Beyond the Broken Road, page 21
She pulled his head down, her lips soft and pliant as they pressed against his, then her tongue darting out and filling his mouth, teasing his tongue, kissing him as he'd taught her and with devastating effect. He felt his body turning hard, his need for her so strong it was all he could do to pull her arms away.
"You don't want me?" she asked, hurt in her eyes.
"I want you," he said, swallowing. "I just can't take you this way, not when I’ll be leaving."
"You want the excitement of it all. You want that more than me," she accused.
He almost laughed at her naivety, except the anger in her voice, the full lips pressed so tightly together, the stiff line of her spine made this anything but funny. She didn't understand. He couldn't expect her to, didn't want her to know all he faced when he rode south.
He'd made his choices years before. It wasn't for her to pay for them by his trying to wheedle her down, convince her he was right when deep inside he also knew he was wrong. The wrong though had happened so long ago. He couldn't even remember when. People talked of second chances, but Sam more than most knew there was no such thing. A man chose a road, or sometimes it was chosen for him. From that time on the next choice was made.
"If you go, I won't be here when you come back. I won't live with a thief."
He clenched his jaw. He had expected that. It was why he'd decided to leave Joe Fox with her. Joe had his instructions to see her safely wherever she wanted to go.
"You can get that annulment," he said. "There is cash in the box in the bottom desk drawer. Take it with you. I'll see that your father gets back what was stolen."
She frowned, staring at him. "You'd do that?"
"I'll see it happens." He would leave the instructions for that also with Joe. Joe knew where it was, could retrieve it. If Abby went home, she could take her reward with her. He had never touched it and thank god not her. It was all he could give her.
"Don't go," she said again, tears in her eyes but not attempting this time to touch him.
He shook his head, unable to find the words to tell her what she'd meant to his life in the short time she'd lived with him. He managed a smile. "Whatever you do," he said, "I hope it works the way you want. I wanted to make you happy, Abby. I really did. I’m sorry I made you cry instead." He reached out with the vague thought of touching her hair, then let his hand drop. It wouldn't make the tomorrows any easier for either of them.
CHAPTER 17
Sam and his men left before daybreak. He had hoped he would see Abby if just for a moment, but if she rose to watch him ride off, she didn't show herself. There were no tender good-bye kisses, no second thoughts. He had to believe she had meant what she said. She would be riding to Tucson as soon as he was gone. The thought brought pain, but it had only been a matter of time no matter how it had ended. Nobody stayed.
Angling south, then west, they rode into Nogales in the late afternoon. For the men, this would be an opportunity for fun. For Sam, no town meant much of anything, except that somewhere on the ride he'd decided to buy Abby some pretty clothes, even knowing it was a fool thing to do for a woman who'd told him she wouldn't be there when he got back.
Sam ordered the men to meet him south of town in the morning and to be sober. Then he let them go. He had half expected Sandy to stay with him, but either the youth was still angry for not wanting him along, or he decided he'd have more fun with the men than with a sober Sam.
Stabling Satan for a good brushing and feed, Sam walked up the street, looking for the right kind of establishment. The buildings were mostly of thick-walled adobe, some with brightly painted designs on the walls or awnings to cover the doors.
Having been propositioned several times in a block, once by a pretty girl and twice by men who promised him that their beautiful sisters would be eager to meet him and knew just how to bring a smile to his face, Sam found what he wanted in a dimly lit store.
A heavy-set Mexican woman came from the back. Sam spoke Spanish well enough to communicate his needs. He pointed to a pile of brightly colored skirts and asked how much. She named an exorbitant price. He grinned and started for the door. She called him back, asking what it was worth to him and serious dickering began.
When he'd finished, Sam had purchased a turquoise skirt with a richly embroidered hem, a red skirt that was plain and two simple white blouses, one long-sleeved, the other cut to allow it to be worn off the shoulder. Sam doubted Abby would ever wear the shoulder and breast revealing blouse, but a man could dream. A dream was his only excuse for buying such things for a woman who'd promised to be gone before he returned--that and the fact it fit with his own dream, one that was harder to kill than he’d expected. He'd never bought a woman clothing. He would have the joy of that, even if he would never know the joy of giving them to her.
"You buying these for your woman?" the Mexican woman asked as she wrapped the purchases in heavy paper.
He nodded.
"You make her very happy."
"Maybe." Adding to his foolishness, in the next shop, Sam bought leather sandals and a silver Concho belt, then added a pair of silver hoop earrings and another of turquoise, with a necklace to match. The jewelry was not elaborate or fancy. They would look beautiful with her coloring.
Some lingerie was next on his fantasy list, a silky nightgown, silky underwear, and finally some colorful silk scarves. Maybe he'd find a way to send them to her, not giving his name, of course-- if he lived to do so.
With his shopping finished, he stopped at a café where he knew the food was good and ordered a plate of frijoles, tamales, and enchiladas. He rolled a cigarette after he'd polished off the meal and drank a cup of strong Mexican coffee as he smoked it.
"You all alone, mister?" the waitress asked in Spanish, coming to sit across from him.
"No."
"You look alone. Lonely too. I get off early. Want some company?"
