Titans (21 page)

E
arly Saturday morning, Todd Baker boarded the Texas Pacific for the two-hour rail trip to Fort Worth from Dallas and saw Samantha waiting for him on the station platform as the train pulled in. The first glimpse of her through the compartment window told him that something was up. She was pacing as if constant movement might hurry the train along. His bride, Ginny, who loved and missed Samantha, had begged to come and spend the day with the three of them, but Todd had gently refused her pleas. (Ginny did not like sausage pancakes anyway.) “Sam said she needed my expertise, hon. She sounded pretty urgent about it. I'm guessing she's found something she'd like me to analyze—something like a rock formation or a sea relic—out on Las Tres Lomas. You'd be stuck alone in that cavern of a ranch house for hours unless you'd like to ride along with us, and”—a smile and quick kiss—“I'm thinking you wouldn't.”

He was absolutely right about that, Ginny had said. She'd hoped that after a brief consultation over a little rock or fossil fragment, the three of them would lunch together and catch up on all the town gossip.

Todd was dressed for the possibility of a long ride in the saddle to some remote spot on the ranch, and from the train window he saw that Samantha was, too. What in the world had she found? He was a prospecting geologist. Would Samantha have called him—a good friend, yes, but not a confidant—with an urgent request to see him if she hadn't discovered something that would interest him professionally? It couldn't be something like an oil seep or a gas-leaking fracture, although he believed, along with Trevor Waverling, that the Central Plains was rich in petroleum and natural gas deposits, as evidenced by telltale signs of oil found on land surfaces and the area's number of sulfur springs. If Samantha had discovered something of the sort on Las Tres Lomas, she'd have kept quiet about it. She was keenly opposed to oil drilling on crop and grazing lands.

He had a few minutes before leaving his seat to observe his friend through the window. What would happen to Samantha Gordon now that she'd decided to walk the path her leather-bound father had chosen for her? Was she doomed to spend her life at Las Tres Lomas fulfilling a misguided obligation as a cattleman's daughter? What a tragic waste! Samantha possessed the purest scientific mind he'd so far encountered. The scientific mind called for a continual openness to new ideas, concepts, and theories that challenged the established point of view. Samantha had been notorious for that stubbornness at Simmons Preparatory School. Her reluctance to embrace a preferred conclusion was based not on obstinacy but on a sincere desire to learn the truth. Unlike some scientists Todd knew, Samantha could let go of preconceptions and old beliefs and accept new explanations when the evidence supported them. Todd would never forget the day when a lab experiment had led her to question the accepted theory that oil originates from the fossilized remains of animals and plants buried in ancient rock layers. Her microscope and beaker had revealed the possibility that while oil contains chemical elements found in living matter, the viscous liquid itself did not evolve from once-living material. Therefore, she'd hypothesized, petroleum might come from another source not yet identified. Their professor had scoffed. Could Samantha then explain why petroleum deposits were often found on or near remains of prehistoric life?

Also, Todd mused, how in the world was Samantha, stuck out on a ranch, ever to meet a man of her same intelligence and worth, someone who would love and cherish her as he did his Ginny? The only man he knew equal to her—and Todd had his doubts about him—was Sloan Singleton, and he was courting that airhead, Anne Rutherford. What Singleton saw in her besides her beauty was beyond the capability of Todd's pragmatic mind. Maybe he'd chosen Anne over Sam because she
was
an airhead, a girl he could boss around. In that case, Samantha wouldn't have suited Sloan at all. Todd sighed. As his poetry-loving Ginny would say, was their lovely and intelligent Samantha “born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air” like the flower in Thomas Gray's poem?

“
A sauropod!
” Todd exclaimed a short time later, when Samantha told him the reason for her summons. His vocal astonishment carried so loudly, he drew looks from others gathered on the train platform. “Are you sure?”

“No, that's why you're here, but I'm almost certain. I've brought you a saddled horse. I would have come in a wagon, but we'd have had to leave it at the barn and pick up our horses there. This way, we can cut across from the road straight to Windy Bluff.”

Todd's face fell. “What? Before we have sausage pancakes?”

“Later, when you've looked at my find. I've nearly gone crazy this week waiting for you.”

A little over an hour later, Todd was squatting down next to the partial skull. He brushed more of the sand away and carefully examined the ridges of the nose and jaw. “Looks like the features of a dinosaur to me, all right. This could really be something, Sam. Most of the skeletons of these animals found so far are minus the heads. Dinosaur skulls were so small and fragile that as soon as the beast died, the head was the first part of the body to disintegrate.”

“So who do I contact about this?” Samantha asked. “The American Museum of Natural History in New York?”

“I think that would be your best bet, and I'll contact a friend at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale. They have a vertebrate paleontologist on staff.” Todd stood up, brushing the sand off his hands. “I see you brought your Kodak. Take a picture from every angle and send them to the museum with a letter describing your find. Meanwhile, this area needs to be cordoned off—” He stopped, stared. “What on God's earth is
that
?”

