They sat down in the shade of a large cottonwood tree near the underground spring, Nathan and Samantha with their backs against the trunk. He had ordered the picnic prepared back at the hotel, the menu suggested by Benjy, and they watched as the coachman spread a blanket and set out a basket of fried chicken, cornbread, onions, pickled okra, a crock of pinto beans, and a butter cooler of banana pudding. But for Saved, cattle did not range this far north, and they would be spared the smell and sight of “cow patties,” which would have affected their appetites. Today, the steer had wandered out of sight.
“How long have you been a landman?” Samantha asked.
“Not long enough to call myself one,” Nathan answered, and without going into personal detail, volunteered that he’d come to work for his father when he turned twenty. He now lived with him and his grandmother and sister in Dallas and was finally becoming weaned from the wheat farm in Gainesville where he’d grown up.
Samantha smiled. “I was in Gainesville not so long ago. Beautiful farming country. So you’re becoming accustomed to city life?”
“Trying to,” Nathan said.
Samantha enjoyed the sound of his voice. He was a very comfortable person to be around, she thought, peaceful as a slow-moving river. While they conversed, Rebecca and Zak splashed in the spring, the little girl holding up her skirts and squealing when the dog shook himself and showered her with droplets. A cool breeze off the water relieved the heat, and only an occasional caw from a bird or the distant low of cattle disturbed the noon stillness.
Samantha felt the tension drain from her shoulders, if only for a little while. She found herself recalling the boy’s handsome father and tried to reconstruct their conversation at the paleontology lecture last March…
I could not help but notice that you seemed to believe you knew me when Barnard and I joined you, Mr. Waverling, then decided not. Am I correct?
To a degree. The color of your hair reminds me stunningly of someone I used to know.
Then I hope it evokes a pleasant memory.
Unforgettable ones.
Samantha glanced at Nathan. Did he know the woman to whom her hair reminded his father stunningly of someone he used to know, the woman whose memory he had not forgotten? It didn’t matter now. She was no longer curious as to who that might be, no longer desired an incidental encounter with a stranger who might say, You look so familiar, especially the color of your hair. Are you related to so-and-so?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Benjy calling them to the blanket. “Nathan,” he said, “ye’d best get Zak to shake himself before he joins us. Come, Rebecca, let me fix yer plate.”
They arranged themselves on the blanket, the earth warm beneath it. Samantha expressed that the chicken looked delicious. On a cattle ranch, they didn’t get the opportunity to eat much fowl. She had never enjoyed picnics on the ground. Gnats and ants were an irritant, and balancing a plate in her hand a challenge, but somehow today the company of the entertaining little group made the annoyances unnoticeable.
“Benjy!” Rebecca raised her voice authoritatively. “Pudding, please!”
“You don’t want to eat your chicken first, Rebecca?” Nathan suggested.
“Pudding first, and then the chicken,” Rebecca said decisively then demanded in a shriek, “Benjy! Where’s my spoon?”
“Ah, now lass, let Uncle Benjy tell ye a thing or two about spoons,” the coachman said. He ladled a scoop of pudding onto Rebecca’s plate and picked up a spoon. “With a spoon, ye take too much into yer mouth all at once, see?” Benjy demonstrated and afterward took up a fork. “With a fork the food lasts longer if ye dip only the tips into it, like this.”
Rebecca looked skeptical and took the fork he handed her. They all watched as she carefully dipped the tips of the utensil into the pudding and quoted, “ ‘Pudding and pie,’ said Jane. ‘Oh, my!’ / ‘Which would you rather?’ said her father / ‘Both,’ cried Jane, quite bold and plain.”
Samantha looked at Nathan, and he answered the question in her glance. “My sister responds in poetry. It is her way of communicating.”
“Her way is charming,” Samantha said. “She has quite a fine mind to hold all those verses.”
“She’s brilliant,” Benjy said, savoring a nibble of his chicken leg. “Her mind just thinks differently from the rest of us.”
They heard a rider approaching at a gallop from the direction of the ranch house. Samantha sighed. “My father, Neal Gordon,” she said, brushing crumbs from her lap, prepared to meet his ire.
