene at the Christmas closet was brightened by an unexpected ray of sunshine stealing into the room before it was swiftly extinguished by nightfall. Billie June dropped her head back against her tall chair and closed her eyes. Brown smudges darkened the flesh beneath them. Visibly, she was taking the threat of foreclosure harder than the rest of them. “Oh, thank God. I hope that sliver of sunlight means the rain is finally over,” she said with a sigh of relief.

“I never thought I'd say it about rain, but I hope so, too, Billie June,” Samantha said.

Daniel entered the room from the hall after taking a telephone call from Trevor Waverling. “You missed the promise of a sunny tomorrow, Daniel,” Billie June said.

“That's what my boss called to tell me. The weather forecast calls for clearing rain, and I'm to get out to the drill site tomorrow and check out conditions, then report back to him. If it looks like the area will be dry enough by Monday, the crew can get started on the platform.” He clasped his hands together and shook them high like a victorious boxer before a cheering crowd. “The sooner we get that rig up and running, the better.”

His meaning was clear. The quicker the well started producing, the sooner the chance for all their financial worries to be over, but his attempt to inspire a little faith failed. No hope flickered on the faces of the others in the room. Slumped in his deep personal chair, crushed by an overwhelming sadness, Sloan was surprised that Daniel cared one way or the other whether the Triple S survived, but then he admitted that Daniel had surprised him in lots of ways. This chair, for instance. Out of sheer insolence, Sloan had expected the upstart to take possession of it as well as help himself without permission to his expensive cigars—to attempt to, that is—but he'd done neither. Simply to rub his nose into the physical intimacy going on between him and Billie June, Sloan had anticipated Daniel's behavior toward his sister no better than a randy cowboy taking liberties with a saloon call girl, but he'd fooled him there, too. In the presence of the household, Daniel had shown Billie June nothing but courtly respect. And Sloan had to recognize that he didn't know what the Triple S would have done without Daniel's help and expertise in these past days.

But it could all be a ruse. It could be a ploy to throw Mr. High-and-Mighty Big Britches off, get him to forget his threat to ruin him. Wearily, Sloan rubbed his forehead. The storm might have accomplished that goal for Daniel. Noble Rutherford would want his money in full, an impossible amount to pay right now. Sloan could expect no extension, no mercy. He'd struck a deal with the banker to repay the loan with interest quarterly. If the ranch's cash flow was slim one month, the next would make up for it and average out by the end of the three months, but this quarter, with the loss of so many of his market calves and the cost of feeding the ones that had survived, he would not have the money unless he let go half his workforce, the bitterest pill of all to swallow. Some of the men had worked for his father, and the measure would only forestall the inevitable. Without giving him time to regroup financially, Anne's father would call in the loan, and the Triple S would belong to the bank.

Sloan cursed himself for his haste to buy so many of his imported breeding animals at one stroke. It had shown poor judgment. The transportation costs alone had been staggering, but the time and price had seemed right. Now he was on the verge of losing the ranch that had been in his family for seventy years because of his foolhardiness to use it as collateral against a loan far less in value. His father would be holding his head in the grave. The next payment was due the first of October, but it would take a miracle to gather the money by then. Tomorrow, he must lay out the full stark truth to Samantha, then his sisters. The tragedy and shame of it sickened him to the pith of his soul. He and Samantha would have to live on Las Tres Lomas. He would be working for Neal Gordon, no matter what face his father-in-law put on their partnership. As fond as they were of each other, no ship could abide two captains, especially when one of them had sunk his own.

More immediate, though, was the necessity of getting rid of that blasted relic before the women cleaned out the Christmas closet tomorrow. If he didn't, he might lose Samantha, too. He had almost swallowed his fork when they brought up their intention at the supper table. Why had he made such a fuss over that door? Fatigue, anxiety, and lack of sleep had caused him to lose control of himself. If sly Daniel had suspected before that something was hidden behind that door that Sloan didn't want discovered, he would be sure of it now. Sloan hoped he'd bought his story of the angel, but to make sure, tonight when everybody was asleep, he'd remove the skull. Several problems faced him. Somehow he had to leave his bed without waking Samantha, take the skull from the cabinet without alerting Daniel in his room across the hall, steal down to the main floor without the stairs creaking, and where in blazes could he store the skull once he'd collected it?

Daniel Lane lay awake. It was past midnight. He wished he was in bed with Billie June, not for any reason but to keep watch over her. He missed her. He was worried about her. She was taking the likely foreclosure of the ranch harder than he would have thought. Little that she ate stayed down, and she'd become very quiet, reflective. Tonight he'd noticed the faint beginning of a wrinkle on her cheek, and rather than repulse him, he'd wished he could trace it with his finger. She was thirty-three, five years older than he, but sometimes he thought that if she'd been any younger, she'd have been too young for him. She was intelligent, sensible, and self-assured, but in some ways—innocent ways that were not his—she was still childlike. She could still find wonder in wonders, feel joy, believe, trust, love. He'd mortared over those dangers to human survival long ago, like concreting over an abandoned well for safety's sake. But Billie June, braver than he, opened herself to such foibles of the heart with full understanding of their perils, as she'd surely understood and accepted when she fell in love with him.

