Titans (29 page)

H
olloway, you say?” Neal said. There was no doubt of the boy's identity. He'd said he'd grown up on a wheat farm. His stepfather was the Leon Holloway of Dr. Tolman's letter, the man he'd sat with on his porch, who'd said he and his wife had been blessed with only two children, a son and daughter. He'd spoken the truth. Vaguely Neal noted the presence of a short-legged man, a young girl, and a German shepherd, all staring up at him from their blanket as if wondering if he were about to topple over on their picnic.

Samantha still held his arm, brow knitted in concern. “Daddy?” she said. “Maybe you'd better sit down.”

“Here in the coach, sir,” Nathan suggested, stepping quickly to open the vehicle's door. “We'll get you some water.”

“No, no, I'm all right,” Neal protested, recovering. “I just felt the breath knocked out of me there for a few seconds. Don't know what got into me.” He forced normalcy into his voice and put his arm around Samantha's shoulders, hoping she'd not feel his trembling. “Well, so that's that, then,” he said to Nathan. “There will be no drilling in this area of the ranch.” He gave Samantha's shoulder a hearty rub. “That sound good to you, honey?”

Samantha, looking startled by his sudden jovial manner, said, “I'm just surprised that it sounds so good to you.”

Nathan said, “Just so I know what to put in my report, sir, am I to understand that if Miss Gordon's photographs don't show this to be a prehistoric site, Waverling Tools will have the go-ahead to drill?”

“Well… I don't know,” Neal said. “I've reconsidered drilling anywhere in this vicinity. My daughter is convinced this field is sacred ground, so it doesn't matter what the pictures say. They can lie, you know, so until experts have had a chance to come out here and dig around, I'm afraid I can't sign a lease. That could take years, so my daughter tells me.”

Samantha dislodged herself from Neal's arm and stared at him incredulously. “Daddy! Do you mean it?”

“I mean it,” Neal said. He held out his hand to Nathan. “Young man, I'm sorry for your trouble, and I hope you'll give my apologies to your father for taking up his company's time, but I've just now realized what could be lost if your company drills here.”

Nathan shook Neal's hand firmly. “My father and Todd will be disappointed, but I understand your view that an oil field would be a poor trade for what might be under the ground here.” He looked down at Benjy, who had followed the conversation while continuing to eat. Rebecca was daintily pulling flesh from a chicken leg sliver by sliver and feeding it to Zak in apparent oblivion of the conversation conducted over her head. “Benjy, I believe we'd better pack up,” Nathan said. “Our business here is done, and Grandmother won't stir from the front window until we're home.”

“Aw, Nathan, can't we finish the food?” Benjy whined.

“You're welcome to stay as long as you like,” Samantha said, “but I'd better get my father home.” She gave Neal's rib a mock jab. “The sun seems to have affected his brain.”

“No!” Rebecca cried suddenly, hopping up, startling her blanket companion and the two blackbirds hovering for crumbs. She bolted to Samantha and locked her arms around her. “You can't go! No, no!
Come live with me and be my love / And we will all the pleasures prove / That hills and valleys, dale and field / and all the craggy mountains yield.
”

Nathan moved to unclench Rebecca's arms, but Samantha gently took the child's face between her hands. “I have to go, Rebecca,” she said, “but you're welcome to come visit me anytime, and you can recite poetry to me. Would you like that?”

Mollified, Rebecca nodded and released her hold. “Nathan can bring me.”

Neal said with a trace of urgency, “We must get back to the house, Samantha. I'm afraid I don't feel all that well. Maybe the sun
has
gotten to me.”

Samantha gave Nathan a look of apology as Neal strode toward his horse. “This sudden about-face is not like my father, Nathan. Only this morning, he was hoping you wouldn't find reason
not
to drill in this area, and I'm sure he's had his fingers crossed that my photographs will prove negative for a prehistoric find. Something has taken hold of him.”

Nathan smiled. “Maybe a father's love for his daughter? And like he said, he's come to realize what could be lost if you're right about your find. One more question before you go?” He stroked Rebecca's hair. The little girl had run to Nathan for comfort and wrapped her arms around his hips. “When did you discover the skull missing? How many days after Todd came out here to inspect it?”

Surprised, Samantha said, “The very next day. It disappeared between noon Saturday after I left to take Todd back to the station to catch the two o'clock train to Dallas and Sunday when I stopped by here in late afternoon. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Nathan said.

