by Nan Ryan
“No, it won’t happen again,” Nettie said, “because you’re fired.”
“Well, now, just a minute, I—”
“Out,” said Nettie, pointing to the door.
Maxwell was still chuckling as the dismissed nurse flounced out of the room in a huff.
Nettie came to the bed, patted Maxwell’s thin shoulder and said, “I never liked her anyhow, did you?”
“She was mighty poor company,” admitted Maxwell.
Straightening his bedcovers, Nettie said, “What do you say we do a run-through today?”
“A run-through?” Maxwell repeated, puzzled. “You mean you practice being my night nurse?”
“My goodness no. We’ll hire a new nurse. Dr. LeDette will have someone here before nightfall. I don’t mean that.” She paused and her eyes sparkled. “I mean, what if today we rehearse Marietta’s homecoming right down to getting all gussied up in our finest clothes and serving a scrumptious evening meal?”
Maxwell’s pale eyes lighted with pleasure and he confided, “Nettie, I don’t believe it will be just a run-through. I have the strongest feeling that today will be the day she gets home.”
“Really?” said the faithful housekeeper, as if surprised.
She wasn’t actually surprised. She knew Maxwell Lacey better than anyone. Knew when he was in horrific pain even if he swore he wasn’t. Knew he had spent long, lonely years regretting the foolish actions of his past. Knew that he was determined to cheat imminent death long enough to get one fleeting glimpse of his only granddaughter. Knew exactly what he was thinking. So she played along with him.
“…and when I awakened around three-thirty this morning,” Maxwell was saying, “it came to me that today might well be the day. You think it’s possible?”
“Why, it certainly is,” Nettie replied, then hastily added, “but even if it’s not, if we have to wait a few more days, today we can have what we’ll call a dress rehearsal. How does that sound?”
Nodding eagerly, Maxwell was already attempting to rise up off the pillows, eager to get out of bed.
“Whoa, hold on, Maxwell,” Nettie gently scolded, urging him back down onto the bed. “I’ll get Nelson right away. Send him in to get you up and dressed.”
“Tell him to hurry!” said Maxwell, as excited as a boy, his pain-dulled eyes agleam.
“I will,” Nettie promised and left the room smiling.
Outside his door, her smile quickly fled. Her shoulders slumped. Bless his old heart, he thought Marietta would get home today. She knew better. Central City, Colorado, was a long way off. The journey could take at least another week, perhaps more.
But Nettie knew there was no use upsetting a dying old man. Better to go along with his optimism and pretend that the big celebration would take place any day now.
Today she would keep Maxwell occupied and entertained by having him help her and the rest of the staff get ready for their anticipated visitors.
Nettie and Maxwell spent most of the morning in his paneled library going over—one more time—the menu for the all-important homecoming meal. When finally they exited the library, they went directly to the kitchen where the head cook, Sanders, and his two helpers awaited instructions.
After a half hour, Nettie and Maxwell left the kitchen. The cooks were already firing up the ovens and taking down the necessary pans. Like a general with her eager aide-de-camp, Nettie, followed by Maxwell in his wheelchair, moved about the mansion, issuing orders in staccato fashion to the corps of cleaning girls.
When she was confident they would make the furniture gleam and see to it that the entire mansion was spotless, she motioned Maxwell out onto the broad front veranda.
“It’s time we settle on which flowers to choose. I think roses would best fit the occasion, don’t you, Maxwell?” she asked.
“Yellow roses!” he declared. “Lots of big white porcelain vases filled with dozens of yellow roses. And I want several bouquets in her room.”
“Absolutely. Yellow roses it is,” said Nettie, running down the front steps calling the head gardener’s name.
Within the hour, dozens of fragrant yellow hothouse roses had been brought into the house. Nettie and Maxwell sat before a long worktable in the mansion’s sunroom, carefully arranging the yellow blooms into white porcelain vases.