The girl was dark-haired and pretty, but she held no allure for him. He didn’t want company. He shook his head and smiled faintly as she got up and walked away, her rounded hips swaying to give him one last temptation, except it wasn't a temptation, not when he could only think about one woman.
Walking out of the restaurant, he saw what he hadn't seen walking in. A poster with a drawing of Abby, her name, and description. He tore it from the wall. The likeness didn’t look a lot like her, but close enough that if his wolves saw it, they would know. The $500 reward for information for her whereabouts would be enough to tempt some to sell out their own mothers. The added reward for the capture of her kidnappers might slow them down if they couldn't figure out a way to get the reward without incriminating themselves. The probability was the posters were around town, so he could count on at least one seeing them. If Abby was already on her way to Tucson, it wouldn’t matter.
He thought about getting a hotel room, but he’d not sleep well if he did. The noise of the town, lumpy mattresses were not for him. He picked up Satan and rode a few miles, finding a protected spot, off the road, with a little grass where he hobbled the stallion. He spread out his blanket and then sat back against a tree, his mind on anything but the setting sun or the job ahead. He rolled and lit a cigarette, staring at the rich purple and red colors as they slowly turned to black. She wouldn't be there when he got back. He believed what she said. There wasn't anything he could do about it.
Abby rose before first light, determined she would leave that day. Sam didn't deserve her. He didn't deserve her waiting around to pick up the pieces of his broken body if it even returned. The way his life was going, he'd end up dead on a desert somewhere with the coyotes to pick the bones apart. It would be no more than he deserved.
"You want me for anything, Miss Abby," Joe Fox asked, coming around to the kitchen door.
"There's fresh coffee," she said in a sour mood. She knew by the careful way the wiry little man looked at her that she had to have snapped her invitation, but he took the cup and sat at the table.
"Sam told me to do whatever you needed doing... or take you wherever you want to go."
She stared moodily into her own coffee cup. "He did, did he?”
“Yes, Ma’am, he did.”
“Have you done any new drawings?" she asked, not dealing with the issue at hand. She was going to leave. Just didn’t have to rush off right away.
His smile barely showed under his big, handlebar mustache. "I did one of Sam. Want to see it?"
She almost said no, but then nodded. She was mad at herself as he went off to get the sketch. Why was she letting him show her a drawing of Sam Ryker? She didn't want to think about him. He didn't deserve her thinking about him, caring for him, worrying over him.
When Joe came back, he opened a sketchbook and flipped through the pages, then handed her the book. He'd captured Sam on one of the broomtail horses he'd been breaking several weeks earlier. His legs were wrapped around the barrel of the horse, his arm flung high, his body stretched taut. The smile on his face was not what she'd have expected to see. Breaking horses was hard work, yet Sam looked in that quick sketch as though he was a man doing what he'd been born to do.
"This is very good, Joe, one of the best drawings I have seen. So much feeling and life to it," Abby said. "May I see your others?"
Joe nodded, and she began at the beginning, seeing the men doing various tasks around the ranch, the horses in a pasture eating grass, even one of her hanging up a wash on the line out back. With his pencil, Joe had captured the essence of this ranch.
"You already know you are very talented," she said. "You could sell these in town. Have you thought of doing that?"
"I've sold my work before," he said, "but it wasn't the same for me. I found myself trying to draw things or paint something just because somebody would buy it. It wasn't the same. The work wasn't as good as when I just drew whatever I saw, whatever I wanted."
"Do you have training as an artist?"
"I studied some. I thought that's what I'd do... but then things happened."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He took a sip of his coffee, then looked at her. "I don't know. Maybe. You might be somebody that would understand."
She sighed. "I don't seem to understand much these days, but I'll try." She got up to refill his coffee cup. Outside the birds were making a racket as the light brightened with the sun rising enough to silhouette the ranch with an intense glow.
"I come from New York--up the Hudson River Valley. I'd met quite a few artists coming through our little town, had seen their work, gotten the idea of doing it for myself. My father was a banker, a practical man. He didn't think much of me studying at any art institutes, didn't think drawing was any vocation for a man. My mother disagreed.
"When the Civil War came along, I was not really old enough but jumped at the chance to join up. Maybe that sounds crazy, being an artist--then being a soldier, but it was a way to prove myself to my father, I guess."
"I can understand that," Abby said, thinking of the many times she'd gone out of her way to prove herself to her father and what a failure it had always been.
"I was wounded at a battle that doesn't have a name, didn't amount to much, except it made me a prisoner of war, put me in a Reb hospital. By the time I got out, I didn't care for much of anything, cared even less when I got home and found out my father had died, my mother remarried. So, I started wandering, hit the bottle too much, drank myself from one end of this country to the other and spent about ten years drifting."
"How did you end up with Sam and begin…" She stopped.
"Rustling?" he finished with a grin.
She smiled back. "For wont of a better word."
"There is no better word. I am another of Sam’s walking wounded. I met him in New Mexico. I was still drinking heavily. He was foreman and hired me on. We weren’t rustling to begin, but the ranch owner desired a larger herd, and he’d done it before, taught us the ropes. After the first trip, it was easy to make another."