“
Samantha!
” Neal bellowed impatiently, already in the saddle, Pony's reins in his hand. “
Come on!
”

Samantha held out her hand. “Good-bye, Nathan, but only until I see you again, I hope. I meant what I said to Rebecca.”

“I know you did,” Nathan said, taking her hand. “If your excavation dig turns out to be what you suspect, I'd like to come out and see it.”

“I'll send a personal invitation, and you can bring Rebecca.”

Nathan smiled. “Good-bye then, until we see you again.”

“Daddy, you must tell me the truth,” Samantha demanded when they were back at the house. “Are you feeling sick?”

Yes, yes, he did feel sick, Neal thought. Sick to the soles of his boots. “No, no,” he said. “I just suffered a little dizzy spell. Maybe you're right about the sun. It's blistering out there.” He yearned to be alone. An ache was swallowing him whole. He felt as if the sky had fallen upon him. He'd dodged two bullets. Now this. “The little girl…” he said vaguely. “Who is she?”

“Her name is Rebecca. She's Nathan's sister.”

“Oh, so he has another sister, does he?”

“I don't know about
another
sister, Daddy.” Samantha eyed him in growing concern. “I don't know if I should leave you for my dress fitting—” she began, but Neal interrupted her.

“
Yes, you will!
” he bellowed. “Your mother is dying to see you in the final fitting of your wedding dress. Silbia can look after me, and Sloan is coming over to have a bourbon with me after his workday.”

Still looking worried, Samantha said, “All right, but while I'm in town, I'm making an appointment for you to see Dr. Madigan, and you will keep it if Sloan and I have to hogtie and drag you to his office, understand?”

Neal did not argue. “I understand,” he said, feeling as empty as a feed sack. He allowed Samantha to see him comfortably settled in his library chair before she left, but he pushed out of it the minute the door closed. He could not think sitting still. He paced from wall to wall to clear his buzzing head, to relieve the gnats crawling beneath his skin. He was a man who did not entirely discount the possibility of divine interventions. Was the appearance of the nice young landman the work of the Almighty to correct an error of fate and to trigger Neal's conscience to take notice and do right by it? He'd heard of Trevor Waverling through Todd Baker, who'd given Neal the impression the man was an amalgam of Attila the Hun and Jesus Christ. His employer was a prominent figure in Dallas, rich, educated, influential, a member of old-city gentry, and the father of a fine son and a pretty little girl, even if she was touched in the head. After a turn or two about the room, Neal plunked down in his deep-seated chair, exhausted, bewildered, frightened. Trevor Waverling had everything that could lure his own little girl away from him.

Neal jarred his memory into sharp recall of his conversation with Leon Holloway last month. He had hardly been able to dislodge it. The farmer had realized who Neal Gordon was and why he'd come. There was no second guessing about it. Leon Holloway had known that the rancher who'd come on the pretext of inquiring whether the farm was still for sale was the adoptive father of the child he and his wife had given away, a daughter that was not Leon's but Trevor Waverling's.
Always good for everything and everybody to end up in their proper place
, the farmer had said. His statement had seemed strange and irrelevant at the time, but now it was clear as rainwater. After meeting Neal, Leon Holloway had determined that Samantha had ended up in the proper place.

Neal lit a cigar to calm himself and to figure who knew what. It was no secret that Trevor Waverling was Nathan's father, but did the tools manufacturer know that he had another daughter born a twin to Nathan? It appeared almost certain that he did not, or why wouldn't he have made himself known to her? Obviously, Nathan was unaware of Samantha's existence. The Holloways had concealed her birth from him as they had from Trevor. If Neal had to stroke in the rest of the canvas, he would guess that Millicent was probably in the family way with the twins by Waverling when Leon married her. Why else would a beautiful woman of property have married a man as lowly and plain as a haystack like Leon Holloway? Trevor may or may not have known of her pregnancy, but he hadn't hung around to make things right. Would Leon have told his wife of Neal's visit to the farm and that the girl who'd answered her ad in April was her long-lost daughter? If Neal was any judge of men and from the way their conversation had gone, he'd have said no. In any case, Neal hadn't seen or heard hide nor hair from the Holloways.

So, he was back to the same old worries and fears as before, and the same question for his conscience: What should he do with this newfound knowledge? Say nothing? Do nothing? Keep the secret that only he and Leon Holloway knew, and go on with life as it was? Who would ever know the difference? The Holloways had their family; Trevor Waverling had his. The Gordons would have no family to call exclusively their own if the truth got out. Once again, the specter rose of how it would be if the members incorporated, little different from unfamiliar cattle wandering onto a rancher's land, mixing brands, adulterating the herd. He must spare Estelle the horror of having to share the daughter she'd always called her own with another mother. To see his wife in the state she was now, riding on clouds of joy in anticipation of their daughter's marriage to the man they would have chosen for her, of becoming a grandmother… how could he shatter those clouds?
I wonder if the first child will be a boy or girl
, she'd cooed to him the other day.
Oh, Neal, my old mountain lion hunter, aren't we the luckiest parents alive?