To take a picture with a Kodak required the photographer to hold it at waist level, aim, and turn a knob. Samantha, concentrating on focusing the camera to capture the required angles from the awkward position, said, “What's what?”

“That creature,” Todd said, pointing.

Samantha followed the direction of his finger. She smiled. “Oh, that's Saved, the steer I fed from a bottle after his mama died.” The steer, horn tips a fiery red, had wandered up and stood staring at them curiously from a short distance away. Todd's mare whinnied and tossed her tail skittishly. Samantha had chosen her because of her gentleness. A city fellow, her geologist friend was unaccustomed to the saddle.

“What is that paint doing on his horns?”

“To identify him from other steers rounded up for market. It's a private story.”

“He looks fearsome.”

“He wouldn't hurt a fly.”

“Well, in that case…” Todd turned eagerly to Samantha. “Would you mind taking a picture of me on his back for Ginny? I know it will impress her.”

Samantha laughed. “If not impress, at least amuse her,” she said. “Of course I'll take a picture of you. It's the least I can do for dragging you out here. Stay put while I forewarn Saved.”

Todd kept his distance while Samantha stroked the steer's ears and talked to him softly. Then she beckoned the geologist over. “Don't scare him,” she said. “This is a new experience for him. Very gently, ease your leg over his back. That's good. Now hold still and grin like a drunk drover while I take a shot.”

As Samantha positioned the camera, the steer suddenly let out a bellow of protest, startling Todd's horse. The mare neighed and yanked at her reins, loosely secured around a gate post. The leather ties flew free, and off the saddled horse tore across the pasture toward the haven of barn and stable. Apparently inspired by the idea, Saved reacted similarly but in the opposite direction. Samantha watched, openmouthed, as the steer thundered away with Todd bouncing on his back and hanging onto his horns; long, thin legs in their black trousers stuck out like scarecrow limbs. “
Samantha!
” he screamed.

Pony turned his head and gave her a look that questioned what she wished to do. If she rode after Todd on her quarter horse, the steer might keep running or, worse, buck Todd off his back. Her friend could not keep hanging on much longer. She decided to run after them on foot, hoping Todd would simply release his hold on Saved's horns and slide off his rump.

The geologist did just that, but only after giving up faith that the steer would eventually slow down. He landed to roll facedown onto the ground, his nose going numb in the dirt, and heard the animal amble off and begin to munch grass. Thank God, Todd thought. He was not to be trampled or gored as further punishment for the insult to the beast's dignity. It was a few minutes before he felt he could move. He was at the far end of the ranch, a place where hardly a human foot had trod. Suddenly, thoughtfully, as feeling returned, Todd raised his head a fraction, studied the ground, sniffed, then pressed his nose back into the soil. Instantly, he identified the smell.
Holy Christ!
Slowly, he got to his feet, his ride on the steer and his fall forgotten. He saw Samantha hurrying toward him. She was still a good distance away, giving him time to whip out his handkerchief and scoop up a handful of dirt. Quickly, he filled the handkerchief with its potential for untold treasure and stowed it in his pocket.

“Are you all right?” Samantha called.

“I am very much all right,” Todd answered. He glanced at the rock structures rising from the earth known as Windy Bluff, and his happiness increased. From the front, the formations looked simply like steep and broad twin boulders, but from where he stood, they formed a geologic “fold,” a wavelike shape of layered sediment that spoke a language of its own. As Samantha hurried up, he asked with a nonchalance that belied the pain of his throbbing nose and bubble of inner excitement, “Were you able to get a picture before Saved took me on a tour?”

“I got it,” she said, beginning to laugh.

“What's so funny?”

“Your nose. It's caked with dirt.”

S
amantha said in amazement, “You won't stay for Grizzly's sausage pancakes? That's one of your favorite foods in all the world. He made them just for you, because beef-and-egg goulash is on the menu the third Saturday of the month.”

“Uh, no, Sam, I promised Ginny I'd get back as quickly as I could.” He rubbed his backside. “Mind driving me to the station in a wagon?”

They embraced in brotherly fashion at the train depot, and Todd hoped Samantha did not feel his body's tension or wait to see him boarded for his return trip to Dallas. She'd told him that she would spend the rest of the day and night at her mother's and package the camera for mailing on Monday to the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York, where the film would be developed. She'd mail him copies of the photographs as soon as they were returned so that he could send them to his friend at Yale.

Todd thought quickly. Samantha's decision to remain in Fort Worth overnight suited him to the ground—literally—but he proposed another idea. In a worried voice he said, “You'll see the camera gets mailed directly from your hands, right?”

