Men had so many freedoms while women could only taste small ones on the sly. It was a poor exchange, marriage for loneliness, independence for security and obedience. My but she was bitter this morning. Katherine knew the source of her anger. Burn English. There had been no improprieties in a physical sense, yet if her moments with him were known, she would be called terrible names for her tenderness.
Tied to a reprobate father, cooking and caring for him more than fifteen years, refusing the suitors he deemed proper, seeking out men who showed more life, more daring than would make a good husband, she was perceived as less than a middling success, barren and still virginal. And angry at the world pushing her into the mold it preferred.
The needle slipped, her finger bled two drops to stain the lovely pale green lawn with two small, perfect circles of red. She knew all about blood; she would have to wash the stains before they set. She did not move, composed, erect in the straight-backed chair in its corner of the small back room. Where she had held guard over Burn English. The material spread over her lap, she put the pricked finger to her mouth and slowly laved it with her tongue, sucking gently, tenderly, remembering other tastes and different times.
So much had revolved around this room through the spring months, so much pain and doubt, so much anger and distrust. She had known, when she looked into those eyes, that it was the core of Burn English, the heart that beat on despite the wounding, it was the strength of soul that had kept life in the wasted body.
It might be horrible to admit, but she missed her patient, longed for the need he’d had for her. His life and daily comfort had been placed in her hands. It was what she wanted, that terrible need from another human being. Not this soft, endless repetition of cleaning and cooking and smiling and deferring to whatever a man wished.
She shook her head. There was Davey who had changed so in the past weeks. She had continued to conduct herself in a calm and distant manner around him, very much the lady, and Davey was responding as a reflection of her attitude. This was the explanation of his change, his new remoteness, the absence of his obvious affection.
She kept a constant internal dialogue to remind herself about Davey, that he had the ability to read her thoughts and guess her feelings. Sincethe morning it was discovered that English had taken the pacing grullo and was gone, Hildahl had looked at Katherine as if he were witness to the raw side of a woman he had held in high esteem. Whatever it was that bothered him, Davey Hildahl had a forward, bitter touch to his words now, and Katherine knew she responded in kind, with a quick, sharp word and a hard stare whenever he confronted her.
She did not know what was happening to her ordered world, but it was frightening, and exciting, at the same time. Maybe she was being granted the merest taste of an unorthodox freedom.
Her father, however. She had not been surprised when he had put out the word that he was claiming the mustangs branded with his Bench D. Edward Donald saw a chance to take something to which he had no earned right. Since he had officially put in his claim and had signed a warrant, she had not spoken to her parent.
Her hands began to play with an escaped lock of hair. Sweeping and cleaning, baking cakes and pies, all were more difficult when her thick hair came unbound and into her eyes. She would cut it but for the weight of it on her neck, the pleasure of throwing back her head and feeling its bounce. Unseemly, her father might say, a sign of wantonness in an otherwise good and righteous woman. But there was so little she could be vain about, so little to please just her.
She had a quiet, secret memory of one morning finding Burn English with a book out of Meiklejon’s library. A leather-bound copy with faded gold script and an odd dark stain on the cover—Rudyard Kipling. English had sat with his backpropped against the wall, his hands wrapped around the book, working over the words. When Katherine had entered the room, he had dropped the book under his covers.
Since his departure, there had been no word from English, or about him except that he continued to escape the law’s highly ineffective attempts to take the mustangs from his stewardship. No word from Jack Holden, either, but lots of stories about rustling cattle, scrapes and fights in too many small villages at the same time to be possible. Gossip about him and the Blaisdel girl, which had a nasty turn. And Davey Hildahl, bitter and harsh, barely smiling. Too many men and none of them belonged only to her.
Jack rode in to town to see her. Just her. After two months of being deliberately ignored, Rose had resolved not to respond to him. But he rode to the back of the hotel, where he had first found her midwinter. And she was there again, getting vegetables from the root cellar for one of Mama’s heavy stews. Nothing had changed about their meeting except the time of year. The humid sweetness of late summer replaced the bitter wind, but that was all.
Jack leaned on the low cellar door, and, when Rose turned around, a basket full of carrots and onions on her arm, he was there watching her. She hugged the basket to her belly like a child and felt her heart pound. He was as handsome as she remembered—the smile slightly vague, the eyes still blue. He had come in just to see her, he said. Here was her power, her strength. An outlaw wanted by the law, hated by everyone, and he risked his life to come to her.
There was little tenderness in his hands. She was casual, breaking away from the urgent caress to put the basket on the damp cellar floor, and then pat her hair, work at the buttons of her skirt. She did not want his lovemaking here; she hated the smell of the place, the crawling insects and other varmints.
He came back with his hands to raise her skirt, and, when she tried to cry out, he covered her mouth with his hand. She stared into his eyes, which mocked her as he finished his labored, dispassionate act.
They separated and did not look at each other. Rose attempted to clean herself while Jack did nothing but stare out past the cellar’s heavy posts to the bright air beyond them.
She revolved slowly, brushed against Jack, and brought his attention back to her. Then unexpectedly he leaned down and kissed the top of her head and Rose knew the man she loved had returned.
“Rose Victoria, you are a pretty thing.”
She didn’t want this, as if she were nothing more than a child. Then her mother’s shriek called for her, and she sighed deeply, again aware of the gesture and what it accomplished. Jack leaned over her as she sorted out the vegetables and wiped the last of the dirt from her hair and face. He picked a twig from her curls, put his face to her bosom, and kissed her skin in a loving, long, delicious kiss. Rose quickly rebuttoned her shirtwaist and went out into the misery of the noon sun. When she risked a look back, Jack Holden was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Gayle Souter and Davey Hildahl rode up to Quemado where Melicio Quitano wanted to know if he would ever get his fee for having returned Meiklejon’s pacer. Souter paid him, then got a tidbit of old gossip for his troubles. Burn English was riding the dark colt branded with Donald’s brand, and Jack Holden had another Liddel mount, a stocky paint this time.
They were also told that Stan Brewitt had come in one night and offsaddled his badly lamed red dun. Said the horse had stepped in wire and panicked. He’d been up checking on the Red Durham bull, and said there were wild mares in the fenced-off pasture.
Souter looked sideways at Davey, but neither man spoke of the mares after that.
The wire cut had turned sour, and, despite three weeks of care, the only answer was a bullet between the ears for the red dun, and a meal for the coyotes out in a distant wash. Brewitt moped around. The dun had been his best mount, but he perked up when Souter brought in a rugged buckskin and let Brewitt have the horse.