As for him, he no longer had to worry that his heart would grow cold toward Samantha if she should choose her birth family over him and Estelle. It would simply cease to beat.

A jab of guilt forced him from his chair. But did he have the right to keep Samantha from her twin brother? They'd cottoned to each other. He'd seen that at first glance. The boy was worthy to claim kinship to her. He'd be a fine sibling, fill that yawning void in her. But with him would come the rich Trevor Waverling and the little girl, and Nathan had mentioned a grandmother. Even Millicent and that son and daughter she doted on might horn in. You could cut so many slices from the pie before the cook was left with nothing.

Neal walked to the fireplace and stared into its empty mouth, still holding some of winter's ashes. He'd made his decision. He'd meant his word to Nathan Holloway. No matter what Samantha's photographs revealed, Waverling Tools would never set up a derrick on Windy Bluff or any other site on Las Tres Lomas. There were other oil drilling companies. No reason why his daughter and the landman should ever meet up again. Neal would keep his newly discovered information to himself. Time was like a river. Eventually, it carried the debris on its shore far from its origins and left no trace of its existence. Unless…

Neal wished he hadn't made the comparison. He recalled the rubble left behind when the ranch tributaries had dried up. Among the litter was a gun that convicted a killer of murder.

T
odd stared incredulously at Trevor Waverling. “What do you mean Neal Gordon has decided not to drill at Windy Bluff!
Ever?
” It was Thursday morning, July twelfth, the day after Nathan's return to Dallas from Fort Worth.

“That's what he said,” Nathan answered for his father. “Mr. Gordon doesn't care what the photographs show. His daughter believes a dinosaur burial ground is under that stretch of land, and that's good enough for him.”

“But excavation could take
years
!” Todd shrieked.

“That's what I understand.”

Todd pressed a balled fist to his forehead. “My God! The man's giving up a fortune!”

“Todd, sit down before you have a stroke,” Trevor ordered. “Your neck veins are standing out. This isn't the end of the world. We'll find other places to drill.”

Todd plopped, stunned, into a chair before Trevor Waverling's desk. Nathan occupied the other beside him. “I can't believe it. I simply can't believe it,” he said. “You bear me out on this, Nathan. Neal Gordon was burning for us to set up a rig on that property, regardless of his daughter's find.”

“It sure seemed so,” Nathan agreed.

The trace of crow's-feet around Todd's eyes tightened. An idea had suddenly crawled into his head. “You didn't by any chance talk Mr. Gordon out of it, did you, Nathan—you with your holy feeling for God's green earth?”

Trevor creaked back in his desk chair and laced his hands over his silk vest, a subtle movement that Todd perceived could be a warning he'd stepped too close to the tail of his cub.

“No, Todd, I did not,” Nathan said without taking offense. “His respect for his daughter's feelings did that. And you seem convinced her photographs will not bear out her theory. Why is that?”

“I
told
you. I saw the skull.” Todd let out an anguished sigh. “I would hope you could understand
my
feelings as well, Nathan. You must know how disappointed I am.” He turned imploringly to his employer. “There's oil at Windy Bluff, Mr. Waverling, barrels and barrels of it, I just
know
it, and to think that it all stays underground because of a bunch of ancient fossils that mean absolutely nothing to anybody but a handful of musty old paleontologists.”

“And Samantha Gordon,” Nathan said quietly.

Todd's eyes flashed. “She's going to get
married
, for heaven's sakes! To Sloan Singleton, breaker of women's hearts. Married to him, mistress of a couple of ranches the size of two small countries ought to be enough for any woman. Samantha had her chance at the field of archeology when she turned down an opportunity to study at Lasell Seminary in Massachusetts.”

“You know this because you were in school together?” Trevor asked.

Todd nodded, his lips clamped in bitter chagrin. “The headmaster called me to his office to show me her acceptance letter with the hope I could talk some sense into her. One of only ten applicants was accepted. Samantha was a brilliant student and could have been a brilliant scientist. I was shocked when I learned she'd elected to stay home and help her old fart of a father run the ranch. She's his only heir.”

