“Why, that’s thoughtful of you, Mildred,” Estelle said. “I’m sure your aunt would love to see you. Take as long as you need, and while you’re at the ranch, bring back those fawn boots Samantha was wearing when you all went to Gainesville, and I’ll see about getting them cleaned. I declare, I don’t know what that daughter of mine stepped in to stain them so. Red river mud, it looked like.”
“The streets were muddy from the recent rains,” Mildred said.
The aunt, the only living relative of Mildred’s mother, now deceased, would not be glad to see her. To Aunt Lil, she was still a Comanche bastard. Mildred would not be stopping by to visit, but she’d had to have some excuse to deliver the basket of figs; otherwise, Estelle would have sent Jimmy. The question now was what to do with the letter to make sure Samantha received it if it could not be placed directly into her hands.
The solution was to place the letter in the bottom of a basket facedown so the flap would not be exposed to fig juice, cover it with a thick tea towel, and spread the fruit on top. By midafternoon, Mildred was on her way to Las Tres Lomas, feeling much like a courier on a secret mission behind enemy lines. Silbia answered the door of the ranch house and, as Mildred expected, informed her that Samantha was not in—“Out tinkering in her workshop,” she said. The fruit was deposited in the kitchen, and the two housekeepers chatted a while over coffee, Mildred growing more nervous that perhaps she’d made a mistake in leaving Eleanor Tolman Brewster’s letter under the figs. Suppose Samantha didn’t find it?
The stained boots collected, Mildred said as she rose to go, “Tell Miss Sam that her mother left her a note under the napkin,” and added with a wink, “for her eyes only, if you know what I mean.”
Silbia sniggered. “I do. What her papa don’t know can’t hurt him.”
In this case, truer than you know, Mildred thought as she took her leave.
But Silbia’s posit proved a misfire.
Neal clomped into the kitchen a few minutes after Mildred had driven Estelle’s carriage out through the entrance posts. “What did Mildred want?” he asked, his look anxious. “I just saw her leave. Is everything all right in Fort Worth?”
“Sí, patrón,” Silbia said and gestured toward the basket of figs. “She came by to deliver those to Miss Sam and pick up her boots for cleaning.”
“Ah, figs,” Neal said, his eyes lighting up. He popped one into his mouth. “Juicy and sweet and sticky. Just like I like ’em.”
“You best stay out of them, patrón. They’re for Miss Sam.”
“She won’t miss just one.”
Or two, Neal thought as he passed back through the kitchen a short while later after retrieving a rifle from the gun cabinet. Some animal suspected to be a bobcat had mauled another of their calves and several others from the Triple S, and he and Wayne and a few of the boys from both ranches were joining up to track it while there was still daylight. The figs were already oozing their syrup, he noticed. Where in hell was Silbia? His housekeeper should have transferred the figs to another container and set it in the butter cooler before they turned to pulp. He would spoil that woman by doing her housework for her if he wasn’t careful, Neal thought, setting aside his rifle to rummage under the counter for a bowl the right size to hold the fruit. Finding it, he took the napkin by its ends and dumped the lot into it, surprised to discover an envelope lying underneath. A buffer against leakage, Neal reckoned, but he saw that the flap was sealed. A letter, then. He turned it over and read that it was addressed to Samantha and wondered what in the Sam Hill his daughter’s letter was doing at the bottom of a basket of runny figs. Then his gaze moved to the return address, and Tolman and Marietta, Oklahoma Territory leaped out at him. His heart froze. What in hell? Who was Eleanor Tolman Brewster? From the order of the name, she was the daughter of Dr. Donald Tolman, but why was she writing to Samantha? Was this a follow-up letter to her father’s to make sure Samantha received the information he had written to Neal? Damn the woman for her interference. He slipped his thumbnail under the moist flap, separating it easily. The single sheet of paper read:
Dear Miss Gordon.
You had already gone when I happened to come across a letter in my late father’s papers from the midwife we discussed. Bridget Mahoney’s San Francisco address is 505 Canal Street, but be aware that the postdate was September 7, 1889. She may have moved since then, or, alas, may not even be alive. I hope this information will bring you one step closer to locating your birth parents and that the reunion will be all your heart desires.
