Ashes of the Red Heifer (18 page)

After more tears, Lizabeth drew back and let her gaze travel to the two children standing at the edge of the bunkhouse yard, their eyes wide, their mouths drawn into Cheerios of surprise. “These are my kids. Mandy is nine, Lucas is five. Ashley is with her dad, she’s thirteen. And I’m expecting another one after the first of the year.”

Annie calculated quickly, her mind refusing to register the news. “You have a daughter who is thirteen?”

Lizabeth flamed red. She looked toward the calving lot. “Yep. We wanted a family right away.”

Good sense told her to stop, but she didn’t listen. “You would have been sixteen. A year after I left.”

Lizabeth looked at the ground. “There’s lots you don’t know.”

Her stomach clenched. “What happened?”

Lizabeth backed up two steps. She held her hands behind her back, her small mounded belly poking against the oversized western shirt. “I’m not as strong as you, Annie. And I was so young.”

Annie put her thumb on Lizabeth’s chin and forced her to look up. “Tell me.”

Lizabeth’s clear blue eyes drew to Annie, then darted away. “God provided a good husband. I love these children to death.”

“But you never wanted to stay on the ranch. You had dreams of living in a city and traveling.” Annie’s voice caught in the lump in her throat.

Two tears raced to Lizabeth’s jaw. “It was a childish fantasy. God had a plan for me.”

“Dad had a plan, you mean.”

A sob rushed from Lizabeth and she bent as if Annie had punched her. Still, she wouldn’t look up. “It is for the best. I would have failed if I’d left the ranch.”

Annie wanted to shake Lizabeth. Where was the laughing sister, the comrade who’d withstood Matthew’s belt alongside Annie? “Who is he? Who did you marry?”

Lizabeth didn’t answer. She cried harder and retreated toward the bunkhouse. Annie grabbed her by the shoulders and forced Lizabeth to look at her. “Who is it?”

Lizabeth finally looked at Annie. Anger shot from her tear-filled eyes, aimed with accuracy at Annie’s soul. “Melvin Payne. You left. I couldn’t fight them alone. You said you’d come for me but you never did.”

Nausea flushed through Annie. “I didn’t know. I tried to call you and sent letters, but you never wrote back. If I’d known, I’d have found a way to get you out of here.”

Lizabeth’s eyes hardened to flint. “You knew what would happen if you left. You made your choices and I suffered the consequences. But you’ll pay. Someday Melvin and I will own this ranch and I’ll sell it, auction off everything, and your precious Grant Red Angus will disappear.”

The bitterness and anger scorched Annie. Lizabeth, who had smiled and laughed in Annie’s memories, had turned into this vengeful harpy. And it was Annie’s fault for leaving. Annie let go of her and headed toward the hill behind the calving lot. She shouldn’t have allowed them to do this to Lizabeth.

Lizabeth came after her, voice rising in fury. “You took my life and left me here with yours.”

Guilt caught her in wave after wave as she ran.

EIGHTEEN

       Memory powered her legs past the open yard gate, crunching across the gravel, behind the barn and up the steep hill northwest of the headquarters. This was Wild Horse Hill, the tallest point around for several miles. The soft sand anchored sage, soap weeds, the tall red and gold grasses, and bunches of sunflowers all drying now. When they were children she and Lizabeth had spent many summer afternoons searching out sand cherries and buffalo berries for jelly. Reaching the top of this hill had been one of Annie’s first challenges and signs of independence. It was her favorite place in all the earth, the center of her universe.

Tears spattered her face before she topped the hill and once there, she flopped to the sand and gave way to unrelenting sobs. God, she missed her father. He was the only one who ever understood Annie’s love of the land and the red cattle. He knew Annie’s drive to be the best. He understood…everything.

That his religion robbed them both of their love kicked at Annie’s insides like a bloody miscarriage. She jumped to her feet and screamed her rage to the Nebraska wind. She cursed whatever god or gods who fueled the insanity corrupting her life from her childhood until now.

Below, she saw David and Moshe leaning against the pickup.

