Vickie Britton, page 21
“Brad, listen.” I laid a hand on his arm, stopping him, not certain I wanted to hear any more. “Whatever happened between you and Colleen—well, it’s over now. Won’t you have a talk with Ivan?”
He shook his head wearily. “He’d never listen.” He fumbled into his pocket for a cigarette. “He’s so full of anger and hatred. Knowing that he’s Tavas’s son has changed him.”
“How did he find out? Did Alice tell him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think so. Colleen’s the one who told me. It was just before the reading of the will. She said that Ivan finally knew the truth about himself. She said that he’d found out who his real father was.”
I remembered how strangely Ivan had acted just after Tavas’s death. He’d taken to the hills, avoiding us. Was this, and not the reading of the will, on his mind?
Brad had more to tell me. “He’s Tavas’s son, all right. That’s why he’s determined to have the Devil’s Gate for his own.” He stopped, turning to face me, fear shining in his eyes. “Ivan was out there last night, Anna. I saw him. He’s the one who turned that bull loose.”
243
“No!” But I was recalling the way he’d looked that night in the hallway. He’d been fully dressed, his hair wild and windblown.
“Don’t you see? Those cattle mutilations started almost the day he came back to the ranch. He’s the one behind the Cult of Akerra, not Manuel or Esteban. The cloak I found in the cabin’s his.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“First, he tried to divorce Colleen, but she wouldn’t let him go. So he tried to frighten her away—”
“Please—”
“Even then he must have known you were going to inherit the ranch, not him. Now, Colleen’s dead. You’re the only one standing in his way. He’ll ask you to marry him soon, mark my word. And if you say ‘Yes’, the ranch will be his—but if you refuse him…”
He didn’t have to explain the rest. Martin DeGarza had explained it all very carefully after the reading of the will. In the event of my death, the Devil’s Gate would go to Tavas’s next of kin, Alice. And her son, Ivan.
“If you really believe all of this, then why didn’t you go to the police? Why didn’t you tell anyone about the cloak?”
He hesitated, avoiding my eyes. “Because I still have a little doubt in my mind…”
I knew he was lying. “Brad?” But he was abruptly walking away.
Realization came to me suddenly. His secrecy about the cattle mutilations, the hidden cloak—they were all efforts to cover Ivan’s tracks. Despite his terrible suspicions, he’d kept silent. His perverse loyalty shook me to the core. The fact that he found it so necessary to protect Ivan proved how convinced he must actually be of his guilt.
244
I called out to him. “Brad!” He wouldn’t look back. Was it guilt because of his involvement with Colleen that made him feel obligated to keep Ivan out of trouble, or some lingering sense of loyalty for their dying friendship? Surely, Brad couldn’t really believe Ivan capable of the cold-blooded murder of Colleen, the sinister plotting to take over the Devil’s Gate.
Yet it was clear he was warning me.
Disturbing thoughts tumbled through my mind as I stepped inside of the barn. The bull that had been so menacing last night was in the first stall, calmly munching hay. I approached him cautiously, not failing to notice the wild gleam in his eye.
Suddenly, Guillermo was standing beside me. “Suppose you heard about the excitement last night? Some rustlers tried to make off with this big fellow. Luckily, he must have broken loose. Brad found him wandering around in the garden.” With a frown, Guillermo gestured toward me. “Take a look at this.”
A shiver of horror gripped me as I saw the bull had been injured. There was a small sharp puncture wound on his massive flank. I drew in my breath sharply.
“Nothing serious,” Guillermo said. “But he probably gave those rustlers a run for their money. Nothing more dangerous than a wounded bull. Especially one like this who still has his horns.” He whistled. “They can stick those horns into a man so fast he’d never know what hit him.”
Silently, I followed Guillermo into his office, the strange happenings of last night racing through my mind. Someone knew that under the cover of darkness that enormous beast appearing from nowhere would undoubtedly be mistaken for Akerra. Someone had led him purposefully just below my window. Then they’d hurt him
245
just enough to make him charge. I had an enemy intent on frightening me away, as they’d frightened Colleen in the past.