Sincerely,
Eleanor Tolman Brewster
Neal recoiled from the letter, holding it away from him in disbelief. The bullet he thought he’d dodged struck him in the heart. His greatest fear had come to pass. It had not been unfounded. Samantha wished to find her birth parents. He and Estelle were not enough for her. They had failed her somehow, but how could that be… ?
Through the window, Neal saw Silbia marching from the Trail Head, face set angrily. She and Grizzly had been at it again over some domain dispute. Quickly, before he could think clearly, Neal obeyed his conscience and replaced the letter where he found it, re-covered it with the towel, and emptied the bowl of figs back into the basket. He barely managed to return the container under the counter before Silbia stormed in. “You need to have a talk with Señor Grizzly, patrón. He’s gone and—” She stopped, her forehead drawing into a frown. “Something wrong?”
“No!” Neal growled. “And I don’t have time to hear about your and Grizzly’s squabbles. Work them out yourselves!” He took rifle in hand and pushed by her, seeking air and open ground. He thought he was going to be sick. He tasted a strong resurgence of fig pulp and spat into the dirt. His horse was waiting and saddled, ready for the hunt. Neal shoved his rifle into his saddle scabbard and climbed aboard, questions flying like darts in his mind while shock and disbelief, like a dam breaking, gave way to a raging hurt.
Silbia had followed him outside, Spanish instincts flaring. “Patrón?” she questioned, fearful of the strange temper that had come over him when he had been his usual gruff but tolerable self only minutes ago. She had worked for the patrón of Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad for many years and knew his moods, but she had never seen him like this. “Will you be back for supper? Remember the Singleton ladies are coming.”
“Don’t count on me.”
“What shall I tell Miss Sam?”
Neal gave his horse’s ribs a good jab with his spurs. “Anything you want,” he called after him as he sped off. His housekeeper stared after him. El patrón strictly forbade abuse to ranch animals, but if his spurs’ rowels had been sharp, they would have cut, and he never used that tone when speaking of his daughter.
Back in the kitchen, puzzled and worried, Silbia had reached under the counter to withdraw a bowl into which to transfer the figs when Samantha walked in. “I just saw Daddy take off like he was chasing down a dust devil,” she said. “I waved, but he didn’t wave back. He must not have seen me.”
Silbia was studying the bowl with a perplexed frown. “Something’s taken ahold of your papa,” she said. “Don’t ask me what. He was fine when I left to go have it out with Grizzly. He sneaked in here when I was in the garden and took most of my cornmeal I planned for the cornbread tonight. When I got back, el patrón was filled with blue thunder. Maybe it was the figs.” Silbia indicated the basket. “Mildred brought those to you and picked up your boots for cleaning—those with the flowers that you wore to Gainesville.” She stuck the bowl under the tap to wash it. “Take what you want and I’ll place the rest in the butter cooler.”
Samantha selected a fig. “Where was Daddy off to?”
“Hunting down that bobcat messing around out on the north range.”
“He’ll be back to wash up for supper and our card game with the Singleton sisters, I hope.” Sloan, of course, would be with Anne Rutherford, in whose company he always spent Saturday night.
“Didn’t say,” Silbia said evasivel
y. The bowl washed and dried, she lifted the corners of the napkin to pour the fruit into the bowl. “Oh, and I forgot there’s a letter from your mama under the figs. For your eyes only, Mildred said,” as she handed the letter to Samantha.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Neal was at the head of the pack of four men and two hounds, Sloan riding alongside him. He’d been surprised when Sloan had shown up with one of his boys. “Thought you’d be getting ready for a big time in Fort Worth with Miss Rutherford,” he said.
“Not tonight,” Sloan responded.
