Titans (45 page)

A
s the New Year got underway, they were all worried about Samantha—Sloan, his sisters and Daniel, Neal and Estelle, the household staffs and crews of both ranches. Since the first of November, they had noticed a change in her. She seemed distracted, pensive, sad. “Sam, honey, we're going to be all right. The ranch has ridden out the worst,” Sloan said. “Let's be thankful for no blackleg and that we got to the pneumonic cows in time to quarantine them from the rest of the herd.” He went on to point out several other silver linings. It looked like, come spring, they were going to have a better-than-expected crop of calves. The floods had revived sections of grassland formerly too dry for grazing. The heir to a ranch in Bexar County—a lawyer who had no interest in raising cattle—was selling off his father's property and had agreed to sell the Triple S its silos of hay for a fair price. They would have enough feed to last the winter.

Samantha forced herself to smile and to carry on as always, but she would be caught in still moments of absorbed thought and sometimes with tears in her eyes. She had lost weight and become forgetful. She misplaced things and had only a listless interest in reading, card games, needlework, diversions that had once brought her quiet pleasure at the end of the day before the fire with her husband. Sometimes she would lift her eyes and find Sloan watching her over his newspaper, worry deep in his gaze. When he reached for her in bed, she was unresponsive. “Honey, have I done something wrong?” he'd ask. No, never, she assured him. It wasn't him; it was her. She was feeling depressed these days. She couldn't tell him why. Be patient with her a little longer. She loved him so. He had no idea how much she loved him. Maybe she should go to a doctor, he suggested. Give it a little while longer, Samantha said, and she'd make an appointment with Dr. Madigan if her mood did not improve.

Sloan was her husband. They were one. There should be no closed doors between them, and at times, Samantha was almost swayed to bare her secrets to him, but what would that achieve? There was no solution to her distress that lay low during the day but ballooned in the small hours of the night. She thought that by now, the first week of January, she would have put the revelations of Bridget Mahoney's letter behind her. She had no curiosity or interest in the unconscionable woman who had given her birth and would have allowed her to die—why should she?—but then she'd wonder what kind of woman would refuse to nurse her baby, would willingly give her up for others to raise, and why? If Leon Holloway's finger had pointed another way, Nathan would have been the twin placed with the Gordons. Did her mother know her whereabouts, the names of the people who had taken her in? Did she care? What was the story between her and Trevor Waverling?

Samantha had thought of him constantly. She was now convinced that he knew she was his daughter. Why would he have come to her wedding if not to see his flesh and blood get married? Samantha had made inquiries and heard from guests that indeed there had been a handsome older man, a stranger with bluish-green eyes, seated among them in the back pew of the church. Samantha had been moved to tears at his imagined retreat before she spotted him during the recessional, her real father living like a shadow at the fringe of her life. She pictured him and Nathan and his grandmother mourning the loss of Rebecca in their house in Dallas while she, like a waif staring in at the family scene through a window from outside, remained in the cold.

Uninformed that a telephone had been installed at Las Tres Lomas, Trevor Waverling had called in November to leave a message for Neal Gordon that he would be paying a visit to Windy Bluff in lieu of his landman the next day. Samantha had taken the call, and for a concerned, daughterly moment, she had considered inviting him to stop by for coffee to warm him before starting the cold trek to the drill site and before going back to Fort Worth to catch the train, but her resolve to let the whole matter go checked the offer. How did a daughter pretend not to know that the man come to take coffee with her was not her father? If
he
knew, how did he fake his ignorance of her identity?

She'd asked Nathan to tell her about his grandmother, and he'd been happy to do so with no overt indication he suspected the reason for her interest. He spoke of Mavis Waverling in terms he never mentioned his mother, whose name never passed his lips at all and of whom she never inquired. He adored the woman in whose home he lived with his father and dog and cat, and Samantha had suppressed a surge of longing that had made her think again of the little waif with her nose pressed against the window looking in.

One day when idly listening to Nathan discuss grain varieties with Sloan, Samantha had learned some shocking information. The Barrows farm was really the Holloway homestead. Millicent Holloway was the owner of the farm near Gainesville whose
FOR SALE
advertisement Samantha had answered. Her mother was the haughty woman covered from hat to skirt hem who had popped in and out of the train depot coffee shop while she and Mildred waited for the man representing the Barrows farm to show up. She was the wife of the man at the fence post who declared himself a hired hand—Leon Holloway. Samantha had felt the blood leave her head. She had come within ten feet of her birth mother and not known it.

So as time passed, the need to know everything about her birth and adoption would not go away. The strange yearning persisted. Samantha could not shake it from every distraction she put her mind to. Why had her mother not wanted her? Did her rejection of her daughter have something to do with Trevor Waverling? Was it morally wrong of Samantha to keep her identity secret from a brother, father, and grandmother who lived within miles of her home?

Finally, she decided she must have answers. She had to know. She could not live without knowing. She had to find peace.

Samantha said that evening, January sixth, “Sloan, how would you feel about my taking a trip alone to Gainesville tomorrow?”

Sloan peered at her over the top of his
Fort Worth
Gazette
. “Say what?”