Samantha looked puzzled. “Well, no, Todd. I'll leave it for Jimmy or Mildred to get it to the post office. With Daddy gone, I have to get back to the ranch early tomorrow.”

Todd pretended doubt for the camera's safety. “Would you let me take the Kodak to mail?” he suggested. “I can take it to the post office Monday morning, earlier than Jimmy and Mildred might have a chance to get away. It would go out faster that way.”

With amused tolerance, Samantha handed over the camera. “If it will make you feel easier, Mr. Fussbudget, by all means take it with my thanks,” she said.

Todd accepted it with feigned care, holding it close to his chest like a priceless treasure, and told her there was no need to see him off. “Go spend the time you have with your mother,” he said, relieved when Samantha, with a kiss on his cheek and after calling him a great friend, took him up on his suggestion.

Todd felt the next hours were the most anxious of his life, not counting the time he'd wandered off from his parents in New York City when he was eight years old and it had taken them half a day to find him. He had been quivering with fright when he was finally reunited with his family, but this time he trembled from a barely contained excitement. He would bet his geologist's degree that oil—maybe gushers of it—was under the rangeland at the northern edge of Las Tres Lomas. Lab tests would show if the soil in his handkerchief and other samples he would gather while Samantha was at her mother's confirmed his suspicion. Windy Bluff appeared to be an anticline, the geological name for a domelike surface structure that had proved to be an odds-on location for the existence of petroleum and gas deposits. Todd couldn't believe his luck at the opportunity to return unseen to the area. With Samantha and her father gone from the ranch and no one but that stupid steer likely to have business around Windy Bluff, he would be free to explore the terrain at will without fear of discovery.

In those interminably long hours, Todd had to wait for the manager of the livery stable, where he intended to rent a horse, to return from lunch, then navigate through Fort Worth's heavy midday traffic to the road that led to Las Tres Lomas. When he was finally underway, his spotty memory of the shortcut to the ranch failed him, and he had to retrace his route, wasting precious time until a remembered fence post with an unlikely small heart carved into the wood finally turned him in the right direction. Uttering a cry of victory, off he bounced as fast as he could tolerate on the back of the apathetic horse. He must conclude his mission in time to catch the five o'clock train to Dallas or pull in too late in the evening to call on Trevor Waverling.

Todd felt a constriction of conscience at what he was about to do, but as fond as he was of Samantha, he must consider his situation first. Samantha would be opposed to drilling for oil on an archeological site. Todd had no doubt that the photographs in her Kodak would prove her relic to be the forehead, nose, and jaw of a dinosaur, but he was a prospecting geologist. His professional reputation and financial provision for his wife and future children depended upon his finding oil for his employer. So far, he had come up empty. So far, Trevor Waverling had praised him for his savvy restraint, but Waverling Tools was ready and eager to make a move into oil exploration. The money was in the bank to drill a well. His boss was waiting only for his geologist's say-so to send his landman, Nathan Holloway, to make a deal with the landowner to lease the drilling site. After today, his geologist might have found the perfect site.

Late Saturday afternoons on the Triple S were “laid-by” times. Except for the ranch's daily maintenance that permitted no weekend break, the main chores of the week were done and the rest of the day belonged to the discretion of the ranch hands. Most washed off their dirt and sweat in a rustic outdoor bath facility set up with mirrors, shaving basins, and several showers, polished their boots, and aired out their best shirt and pair of jeans for a night on the town. In the main house, Millie May and Billie June prepared for an evening out or one in, depending on their mood. There was often some party in town or a social at a neighboring ranch to which they were invited, but if they were not disposed to attend, the sisters arranged an entertainment of their own. These could range from meetings with supporters of their passionate causes to private musicals and card games. For almost a year now, their brother would return to the house in late afternoon, bathe, dress in his town clothes, and set off for an evening in the company of Anne Rutherford.

Tonight the sisters were to entertain a group for bridge. Billie June, setting out pencils, notepads, and decks of cards on three game tables in the great room, heard the clock strike five and listened for Sloan's footsteps in the hall. Before he went upstairs, she meant to waylay him with her intent to take the T&P down to Beaumont to visit a schoolmate the coming week. He held the purse strings of her trust fund, and she needed money for a train ticket. She perked her ears in vain for a good while before going to consult her sister in the kitchen. Millie May was helping the cook prepare trays of sandwiches and other delicacies for the bridge gathering.

“Millie May, have you seen Sloan?”

At the end of the day, their brother could be counted on to stop in the kitchen for a treat to take upstairs. Since his childhood days, Consuelo, their dependable old cook, a small Mexican woman who went about her duties soundlessly, always left something for
joven maestro
—the young master—on a corner of the kitchen table to make his stomach feel
contento
—happy—until supper. For answer, Millie May gestured toward the wedge of cheese and slice of bread still under the tea cloth.