Setting the table was saved for the very last. When one of the serving girls offered to help, she was shooed away. As the afternoon shadows grew steadily longer, the industrious Nettie and Maxwell were in the dining room where the long table was covered with a snowy-white damask cloth.
“How many places shall we set?” Nettie asked, taking a stack of gold-rimmed plates from the china closet.
Maxwell, a clean cloth in hand, was busily polishing crystal wineglasses. “Well, I feel like we ought to invite Cole Heflin to stay to dinner, don’t you?”
“By all means,” Nettie said, placing the stack of plates on the table. “I would imagine that the two young people will have become good friends on the long journey. Marietta would want us to invite Mr. Heflin.”
“That’s my thinking,” said Maxwell and, suddenly struck by a stab of excruciating pain, dropped the glass he was polishing. It crashed to the floor and broke.
“I’m sorry, Nettie,” he managed to say, and tried to lean down from his chair.
“Let it go, Maxwell,” Nettie said, continuing with her chore as if nothing had happened. Waving a dismissive hand, she told him, “The cleaning girl will take care of it.” She smiled then and added, “Besides, weren’t you just practicing for the moment when we all break our glasses in the fireplace?”
The pain now eased, Maxwell nodded and grinned. Nettie could tell he was enjoying himself, so she kept up the charade for the remainder of the day. She helped him choose the clothes he would wear and supervised the brushing of his thinning gray hair. She saw to it that he got a good close shave and checked to make sure the shoes he wanted to wear had been properly shined.
But try as she might to stretch out their tasks, the summer sun had begun to set and still no one had arrived at the seaside mansion. It was then that a disappointed Maxwell asked Nelson to wheel him out onto the broad veranda.
Nettie spoke up. “Yes. A good idea, Maxwell. I’ll go out with you and we can—”
“No, Nettie.” Maxwell shook his head and raised a hand to stop her. “You stay inside and oversee the preparation of this evening’s meal.”
“As you wish,” she replied.
Nettie stood in the marble-floored foyer and watched, sadly, as the man who had, throughout the day, worked tirelessly and laughed often, once again became dejected and somber.
Outside, Maxwell sat alone in his hospital chair. He looked out over the calm Gulf of Mexico, the gentle waves now pinkened by the dying sun. His bony shoulders slumped tiredly. He clenched his fists against another wave of pain. His eyelids drooped.
He was a fool. An old, pitiful fool. Marietta wasn’t coming home today. More than likely, she was never coming home. It was senseless to wait and hope any longer. He could give up the struggle. Stop fighting. Surrender to the inevitable and let death take him.
“No. I can’t do that,” he finally murmured, tears filling his eyes. “She’ll come. I know she will. And, when she does, I will be here to greet her.”
Thirty-Two
The granddaughter that Maxwell Lacey hoped to see before he departed this earth laughed merrily as she rode behind Cole across the forbidding Llano Estacado of North Texas.
Marietta was happy as she had never been before. She was having the time of her life, enjoying one heart-stopping adventure after another.
Cole was a great companion. He was smart and witty and he knew everything there was to know about this vast tableland of Texas.
There were, he told her, no ranches or homesteads ahead for at least a hundred miles. They would have to make do with only the black stallion; would have to ride tandem until they reached Lubbock.
Marietta was secre
tly glad. While she pitied the dutiful black having to carry such a heavy load, she loved riding behind Cole. Loved clinging to his trim waist and laying her cheek on his shoulder. Loved feeling his broad chest move with his breaths or his laughter.
And she was glad they were a good three-day ride or more from Lubbock. Gladder still that they were a long way from Galveston and the end of their journey. She realized that these golden days would end all too soon. A woman in love, she wanted to be with Cole forever.
If she couldn’t make him fall in love with her before they reached Galveston, it would never happen. He would deliver her to her grandfather as promised and leave her.
Marietta was determined to enjoy and savor every lovely minute of the time she had left with Cole. She would not dwell on the dreadful hour when he would walk right out of her life and she would never see him again.
“Hear that?” Cole asked over his shoulder.
