Titans (43 page)

H
ow did you manage it?” Billie June asked, enfolded in Daniel's arms.

“I offered my boss lifetime patent rights to my blowout preventer if he would give me the money to pay off your brother's loan,” Daniel answered. He chuckled. “That vengeful bastard Noble Rutherford was only too happy to oblige. He believed I was out to get Sloan Singleton even more than he was.” Daniel mimicked the banker's pompous voice. “ ‘Lane, I'm going to deny myself the pleasure of foreclosure and give it to you. That way, it can't be said that I took possession of the Triple S out of revenge for Sloan's insult to my daughter. What the hell do I want with a ranch anyway, especially one on the verge of ruin.' ”

Billie June chuckled. “You know what you forfeited, don't you?” she said, her cheek wet against Daniel's shirt front.

“I'll make it back. I've got a rotary drill design up my sleeve as well as some other ideas for revolutionary tools, and I've got enough money left to buy you a nice ring.” Setting her away from him, Daniel pleaded, “Now will you go see a doctor?”

Billie June sighed and settled back into his arms. “I will, but I know what's wrong with me.”

“You do? What?”

“I'm pregnant,” Billie June said.

Two weeks later, October sixth, Billie June and Daniel were married in a civil ceremony conducted by a judge and longtime family friend of the Singletons in the county courthouse. The proceedings, attended only by Samantha and Millie May and Sloan, who stood as Daniel's best man, were simple, but his new brother-in-law emptied the ranch coffers to pay for an extravagant party afterward, arranged by Millie May and Samantha. It was held in the reception room of the Opera House, a monument to Fort Worth's transition from cattle town to modern city that proved an ideal venue to accommodate the rousing guest list. Grizzly and Wayne, Claude Chandler, the cowhands of the Triple S, Billie June and Millie May's activist cohorts, and Daniel's new friends at Waverling Tools, including his employer, were invited along with many who had attended Sloan and Samantha's wedding. Anne Rutherford's name was excluded, and Todd Baker declined the invitation.

On the park bench, Leon searched Randolph's letter for information hidden between the lines. The letter was dated October tenth, written seventeen days earlier but postmarked October twenty-third. It was as if, after writing the letter, Randolph had a change of mind about mailing it but held on to it until something prompted him to send it. His usual precise, upright script leaned a little, and the periods looked inexact. Some of the
i
's had tails, as if his hand had slipped. The contents had very little to do with his school courses, grades, professors, and friends, news Millicent lived to read from letter to letter. This latest was mostly about Randolph's plea for more money.

Leon couldn't understand it. As parents of a first-year student in Columbia University, they had received a list of school expenses and their estimated cost from the school's Office of the Exchequer. In Randolph's name, Millicent had opened an account at a campus bank for the amount as well as a sum for his personal expenses to which she'd add each month. When Randolph wrote his letter asking for additional funds, October was only ten days into the month. How could he have been out of money so soon?

“I want to join a fraternity, and I have to pay the entrance fee up front,” he wrote. “I've received bids from several of the top Greeks on campus without even rushing their houses, and that says a lot about what they think of me. Mother, you'd be so pleased because the members are sons of tycoons and diplomats and high political leaders and the like. A fellow can't go wrong brushing shoulders with them. Who knows what future influence they might mean to me? Right?”

Pompous little ass, Leon thought. Uneducated that his son's father was, he was ignorant of college jargon like
fraternities
,
bids
,
Greeks
,
rushing
, and
houses
, but he could figure out their meaning from the letter's context, and it all smelled fishy. Randolph had not been popular among his classmates throughout his school years in Gainesville. How could the pretentious son of a modest farmer from a little town in Texas suddenly become in demand to join a fraternity whose members were the offspring of tycoons and diplomats? With brains had to go an engaging personality, which Randolph sorely lacked.

“Oh, Leon, this is what we've hoped for our son!” Millicent raved when she read the letter. “Of course we have to send him the money!”

Leon wondered where she got the
we
. His wife might consult him about expenditures, but the final say was hers. It was her money she spoke of, and only her name on the bank checks. Unknown to her, he still maintained an account in a bank in town, to which he added from his spending money now and then.