Neal noted the spread picnic fare and halted his paint a distance away to prevent soil and turf from landing on the food. He dismounted hurriedly and approached with his hand held out to Nathan. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Sorry to be late to greet you, but”—he cast an annoyed glance at Samantha—“nobody came to get me when you arrived.”
Samantha said in a playful tone, “I wanted my time with Nathan before you took over, Daddy. I thought it best, and I was right.”
“Come join us in a picnic, Mr. Gordon,” Nathan invited.
“Aw, Nathan!” Benjy muttered low in protest.
Nathan ignored him. “We have plenty,” he said to Neal.
But Neal Gordon was not interested in food. “Actually, what I’d like to have is your opinion, Mr. Waverling. Can this… supposed cemetery of old bones—” he waved an arm to encompass the area around the twin boulders of Windy Bluff “—be spared if we drill for oil over there?” He pointed in the direction beyond the underground spring.
“No sir, it cannot,” Nathan answered, “and, Mr. Gordon, I go by the last name of Holloway, not Waverling. Holloway is my stepfather’s name. He raised me. I’ve just recently come to live with and work for my father.”
Neal’s arm fell. He stared at Nathan as though he’d suddenly pointed a gun at him.
Nathan said, “But, like I introduced myself when we met, just Nathan will do.”
When Neal, stiff and unmoving, continued to stare, Samantha took his arm. “Daddy? What has happened to you?”
“I—I don’t know,” Neal said. He ran a hand over his face. “For a few seconds there, I… I seemed to lose my train of thought. I guess I was bowled over by… by the disappointing news.” It wasn’t possible, he thought, shock deafening his ears to all sound. These things didn’t happen. The young man he’d invited onto his land was Samantha’s twin brother and… that must mean that… Trevor Waverling was her father.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Holloway, you say?” Neal said. There was no doubt of the boy’s identity. He’d said he’d grown up on a wheat farm. His stepfather was the Leon Holloway of Dr. Tolman’s letter, the man he’d sat with on his porch, who’d said he and his wife had been blessed with only two children, a son and daughter. He’d spoken the truth. Vaguely Neal noted the presence of a short-legged man, a young girl, and a German shepherd, all staring up at him from their blanket as if wondering if he were about to topple over on their picnic.
Samantha still held his arm, brow knitted in concern. “Daddy?” she said. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”
“Here in the coach, sir,” Nathan suggested, stepping quickly to open the vehicle’s door. “We’ll get you some water.”
“No, no, I’m all right,” Neal protested, recovering. “I just felt the breath knocked out of me there for a few seconds. Don’t know what got into me.” He forced normalcy into his voice and put his arm around Samantha’s shoulders, hoping she’d not feel his trembling. “Well, so that’s that, then,” he said to Nathan. “There will be no drilling in this area of the ranch.” He gave Samantha’s shoulder a hearty rub. “That sound good to you, honey?”
Samantha, looking startled by his sudden jovial manner, said, “I’m just surprised that it sounds so good to you.”
Nathan said, “Just so I know what to put in my report, sir, am I to understand that if Miss Gordon’s photographs don’t show this to be a prehistoric site, Waverling Tools will have the go-ahead to drill?
”
“Well… I don’t know,” Neal said. “I’ve reconsidered drilling anywhere in this vicinity. My daughter is convinced this field is sacred ground, so it doesn’t matter what the pictures say. They can lie, you know, so until experts have had a chance to come out here and dig around, I’m afraid I can’t sign a lease. That could take years, so my daughter tells me.”
Samantha dislodged herself from Neal’s arm and stared at him incredulously. “Daddy! Do you mean it?”
“I mean it,” Neal said. He held out his hand to Nathan. “Young man, I’m sorry for your trouble, and I hope you’ll give my apologies to your father for taking up his company’s time, but I’ve just now realized what could be lost if your company drills here.”
Nathan shook Neal’s hand firmly. “My father and Todd will be disappointed, but I understand your view that an oil field would be a poor trade for what might be under the ground here.” He looked down at Benjy, who had followed the conversation while continuing to eat. Rebecca was daintily pulling flesh from a chicken leg sliver by sliver and feeding it to Zak in apparent oblivion of the conversation conducted over her head. “Benjy, I believe we’d better pack up,” Nathan said. “Our business here is done, and Grandmother won’t stir from the front window until we’re home.”