Marietta lifted her cheek from his shoulder and listened. Immediately she heard a commotion and spotted great clouds of dust on the southern horizon.
“What in the world is it?” she asked. “A sandstorm?”
“Buffalo,” Cole said as the stampeding herd’s first big bulls appeared, snorting and blowing, racing due north. Directly toward them.
“Dear Lord,” Marietta said, alarmed. “We’ll be trampled to death.”
“No, we won’t,” Cole said, unworried. “We’ll just get out of their way. Hang on, sweetheart.”
Marietta nodded and wrapped her arms tightly around his middle while Cole wheeled the black about, pointed him eastward and put him into a gallop. Once they were well out of harm’s way, he drew rein and the black immediately halted. Cole quickly dismounted.
He turned and offered Marietta a hand. She hesitated. “Those big beasts won’t change course, turn and head this way, will they?”
Cole laughed easily. “Not a chance,” he assured her.
Cole knew from experience that buffalo could be mean and savage. They charged anything or anyone who intruded. But he wasn’t concerned. They were out of the path of this stampeding herd.
“Come on, get down and let’s give the stallion a rest while we wait for the buffalo to pass.”
Marietta dismounted. She stood next to Cole as the herd went thundering by in front of them, not fifty yards from where they stood. The black neighed and danced around, his natural instinct to gallop after the buffalo. But Cole held firmly to the reins, pulling the stallion’s head down.
Marietta shaded her eyes against the blinding sun and watched in wonder as the huge creatures thundered past. She had never seen a herd of buffalo before and she was amazed by their size and speed. They were a sight to behold with their hairy bodies, puffing nostrils and pointed horns.
They ran so close together they became blurred into one dark moving mass and the noise they made was deafening. The very earth shook from so many sharp hooves striking the ground at once.
No longer afraid and now delighted with the spectacle, Marietta turned and smiled at Cole. He laughed, drew her over to stand directly in front of him and slipped an arm around her waist. She leaned back against him, clapped her hands and laughed with joy.
And then, as swiftly as the stampede had begun, it was over. Marietta foolishly waved goodbye as the herd grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared, leaving a great cloud of dust hanging in the still air. Cole loosened his hold on her waist and she quickly turned to face him.
“Have you ever seen anything like that in your life!” she declared, looking after the departing herd. “Why, there must have been three or four hundred of those big woolly animals.”
“That’s about my estimate,” said Cole, then shook his head. “Not long ago there would have been three thousand. Hope you got a good look, sweetheart. The buffalo are swiftly disappearing from these plains.”
“The Indians killing them off?”
“No. The Indians only kill what they need for food and clothing. They use every part of a slaughtered buffalo.” He made a face of disgust. “It’s the hunters. Like the pair we ran into on our back trail. They kill the buffalo, take the hides and leave the carcasses to rot in the sun.”
“I knew I didn’t like those two big, ugly men,” said Marietta.
“There are dozens, hundreds just like them,” Cole replied. “Five, ten years from now there will be no more buffalo roaming the land.”
“That’s sad,” she said.
“It is,” he agreed. “So much for civilization.”
“Well, if they are a dying breed, I’m glad I got to see them today.”
Finally Cole looked down at her and grinned. “I knew you would be. That’s why I had them come running past us.”
“Ah, so you staged the impressive performance?”
“Just for you.” He smiled and asked, “Anything else you’d like, miss?”
“Yes,” she was quick to reply. “A bath. A nice long, cooling bath.”
“Is that all?” he said.
“That’s all.”
Cole squinted up at the sun, then looked back at her. “In less than an hour, you, my dear, will be dipping your delicate toes into a swiftly flowing river.”
Without turning to look around, Marietta knew there was nothing to see in any direction but the flat, dusty, waterless plains. There couldn’t possibly be a river anywhere near where they now stood.
“I don’t believe you for a minute,” she said.
“No? Wanna bet?”
“Sure. I know I’m right, so what will I win?”
“If you win, I have a little something in my saddlebags just for you.”