“Millicent, you've got to watch your pennies,” he advised. “The money from the sale of the farm isn't endless. What will you do if you run out?”

“We won't run out,” she snapped. “By the time it's… low, Randolph will be in a position to help us.”

Leon worried also about his daughter disappointing Millicent's expectations. She had entered the girls' academy in Denton and had no dearth of suitors pleasing to her mother's calculations. Lately, however, her letters had given her parents the impression she'd foresworn her interest in them to put her attention to her schoolwork.

“What's gotten into her?” Millicent asked of him. “She's never given a fig about her studies.”

Leon could have given her an answer, but he didn't. He had an idea of what was up. On a recent solo trip to Denton to cart Lily some items from home, the two of them had had a chance to talk. His daughter had always been able to share with him confidences she wouldn't with her mother. Over ice cream sodas in a local drugstore, she'd told him of her admiration for the head of the history department whom Leon and Millicent had met when Lily enrolled. “So inspiring, so learned,” Lily gushed. He was also unmarried, handsome, not too many years older than she, and very eligible, if a girl was inclined to seek the attentions of a member of a profession who would keep her in genteel poverty. Lily's infatuation with the man was probably shared by every other history student at the academy and was nothing more than a schoolgirl crush that would fade by the arrival of the new moon. Leon thought there was no point in worrying her mother with this latest distraction that had improved their daughter's grades.

Leon sighed. How he missed the days of his farming. For all its uncertainties, crops were a mighty lot easier to raise than children.

Bridget Mahoney reread her response, dated October twenty-seventh, 1900, to Samantha Gordon's letter. It had taken her over a month to decide whether to answer it. The poor girl had expressed doubt that her letter would reach her and had probably given up hope of a reply. Bridget had agonized over the issue of her moral obligation to the newborn infant she'd taken to her nipple over twenty years ago, now a grown woman. Should she let the circumstances of her birth lie undisturbed and allow Samantha Gordon's questions to go unanswered?

According to the young woman's letter, she'd landed in a bed of roses. She'd been raised by a couple who loved her with all their hearts and that she loved with hers. They had seen to her every need, and she'd wanted for nothing in their care. She was now happily married to a man she'd loved all her life. She lived in a comfortable home on her husband's ranch and enjoyed the companionship of his two sisters, whom she regarded as her kin. She was writing her letter not because she felt her life incomplete, but because she'd like to put her curiosity to rest, and Bridget Mahoney was her last link to satisfying it. Did Bridget know who were her parents and if they were still alive? Did she know if she'd been born a sibling? Could she shed light on why she had been given up for adoption? Any details Bridget could give her about her birth, Samantha would most appreciate. Bridget was not to worry that she was telling tales out of school or that her information would be detrimental to anyone concerned. She must trust Samantha on that.

But could she? Bridget wondered. What sort of applecart would she upset if she imparted the information she knew? She'd discussed it with Mr. Mahoney, who'd said, as she'd known he would, “Do what you think best, darlin'.”

In the end, what she thought best was to respond truthfully to Samantha Gordon's letter and let the apples fall where they would. Bridget was rather proud of her composition.

Yes, Bridget thought, a very good letter indeed. Straight and to the point and truthful. She'd refrained from passing judgment on the child's mother. Let that be for her daughter to do.

O
n the morning of October twenty-seventh, Daniel received a call at the Triple S from Trevor Waverling directing him to take a train to Beaumont, Texas. The Hamill brothers were spudding in their well on Spindletop that day, and Daniel was to make sure the company's equipment was working properly. “You have a feeling about this one, Mr. Waverling?” Daniel asked.

“I've got a feeling about this one,” his boss replied.

“And I have a feeling about the one at Windy Bluff,” Daniel said.

“Let's hope we have a double winner.”

In sharing this information at the breakfast table, Samantha listened with some sorrow to the household changes the last of autumn would bring. Daniel's frequent stays at the Triple S, and consequently Billie June's, were at an end. Drilling was well underway at Windy Bluff and in the competent hands of a crusty old driller named Jarvis Putnam. The rig was up and all the machinery humming along in fine order. After his return from Beaumont, Daniel would assume his drafting duties at Waverling Tools. His boss had come up with an idea for a new sand pump he wanted Daniel to take to the drawing board.