“You heard me. It's important that I meet someone there.”

Sloan slowly lowered the newspaper. “Who?” he said.

“My mother.”

“Where's Sam off to?” Neal asked. “One of the oil field crew saw her board a train when he went by the station to pick up some equipment from Waverling Tools.”

Sloan finished unbuckling the cinch straps of his saddle and turned away from Neal to lift it high over his horse's head so that his father-in-law could not read his face. Avoiding a direct answer was not in his nature and easily detectable when he tried it. “Gone on a little trip,” he said, throwing the saddle over a beam constructed the length of the tack room for that purpose.

“She never said anything about a trip to her mother or me. Has she gone to Dallas or Houston to see one of the girls?”

“Nope,” Sloan said. He took a towel from a shelf and began to dry and clean his horse's sweaty back. He was not a ranch owner who turned his horse over to someone else to groom and feed after a hard day's work.

“Dammit, Sloan, don't make me beg. Where to?”

Sloan paused with a hand on his horse's withers. “Neal, not to be rude, but that's none of your business.”

Neal said anxiously, “Has she gone to see a doctor?”

“No. I can assure you of that. She wanted to get away for a while. Now that's all I can say.” Sloan continued with the grooming, running the towel around the horse's mouth and over the poll.

“All you know or won't say?” Neal persisted.

“Now don't fence me in, Neal. I'm telling you like it is.”

“Samantha? Wanted to get away for a while?” Neal's tone was incredulous. “That's not like her. Are you two… having trouble? I'm only butting in because her mother and I are worried about her, Sloan. She's not been herself lately. You've seen it. We just want to make sure she's not sick, but if…” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, every man and his wife have a little marital spat now and then.”

Sloan tossed the towel into a bin and took a brush to the horse's flanks. “I can assure you that's not the case either, Neal. Sam and I have never been better.”

Angrily, Neal grabbed the brush from Sloan's hand. “Then for God's sake, boy, I'm her father. Tell me what's wrong with her and where she's gone and for how long—
please
!”

Quietly, Sloan said, “Neal, you're closer to me than needles on a cactus, but give me back that brush. I won't tell you because I promised your daughter I wouldn't.”

Slowly, embarrassment reddening his cheeks, Neal handed back the brush. “I'm sorry, son. I forgot myself. But… you can understand how I feel, can't you?”

“Yes, Neal, I can. Go home now and be patient. She'll be back soon and all will be well. I'm sure of it.”

Neal nodded, doubt in his eyes, and slumped out, hands in his jacket pockets. Sloan watched him go, not sure of the truth of the comfort he'd offered. Neal may have noticed that he did not extend an invitation to stay for a round of bourbon and a meal since they were without their womenfolk, but he couldn't face being in Neal's company tonight. His heart had jumped when his father-in-law had walked into the tack barn, questions burning in his gaze. Sloan was still not over the shock of Bridget Mahoney's letter giving the facts of Samantha's birth. He'd held his wife trembling in his arms, hate for the woman who'd brought her into the world scorching a hole in his belly. He couldn't understand why Samantha wanted to confront her. Let the bitch fry in hell without ever knowing what a great daughter she'd birthed, he'd thought, but once Samantha had explained that she thought her mother's rejection of her and Nathan had to do with Trevor Waverling, he understood.

“I have to know, Sloan. Trevor is here among us. He knows and cares about me. What did he do to make my mother give me away and treat Nathan like a stepchild?”

“And the answer will depend on whether you acknowledge him as your father? What about Neal? You know how he feels about losing you to your natural parents, especially to Trevor. He's already got his back up against that man.”

“He's not going to lose me. I will have to make him understand that. My parents are Neal and Estelle Gordon. They are the parents I love and that I will call Mother and Daddy for the rest of my life. But I'll cross that creek when I come to it. Now I have to learn the full story of my birth.”

He'd begged to go with her. He was afraid for her to go alone because of what she might find. She'd refused adamantly, and there was no bucking Samantha once her mind was made up. She had to do this by herself, she said, and she would be fine. Besides, he couldn't go off and leave the ranch. To hell with the ranch, he'd argued. She was all that mattered. She was his life. She'd caressed his cheek. “I know,” she'd said. “That's why I'll come back to you safely.” She'd left this morning and would return by the late train. It was January seventh. He had twelve more hours to suffer before she was in his arms again.

N
eal did not ride back to Las Tres Lomas to his fire and nightly bourbon and supper. He set off for the train station in Fort Worth. The T&P people kept a record of tickets sold and destinations of passengers who had boarded that day. He would spend the night with Estelle and take her back to the ranch with him tomorrow. He wanted her with him to await their daughter's return if what he suspected and long feared had come to pass. He had seen a look in Sloan's eyes when he'd yelled
For God's sake, boy, I'm her father!
But the station record would confirm or deny his fears.

“Yes, Mr. Gordon, it looks like we sold three tickets to Gainesville today.”

“Have you been at the window all day?”

“Just came on, but Marvin was here. You need to speak with him? He hasn't left yet.”

Neal let out a breath of relief. “Yes, please.”

