Keeping Secrets (2 page)

I stood by gritting my teeth as she preened in front of the bureau mirror in a way Aunt Eartha would have regarded as sinful had she been around.

“Just look what I found in my old coat,” she said snidely.

“Give me those ribbons,” I demanded.

“Surely they aren't yours, Leslie … my word, where would you have gotten these? I'm sure I bought them some time ago with the money I made working part-time at the cafe. That's just what I told Mama.”

“You sorry—I'll scratch your eyes out.”

“Now now, little cousin, Mama would be so upset to hear about that.”

After shedding many tears of frustration that night, I made up my mind to get out of that wretched town as soon as I could. Less than two years later, in 1898, my chance came and I took it. Nearly twenty years would pass before I would fully recognize the consequences of that mistake.

2

Even as my train pulled into San Antonio on an afternoon in mid-March of 1914, I had little idea of what awaited me. The past three weeks had been among the most puzzling of my life, and had begun with the information that my release had been arranged by a gentleman who wished to remain unidentified.

The agency he'd employed instructed me to leave Denver on the evening of March 10. Enclosed with their letter was my ticket plus two hundred dollars, which I was advised to use for clothing and any other items I might need. At the end of the line in San Antonio, I was to go to the Menger Hotel where a suite had been reserved in my name. There I would be met for the first time by the man seeking me for a “highly specialized position.”

With the certainty I had nothing to lose, I agreed to go. I had some money tucked away in Colorado, and if the prospect awaiting me was not to my liking, I would not have to endure it forever. At the sound of the conductor's voice calling “Sanan-ton-ee-o,” my pulse quickened. I pulled out a hand mirror and straightened my hair a bit, then placed the big gray Gainsborough hat with pink plumes on my head, pulling it far down on the right so that my face remained in shadows. I touched up my pale cheeks with a faint dab of rouge and buttoned my coat. The gray travel suit with pink piping was one of three frocks I'd purchased with the money from the agency, since I'd always been one to buy fashionable, tasteful clothes whenever the opportunity presented itself.

I knew little about San Antonio beyond the fact there was a river running through it, and the site of a battle fought long ago called the Alamo. I'd featured it to be somewhat backward, with horses and cows still wandering freely around muddy roads, few buildings of any consequence, and plenty of smoke-filled saloons. The scene before me as my taxi pulled away from the depot was startlingly different. There were as many automobiles rumbling down paved streets as there were horse-drawn vehicles, and the taxi driver reaffirmed, “The horse and buggy days are about over.”

There were blocks and blocks of tall, prominent brick buildings, inviting shop windows galore, and many more people up and down the walks, better dressed, than I'd surmised. There was more of everything, modern and up-to-date as Denver.

“I had no idea this town was so large. How many people live here?” I asked.

“Around a hundred thousand.”

I looked out the window once more. Soon, as we detoured time and again to bypass street-paving work under way and other various road obstructions, I realized how strangely the city was laid out. Down one short block we'd go, then turn at such an abrupt angle I was sure we were headed back in the direction from where we'd come. In another block or two the road would fork—dangerously close to the steps of a building looming up in front of us, it seemed to me—and the taxi driver would veer to the right or left, then continue a few yards before crossing a bridge. I could not make heads or tails of the river's course because I soon lost track of the number of bridges we crossed and where. The area looked like an endless maze of sudden crooks and jags, many of them leading nowhere. Finally, my neck aching from looking back and forth so often, I said, “Aren't there any plain ordinary square blocks in this place?”

“A few,” the driver replied with a laugh. “People have a saying that San Antonio was laid out by a drunk Mexican, but the truth is, one reason for all the turns is that it's planned around several odd-shaped plazas. We haven't passed any yet, but the Menger is on Alamo Plaza, for one, so you'll see what I mean … and I guess the way the river runs is partly to blame.”

“Where is the river from here? It seems to go in a circle, for all the bridges.”

“Not exactly, but it does a lot of winding. In fact, not far from here it takes a couple of horseshoe swags. The reason we've crossed so many bridges right in town, though, is because it makes a sharp turn to the left, goes the length of a couple of blocks, turns to the right again and goes back to where it started.” He glanced back at my bewildered face. “It's like three sides of a box,” he added, then shrugged helplessly. “Lady, you'd better get a map.”

I laughed a little nervously and said, “A person could get lost here and never find the way out.”

The Menger suite was large and airy, handsomely furnished, with great windows showering the bed and sitting rooms with afternoon sunlight. Upon entering, my spirits rose, and I walked through the rooms, looking out the windows upon the garden below, as though wandering through a world of secluded fantasy. A bowl of fruit and some little cakes had been provided on a table, and also a bottle of good brandy. I searched for a card with the sender's name, but found none.

After a few minutes my wary nature surfaced, and I began to assess the business immediately before me. Just fifteen minutes from now a man I didn't know would come through the door of the sitting room. So far he had directed all the moves. Shall I take off my hat and coat, and let him discover me lounging casually on a sofa, a book in my hand, perhaps?

Decidedly not.

I didn't like being looked over. I unlocked the sitting-room door, and walked into the adjoining bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar. Still feeling at a disadvantage, I switched on the lamps in the sitting room and returned to the bedroom, pulling down the shades and closing the draperies. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

At a quarter past three my whole body jerked to the sound of a light rapping on the door. I walked as far as the passage door and called out, “Come in, I'll be with you in a moment.”

When he came into view I could tell this was a marvelous figure of a man, beginning with his full black beard. From there down he was more and more pleasing, with broad shoulders tapering to a well-tended mid-section, narrow hips, and long muscular legs, which, as his body shifted around, revealed the well-developed, hard thighs of a horseman. He took off his coat, which he threw absently against a chair as he removed his black wide-brimmed hat. Even then I didn't recognize him.