Billie June was far enough along in her pregnancy to raise the question of whether she would be better off staying at the Triple S rather than to be alone in Daniel's apartment while he was away for the day. The parents-to-be decided that husband and wife could not be separated, and so Billie June, too, would be leaving within the week. Millie May had qualified to study advance watercolor painting at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and would soon be off to begin the second leg of her lifelong dream to become a working artist. Nathan Holloway and Todd Baker had long since left the scene for their new assignments.

Sensing her pensive mood, Millie May asked, “When will Sloan be back, Samantha?”

“By the first of next week,” she said. “I'll know when I see a dust cloud on the horizon.”

The terrain was now dry and dusty. As the vagaries of Mother Nature would have it, not a spatter of rain had touched the ground since the middle of September, when the storm blew off to wreak its destruction farther north along the Red River, where the La Paloma herd was pastured. A flu epidemic had sent all but a few of the ranch crew to the hospital in Gainesville, and Sloan had gone with Neal by horseback to round up and drive his surviving cattle across the river to be transferred by railcars to market. Neal was contemplating selling La Paloma. For some reason, he'd taken against the place and would look for prospective buyers while in the area. Billie June pressed Samantha's arm commiseratively. “We're sorry to leave you lonesome.”

“Well, at least there's one streak of sunlight in this gloomy cloud,” Samantha said. “Monday, the Bell system will be laying a telephone line to Las Tres Lomas. At least now I will be in touch with my father as well as my mother.”

My father… my mother.
Samantha was glad she'd said nothing to Sloan of the letter she'd written to Bridget Mahoney near the middle of September. It had not been returned to her, but it had not been answered, either. Sloan would have worried at the resurrection of her curiosity. Hadn't she all the family she needed? They were soon to be an aunt and uncle. There would be a baby in the family. Weren't they all number enough for her? By the time Sloan had pulled out with her father, she'd already accepted that the last slim path that might lead to answers about her birth had disappeared.

Samantha spent the first part of the next week helping Billie June and Millie May pack. The sisters would go by train to Dallas together on Thursday, the first day of November, before Millie May traveled on to Houston. To make a going-away party of it, they'd drive into Fort Worth a day early to be with Estelle, have lunch together the next day, then Samantha would drop her sisters-in-law off at the station on her way home. During luncheon at the Worth, Estelle begged her daughter to stay another night. “You look tired, darling. You could use a good night's sleep and your mother's loving care.”

Samantha considered it, but she expected Sloan home today or tomorrow, and duty called back at the ranch. There was a calf that would take a bottle only from her, and she must pop over to Las Tres Lomas to check on how things were going there. Waving the sisters off from the depot, their handkerchiefs flapping in farewell from the train window, Samantha almost decided not to go by the post office. She
was
tired, uncommonly so, she allowed, and did not look forward to the drain of driving a horse and wagon through city traffic. At Las Tres Lomas, she would ask Silbia to check her mailbox when she made a run into town later in the day to collect her father's correspondence. He would want it on his desk and current when he arrived. But just as she made the decision to turn toward home, Samantha changed her mind. Today the Sears and Roebuck catalog would likely arrive, and she was eager to see what items were offered for Christmas and write an order while there was still time.

A half hour later, the first emotion to break through her shock was relief that she had decided to collect the mail, for in her box was a letter postmarked California and bearing the return address of Bridget Mahoney. If she'd not come to the post office today, the letter in her hand would have been intercepted by her father.

“Nathan, you have a telephone call from a relative of yours named Leon Holloway. He's calling collect,” Miss Beardsley said. Her frown and emphasis on
collect
voiced her disapproval of employees expecting company money to pay for personal expenses.

Nathan felt a hitch of apprehension. Leon would never call here except for an emergency. “That's my stepfather. Put him through and deduct the charges from my paycheck,” he said.

Leon began with apologies for disturbing Nathan at his place of work and for foisting the charges off on him, but Nathan cut him off. “Not to worry about that,” he said. “What's the matter?”