Or did it go further than that? My insatiable curiosity was no secret. I shivered as I thought of how close I’d come to stepping outside. Is that what was planned? Did someone hope the enraged bull would gore me to death with those sharp, wicked horns?
“Guillermo, who could be behind this madness? Have you been able to find out anything more about the Cult of Akerra?”
A worried look crossed his face. “Not a thing. And that’s what’s bothering me. Not one man will say a word about the Cult. It’s like it doesn’t even exist.” He sighed. “Not long ago, I was so convinced that Esteban was our man I’d have tied a rope around his neck and hung him myself. Since then, I’ve been watching him, waiting, daring him to make just one slip…” He shook his head. “There’s something I can’t quite figure out,” he confessed. “It’s like a piece of a puzzle that don’t quite fit. I believe someone close to us may be involved in this, Anna. That’s all I can tell you right now. Be careful.”
“Guillermo?”
He looked up at me, that perplexed expression still furrowing his tanned brow. His eyebrows rose interrogatively.
“Brad and I were talking about some old rumors. It’s upset me.”
“Rumors?”
“You know, about Alice and Tavas…” I paused, unable to go on.
A light of recognition came into his eyes. “Oh, that old story that they were in love with each other?”
246
To my surprise, Guillermo was smiling, the crinkles about his deep-set eyes widening. “Don’t look so shocked. You know how folks like to gossip. I’ll bet there’s not a man on this ranch who hasn’t wondered if Ivan wasn’t Tavas’s boy. Of course Tavas’s death and the speculation on who’d inherit right before the will was read brought these old tales right back into the limelight.” His dark eyes were bright and steady as they gazed into my own. “Myself, I don’t take no stock in rumors. Why, the reading of that will proved once and for all that there wasn’t a grain of truth to the story.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, Tavas left the ranch to you. If there were any truth to those rumors, my dear girl, don’t you think Tavas would have left the Devil’s Gate to his own son?”
What Guillermo was telling me made sense. Yet, doubts remained in my mind, haunting me. There’d always been so much conflict between Ivan and Tavas. Much as I’d loved Tavas, I knew about his mean and stubborn streak. Many times Ivan had displeased him. And Tavas was a man who would seek revenge for his displeasure, even if it meant disowning his own son.
I saddled Clover and rode down to the holding pens where the branding was still going on. Mothers bleated loudly for their calves as the men separated them with whips and loud calls.
The big, frightened calf which had been singled out scrambled wildly, kicking up a fine spray of dust as Ivan, who was on horseback, casually flicked his wrist, bringing a loop gracefully around the calf’s white head. In the meantime, Brad swung the second rope, dropping it so it formed a loop under the calf’s belly. The terrified calf
247
stepped into the rope and Brad quickly jerked it tight, trapping the calf’s hind legs in the noose. They worked as a team, the two of them together, as they’d always done. I couldn’t help noticing that even at the roping, Ivan was the more experienced, the more masterful of the two. Even at this, I knew Brad considered him a rival and Ivan, as usual, came out the champion.
I moved away, and set my horse into a gallop toward the hills. A few minutes later I realized Ivan was following me.
I dismounted and was standing near the huge gray boulders, waiting. Moments later the thunder of horse’s hooves came crashing through the underbrush toward me. And then I saw him appear, and step down from the huge, dark horse. He was moving toward me. A wayward breeze ruffled his wild black hair, pulling it back from his face, accentuating the stony cut of his rugged features. He put me in mind of a restless black panther I’d seen in a cage, padding back and forth, searching for an escape while I watched him, knowing that there was none. I could sense Ivan’s muscles were taut, his glowering eyes the eyes of that wary panther, filled with the same frustration, the same torment of wanting something just out of reach.
He faced me, his eyes dark as midnight. “I’m sorry, Anna. I had no right to speak to you the way I did last night.” Eyes stormy, he continued, “Seeing you with Brad—you don’t know what it did to me. All of the anger I’ve been carrying around inside of me just…exploded.” The fine mouth tightened as if with pain. “You don’t know what it was like. Watching my wife with other men…even him. Knowing all the while that she was untrue…just like— ”
“Like Alice?” I suggested gently.