Marvin said, “Yes, Mr. Gordon, your daughter boarded the early morning train for Gainesville,” the ticket seller told him. “Going to visit relatives there, is she?”

Neal went weak in his legs. “You could say that,” he said.

White-faced, Millicent handed the telegram to Leon, then fell heavily into the nearest chair in the foyer. “I don't believe it. I simply can't believe it. How could she do this to us?”

Leon read the telegram:
MOTHER/DADDY. STOP. JUST MARRIED. STOP. NOW MRS. JOSEPH HAYMAKER. STOP. HOME SOON. STOP. LOVE, LILY. STOP.

“Who is Joseph Haymaker?” Millicent asked, staring at Leon with the empty sight of a blind person aware of an intruder in the room.

“Her history teacher at the academy,” Leon said. With great effort, he quelled an odd compulsion to laugh. “We met him at the parents' reception when we enrolled Lily. Seemed like a nice fellow.”

Millicent focused her blank gaze upon him. “A history teacher… at the academy. Oh, Leon—” She sprang up, clutching the telegram to her chest as if coaxing air into her lungs. “My daughter married a
history teacher
?”

“Don't shriek, Millicent,” Leon said. “It's bad for your vocal cords.”

Millicent crushed the telegram and shook it in Leon's face. “How
dare
she go against our hopes and dreams for her happiness? How
could
she go against all we've sacrificed to guarantee her a good future?”

“Uh, well, apparently Lily had her own ideas about her happiness and future,” Leon said, deciding not to correct the
our
and
we
. “Let's be happy for her, Millicent.”

Rage flared, oddly heightening his wife's beauty. “Never, never,
never
!” she screamed. “How can I be happy for her? That girl has betrayed me—us! Both our children have betrayed us!” She dropped back into the chair, beginning to cry. She jerked a square of lace-edged lawn from the pocket of her dress and stabbed it to her eyes. “Look at all the work we put into raising them so that they could have what we never did. You worked hard to make the farm pay, and…” Millicent's voice faded on a wave of incredulity “… our daughter went and married a history teacher who'll never have a penny to his name.” She lowered her face into the inadequate receptacle of her heartbreak and began to cry.

Sadly, Leon looked down at the bowed head of his wife, sobbing brokenly into her patch of handkerchief. Poor Millicent. She'd bet on the wrong horses in her stable and now the race was over, and she was left with nothing but the stubs of her losing tickets. Now was not the time to remind her that there were other races their son and daughter might yet win, just not to the fanfare she'd counted on.

He reached down and pulled her up into his arms. “Ah, Millie girl,” he said, “now will you sell this house and come live with me back at the farm?”

“Might as well,” she sniffed into his shoulder. “I have no use for the place anymore.”

Samantha reached Gainesville midday. She stopped first in the Harvey House Hotel where she and Mildred had stayed in April of last year, a lifetime ago. The clerk recognized her. “Miss Gordon, isn't it?” he said.

Surprised, Samantha smiled. “You remember me?”

“I never forget the name of a pretty woman.”

“It's Mrs. Singleton now,” she said.

“Lucky fellow, Mr. Singleton. Welcome back to the Harvey House, Mrs. Singleton. Will you be wanting a room?”

“Only some information and a cup of coffee in your restaurant—my form of Dutch courage. Do you know the address of the Holloway family?”

Warmed by the coffee and armed with the information from the desk clerk, Samantha set off for the Holloway residence. The morning was cold but sunny and clear, the wind calm. She was dressed warmly for the walk, and it gave her a chance to go over in her mind what she would say when she met Millicent Holloway.
Mrs. Holloway? I am Samantha Singleton, formerly Samantha Gordon. Our paths crossed once, but we had no idea who the other was. I am your daughter. You are my mother.

Beyond that simple introduction, Samantha could not guess the direction their discourse would take. She had come for only one purpose—to learn the details associated with her birth and abandonment. She had absolutely no wish to become a part of the life of the woman who had refused nourishment to her baby girl. Samantha would make that clear. She had a mother, one who had always fulfilled her every maternal need.
So, Mrs. Holloway, if you will simply answer the questions I've come to ask, I will be on my way.

The walk to the park was pleasant. Avoiding mud puddles from the recent snow was easy. The sun sparkled. The day was dry. Birds that had remained for the winter chirped from the branches of bare trees. She found the house easily enough and noticed a small park across the way that offered a bench upon which to sit and catch her breath, steel her will, and steady her nerves for the truth she'd come to hear. Meanwhile, she would study the house for a sign of life within, perhaps catch a glimpse of a woman with reddish-gold hair.

A man came out the front door with a newspaper tucked under his arm. He paused a moment, squinting up at the sky, assessing the day's potential, then took a pair of reading glasses from his pocket and hooked the earpieces in place. Samantha watched him walk with a familiar gait across the street toward the park. He wore a cloth cap, denim jacket, and overalls. He was so engrossed in scanning the headlines that he was almost at the bench before he saw that it was occupied. He stopped, startled.

“Hello, Mr. Holloway,” Samantha said.

The man's eyes widened in shocked recognition. He whipped off his cap. “Miss Gordon! What are you doing here?”

“I've come to meet my mother—again,” she said.