“It's your brother Randolph. He's in trouble at Columbia.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“He's… fallen into a bad habit, I'm afraid. He's… hanging out in opium dens. Hasn't been to his classes for over a month. We received a letter from his school yesterday notifying us of his absences and that he's lost his scholarship. Also, a girl he's met wrote to tell us that maybe we ought to come get him before he gets too far gone. Want me to read the letter to you? I don't want to run up your long-distance bill.”

“Read it,” Nathan instructed.

At the letter's conclusion, Leon said, “Your mother is frantic. I didn't know what to do but call to ask if… maybe you could… go to New York City and bring him home.”

“I'm on my way soon as I make arrangements here,” Nathan said. “Do you have any information that will give me an idea where to start looking for him?”

Nathan wrote as Leon recited Randolph's dormitory address and the names of his roommate, his counselor, the girl from whom they'd received the letter, and the café where she worked. Nathan assured Leon it was enough to go on to track down his brother.

“I suspected something was wrong when he kept asking his mother for more and more money,” Leon said. “She's given him all she can. She has to think of Lily. If he's become addicted to dope and has no more money to buy it, God knows what will happen to him.” Nathan heard Leon's voice sag, weighed down by disappointment and sorrow. “I'm sorry we have to impose on you like this, Nathan. With Thanksgiving coming, I'm sure you had other things in mind but to go gallivanting off to the opium dens of New York City.”

“It's no imposition. Tell Mother I'll have Randolph home in plenty of time to help her pluck the turkey.” Not that Randolph had ever plucked a turkey in his life. That had always been big brother's job, Nathan thought, feeling a strange lack of shock at Leon's revelations as he went to inform his father of the turn of events that would require a trip to New York City.

Trevor heard him out without saying a word. When Nathan finished, he said, “What shall I tell Charlotte?”

“The truth,” Nathan said. “She'll understand.”

Trevor sighed. “She'll be so disappointed that you won't be taking her to the Chrysanthemum Ball, but of course you must go.” He unlocked a desk drawer to withdraw a small break-top revolver with a snub barrel and handed it to Nathan. “That's easy to carry concealed,” he said, “and you'll need some money.”

“No sir, I can manage, but I'll take along the pistol,” Nathan said, slipping it into his coat pocket.

“I insist,” Trevor said, pushing a packet of bills across his desk. “Take the money for my sake and make sure you stay safe. I want to hear from you when you arrive and when you leave to return home. Promise?”

“I promise,” Nathan said. “Todd and I were going to pay a visit to the Windy Bluff site tomorrow, and Daniel is down in Beaumont. Who will you send in my place?”

“Me,” Trevor said. “Now you better get going. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll get back and the less time your grandmother and I and Charlotte will miss you.”

Nathan acknowledged the comment with a little salute of the packet in his hand. “Tell Charlotte I'll make it up to her and thanks for the extra cash.”

“What are dads for?”

Indeed, if not to love their children, Trevor thought as his office door closed, a soft sound but carrying the loud echo of the loneliness already pinching his heart. So Millicent's fair-haired son, the one she'd bypassed Nathan for, the son she'd placed all her high hopes on, had become a dope addict, had he? As Nathan's father, he could say it served her right, but as a father he hadn't the heart. For a parent, there were no more painful hurts than disappointment in a child unless it was a parent's disappointment in himself. He'd failed Rebecca. He would not fail Nathan or Samantha, but the question of how to best serve that determination kept him awake at nights. Was he failing his children in not revealing his near certainty that they were brother and sister? Nathan could go to Leon for confirmation. His stepfather would not keep the truth from him. Or was it better to keep silent about their kinship and allow their lives to play out unknown to the other? Which course was best for them? The right course was not always the wisest. Trevor gazed out his window at the Trinity River now flowing peacefully and felt a wave of resentment at its indifference to the life it had claimed. But with rivers, as with some people, there was always the implicit warning that grief could come to those who stepped too close to its banks. Would he be taking that risk tomorrow when he took Nathan's place and stepped foot into his daughter's domain?