Daniel arranged his pillows behind his back and sat up against the headboard, listening for the strike of the clock downstairs. It would be only a matter of time before Sloan Singleton would be at the door across the hall. The skull was in there. Daniel was sure of it, the proof that would have won his wife's argument against drilling. It was almost too preposterous to think Sloan Singleton would have kept that skull—why would he?—but for whatever reason, it was a good thing he was getting rid of it. If Samantha should come across it tomorrow… Christ almighty, it represented the kind of betrayal that could end their marriage.

Daniel did not desire that for either of them. He could now plainly see that Sloan genuinely loved his wife—was insane about her. Daniel had come to know the rancher better, and—not taking into account the boy's feelings for Samantha—he didn't seem of the moral fiber to destroy evidence of her dinosaur field to ensure drilling on Las Tres Lomas. Daniel was now willing to believe that Sloan had a more vaulted reason for spiriting away the skull than the motive he'd accused him of, but would it outweigh the most obvious and less scrupulous one to Samantha? It would depend on their trust in each other, but Daniel was well experienced with the fragility of trust, and he'd have no part in breaking up a marriage meant to be. Mr. High-and-Mighty Big Britches could rest easy. Daniel Lane had no intention of exposing him to his wife.

Daniel had come around to another shocking realization as well. He didn't want Sloan Singleton's ranch. God, no! Four days ago, he arrived at the Triple S still obsessed with the aim of making it his life's mission to wrest it from Mr. High-and-Mighty Big Britches, impossible though his dream was. Nothing was impossible if you had enough hate and will to make it happen. He'd thrived on the image of taking over the ranch, wearing Sloan's spurs, riding his big stallion about the thousands of acres that were once Sloan Singleton's. In the darkness, Daniel could feel himself blush from the infantilism of the idea.

Now Daniel couldn't give a tinker's dam about getting his own back from Sloan Singleton. What a waste of time and energy, and for what? Ranching had to be in your blood to make it work, or even if it didn't work, and this past week of muscle-aching, gut-wrenching, never-ending toil had proved to him that it damn sure wasn't in his. Sloan Singleton was welcome to the Triple S with his blessing and no threat from him, not that it might belong to the rancher much longer, and the tragedy of it was tearing Billie June up inside, the main reason—he had to admit it—his obsession had lost its fire.

A soft shuffling sound in the hall made Daniel sit up. He wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been listening. He fastened his eyes on the narrow gap at the foot of his door, and sure enough, a shadow fell across the light cast by a hall sconce. Soundlessly, Daniel swung his legs off the bed, tiptoed to the door, and pressed his ear against it. All was quiet, but Daniel could almost feel a human presence on the other side of the wood. Sloan had stolen to the door to listen for a sound from Daniel's room. Daniel held his breath. After a few seconds the shadow moved away. Daniel resisted confirming his suspicion, for if Sloan was at the closet, the slightest sound might startle him. It might cause him to drop something—the skull, probably—that would fall to the floor and shatter, and then all hell would break loose. He figured Sloan would have hidden the fossil far back and out of reach of the girls. By Daniel's estimation, Sloan's quest would be over in less than a minute. After another three, Daniel cracked the door slightly to catch sight of the sconce light shining on Sloan's blond head as he hurried silently down the stairs carrying a wrapped bundle.

Good boy! thought Daniel. At least one concern was off his worried mind.

The next day, Friday, the skies cleared and the sun came out to shed its light upon the sodden pastures of Las Tres Lomas and the Triple S and grew hotter as the day progressed. It seemed like summer again. No clouds threatened the horizon, giving promise of a drying trend with high temperatures, not unprecedented in Central Texas. The owners and cowhands of both ranches, despite the work they knew awaited them, cheered in joy and relief. They'd anticipated cold, moist days following the departure of the rain to their northern neighbors that would delay the drying process. Daniel met his inspection of the drill site with less enthusiasm.

“Looks like the area will take part of next week to dry before we can get to work,” he told his boss, and felt disheartened when he was ordered back to Dallas and his draftsman table by Monday. Further disappointment awaited when Billie June told him she'd not return with him. He was to have no say in her decision, having no ground on which to argue.

“My place is here,” she told Daniel. “I have to help my brother and sister prepare to dismantle the house.”

That afternoon, with Samantha, Billie June, and Daniel gathered round, Millie May carefully drew out from the decorations closet a wrapped item and removed the covering of a small papier-mâché angel. An awed silence greeted the unveiling of the exquisite western figure. A cowboy hat of Lilliputian dimensions sat rakishly on its little halo, a tiny bandanna encircled its neck, and a coiled miniature rope hung from a wing. “There were little boots, too, but they disintegrated long ago,” Billie June explained, her choked voice echoing the sadness of Christmas holidays that would never be celebrated in the house again. That morning, Sloan had called his wife and sisters into his study. They'd gone in with eyes hollow but dry. They came out crying, and Daniel had felt a queer heaviness in his chest.