by Arlene James
Garrett handed the sacks through the open window, and the welcome aromas of hot hamburgers and fries filled the interior of the truck cab and Crystal's nostrils.
"You interested in a picnic lunch?" he asked, opening the door and settling himself in his seat.
"I'm interested in any kind of lunch," she affirmed laughingly while he again stowed his hat and started the engine.
A little way out of town, they came upon a roadside park, and Garrett guided the rig off the road, checking in his mirrors to make certain that it was parked carefully out of the way of passing traffic.
Both of Crystal's hands were occupied with the sacks, one of which contained their drinks in paper cups with lids that had begun to leak. Seeing this, Garrett reached across her in order to open her door.
Strange, breathless things began to happen to her as his long, sinewy arm passed closely by her chest and his stout, muscular shoulder leaned into her side as he manipulated the door handle. By the time he had the door open, she could only stumble out, her pulse thrumping erratically.
It was quiet and peaceful in the park, which consisted of a few concrete picnic tables scattered about beneath the trees. The clear, fresh air steadied Crystal a bit, and she managed to step over the cable strung up on short poles to separate the parking area from the picnic area.
A gossamer shaft of sunlight wafted through the trees, spreading its crystalline touch across the young, verdant grass. It was cool in their shade, and the flesh of Crystal's bare arms tingled as a delicate breeze ruffled the tendrils of dark silky hair at the base of her neck.
Choosing a table a good distance from the road, Crystal sat down and began to unpack their lunch. Garrett sat down opposite her. He had brought his hat along for some reason, probably out of habit, and he laid it down upon its crown on top of the table.
"Best hamburgers in Texas," he announced as he unwrapped his sandwich. "Or maybe it's just that I'm always starved by the time I reach the Blue Sky Cafe."
He smiled and then began to eat. Crystal gladly followed his example and found that the hamburger was indeed the best she had ever eaten, or maybe she was just so starved herself that it only seemed so. Either way, it was a thoroughly appreciated meal.
Garrett finished first and rose from the table, carefully fitting the hat onto his blond head, and began gathering up their refuse.
"I'll do this," Crystal volunteered sweetly, still feeling guilty for thinking the worst of him, and hastened to take the crumpled papers from his hand. As their hands met, so did their eyes, and for a breathless moment Crystal felt as if he were bending toward her, as if she were being drawn toward him, and then, suddenly, the mood was broken and she was aware of a car passing along the highway.
Without a word he began moving away from her into the trees. Crystal watched him as she disposed of their refuse and then returned to stand beside the table, telling herself that she was relieved to have some distance between them and feeling a strange, indefinite quickening deep inside her body at the same time. It was silly, of course. She had only just met the man! Yet, he was intriguing, and she could not quite keep her gaze off him.
He could have belonged to another time, standing there beneath the whispering trees, so tough and male and cowboy, an integral part of the landscape. The shadow of his hat brim hid his face from her, but his stance suggested an inborn wariness such as the gun-slingers of the old days must have possessed.
The date might easily have been a hundred years earlier, and he might have been a drifter passing through this country on horseback, or a cowpoke riding the range in search of unbranded beef. He belonged to this land. The outdoors was his home. Crystal felt sure of it. He was born to it, and she was beginning to understand a little of what separated the country boy from the city girl.
He seemed oddly apart from her, apart from the times, even; yet it did not seem incongruous when he turned and strode across the grass to where she stood.
He paused a moment, paralyzing her with the soft light of his blue gaze, slowly swept the hat from his head, then took a purposeful step closer and bent his head to hers, gently covering her mouth with his own. She did not remember later if he touched her in any other way, such magic did his kiss work upon her. An incredible sweetness caressed her lips and spread throughout her still-unmoving body.
She was suspended in time and space, unable to respond to any stimulation other than his mouth moving expertly upon her own. She felt the tender, probing tip of his tongue, parting her lips, subtly exploring, warm, ardent, erotic.
Her entire body was alive with sensation, captivated by the sensitive approach of his kiss. It was as if he invited her to enjoy, to drink in the elixir of his passion, which, though firmly held in check and focused upon her mouth by lips unbelievably soft one moment and taut and demanding the next, recreated itself in parts of her of which she had been only dimly aware.
He absented his lips from hers moments before she consciously became aware of it. She opened her eyes, barely feeling his hands at her shoulders. He smiled down at her, the hand which held his hat slowly moving to replace it upon his golden head. The faint bumping sounds of the bulls in the trailer parked at the edge of the grass penetrated through the silence generated in Crystal's mind by his kiss. Garrett turned his head, gazing indifferently at the rig. A deep, throaty moo sounded from the trailer, effectively dispelling the mood.
"We'd better go," he suggested quietly, and turned a still-smiling face back to her. One hand came up to caress a tendril of dark hair floating about her face, then fell away as he moved back to put a cooling space between them. Crystal could only nod agreeably, and when she started to follow him toward the waiting El Camino, she found that her legs responded only sporadically.
As the space between them widened, she stopped dead in her tracks and swallowed down a gulp of fresh air. What on earth was happening to her? Inside she knew, but an automatic defense mechanism sprang into action, shutting out the thought that here was the man that Jerry had told her she would find, that man whom she might not be able to resist. Some frightened and wary part of her said that it was too soon, that she was on the rebound from a broken love affair, that she had absolutely nothing in common with this man, that she was vulnerable and not herself. And some wiser, more elemental side of her said that she was lying to herself.
