Dorothy Garlock (35 page)

“You could have kept Burr from going,” Johanna accused bitterly. “Why didn’t you?”

Ben looked at her sharply and silently questioned the reason for her outburst. He took his pipe from his mouth and tapped the bowl on the heel of his shoe.

“Johanna,” he said slowly, “Burr is a man who makes his own decisions and does what he must. I wouldn’t presume to tell him what to do, and I advise you to do the same.”

At first Johanna was slightly resentful of the advice, and then she saw the wisdom of it. She sat quietly and the afternoon, which she thought would last forever, wore on. She strained her eyes toward the horizon, watching and waiting for a moving speck, a puff of dust, anything that would mean that Burr was on his way home. Neither she nor Ben exchanged another word. For once, the man beside her didn’t wish to visit.

The shadows of the mountains crept down over the ranch buildings and the air became cooler. Rosita brought a warm shawl for Johanna, and Jacy, wrapped in a blanket, joined them on the porch, her usual exuberance dampened by worry. Across the porch, Sofia came out of Burr’s room. She was lighting fires in the hearths to take off the evening chill. Food smells came from the kitchen, where Rosita was preparing the evening meal, but they went unnoticed by the people waiting on the porch.

At first Johanna wasn’t sure she had seen anything. She waited a moment, then slowly moved to the edge of the house, all her senses willing the image for which she hoped. The speck was too large to be a horseman; still she waited. She thought her heart would burst. Dread, fear, and a wee bit of hope kept her feet rooted to the spot on the porch and her eyes on the horizon. The speck disappeared down an incline, and it was a long while before it appeared again, larger this time. It was the wagon, and her heart leaped with relief.

“They’re coming, Ben!” She wrapped her arms about the heavy post that supported the roof, and her eyes clung to the wagon. As it drew nearer, her happiness dimmed. Only one man sat on the seat, and it was unmistakably Mooney. Her heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach.
Oh, God!
she prayed.
Please don’t let Burr be dead!

Drawn by an irresistible force, her legs moved her out onto the path in front of the house. She could see Luis’s horse tied behind the wagon and his black sombrero bobbing up and down behind the wagon seat. She stood very still, fighting the despair that threatened to overwhelm her.

Red’s big sorrel shot past her. Johanna watched him ride to the wagon, wheel his horse, and look down into the space behind the seat. He spoke to Luis for a moment that seemed an hour to Johanna, then galloped his horse toward the house.

“They’re all right!” he shouted. He pulled his horse to a skidding stop beside the porch. The animal danced around nervously while Red said, “Burr’s been cut up some. You’ll need hot water and lots of clean cloth.”

Johanna was suddenly intoxicated with relief. Burr was alive! Burr was alive! The words repeated themselves in her mind as she ran to the kitchen, calling out orders to Sofia and Rosita, then went swiftly to Burr’s room to stoke the fire and turn down the bed. She went back outside and waited anxiously while Mooney pulled the wagon to a stop at the edge of the porch.

It took three men to carry Burr’s limp body into the house and place it on his bed. He was almost totally covered with blankets, so Johanna saw only the top of his head and the soles of his moccasins.

“Johanner,” Mooney was at her side, “Burr’ll be fine as a fiddle in a day or two. He done lost a parcel of blood, and you’d best wait and let Ben and Luis clean him up a bit.”

“What’s the matter with him? Why don’t you want me to see him?”

Sofia bustled by her, carrying the teakettle and an armful of clean cloths. Rosita came along behind with whiskey and a large washbasin. Johanna moved to follow them into the room. Luis barred her way.

“In just a few minutes, sister. No man wants his woman to see him so.”

“What did they do to him?” Her voice rose to near hysteria.

“He throwed up, is what he done, Johanner,” Mooney said. “C’mon over here, ’n’ I’ll tell ya while they clean him up. Ya see, thar was this big buck that Burr was goin’ t’fight. So he took a big chaw of tobaccy in his jaw, and he swallered the juice and it made him sick. He’s the biggest mess ya ever did see.”

They were standing outside the door to Burr’s room. The ranch hands, who would not have dared set foot on the porch while old Mack was alive, gathered around. Mooney was in his glory. They hung on every word he spoke.

