Dust Devil (37 page)

And Grant. Rosemary’s gaze moved to him and Libby. In middle-age Grant was even more distinguished. Silver highlighted the golden hair at his temples. Rosemary thought she could detect a certain look of melancholy in the bright blue eyes, making him seem more human than he had in his youth when his features were Apollo-like. And she smiled as she noted the way he held in his stomach. Yes, he would definitely have a problem with a paunch in not too many years. She looked at stodgy Libby at his side, who had not changed, then turned back to Father Felipe as he toasted the newlyweds with the imported champagne.

Rosemary looked at the bride, flesh of her own flesh. Forgive me, my child. I have loved you so much. And hurt you so much. Why? Is it true we hurt the ones we love the most? I must tell her and Cody before they leave tomorrow that I am keeping Cambria for them . . . and their grandchildren . . . if they should change their minds.

And Rosemary thought of Stephen, alone in his room listening to the noise of the wedding celebration, and knew that bile as black as miasma must be rising up in his throat to choke him. So many years, so many people maneuvered and trampled on to gain one end
. . . and now the hopes of a pure Anglo to rule the Cambria kingdom had been thwarted.

"What were you saying, Father? I’m sorry.”

"Disgraceful!” the old priest shouted at her ear as near-deaf people have a habit of doing. "There is no reverence for anything sacred anymore. At the last
Novena
of High Masses would you believe a gang of cowboys out of the Lazy B Ranch rode right into the Cathedral and defiled the font! Urinated on it!”

"Disgraceful!” Rosemary agreed in a polite murmur. But her attention had already moved to the stairway where Stephanie, with her back turned, tossed her bouquet of baby’s-breath to the crowd of young ladies, mostly daughters of the Cambria employees. There were shouts of chivalry and song, and an
accordion and harmonica played riotously as Stephanie shyly placed her hand in Cody’s and let him lead her up to the bedroom they would share on their wedding night.

"That could have
— should have — been us twenty years ago,” Grant said quietly, suddenly at her side.

CHAPTER 40

It was only a mild intoxicant, the bubbly champagne. Still, Stephanie’s blood thundered in her ears. From outside came the noise of shouts and pistol shots as cowboys circled the house in the traditional chivaree. Her lids lifted and closed heavily. She tried to make her eyes focus on Cody as he extinguished the gas lamp and came toward her, the paleness of his sinewy body gleaming in the room’s sudden darkness.

In the two times they had come together she had known the quickening of her heart, the singing of her blood, the ache of desire in her loins. Cody had that sexual power over her that made her weak just in waiting for him to come to her. And on this night, mixed with the passion, there should have been a special joy, she thought. But she felt only a pervading sadness, like the slow seep of oil from the ground. It’s the
champagne, she told herself, as her hands slipped around his taut waist and slid up to the corded shoulders.

But she knew it had been the sight of Wayne’s father and Inez’s mother that had brought back all the frustration, all the years of wanting and yearning, to culminate now in a marriage with a man she did not love. I'll learn to love Cody, she thought. He’s a good man, and he loves me.

And as Cody gently kissed her lips, his mouth searching, asking, Stephanie felt the shame of her treachery wash over her. How could she condemn her mother’s adultery when she was just as adulterous?

Ah, Wayne, would you come to me now, knowing the taint I carry in my blood? A half-breed? A bastard? An adulteress, if not in thought, then deed?

The hopelessness of her life stretched out like a frozen, barren land behind her closed lids. Yet as Cody drew his lips from the hollow of her neck, moving lower to tease one full breast, Stephanie felt herself responding against her will, felt as if it were Wayne she was betraying with the soft, purring moans. Or was it Cody she was betraying? All the champagne — she couldn’t think straight. She could only think now of the mounting pleasure as Cody’s tongue lashed relentlessly at the small, hard core of her femininity.