“Good. May I have it now?”
Ignoring the question, he said, “And if I win, I get a nice long back-scrubbing from you.”
Marietta laughed and threw her arms around his neck. “I hope you win.”
“I will,” he said and kissed her.
Back on the trail, a highly skeptical Marietta needled Cole about the river she was certain did not exist. The brutal Texas landscape had not changed one whit. Nothing stretched before them but the same barren grandeur of the flat, pitiless plain they had been riding across all day.
“I can hardly wait. Only a few more minutes,” she said into Cole’s ear, “and I’ll be dipping my feet into the river’s cool, refreshing water.”
“That’s right,” he replied, sounding totally confident. “And I’ll be getting my back scrubbed.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” she commented conversationally. “I see no stand of cottonwoods or willows along the river’s edge. No sunlight reflecting off the water. No wildlife rushing down to have a drink.” She jammed her finger into his back and told him, “Texan, you better start looking in your saddlebags for the prize I am going to win.” She then laughed gaily.
“Keep it up,” Cole said, unfazed. “I will get the last laugh.”
Marietta was still smiling broadly when Cole abruptly drew rein, bringing the black to a swift and total halt. Without explaining, he wrapped the reins around the saddle horn, threw his leg over and dropped to the ground.
Certain that she had won her bet, Marietta clapped her hands with glee, assuming that he had stopped to rummage through his saddlebags for some little trinket to give her.
“Close your eyes, Marietta,” Cole ordered.
“Aha! So you admit I’ve won the bet.”
He shook his head, reached up, put his hands to her waist and hauled her down off the horse.
“Now, close your eyes,” he repeated. “And keep them closed until I tell you to open them.”
Marietta smirked, but closed her eyes. Cole drew her forward a couple of steps, keeping a hand wrapped firmly around her upper arm. When he stopped her, he sternly cautioned, “Do not move! You hear me?”
“I hear you,” she said, but giggled.
“Dammit, Marietta, I mean it. Not an inch.”
Marietta promised to behave. She stood there perfectly still, waiting. But she frowned, puzzl
ed, when she felt Cole’s free hand grip the waistband of her trousers in back so tightly the fabric pulled across her stomach.
“What the…?”
“Open your eyes now, sweetheart, but keep very still,” came Cole’s low, drawling voice just above her left ear.
Marietta opened her eyes.
And immediately lost her breath.
They stood on the rim of a deep, gigantic canyon, the floor of which lay far, far below. Standing stockstill on the brink of the great abyss, Marietta stared, dumbstruck, at the yawning void hundreds of feet below, stretching beneath them with no termination in sight.
A vast and stunning panorama, the deep, gaping canyon floor was cut in half by a wide, winding river.
Thirty-Three
“Palo Duro Canyon,” Cole proudly announced, continuing to cling tightly to her waistband. He knew she was overwhelmed because she said nothing. Didn’t make a sound. “The canyon was named Palo Duro by the Spanish when Coronado and his boys came through here in the spring of 1541.” Cole chuckled then, and added, “I imagine old Coronado took himself a good long bath in that fork of the Red River you see down there slashing through the canyon.”
Marietta remained speechless with awe and disbelief. Not daring to move, she peered over the rim into the depths of the seemingly bottomless gorge and saw a landscape as different from the flat Texas plains it cut through as night was to day.
“Cole,” she finally spoke. “I had no idea. It’s magnificent.”
“Isn’t it,” he said and drew her a few steps back from the rim. He finally released his hold on her waistband.
She turned to face him. Her eyes now flashing, she said, “You big devil! You tricked me. That’s not fair.”
“Sore loser,” he teased. “I win. Be a good sport and admit it.”
“Okay, you win, but the canyon appears to be awfully large, so we can’t possibly—”
“Six miles wide in some places. Directly below is the narrowest part,” he said, interrupting. “And Palo Duro stretches southeastward for a good sixty or seventy miles.”
“My point exactly,” she said. “We’ll have to go all the way around it.”