"A textbook example of the life of crime," Abby said bitterly. "Do you still drink too much?"
Joe laughed. "Blunt and to the point. No, I don't. Equally blunt. No, after I had a few friends, began to feel better about myself, crazy as that might seem. I didn’t need the bottle so much. I started to draw again, that helped too."
“I’m glad you found that out, Joe. You do have talent. Did Sam say you used to paint in oils?”
He nodded. “No time or money for that now.”
She studied the drawings. “If you have as a good a feel for color as you do line and shape, it might be worth giving that a try again.”
“Thank you, and now Mrs. Ryker, where do you want to go today?”
Abby walked to the sink and threw out her tepid coffee. “I know where I should go.”
"Home?” Joe asked.
“Not sure where home is at the moment,” she admitted with a little smile.
“How you going to find out?”
She laughed. She heard the cow bellowing down by the barn. “Not sure of that yet... I guess I should milk Tildy at least.”
“From the sounds of it, she’d like that.”
“I can’t stay here with a man who rustles cows,” she said, unsure of whom she was trying to convince, as Joe didn’t argue the point.
“You never know. Sam might not keep doing it.”
"I had hoped that, but there he is, off again."
“He had limited options this time. Sandy was determined to go whether Sam went or not. You can thank Snake for that.”
“Sam didn’t want to go?”
Joe shook his head. “I can’t say he confides in me, but I heard him try every way he could to talk Sandy out of it. Even offered to go instead and give him his cut. No, I’d judge he didn’t want to go.”
“I wonder why he didn’t tell me that.” That made her about as angry as his going had.
“I have no clue. Sam is a proud man. Maybe that was it. Maybe he figured it wouldn't make any difference to how you felt. Would it have?"
"I don't know." She reached under the sink for the milk pail. "I better take care of the cow."
"Need help?"
"I can handle it.” She wanted time alone to think.
“Shall I saddle two horses?”
“No.”
At the barn, Abby got Tildy into her stanchion, following the ritual she'd learned the cow liked best. As she was milking, she tried to think through what she ought to do. She couldn't make her thoughts link together in a logical sequence. A + B = ... What was A... or B?
As she washed down the cow after the milking, she heard a faint mewing from the corner of the barn. She put Tildy outside, then went to see if one of the barn’s feral cats had gotten hurt. There in the corner was a gray-striped kitten. It looked up at her, its tiny mouth opening and closing with almost no sound coming out.
"Who are you?" Abby asked, picking up the tiny mite. "Where's your mama?"
As she stroked its soft fur, the kitten began to purr. She could see by the sunken little belly that it hadn't been fed recently. Had something happened to the mother or was this one of the kittens she'd decided to abandon? Holding the kitten against her breast, she picked up the milk pail and headed for the house.
In the kitchen, she poured a small amount of milk into a bowl and put it in front of the kitten, but the little one didn't seem to know what to do with it. She sat on the floor, dipping her finger into the warm milk, then put her finger to the kitten's mouth. This time with sharp little teeth and tongue, it sucked at her finger. Repeating the process, Abby finally showed it the source, and in moments it was licking at the milk with a fair degree of messy success.
Leaving the kitten to its riches, Abby took care of the milk--a task that was becoming more and more difficult. Tildy provided more milk than all the men and Abby together could consume in sauces or butter. With just Joe and her at the ranch, the problem would grow worse. Certainly, the kitten wouldn't use much of the supply. She decided cheese was the answer, except her only guide for making cheese was a cookbook with rather vague instructions. When she saw Joe at the back door, she asked, if he knew anything about cheese making and wasn't surprised when he shook his head.
"Who's that?" he asked, pointing to the kitten that had rolled into a contented ball in the corner and fallen asleep.
"I haven’t decided on her name, but she’s the new house cat. We have had a few mice.”
“She doesn’t look big enough to take on a mouse.”
“She will be. Think Sam likes cats?"
"I have never seen him with one, but that doesn't mean he doesn't."
"Do you know how to tell if it's a male or female?"
Joe grinned and picked up the sleeping kitten, earning a squeak of protest for his troubles. "I think," he said after his examination, "you've got yourself a little lady here."
"Uh oh. I don't suppose that will please Sam, what with more kittens and all."
"So," Joe asked, "what are you going to call her?"
Abby considered a moment. "Let's see we could name her after one of the Greek gods... or a character in a Shakespearean play or... a Bible character. I know, let's call her Rahab."
"Who's Rahab?"
"A harlot with a heart of gold."
"You going to name a kitten after a prostitute?" Joe asked, clearly aghast.
"Well, that particular woman was a Biblical heroine. She saved some men’s lives, taking a grave risk herself."
“Hmmmmm. Seems like a lot of name for that little mite.” Joe looked at her thoughtfully, then at the kitten. "All right if I sketch her?"
"Be my guest.” She decided she would get some paints for Joe first chance she had. She’d love to see what he could do with them. Her thoughts then turned to the problems of cheese making. She knew she’d made her decision regarding leaving right away. Who would milk the cow? Maybe the Reimers. For today she’d try to make cheese. Tomorrow would be soon enough to decide whether to go or stay.