“You believe her choice a waste,” Trevor stated.

“I damn sure do, and I told her so. Now she's gone and thrown a rock into
my
plans for my career!”

Trevor drew back to his desk and reached for a sheet of paper, a signal that he'd had enough of this particular discussion. “Your career has suffered a temporary setback, Todd, that's all. I know you're disappointed, but study this report from Daniel and decide whether you think the Gulf Coast property worth a look.”

Todd took the report reluctantly. “Damn it to hell,” he said, “I could strangle Samantha.”

“Oh, come on, take heart,” Trevor said. “If those photographs come back with conclusive proof that Miss Gordon is mistaken, her father's practical side may take over, and we'll be hearing from him before we make a major move. I understand that camera is supposed to arrive by tomorrow.”

“Dad may be right about Mr. Gordon, Todd,” Nathan said. “You don't know which way the wind blows with him.” He had described to his father the scene of the rancher riding pell-mell up to Windy Bluff upset that he had not been informed of Nathan's arrival, fired up as a steam engine to drill no matter the desecration to the supposed “cemetery of old bones.” Then within minutes, he had done a 180-degree turn and was totally against drilling on what he called “sacred ground.”

Todd asked, “What… if the camera doesn't arrive?”

Nathan squinted at Todd. “Why wouldn't it?”

Todd hiked his shoulders. “I don't know. Post offices lose things.”

“Don't be such a pessimist, Todd,” Trevor said, his tone closing the meeting. “Okay, fellas, get out of here. I've got work to do. Nathan, remember you and I are going to the gym after work today.”

“Looking forward to it,” his son said.

Nathan walked next door to Jeanne's office, repository of the firm's accounting books. The secretary looked up at his entrance and smiled coyly. “Have you come to propose?”

Nathan grinned. He liked Jeanne. She was three years older than he and had unabashedly let it be known that if Nathan was interested, so was she. Nathan knew it to be only banter and good-humored flirtation. If he took her seriously, the fun would be over, and they both preferred the fun. “When I can afford the ring,” he said and took a seat before her desk. “I've got a favor to ask.”

“Ask away, handsome one.”

“On the QT.”

Jeanne put her hand over her heart. “Always.”

“I'd like to see Todd Baker's expense sheet, one for Saturday, June sixteenth.”

Jeanne's brow lifted. “May I ask why?”

“It would be a waste of breath.”

“Well, in that case…” Jeanne swiveled her chair to a wooden cabinet behind her that contained drawers of lateral files. Recently acquired, the upright structure was her personal bailiwick, and she ruled over it with great pride and appreciation for an employer who recognized the importance of time-saving devices. Until the production of the vertical filing system in 1898, which gave ready access to specific information, business papers were kept in envelopes and stored in pigeonholes. Jeanne pulled open the filing drawer, flipped through the manila folders, another innovation, and within seconds extracted one with Todd Baker's name written on the tab. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to Nathan, “but I prefer it not leave this office.”

“Your wish is my command,” Nathan said.

He took the folder to a table with better light to peruse its contents. Waverling Tools did not balk at paying expenses in conduction of company business, even if associated with after-hours personal pleasure or objectives. It was a joke between Nathan and Jeanne that no item was too small for Todd to list for reimbursement. “He'd record a stick of gum if he chewed it on the job!” Jeanne once told him with a laugh.

Nathan found the information he expected on an expense sheet dated Saturday, June sixteenth, the date Todd went by train to check out Samantha's relic. Attached were his departure and return tickets, since on that occasion he'd brought back news and evidence of the near certainty of oil on Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad. Samantha had said she drove Todd to the train station in Fort Worth to catch the two o'clock train back to Dallas, but his return ticket was stamped eight o'clock that night. It was as Nathan suspected: The company's geologist had ample time to return to Windy Bluff to dig up and dispose of the fossil supporting Samantha Gordon's claim. Nathan noted one expense item missing. There was no postage receipt for the camera Todd claimed he mailed on June eighteenth.

In the Worth's restaurant, Samantha took a menu from the waitress and finished her point to Sloan having to do with the question Nathan had put to her on his departure Tuesday. Sloan had met her in town this morning, two days later, to keep an appointment with a photographer to take their engagement picture for release to local newspapers.

“Why would Nathan ask me the time of the skull's disappearance if he didn't suspect Todd of making away with it?” she asked. “The more I put two and two together, I'm convinced Todd is responsible for its disappearance. At the train station, he was in a hurry to see me off to Mother's. I believe he somehow made it back to Windy Bluff and stole the skull to remove evidence that would interfere with
his
claim.”