“I tell you, that Indian buck, the one what wanted to kill Burr and go on the rampage, was meaner than a steer with a crooked horn. He was big, too. Big as Burr, and madder than a cow with her tit caught in the fence. That feller, Geronimo, had put him down some and that went against the grain. He shore thought he was a goin’ to cut Burr up and use him for dog meat. But that Burr was steady. He stepped into the ring they drawed on the ground like he done it ever’day. He give that buck a fight. Then he lost his knife and I thought he was a goner.” Mooney paused, enjoying the crowd’s suspense. “Then I knowed why he took the chaw. He spit right in that buck’s eye and killed him with his own knife. The women folk let out the keening cry and Burr come a stumblin’ to the wagon. It were the purtest sight I ever did see. We drove outta that camp jist as purty as ya please, till we got over the rise.” He laughed. “Then we high-tailed it. Luis met us a couple miles from his place. You can bet yore bobbed tail I was glad to see him.”

Mooney described every detail, leaving nothing to the imagination. The men stayed clustered around him, awed by his and Burr’s bravery, and Mooney basked in their admiring glances.

Not until later did Johanna remember that not a word about old Mack had been spoken all day. From outward appearances, at least, it was as though he’d never existed.

Jacy asked Johanna if she and Luis could use the room at the top of the stairs, as she was sure Johanna would want to stay near her husband. There was no way Johanna could deny that fact without letting her sister know the true situation between her and Burr. She watched Jacy and Luis go up the stairs, their arms around each other, and she wondered if the happiness they shared would ever be hers.

Johanna and Ben sat for a long while beside Burr’s bed after everyone had left. The flickering light from the lamp showed the cuts and bruises on his face. He slept deeply. Soon the sleepless night and the stress of waiting for him to return made themselves known to Johanna’s tired body, and she nodded.

“Go to bed, child,” Ben said quietly.

“You don’t mind?”

“Not at all. I’ll go soon, myself. I’m just so relieved to have him back that I want to be with him for a while longer.”

“I’ll lie down in Bucko’s room so that I can hear Burr if he calls.” She kissed Ben’s cheek. “We’ve managed to weather one more crisis, Ben,” she said tiredly.

“Life is a series of crises, Johanna. And you done just fine with this one. It was a lucky day for me and my boys when you came to the valley.”

And for Jacy, too,
Johanna thought as she left the room.
But as for me—only God knows.

T
wenty-one

I
n the late afternoon Johanna stood in the doorway of the kitchen, breathing in the aroma of the cooking food and smiling with satisfaction. Sofia was preparing the evening meal. Meat and thick broth, Johanna had told her, were the quickest way to replace blood. As she went down the hall she silently gave thanks that Burr had returned and for the gift of peace he had brought back from the Indian camp.

Johanna, about to tiptoe into Burr’s room, held her finger to her lips in an attempt to silence the giggles coming from Jacy and Bucko, who sat on the porch with a book. It was as though someone had swept the gloom from the stone house, leaving it shiny and bright; even Bucko attacked his studies with less grumbling. She entered the room and glanced at the bed. Burr’s eyes were closed. Johanna paused to look at him. His face was softer, his mouth gentler in sleep. His light hair curled down over his ears, making him look younger. Looking at him, Johanna almost forgot what she’d come for. She went to the mantel and lifted the chimney from the lamp to clean it.

“I’m hungry.”

Johanna turned to find him looking at her.

“You’re awake.” She said no more, because her voice was shaky, as were her legs as she went to the bed.

“I feel like somethin’s gnawing a hole in my belly.”

“Well,” she said, with a casualness she did not feel, “you’ve already got enough holes in you, and you sure don’t need another. I’ll bring you some broth.”

He pushed back the cover and lifted his head, his hand seeking the bandage on his side. He closed his eyes and moaned against the pain that shot through him. His head fell back on the pillow, and he looked up at her with that familiar, irritating, obstinate look on his face. Damn know-it-all woman! She was so damn confident, so . . . haughty, and so goddamn . . . beautiful. She stood there like a queen looking down at a peasant! He couldn’t even look at her without feeling inferior. He didn’t like that feeling. It brought out the worst in him.

“I don’t need any damn broth. I need meat. Where’s Ben?”