After she’d spewed the head off her rage she sank to the sand and sat with her knees drawn up, her back to the headquarters, the sun warming her face. Memories of her childhood bubbled around her and more, the memories of the dreams she had for her life on the ranch. Her throat closed when she thought of the daughter she’d hoped for, the way they’d climb Wild Horse Hill the pudgy child’s hand protected in Annie’s strong hand.

The image made her think of Moshe and his son. Unless Annie figured out some way to save them, Moshe’s little boy wouldn’t walk hand in hand with him, either.

David’s heavy breathing and noisy footsteps closed in on her. He dropped down behind her, his long legs stretching out around her hips. He pulled her back into his warm body and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against her hair.

She pulled away and faced him. “How could he have done that to Lizabeth? Damn him to hell.”

David’s eyebrows twitched. “I hate to hear you say that, even if your father is hard to take.”

She snorted. “I ought to do a lot more than just say it.”

David shook his head. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’ve got to say it. The Commandments and the Jewish sages equate reverence for mother and father with the reverence due to God. Whatever your parents do, you have to honor them.”

“Don’t go getting religious on me now.”

He gave her a sideways smile. “I am religious. I’m Jewish, remember?”

“Don’t make it an issue. Besides you didn’t seem to have a moral dilemma at the house. You were ready to clean Dad’s clock.”

David shrugged and pulled her back against him, putting his arms around her. “They aren’t my parents and he was trying to hurt you.”

She watched a cloud expand in the blue sky. “Dad was my best friend. We were always out doing something. Fencing, calving, feeding, and when we got a break, I’d go riding. I started A.I.ing when I was a freshman in high school.”

“Artificial insemination at fourteen? That’s young.”

She smiled. “Artificial insemination was another fight with Dad. Took me two years of badgering, shoving journal articles under his nose, gathering statistics. I swear I had to drag him every step forward on this ranch.”

David’s voice vibrated on her back. “You’ve been gone for sixteen years. He must have learned to move forward on his own.”

His words wrung her heart as if it were a soggy dishrag. All the hopes and plans for the ranch she’d so carefully tucked away came flooding back. “You might believe this since you know me so well, but most people would think I’m lying: I always had a plan for Grant Red Angus. From the time I can remember, I believed we’d be famous for our genetics. I used to read everything I could get my hands on about breeding, beef, ranch management. I read and kept notebooks, drew detailed plans.

“By the time I was in high school, Dad and I were more like business partners than father and daughter. I lived for the day I would graduate and never have to leave the ranch again.”

Annie quit talking, surprised at the unusual urge to tell him the whole story. She’d never confided it to anyone, not even Hassan.

She took a deep breath and shifted sideways. “Dad and I used to argue a lot; it was the way we communicated. Most of the time it didn’t amount to anything serious, but sometimes he’d hit. I could put up with it, because I loved what I was doing so much. And, I loved him. I never thought he didn’t love me, just that he couldn’t control his temper.”

David pulled her back to lean against him. “You must have left right after graduation. Why didn’t you stay as you planned?”

David’s warmth surrounded her, but a chill penetrated her heart. “The night I graduated, my folks had a little reception. People from the church, mainly. We belonged to this little church that calls itself Adam’s Sons. It isn’t a national church, just Pastor Dan who came here and started it with his own beliefs.

“Anyway, Dad had been saying for weeks he had an announcement to make that night that would bring fulfillment to my life. He’d give me a hug or something—really not like him at all—and say things about my life’s work, and how I’d be a woman. Melodramatic garbage. But Dad always spoke as if he were reading from scriptures.

“The way he went on about my future, I finally figured he was going to deed me part of the ranch. After the steaks, he made everyone gather on the porch and he brought me over to stand by him. Made a big speech about his daughter and and how I was his gift from God and he wanted to give me a gift on this special day. You can imagine what a blowhard he could be.

“So there I was, certain by now, that he was going to give me the west ranch. It had a little shack on it and I’d already planned how I could fix it up.” Annie broke off and drew in a deep breath, feeling it vibrate down her throat as she fought the tears.

David didn’t move.