“Aw, Nathan, can’t we finish the food?” Benjy whined.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” Samantha said, “but I’d better get my father home.” She gave Neal’s rib a mock jab. “The sun seems to have affected his brain.”
“No!” Rebecca cried suddenly, hopping up, startling her blanket companion and the two blackbirds hovering for crumbs. She bolted to Samantha and locked her arms around her. “You can’t go! No, no! Come live with me and be my love / And we will all the pleasures prove / That hills and valleys, dale and field / and all the craggy mountains yield.”
Nathan moved to unclench Rebecca’s arms, but Samantha gently took the child’s face between her hands. “I have to go, Rebecca,” she said, “but you’re welcome to come visit me anytime, and you can recite poetry to me. Would you like that?”
Mollified, Rebecca nodded and released her hold. “Nathan can bring me.”
Neal said with a trace of urgency, “We must get back to the house, Samantha. I’m afraid I don’t feel all that well. Maybe the sun has gotten to me.”
Samantha gave Nathan a look of apology as Neal strode toward his horse. “This sudden about-face is not like my father, Nathan. Only this morning, he was hoping you wouldn’t find reason not to drill in this area, and I’m sure he’s had his fingers crossed that my photographs will prove negative for a prehistoric find. Something has taken hold of him.”
Nathan smiled. “Maybe a father’s love for his daughter? And like he said, he’s come to realize what could be lost if you’re right about your find. One more question before you go?” He stroked Rebecca’s hair. The little girl had run to Nathan for comfort and wrapped her arms around his hips. “When did you discover the skull missing? How many days after Todd came out here to inspect it?”
Surprised, Samantha said, “The very next day. It disappeared between noon Saturday after I left to take Todd back to the station to catch the two o’clock train to Dallas and Sunday when I stopped by here in late afternoon. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” Nathan said.
“Samantha!” Neal bellowed impatiently, already in the saddle, Pony’s reins in his hand. “Come on!”
Samantha held out her hand. “Good-bye, Nathan, but only until I see you again, I hope. I meant what I said to Rebecca.”
“I know you did,” Nathan said, taking her hand. “If your excavation dig turns out to be what you suspect, I’d like to come out and see it.”
“I’ll send a personal invitation, and you can bring Rebecca.”
Nathan smiled. “Good-bye then, until we see you again.”
“Daddy, you must tell me the truth,” Samantha demanded when they were back at the house. “Are you feeling sick?”
Yes, yes, he did feel sick, Neal thought. Sick to the soles of his boots. “No, no,” he said. “I just suffered a little dizzy spell. Maybe you’re right about the sun. It’s blistering out there.” He yearned to be alone. An ache was swallowing him whole. He felt as if the sky had fallen upon him. He’d dodged two bullets. Now this. “The little girl…” he said vaguely. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Rebecca. She’s Nathan’s sister.”
“Oh, so he has another sister, does he?”
“I don’t know about another sister, Daddy.” Samantha eyed him in growing concern. “I don’t know if I should leave you for my dress fitting—” she began, but Neal interrupted her.
“Yes, you will!” he bellowed. “Your mother is dying to see you in the final fitting of your wedding dress. Silbia can look after me, and Sloan is coming over to have a bourbon with me after his workday.”
Still looking worried, Samantha said, “All right, but while I’m in town, I’m making an appointment for you to see Dr. Madigan, and you will keep it if Sloan and I have to hogtie and drag you to his office, understand?”