Johanna felt like throwing his chimney into the fireplace. She breathed deeply, clenched her teeth, and glared down at him. He was back to his true self: demanding, ungrateful, and crude. How could she have possibly thought the two of them could manage any kind of peaceful existence together?

“I’ll call Ben and tell Sofia to bring you your meal.”

“You bring it. You’re my wife,” he called as she left the room.

She stuck her head back in the door. “Unfortunately, but I’m not your servant.”

Johanna went swiftly down the porch to Ben’s room. She rapped on the door, then opened it when Ben called out. He and Luis were looking over a stack of papers found in the bureau in old Mack’s room.

“He’s awake,” Johanna announced, “and cross as a bear.”

She walked briskly down the hall to the kitchen, grabbed a plate and forked a piece of half-done meat from the skillet, and slammed it down on it. She added two large half-cooked turnips and several cold biscuits. On her way to the door she snatched a knife and fork from the table, completely unaware of the puzzled look on Sofia’s face. She kicked open the door to Burr’s room as she had when she’d taken food to old Mack. Without looking at the man on the bed, she hooked a chair up close with her foot, put the plate on it, and walked out.

“Come back here!”

She pulled the door closed with a loud bang. She heard him laugh and his mocking voice reached her through the roar in her ears as she walked away.

“'Why don’t you slam the door, Johanna?”

She went to the end of the porch and around the house toward the smokehouse. Hateful, hateful man! Her eyes found her hat nailed above the barn door. She clenched her jaw in frustration and turned her back on the symbol of her humiliation. She looked out over the peaceful valley, felt the cool mountain air fan her flushed cheeks, and gradually became calm. She wished desperately that she’d never need return to the house, but she knew it was an impossible wish. Dwelling on the situation would not change things, she told herself sternly. With her face a mask of cool composure, she went back to the kitchen to help Sofia.

When the evening meal was over, she and Jacy settled down in the sitting room with a lamp between them, Johanna knitting stockings for the baby, Jacy unraveling a shawl that had been their mother’s and rolling the yarn into a ball. Jacy had spent time with Burr while Johanna had helped Sofia. Johanna hadn’t gone near her husband since she had left his room shortly after he had awakened, and Jacy, although puzzled by her sister’s behavior and sudden loss of cheerfulness, didn’t ask any questions.

Until the Apache left the valley, Jacy and Luis were going to stay at the house. Having them there, so obviously in love, made Johanna more aware than ever of her position as unloved wife. The thought kept coming back to her that if the
padre
had come one day later there would have been no need for her to marry Burr. Old Mack was dead, and surely it could be established that Burr, Luis, and Bucko were his heirs.

Luis came for Jacy. He, Burr, and Ben had been together in Burr’s room for more than an hour.

“Come with me,
querida.
” He pulled her up and out of the deep chair. “Ben wishes to talk with your sister, and you need to rest.”

“Is he in his room?” Johanna asked.

“No, sister, he’s with your husband.” Luis’s eyes flicked to Jacy to see if she had noticed the tightening of Johanna’s lips and the way her body had stiffened.

Johanna picked up the shawl, her movements stiff and jerky, and flung it about her shoulders. She went down the hall to the porch.
The arrangement of this house, with outside doors to the end rooms, is ridiculous,
she thought,
just like everything else in this blasted valley.

She pushed open the door to Burr’s room and stepped inside. Two lamps were lit; the one on the table beside the bed cast a glow on Burr’s scowling features, the other was on the wide mantel shelf. Burr said nothing to her, but his eyes met hers the moment she walked through the door. Silence, taut and chilling, stretched between them.

Ben got to his feet. “Come sit here, Johanna. There’s something Burr and I wish to discuss with you.”

Johanna advanced slowly, pulling the shawl closely about her; although the room was warm, she suddenly felt cold. Burr was propped up on the bed, and several papers lay on the quilt beside him.

Ben cleared his throat. “We found a paper among Mack’s things, Johanna, that concerns you.”

Startled, she looked at him questioningly.

“Mack left a letter to let us know, in case of his death, that when Willard Risewick left the valley he carried with him a will making you his heir. You are to receive the total bulk of his estate—money and land.” Ben’s eyes went from Johanna to Burr and back.

The full meaning of Ben’s words did not take root in Johanna’s mind at first. When they did, shock and confusion took over. Finally she gasped, “No! He couldn’t have.”