248
Ivan studied my face carefully. “Yes—like my mother. I didn’t think you knew… Oh, what does it matter?”
“It matters to you.”
“All those years Lucas must have known I wasn’t his son. Yet he treated me as his own.” His face hardened. “And Alice—”
“Don’t judge her too harshly, Ivan. Perhaps there were reasons we don’t understand.”
He was an arm’s breadth away from me. I felt my pulse quicken as he came closer, until we were almost touching. Suddenly, he reached out, pulling me toward him, bridging the gap between us with one quick motion. “I won’t lose you again,” he declared with frightening determination.
My head was resting upon his chest, his hand softly stroking my hair. Now he reached out and tilted my face toward him. “I lost you once. Tavas made me believe you were too young, that I wasn’t good enough for you, but he was wrong. I can make you happy, Anna.” His dark eyes blazed with desire. “I won’t wait any longer. Marry me, Anna. I know there’ll be talk so soon after Colleen’s death, but we can’t let that come between us. We’ve always belonged together, you and me. Let’s make it right.”
His lips met mine, gentle, persuasive. “Say you’ll have me, Anna. Please. You know in your heart you’ve always been mine.”
Yet even as I clung to him, even as I turned my face upward for his kiss, I was remembering Brad’s warning. “He’ll ask you to marry him…”
I saw the hurt in his eyes as I pushed him away. Tears were already blinding me as I heard myself whisper faintly, “I can’t.”
249
Chapter 32
As I braved the dark and rickety wooden stairs leading up to the family attic, I was just as uneasy about the thought of rats and spiders as I’d been as a child. My senses tingled at every creak of the stairs, and I found myself wishing for a flashlight. I knew there was a light socket with a bare bulb once I reached the top of the stairs. I hoped the bulb wasn’t burned out.
I groped for the string, found it, and tugged gently. The light flickered, then came on, spreading a weak ray of brightness over the cluttered attic. I looked about me in surprise. Alice usually kept the attic as spotless as the rest of the house, but obviously someone, perhaps Brad or Ivan, had been up here recently, searching for some lost item. The boxes of Tavas’s things we’d piled so neatly in the corner were scattered in hopeless disarray. Clothes were mixed in with papers and books, and over these were scattered medicine bottles and empty glass jars.
My old rocking-horse grinned at me from the corner as I rolled up my sleeves and began to sort through the mess. Did every old country attic have a rocking-horse? I glanced about me, noticing someone’s old baby crib—a broken doll, a dusty rocking chair. I was surrounded by relics of the
250
past, small items making me painfully aware of the passing of time.
I found the box of legal papers I’d been searching for, buried under a pile of fruit jars. Carefully, I sorted through the documents, making a stack of the ones that seemed important enough for me to take downstairs to the files. The land lease agreement Guillermo had asked for was, of course, the last item in the box. With a sigh of relief, I threw it on top of the pile, rose gratefully from my cramped, cross-legged position, and stretched.
Now, to straighten up the mess I’d made and go back downstairs.
I was piling the old papers back in the box when something poking out from under the mountain of Tavas’s book collection caught my eye. With a feeling of nostalgia, I recognized the flowered cover with the strange Basque words in front. I remembered how I used to sit on Tavas’s desk, turning the yellowed pages as he talked about the odd pictures inside.
I sank back down on the cold wooden floor, album across my lap, and began turning pages at random.
“Who were these people, Tavas?” I asked tracing the old-fashioned black and white images of a smiling man and woman standing outside of a white-washed, clean little farmhouse not so much different from our own, except for the background of heavy trees and gentle, rolling hills. The people wore strange clothing—the woman had on a long, flowered dress and an apron.
“Why, that’s Ama and Aita,” Tavas replied, stroking my pony tail affectionately. “My father and mother.”
“You had a papa and a mama, too?” I asked with some surprise, and Tavas laughed, his gray eyes suddenly merry.
251
“And how do you think I got here, Little One? Did you think I was hatched from an egg?”