She continued. “His arm was around me and I was grinning like an idiot in front of all those people. He stepped back, took my hand and held out his other hand. That’s when I noticed Melvin Payne standing right up front. Melvin was thirty-five or six. His wife had quit him a couple of years before that. She wasn’t much older than me, but she took their two little kids and away she went. Melvin, old, mean, and stinky, stood there with his mouth wide open, his beady eyes glittering. He might as well have had his tongue hanging out.”

Annie shivered at the memory. To her seventeen years, he seemed ancient, his bald pate shining in the porch light, his paunch hanging over his belt. She sat up and looked at David. “Dad took Melvin’s hand and put it on mine, and before I could scream, he announced our engagement.”

David’s mouth compressed into a hard line and anger flashed in his eyes. “How could he think you’d be happy with someone like that?”

She stared blindly at the hills. “I guess in his own way, he thought he was giving me what I wanted, a permanent ranch hand. Melvin knew cattle and horses and how to keep machinery running. And he’s strong, even if any normal young girl would think he’s repulsive. I really believe Dad didn’t know Melvin’s first wife. But I did. She’d show up with occasional black eyes or bruised arms. I didn’t buy her excuses.”

David sounded angry. “It still doesn’t make sense. Why would you have to marry somebody when you have the capability yourself?”

Annie allowed herself a dry chuckle. “Dad has some pretty bizarre notions. He gets most of his ideas on the order of the universe from Pastor Dan. According to him, women shouldn’t own property. He probably thinks women should
be
property. Dad took on the notion that he couldn’t will his land to Lizabeth and me, but I stupidly thought he’d changed his mind. He hadn’t, just figured a way around it. He’d will it to Melvin but it would really be mine.”

David softly kissed her neck. “I’m sorry.”

“It shouldn’t still hurt. But it does. I set him up, expected to work out there my whole life, and in the end, he didn’t think I was worthy because I wasn’t a man.”

David’s arm slipped around her belly, pulling her into his warmth. “So you left?”

Annie closed her eyes and let her head fall back to his shoulder. “Yeah. But not before he cold-cocked me in front of all the graduation guests. I told him I wouldn’t marry Melvin and the next thing I remember is waking up in the grass. No one helped me. Folks were walking to their pickups and driving away. Lizabeth was bawling on the steps and Mom was washing dishes in the house. Dad was visiting with Pastor Dan and Melvin.”

David kissed the back of her head. Annie turned in the circle of his embrace to look into his eyes. “My heart will never forget the ranch.”

David held her. His eyes deepened to midnight blue as he leaned close to kiss her. His lips melted onto hers in a slow, deep caress. Annie looked into his eyes and felt her world narrow to the light that radiated from them. She needed to feel him, to know someone wanted her. Their lips met in an explosion of fire.

David’s hunger matched her own and in an almost violent flurry, they shed their clothes, using them for protection against the grass stalks and sand of the prairie. David pushed her down on the clothes, covering her body with his own. His kisses burned as they branded her lips, face, neck and breasts.

Annie bucked against him, her moans matching his. Suddenly he stopped and rolled off her, laying on his back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

Without speaking, Annie lifted her weight on top of him, lowering herself on the length of him. Their eyes held and the connection felt physical.

He pressed into her belly, hot and full. Eyes open, Annie let her tongue tease his lips. David’s hands traveled across her bare skin. She moved against the length of him, slowly grinding her hips, and claimed a kiss.

A groan escaped his lips and he suddenly wrapped his arms around the small of her back. He met her hips with a thrust of his own. His lips moved against hers. “Oh god, Annie. I can’t stop.”

She buried her face in his neck, loving the heat of his warm flesh on her own. “I don’t want you to stop.”

He moaned softly, open palms cupping her buttocks, pulling her closer to him. He thrust against her, moaning again. Annie closed her eyes and opened her mouth against his, kissing him with the urgency of her need, rubbing herself along him in impatience.

She quickly straddled his hips and took him in her hand, heat permeating her palm. She raised up and lowered herself on top of him, gasping with pleasure as he entered her.

He grabbed her buttocks again, kneading and squeezing. “Annie.”

Her name sounded like a cry of pleasure. It made her move faster, riding him up and down, sliding against him. He opened his eyes and brought his hand up to massage her breasts, one at a time, barely pinching the nipples until Annie thought she’d scream with delight.