At last, when she could wait no longer, he slid up over her. His lean body, hardened by the years of range riding, began to move against hers, first in a gentle, slow tempo. And then, as her own body arched to meet his with each stroke, the cadence of their passion increased. Pound
ing, throbbing, rising, falling . . . Wayne, Wayne, Wayne! her body cried out, matching the tempo of her growing ecstasy.

Brilliant colors exploded behind her lids, coinciding with the tremors that racked her, one after another. "Wayne, Wayne!” she gasped. "Oh, don’t let it stop now!”

Cody pulled away from her. The darkness hid the hurt in his eyes, but not IN his voice. "Damn your cheating soul!” He left her spent and shaken body alone on the bed as he dressed and left the room. The cool night breeze poured through the fluttering chintz curtains to chill her bare flesh and dry the tears on her cheeks.

* * * * *

"You’re a fool, Stephanie!”

Rosemary bit back her railing. Her gaze rested sorrowfully on the bent head and thin shoulders of her daughter, who sat hunched over, her chin buried against her knees. Stephanie, who had been the stronger wille
d of her two children, was wasting away before Rosemary’s eyes; going each day to sit beneath the cottonwood and look out upon the sweep of the Pecos.

Did people actually die of heartbreak? Rosemary wondered. She had survived more than fifteen years of heartbreak. Or had she? Some part inside her had died, withered away with Lario’s imprisonment. And the rest of her
. . . her soul, her heart, her spirit, whatever one called it . . . had begun to decay the day Stephen had castrated Lario. Regardless of how wrong what she subsequently did might have been, the vengeance she took did dilute the bitterness that poisoned her.

Perhaps she should take her own life, ease the agony that greeted each morning she awoke. Yet, she knew she could not. Something in her fought back, would continue to fight. Life was too precious. It was a gift that should never be taken for granted.

There had been many brief moments of happiness for her over the years. Stephanie’s first words, "I love you”; Jamie’s graduation from law school, her deep friendship with Rita. These were things to be treasured.

But perhaps because of her own numb heart, she could not understand her daughter’s suffering. Rosemary sat down beside Stephanie, spreading her skirts over the grass that grew sparsely beneath the tree’s thick branches. She waited, letting the moment stretch into peaceful silence. A dove chirped out his song from a branch high above, a buzzard soared lazily beneath the midday sun, and Stephanie’s fingers listlessly plucked at a lone brown leaf.

Fall was fast approaching, Rosemary thought. Then winter and another year. And another. What do I want for my own life? And without looking she saw the Castle behind her, as clearly as the first day she had seen it as Stephen’s young bride. She knew then that the love for Cambria had been as strong as her love for Lario. Only in a different form.

And she knew that Stephen, bedridden
— a shell of the once-powerful man — had triumphed in his own way. Her love for Cambria would consume her life now.

Satisfied with the realization of the direction her life would take, she leaned her head back against the narrow girth of the cottonwood trunk. She closed her eyes, seeing the face of the man she had loved for so long and knew that she must set his daughter free.

Perhaps it would be Stephanie’s children, Lario’s grandchildren, who would return to live at Cambria. A smile touched her upturned lips. What a twist of irony . . . Cambria owned, controlled by an Indian’s tainted blood.

"Stephanie,” she began, unsure of what to say. Was not the truth always simplest? She laid her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

Stephanie jumped, torn from her stupor of despondency. "Mama, what’s left for me?”

It was a desperate whispered plea for help, and Rosemary sighed inwardly with relief. "You can stop pining away for something that doesn’t exist,” she said softly. "Wayne
—t he man you’ve painted in your mind since childhood is just that . . . a one-dimensional caricature that does not exist anywhere except on the mind’s canvas. The truth about Wayne is — ”

Stephanie raised her eyes to meet her mother’s hard gaze. "Mama, don’t. I know I am a fool. I know Wayne’s a weakling.”

And more, Rosemary thought.

"But I don’t know what to do, where to start. For days now I have felt like I’ve been in a deep hole. I’m so confused!” Stephanie buried her head in her arms. "I’d like to wipe out that last night
. . . “ she faltered.