Billie June glanced fretfully at the table. “Where could he be? He's always in this time on Saturday, and I'm sure Anne is expecting him.”

“They were supposed to have finished working the cattle today. Something must have come up,” her sister said.

The something that had come up caused the Triple S foreman to gaze at his boss as if he hadn't heard him correctly. At the moment of the sisters' discussion, Sloan had hoisted himself onto his cutting horse, his working mount, and told his second-in-command that he was off to ride fence. If Sloan saw a need for repair, they'd get to it Monday morning.

“You're ridin' fence, boss? This late on a Saturday afternoon? I thought you'd be goin' up to the big house.”

“Not tonight. I'm riding fence.”

“Which section?”

“The fence between us and the Gordons. Send someone up to the house to tell my sisters that I won't be in until later, will you?”

Millie May and Billie June would make a juicy meal of that information, Sloan thought as he cantered off. They would be expecting him home to take Anne to a party tonight, but he'd begged off from the invitation, giving work as his excuse, which today was close to the truth. He was unusually tired for a short Saturday, dirty, sweaty, and reeking of smoke. He could have done with a couple of stiff shots of bourbon, a soak, and a hot supper, but he had some thinking to do, and for him, like most ranchers, the best place for that was in the saddle.

The real truth was that under the pretense of checking for loose wire and wobbly posts, he just might see Samantha over the fence. A couple of times, he'd had the nice surprise of seeing her around Windy Bluff when she'd ridden out to bring a treat to her steer. He'd hailed her, and they'd met at the barbed-wire gate. These last years, the gate had remained closed, not like in the old days of their youth when it was an open passageway between their ranches.

He rode with a sickness in his chest, put there the pivotal day Neal had killed the mountain lion. Sloan thought of that April day as a demarcation line drawn solidly between the past and present for him and Samantha, and maybe for Neal and Samantha, too. Sloan had gone over and over the bits and pieces of shocking remarks from father and daughter that awful day. He'd concluded from Neal's statement—
that way if one betrays you, you won
'
t have lost everything
—and Samantha's remark—
I
'
ll never be able to undo what I
'
ve done
—that their falling-out had to do with a breach of loyalty on Sam's part. Disloyalty was at the top of transgressions Neal Gordon could not forgive.
Loyalty is the one human quality that must be returned
, his mentor once told him.
You can give respect, honor, admiration, even love without return, but loyalty must be repaid in kind.

Since when had Samantha not returned her father's loyalty? How could she have betrayed him? She'd given up a promising career out of loyalty to Neal Gordon.

Neal's and Sam's heartbreak had been palpable that April day, given off like an odor, and he'd felt as powerless to help as an armless man on shore watching his family drown.
You
'
re not my brother, Sloan
…
You
'
re my friend
…
nothing more and nothing less.
The hurt of that bald statement seared him still, but it had forced him on a march of self-evaluation that had prevented him from making the biggest mistake of his life. His sisters' alienation the past year had worn him down. Without them, he missed his father more, and the special brace and sustenance of family. When his sisters had frozen him out, he'd found warmth in the arms of Anne Rutherford, a girl who did not question, challenge, or argue with him, but praised and encouraged and comforted.

Compliant
, his sisters called her.
You like her because you can bend her to your will, Sloan
, they said, and he'd looked askance at that. Compliant? Just because she did not offer arbitrary opinions to everything he said and did? He would call that supportive, what a man needed in a woman.

But he had come to see that his sisters were right and that he'd been a fool to fall into the trap of Anne's willingness to pamper his manhood. It had blinded him to her real nature. Little by little, like paint flecking from a forged painting, he'd discovered that Anne was a spiteful little thing, petty, and secretly jealous of Samantha. His father had drilled into him that a man's motives defined him. “It's the reason behind the deed that determines who and what a person is,” he'd say. The motivation behind Anne's zealous support of noble causes was not to promote libraries, public education, food drives, and other headline-grabbing contributions to the social welfare of others but to exalt herself. No one expected the beautiful, privileged daughter of one of the richest men in town to be so devoted to the needs of the less fortunate, so mindful of the downtrodden. Sloan now saw that Anne's “selflessness” was really a jewel designed to further enhance her beauty to the public.

His sisters had tried to tell him so.

But all those insights aside, if Anne Rutherford were as sincere as a nun, Sloan still wouldn't have married her feeling as he did about Samantha, and he must tell Anne so.

He was coming upon the Windy Bluff area. Sloan scanned the range across the fence for a pair of red horn tips but saw instead a saddled horse tethered to a fence post. For a second, his heart leaped, but the spiritless horse wasn't Pony. Its rider must have heard his approach. Sloan had reined in his cutting horse for only a minute before a man appeared from behind the towering boulders misnamed for a bluff. “Todd Baker!” Sloan said in surprise. “What the hell are you doing here? And what is that thing you've got in your hand?”