His back to me, he was pouring himself a glass of brandy when I chose the moment to come through and close the door behind me. All at once I wished he wouldn't turn around. Maybe I wasn't at all what he had in mind. Maybe …

“It's been a long time, Leslie,” he said, then turned around and smiled. He might have smacked me on the cheek for my surprise.

“Emory Cabot?”

He threw back his head in laughter, then walked right over and swung me around in his arms. I can never recall being so astonished to see anyone in my life. All I could say, over and over, was, “I can't believe it!”

“Let's have some brandy,” he said, and we sat down to talk.

He didn't want to discuss his object in getting me to San Antonio just yet, and since he'd started from Childers and trailed me all the way to the little town between Denver and Durango, there didn't seem to be much I could tell him about myself. I insisted upon knowing step by step everything he'd done since leaving our hometown and he didn't mind sharing a good part of it with me for he was not a modest man. He'd gone from place to place as a hired hand in the beginning, then finally made it to the Oklahoma oil fields. He won a lot of card games and saved a lot of money, then bought a very small interest in a well that happened to be one of the biggest strikes in the fields.

“Does good luck always follow you around?” I asked.

“It has so far, but I didn't want to push it too much then, so I backed off and started investing in land. Went into New Mexico and, later, all the way down into South Texas.”

I shook my head in admiration. “Most card players I've known didn't have that kind of sense. Sooner or later they lost it all. You set out to accomplish something and kept your mind on it until you got where you wanted to go. I always knew you would. Now, how does it feel to be a self-made success?”

He paused thoughtfully. “I haven't finished, yet.”

The coming of evening threw long irregular shadows across the floor, and the lamplight playing on Emory's face gave him an ever more secretive look even as he continued telling me about himself with apparent candor. He kept our goblets full of brandy and took me through tale after tale of adventure and risk, yet I found myself losing concentration because I was transfixed by his gaze and had to look away now and then as though fending off a wizard's spell. Deep-set and piercing, his eyes were like those of a wild animal, bolder and even more full of suspicion than I'd realized as a youngster. That Emory at thirty-four would have matured into such a dazzling man was a prospect I had never considered. I'd always wondered where he had gone and what he had done, and remembered him as the boy with the smooth face, lean frame, and a sack thrown over his back.

Finally I emptied my glass and leaned back. Emory the man was simply too good to be true. This evening could not be happening to me.… Then a question came to mind with a thud. “Are you married?”

“No. I live alone, except for Nathan Hope. He works for me.”

“Speaking of work, you've spent a good deal of effort, not to mention an awful lot of money, getting me here. What sort of job did you have in mind?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me and began pacing the floor. “There are a few things you ought to know before I tell you that. First of all, I have never forgotten you, not in all the years. I never forget anyone who is good to me; I've never been one to forgive a person who gives me a bad turn, and I always get even.”

Then he paused and looked at me, his expression softer. “I'll tell you something else. I made up my mind when I put that agency to work that if they found you married with a passel of kids, I'd never interfere with your life. As it was …”

“Emory, you did me a great favor and don't think I fail to be grateful. But surely when you learned the truth you could have come to me instead of going to all this bother of bringing me here. Why didn't you?”

“I just—” he began, then paused and looked away. “I have too many business obligations to make a trip right now.”

“It's all right, Emory. I can understand your not wanting to see me in that place.”

He turned to me again, and smiled gently. “I guess that was obvious, wasn't it. Still it was more than that. “I felt that here you could face me with some … dignity.”

I was too moved by that remark to make a reply. Finally I realized I still had no answer to the question at hand. “Just what is that ‘highly specialized position' you mentioned?”

“I want you to be my wife.”

I was thoroughly dumb-struck. “But I … can't. Surely a man like you could take his choice of any young woman—” I stammered.

“I don't want just any young woman. I want you,” he said, then smiled. “Besides, it would take one hell of a female to put up with me.”

I sat back, feeling dizzy. “I wish I'd known this before I came down here. As I said, I can't possibly marry you.”

“Why not?”

“The reasons should be obvious.… I'm not the same Leslie Weems you left in Childers.”

He laughed. “I'm well aware of that. When did you change your name? That damned well kept me from finding you.”

“Long ago,” I told him, but his question provoked another from me. “Just how
did
the agency go about finding me?”

“It was no easy job. Your Uncle Jack was the only Weems left in Childers, and apparently he was even less friendly than he used to be.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. He opened the door about halfway and when the detectives mentioned your name, he told them you had run off as a youngster and had never been any good. Then he slammed the door. The agency started in a circle around Childers and went from there until they found a record of an Electra Weems. They wrote me to see whether I thought that might be you, and I told them I didn't know but they might as well have a go at it. From then on it wasn't so difficult to trail you.”

“Was there anyone left in Childers from your family?”

He shook his head. “I assured them I wanted nothing to do with any of the son-of-a-bitching Cabots if they did run across one. I wouldn't give my boot heel—”

He was so full of hatred that I winced and lowered my eyes.

“I didn't mean to get started on that …” he apologized. “God knows your childhood was no more pleasant than mine. It's no wonder you changed your name to Electra—I like that, by the way. I'm lucky you didn't change your last name, too.”

He sat down on the opposite end of the sofa and considered me. “Other than that you are very much the same,” he said softly. “Your hair is still blond … maybe just a little lighter than I remembered … your figure has certainly blossomed. You seem to have put on flesh in all the right places,” he observed, then moved so near our shoulders touched. “Let me look,” he said, and turned my face toward his. “Your eyes are the same when you look at me. I'd almost forgotten how that used to make me feel … like I could whip the world.”