Neal didn’t feel like saying much else, and Sloan seemed to sense it. Wayne and the other riders, too. He knew he looked fearsome. Few men wanted to tangle with Neal Gordon wearing the face he wore now. The men mistook his look for rage. They knew his reputation for showing no mercy to those who would try to take what was his. Cattle rustlers avoided Las Tres Lomas, and a nasty critter had come onto his range, stalking and senselessly killing livestock in a time of plenty in area habitats. Track evidence indicated a bobcat. Bobcats put their back feet in the same spots where their front feet stepped, leaving an impression of a two-footed predator, so the animal’s style of locomotion, type of scat, and lack of claw marks leading away from the carcasses made its identity almost certain. The mystery was that its kind generally attacked smaller prey in their own environment: mice, rabbits, possums, badgers, skunks, and white-tailed deer. They leaped for the throat with one great spring and could kill with a single bite and afterward drag off their kill and conceal it to feast on later, but all four calves had been viciously gutted and left where they were savaged. A young two-hundred-pound calf would have been a challenge for the meanest and most daring of them. The men believed they were probably hunting a larger-than-normal rogue male that mauled for the sheer pleasure of it.
Neal wished he’d set out alone to track the bastard. If he’d seen that letter beforehand, he’d have called off the hunt and taken off by himself. Like most men of his breed, he could make better sense of his thoughts and feelings on horseback without the intrusion of company. For the first time since Seth Singleton had died, he felt like crying. He and Estelle had tried to be the best parents alive without spoiling their daughter, and she’d come through their raising pretty damn good, if Neal made the claim himself. She’d had twenty years of their love and care, protection and support. Why now would she be putting out feelers to locate the parents who hadn’t wanted her and given her away? What was lacking in his and Estelle’s devotion, the home they’d provided?
Betrayed… That was the word he’d use to describe his feeling right now, and it was all he could do to keep anger out of it. Samantha had gone behind their backs, kept her need, curiosity, loneliness—whatever the hell was driving her to find the remnants of her family—from him and Estelle. Well, what else could she have done? Samantha knew how they’d feel about her desire to seek out her blood family—exactly what he was feeling now, like he’d been shot in the gut, and her mother… Oh, God. Estelle might never recover from the grief of it if she learned what else their daughter had been about on that trip to Gainesville.
Neal felt the hole of memory open up and swallow him whole. Painfully, he remembered the night Samantha was placed in his arms. He had seen many unspeakable things in his life, things that could sear the humanity right out of a man. He had battled Comanche and Mexican marauders and fought in hand-to-hand combat in a grisly civil war that had marred and hardened him for life. But the night he held his daughter, every thorn, burr, barb inside him had melted away. It was weeks before he could catch his breath when he looked at her, so tiny and sweet and perfect and all his and Estelle’s. Could a man feel more love for a daughter conceived from his own loins? It wasn’t possible. Of all the many people surprised by his immediate and total enthrallment to this beautiful infant, none was more surprised than he. The only female he’d ever dealt with was his wife. His mother had died when he was too young to remember her, and he’d grown up in a household of tough, hard men among whom he’d been the toughest and hardest.
The first miracle of his life occurred when Estelle agreed to marry him, but understanding a woman had taken some doing, and there were so many years when she had toiled long hours beside him in men’s shirts and trousers that he forgot she was a woman at all. He’d naturally hoped for sons. It never entered his mind to wish for a daughter. When neither came, he resolved himself to their childless state and tried to make it up to Estelle. She’d had enough of ranching. She would inherit Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad upon his death but would sell it to Sloan in memory of the boy’s father who had been his closest friend. Seth had saved his life by risking his in the Seven Days Battle at Gaines’s Mill in Virginia in 1862. So, trying not to think of having no heir to benefit from his hard work and sacrifice, Neal had kept the ranch going, not only to fulfill his own titan dreams but to leave it to Seth’s son in honor of his friend.
And then had come his second miracle, an heir, and it hadn’t mattered that she was a girl. A son could not have been more competent to step into his father’s shoes, and only a daughter could have given him and Estelle the tender, sweet love they’d received from Samantha.
The riders were coming upon an area of the ranch known as Windy Bluff. “There’s Saved,” Sloan said, dredging Neal up from the well of his long-ago recollections. The younger man pointed at the heavy-horned steer munching grass. This part of the range had become his personal grazing ground. “How old is he now?”