Neal did not argue. “I understand,” he said, feeling as empty as a feed sack. He allowed Samantha to see him comfortably settled in his library chair before she left, but he pushed out of it the minute the door closed. He could not think sitting still. He paced from wall to wall to clear his buzzing head, to relieve the gnats crawling beneath his skin. He was a man who did not entirely discount the possibility of divine interventions. Was the appearance of the nice young landman the work of the Almighty to correct an error of fate and to trigger Neal’s conscience to take notice and do right by it? He’d heard of Trevor Waverling through Todd Baker, who’d given Neal the impression the man was an amalgam of Attila the Hun and Jesus Christ. His employer was a prominent figure in Dallas, rich, educated, influential, a member of old-city gentry, and the father of a fine son and a pretty little girl, even if she was touched in the head. After a turn or two about the room, Neal plunked down in his deep-seated chair, exhausted, bewildered, frightened. Trevor Waverling had everything that could lure his own little girl away from him.
Neal jarred his memory into sharp recall of his conversation with Leon Holloway last month. He had hardly been able to dislodge it. The farmer had realized who Neal Gordon was and why he’d come. There was no second guessing about it. Leon Holloway had known that the rancher who’d come on the pretext of inquiring whether the farm was still for sale was the adoptive father of the child he and his wife had given away, a daughter that was not Leon’s but Trevor Waverling’s. Always good for everything and everybody to end up in their proper place, the farmer had said. His statement had seemed strange and irrelevant at the time, but now it was clear as rainwater. After meeting Neal, Leon Holloway had determined that Samantha had ended up in the proper place.
Neal lit a cigar to calm himself and to figure who knew what. It was no secret that Trevor Waverling was Nathan’s father, but did the tools manufacturer know that he had another daughter born a twin to Nathan? It appeared almost certain that he did not, or why wouldn’t he have made himself known to her? Obviously, Nathan was unaware of Samantha’s existence. The Holloways had concealed her birth from him as they had from Trevor. If Neal had to stroke in the rest of the canvas, he would guess that Millicent was probably in the family way with the twins by Waverling when Leon married her. Why else would a beautiful woman of property have married a man as lowly and plain as a haystack like Leon Holloway? Trevor may or may not have known of her pregnancy, but he hadn’t hung around to make things right. Would Leon have told his wife of Neal’s visit to the farm and that the girl who’d answered her ad in April was her long-lost daughter? If Neal was any judge of men and from the way their conversation had gone, he’d have said no. In any case, Neal hadn’t seen or heard hide nor hair from the Holloways.
So, he was back to the same old worries and fears as before, and the same question for his conscience: What should
he do with this newfound knowledge? Say nothing? Do nothing? Keep the secret that only he and Leon Holloway knew, and go on with life as it was? Who would ever know the difference? The Holloways had their family; Trevor Waverling had his. The Gordons would have no family to call exclusively their own if the truth got out. Once again, the specter rose of how it would be if the members incorporated, little different from unfamiliar cattle wandering onto a rancher’s land, mixing brands, adulterating the herd. He must spare Estelle the horror of having to share the daughter she’d always called her own with another mother. To see his wife in the state she was now, riding on clouds of joy in anticipation of their daughter’s marriage to the man they would have chosen for her, of becoming a grandmother… how could he shatter those clouds? I wonder if the first child will be a boy or girl, she’d cooed to him the other day. Oh, Neal, my old mountain lion hunter, aren’t we the luckiest parents alive?
As for him, he no longer had to worry that his heart would grow cold toward Samantha if she should choose her birth family over him and Estelle. It would simply cease to beat.
A jab of guilt forced him from his chair. But did he have the right to keep Samantha from her twin brother? They’d cottoned to each other. He’d seen that at first glance. The boy was worthy to claim kinship to her. He’d be a fine sibling, fill that yawning void in her. But with him would come the rich Trevor Waverling and the little girl, and Nathan had mentioned a grandmother. Even Millicent and that son and daughter she doted on might horn in. You could cut so many slices from the pie before the cook was left with nothing.
Neal walked to the fireplace and stared into its empty mouth, still holding some of winter’s ashes. He’d made his decision. He’d meant his word to Nathan Holloway. No matter what Samantha’s photographs revealed, Waverling Tools would never set up a derrick on Windy Bluff or any other site on Las Tres Lomas. There were other oil drilling companies. No reason why his daughter and the landman should ever meet up again. Neal would keep his newly discovered information to himself. Time was like a river. Eventually, it carried the debris on its shore far from its origins and left no trace of its existence. Unless…