I flipped through the yellowed pages of photographs, missing Tavas, longing for the only father I’d ever really known.
I closed the album quickly, adding it to the pile to take with me downstairs.
Carefully, for I was heavily burdened with papers and books, I switched off the dim light and groped my way to the stairs. Back in my room, I threw the books on the easy chair, brushing clouds of dust from my hands on to the back of my jeans.
Later, after I’d bathed and washed the no-doubt mostly imaginary cobwebs from my face and hair, I settled back on the bed with the old album in hand. Like many of the antique ones, it had a binder nearly an inch thick. I surveyed the thick, upraised design of faded tapestry flowers with a critical eye. The material had worn thin in places, and a torn place ran along the front binder, jagged and uneven.
I opened the book, skimming past pictures of unknown aunts and uncles with their fixed smiles and odd haircuts. Loose pictures were tucked in here and there amongst the older ones, the present scattered carelessly over the past. Snapshots of our own family that Tavas had saved but never found the time to put into an album of their own. There was Lucas in his Army uniform—Brad’s graduation picture. A dark-eyed boy stood proudly beside his first horse. A little girl riding a bicycle smiled into the camera.
Me.
I turned another page of the album and was immediately swept back into Basque country. More men
252
and women standing at the gates of stone farmhouses. Rolling hills and sheep and cattle.
On the next page was a picture of Tavas standing at the open entrance to a shepherd’s tent. There was a smoldering fire, a dog chasing sheep against the hazy backdrop of mountains. Funny to think that my adopted uncle had started his life in America young and penniless, herding sheep. There was so much about Tavas I was just beginning to know.
Below that was a snapshot of another young man in a concealing leather hat and heavy jacket. The hat was pulled low over his face as if he were camera-shy. He stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing off at some distant point in the sky as if perhaps watching a band of wild geese. The man in the picture was, of course, Guillermo. He’d been with Tavas since the beginning, pitching his tent with him in the vast loneliness of that first isolated sheep camp high in the Sierra range.
On a page by itself was Lucas and Alice’s wedding picture. How lovely she was. Thick, dark hair cascaded nearly to her waist, contrasting with the bone-white lace of her wedding veil. Her face was thinner, the sculptured cheekbones more prominent. Lucas, pale and sickly even then, stood proudly beside her in his pin-striped suit, his eyes and mouth solemn above a carefully-trimmed mustache.
The last picture in the album was one of Alice and Tavas. It must have been taken shortly after Lucas had left the Devil’s Gate to serve his hitch in the Army. I knew that Alice, pregnant with Ivan, had returned to the ranch to live when Lucas discovered he was to be sent overseas. However, a sudden bout of rheumatic fever had instead forced his early discharge, leaving him with a permanently
253
damaged heart. So he, too, came back to the Devil’s Gate to live.
In the picture, Alice and Tavas were riding. Alice, who I’d never seen astride a horse, rode a dappled mare. She was dressed in a man’s trousers and shirt, her waist-length hair tied back from her oval face. Her graceful figure showed no sign of the child she must have been carrying. I was awed by her striking beauty. Tavas rode protectively, just behind her. Her head was turned slightly back toward him, lips parted, eyes radiant.
The eyes of a woman in love?
Shaking off the disturbing thought, I bent closer to study the picture. The unknown photographer had captured the blurred figure of a man in the background, waiting in the shadow of the stables. Though it was impossible to make out those hazy features, something in the familiar, aloof stance made me wonder if the blurred image wasn’t Guillermo who stood in the distance, alone, awaiting their return.
I closed the album with a snap. For a moment, I sat lost in thought. Automatically, my fingers brushed the familiar roughness of the tapestry flowers. Again, I noticed the odd, jagged tear in the thick, heavy binder. I was sure it hadn’t been there the last time I had noticed the album, when Alice and I had packed it away with Tavas’s books. Frowning, I inspected it closer, wondering if it might have been torn on purpose. Curiously, I ran my finger along the slash. Suddenly, my nail brushed up against a tiny knob, releasing a hidden catch.