"Why don’t you go to him
— to Cody. Loving’s Bend isn’t that far.”

Stephanie looked up. Her lips trembled. "What if he doesn’t want me?”

“What if . . . what if Cody didn’t go back to his ranch?  What if I get to Loving’s Bend and there’s another woman with him already?  What if . . . what if he won’t take me back?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

* * * * *

Tired and dusty from two days of traveling in the stagecoach, for the railroad did not follow the Pecos River that far south yet, Stephanie found it difficult to converse politely with the other occupants
— two elderly sisters making their second daring trip to Mexico City and a middle-aged man in a black derby with a worn, black case in his lap. A traveling salesman — a drummer — she was sure.

The rocking and swaying of the coach made
her drowsy. She tried to forget the perspiration that dotted her upper lip. Her smartly tailored, blue-striped taffeta traveling dress was really too warm for the hot September sun. The two sisters did not make the trip any more pleasant either. Once they discovered she was the "Rhodes girl,” they kept up a steady stream of chatter.

"Yes, yes
— I am visiting a relative in Loving’s Bend,” she responded. "No, I’ve never been there before.”

She listened as Lizzie Burns described the wicked Fandango dance the brazen women of Mexico City performed
— "lascivious” — and how the women — and even children — smoked cigarettes. And Charity Bums told of the beautiful missions there and the enormous bull arena.

The man sat stone-faced, and Stephanie wondered if he were not a preacher or lawyer instead.

But when the talk turned to the trouble the Territory had been having with Indians, especially Geronimo, and why General Crook had not done anything about the worsening situation, the man, introducing himself as Hiram Wharton, began a tirade. "Savages! Every last one of them. Dirty heathens! Every man, woman — and yes, child — should be destroyed, lest they breed like rabbits and rise up in revolution. Filthy scum they are!”

A part of
her began to shrivel inside. At Cambria she had been safe with the love of her mother and the people of Cambria to protect her. But out here, what would happen if the raving man found out she was a half-breed?

She felt dirty, her pride destroyed. But a flicker of her old spirit flamed up at the man’s castigation of the Indians. "You talk as if you know the Indians well,” she said, addressing him. "Perhaps you lived with them for a while?”

Lizze and Charity tittered. The man’s lips folded tightly beneath his bulbous nose. "I spent one hour with them, Miss — which was enough!” He doffed his derby to expose a balding pate crisscrossed with scars. "Lifted my scalp, the dogs did!”

"Oh!” the two old maids gasped in unison.

But Stephanie did not have a chance to reply, for her attention was turned to the coach’s left where cliffs gouged by the now dry channels of the Pecos River crept down to within only half a mile or so of the rocky road. From crevices of these ridges Indians galloped their mounts at full speed toward the coach.

From above came the messenger’s shout, "Apaches!”

Impossible! she thought as cries of alarm went up inside the coach. There were no warring tribes that side of the Guadalupe Mountains. And Geronimo and his band were still reported roaming the
Ojo Caliente
area.

She smiled grimly at Hiram Wharton’s sudden pallor but felt pity for the fear that caused the two sisters to clutch one another with trembling, bony hands. She reached out a hand to reassure the two women but halted midway as the first war whoop reached her. A yell that curdled the blood like buttermilk. She had heard it as a child.

And as she watched the riders draw near, their vermilion painted faces hideous in the hot sunlight, she knew that the Indian cry was woven in her destiny. She knew it when she recognized the face of Satana.  And knew this was no chance encounter but a planned expedition which had required the Indian’s unlimited patience. Months of watching her every move, of endless waiting for a time when she would be alone — far enough away from possible help.

Rifle shots shattered the air. One pony tumbled head first into the dust, trapping its rider beneath it. Another rider pitched backward out of the saddle. And still Satana kept coming. That face. It had haunted her dreams. The cruelty that glazed the oblique eyes. The mouth that was almost lipless, that grimaced like a gargoyle.