“Going on five years,” Neal said.
“His horn tips have faded. They’ll have to be repainted soon.”
“If Samantha remembers,” Neal growled. Though he might occasionally lose himself in the fantasy world of titans and gods, he was a literal man not given to allegorical meanings, but he saw the faded horns as symbolic.
Sloan chided in surprise, “Now, Neal, why wouldn’t Samantha remember? I’ve often seen her ride out here to check on him. Damned steer seems to recognize her.”
Neal allowed the rebuke to linger between them without comment, then suddenly said, “A piece of advice, son. When you marry, have many babies. That way when one betrays you, you won’t have lost everything.”
A pointing finger and a shout “Over there!” from one of the men cut off further conversation. The dogs, barking, leaped ahead. A long, heavy-tailed animal almost twice the size of a bobcat snarled at them from a high, rocky ledge smothered in oak and pine brush. The creature took off, men and dogs chasing it into a thickly wooded area that, along with a rocky bluff rising behind it, formed the boundary of Las Tres Lomas. Ten minutes later, like a phantom, the animal had disappeared. The dogs whined with their noses to the trail from which it had vanished. Horses spun around with their riders, the men searching the bluff in vain for a flash of sleek, tan-colored fur.
“A mountain lion.” Wayne Harris stated the identity of the dreaded sight. It had been years since the area had been menaced by a member of its species. “Probably a rogue, driven out of his territory because he didn’t follow the rules.”
“And too arrogant to bury his prey because there’s more where it came from,” Neal said grimly. “Our threat won’t mean a harlot’s kiss to him. He’s in this for the thrill. He’ll be back tonight, and when he does, I’ll get ’im.”
There were exclamations from the men. Sloan said, “What do you mean, Neal?”
“I’m staying. You boys go on back. Enjoy your Saturday night, but I’m not leaving until I’ve killed the bastard or am convinced he’s taken off.”
Sloan lowered his voice. “That’s not a good idea, Neal, and you know it.”
Wayne had moved in to add his protest. “Your sight ain’t as good as it used to be, boss, especially in the dark.”
“But my hearing is,” Neal said, “and I’ve got my specs. Besides, I got some thinking to do. Alone. Wayne, take the dogs. I won’t need ’em. Don’t worry about me, boys. I’m where I belong right now. Estoy dentro de mi elemento.”
In his
element, Sloan interpreted. “What you said about betrayal… were you talking about Samantha?”
Neal’s face closed. “Forget I said that. I misspoke. Betrayal’s not in Samantha.” And it wasn’t. Neal recognized that truth. Samantha would never turn her back on him and Estelle. Neal’s worry was for himself and the demons of jealousy and possessiveness that would not allow him to keep and to hold those he loved who loved another. It must be all for him or nothing. How could he bear to share his daughter’s love with another father—her real father? Or hear his daughter call Millicent Holloway mother? Was the woman’s husband, Leon, still alive? Would Samantha write to this… Bridget Mahoney in San Francisco, and would her reply lead back to the Barrows farm? What angered him was the idea that Samantha would even want to write to the midwife!
Out from the hole of memory, a terrible incident surged, one like the case of the dog he’d loved as a boy, but much worse. Neal had tried to bury it because it reminded him of himself. A commander in Hood’s brigade possessed a beautiful black Arabian stallion who permitted no one to ride him but his owner. Hell’s Fire was the horse’s name. One day, another rider got on his back, a simple boy who looked after the officers, polished their boots, cleaned their latrines. To everyone’s astonishment—and applause—the horse cantered around the paddock docilely under the boy’s hand, but when he dismounted, the owner put his revolver to his horse’s magnificent head and shot him dead.
Neal shook himself of the offensive recollection, the rancid taste of disgust in his mouth. Animals that a man loved who turned on him were one thing, but was he the sort who could close his heart against a daughter for her sin of loving another?
Wayne gave it one last appeal. “Neal?” he said, his tone worried. “Let’s call it an evening and go home. Samantha will be worried if you don’t show up.”