“But you will have your photographs as proof,” Sloan reminded her.

“That's just it, Sloan!” Samantha said, her voice desperate. “What if Todd destroyed my camera, too?”

A muscle twitched along Sloan's jawline, a vexation caused by unease—or guilt—he'd suffered since childhood. He kept his eyes on the menu. He wouldn't put it past Todd to have gotten rid of that camera. He'd been a fool not to have anticipated it when Samantha told him of his offer to mail it from Dallas. The boy's applecart had been upset, though, by Neal's sudden decision not to lease Windy Bluff for drilling regardless of what Samantha's photographs showed. Sloan should feel relieved as now both the skull and the photographs were irrelevant, but he did not. Samantha needed physical evidence to drag a team of archeologists to Windy Bluff.

Now was the time to say he had the skull and own up to how it had come into his possession. Samantha would believe him when he explained he'd seized it from Todd and said nothing to her because he'd thought it might widen the gulf between her and Neal. But would she wonder why he hadn't returned it to her earlier to spare her so much undue worry, especially after she and her father had ironed out their differences? Could it be that Sloan had kept the fossil to clear the way for Waverling Tools to drill just over the fence from the Triple S? Would she wonder if he had known that her photographs would not show up? Had he and Todd come to some sort of agreement the day of their tête-à-tête across the fence, and had a guilty conscience prompted him to return it to her now? Samantha knew of the Triple S's tenuous financial situation and what an oil well would mean to its bottom line. And then there was the suddenness with which he'd dropped Anne and proposed to her right after the discussion with Todd.

Would Samantha believe him capable of such deceit?

“You're in deep thought behind that menu, Sloan,” Samantha said. “It can't be that interesting. Have you been listening to a word I've said?”

“I've been listening,” Sloan said. He gazed across the table at her. Samantha had never looked more beautiful. The photographer had been enraptured, going beyond the call of his usual professional fussiness to put together a summer background to show off her yellow lawn dress with a lace bodice that defined her feminine curves. Sloan was dressed in a new tailor-made suit, but he might as well have been a blank canvas for all the notice the photographer had taken of him.

Someday, we'll be able to take pictures in color
, the man had said, obviously bemoaning that he could not capture on film the glorious color of Samantha's hair.

Sloan laid down the menu. “Actually, I'm lusting not after food, but you,” he said. “We're in a hotel, and you're so beautiful. I wish I could take you upstairs right this minute.”

Samantha blushed. “What a delicious thought. Hold it for twenty-four more days.”

“Why twenty-four more days?”

Awed surprise filled Samantha's face. “Oh, Sloan… you're not proposing… ?”

“We're going to be married, Sam. Why wait?”

“But where? There's no privacy at either of our ranches, certainly not at Mother's.”

“There's a horse auction in Dallas Saturday after next, the twenty-first. Isn't Las Tres Lomas in the market for new horse flesh? The auction ads feature a wide choice.”

“Umm,” Samantha said, toying coyly with the ribbon at the throat of her dress. “Is there anything at the sale that might interest you?”

“There are a couple of quarter horses I'd like to take a look at.”

“What if Daddy decides he'd like to join the party?”

“And leave the ranch unattended with half his staff gone? Not if I know your father.”

Pressure mounted under Samantha's rib cage. “How can our families not suspect us of… being tempted to do what we're going to do if we're alone together in Dallas?”

“That's easy. We won't tell them. Why do my sisters need to be informed that you're attending the auction? Your parents certainly don't have to be told of my plans to go. But I'm guessing it wouldn't matter to either family if they learned we were together, especially not to my sisters. They couldn't care a mule's ear what we do as long as we get married. They're probably wondering how we've stayed apart so long, and as for your parents… I doubt they'd have much to say about what they themselves were guilty of before they married, if guilty is the word for it. We can meet at the train station on Friday and take the two o'clock into Dallas, then go to the Strathmore. I'll reserve two rooms, yours under Sam Gordon. We're just two ranchers from Fort Worth in Dallas for the horse auction. What could be more innocent?”

“The rooms on the same floor, of course.”

“Adjoining.”

Samantha's eyes danced. “Oh, Sloan, I… don't know what to say.”

“
Yes
would be a good option.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Are you sure, Samantha?”

“Sloan Singleton! I've lusted after you since you strutted around in your first pair of long breeches. Of course I'm sure!” Samantha said.

Sloan stretched out his hand on the table, and she placed hers in its palm. “Then I must make sure you're not disappointed,” he said.