"Tell me about your ranch," she said, unable to endure the silence in which they had traveled since leaving the roadside park.
He passed her a swift glance that clearly said he was in no mood for conversation. For some time now she had sensed that he was brooding about something, possibly regretting that kiss they had shared, and she sought to put some normalcy back into the situation.
"Does it have a name?" she persisted brightly. "I mean, do you call it anything special? I've heard about big ranches that were called different things. You know, like the Four Aces or one of those."
He braced his wide shoulders against the seat and condescended to speak to her. "It's called the Heritage," he told her crisply, without bothering to look at her.
"The Heritage," she repeated. "That's nice." She fidgeted uneasily in her seat, casting about for something safe and intelligent to say. "How big is it?"
"Twenty thousand acres."
"That big?" she gasped. Imagine owning a hunk of land that size! "I'd no idea it was so large." He made no reply to this, and she surreptitiously pulled a face at him before going on doggedly. "I guess there are a lot of cows, huh?"
He shot her a black, discouraging glance. "What is this, Twenty Questions?"
She put on an innocent face and shrugged. "I was just asking. Can't blame a girl for wanting to know something about the place where she is going to live for the next few months."
"That remains to be seen."
Crystal's shoulders sagged. Why this nastiness all of a sudden? "Look, if you didn't think I could last out the job, why did you hire me?" she asked pointedly, hurt by his sudden switch in attitude toward her. He star
ed straight ahead at the road. "I'm not exactly thrilled about this either, you know," she said tartly, "but I don't enter into agreements lightly. I said I could do the job, and I can. Furthermore, I have no intentions of leaving the position until the job is satisfactorily completed; so why don't you just try to get along with me and let's make the best of this?"
"Why don't I try to get along with you?" he countered incredulously. A bronzed hand ruffled sun-bleached hair. "You got some things to learn yourself, teacher. If there is any getting along here, you will be the one doing it."
"I didn't mean it that way," she protested, squelching the indignation rising inside of her. "I just meant, why can't we be friends?"
He smiled at that and turned mocking blue eyes upon her. "You don't really believe what you're saying, do you?" The glance that raked her body and flamed her cheeks told her exactly what he was referring to. "I choose my friends from my own kind," he told her shortly. "Women such as yourself I take as lovers or I leave them alone. Take your choice."
Crystal's mouth fell open and she drew automatically as far into the corner as she could get. "Then you can darn well leave me alone!" she retorted shakily and whipped her head around. She must have been mad to try to hold a decent, normal conversation with him. She would not be so stupid a second time, she promised herself, and demanded that her insides stop this ridiculous quivering.
"Then you can darn well stop suggesting it," he mimicked her, chuckling.
Her head whipped around. "I was not suggesting anything!" she stormed, fists clenched in her lap. He laughed heartily at that, and she turned, exasperated, back to her window. Nothing seemed to put him in a better mood than making her angry. She turned away and stuck her nose against the glass.
The next hour was a panorama of small-town Texas life. The silver-and-blue El Camino and its rig rolled through a succession of little cities, each unique yet strikingly similar to the last.
Crystal made a concerted effort to become involved in the scenery sweeping past her window, but her exchange with Garrett had stifled some of her original enthusiasm. She forced herself to be interested in the view continually replaying itself on her window: abandoned buildings, gasoline stations built during the 1940's, the local greasy-spoon cafe, feedstores, and, of course, the perennial church.
People in these parts were largely self-sufficient, as could be evidenced by the occasional milk cow munching the grass in somebody's yard, the recurrent pig sties just outside the yards, and an odd chicken house or two looking like a small penitentiary at various spots along the route.
Each town boasted the customary varieties of houses lining the two-lane road. Sandwiched between the abandoned shacks and the Ma and Pa Kettle-type of onetime farmhouses were neat little structures with whitewashed siding and pink wrought-iron decorative grillwork. Yards ran the gamut from the barnyard set to immaculate green stretches of grass with small beds of militarily spaced flowers.
There was an abundance of fruit stands and curio shops selling everything from raw peanuts to hand-sewn quilts, smoked hams to genuine antiques, fresh vegetables to pottery. These were always located right along either side of the silver highway, around which the little cities had grown up.
The most curious thing these places seemed to have in common was something which Garrett called the "Spit-'n'-Whittle Club."
There might be only one intersection in town, but on at least one corner of it there would be a gathering of old men. They sat on benches or five-gallon buckets or folding chairs or lawn furniture, anything that would hold their weight and was handy.
Their meeting place might be outside the local bank or in front of the local gas station or beneath an ancient shade tree. Wherever, there would be gathered there an odd assortment of aging gentlemen, each with a pocketknife or a hunk of wood or both.
In the mouth of each "member" would be a "chaw" of tobacco or a dangling cigarette, and on his head would rest a dilapidated and sweat-stained old hat that might have once been a Stetson or a fashionable fedora. Coveralls or khakis were the accepted attire, accompanied by scuffed black boots, either steel-toed lace-ups or cowboys.
Invariably the whittlers would raise their wizened old heads and nod an acknowledgment of the passing rig. Sometimes a gnarled hand would rise in silent greeting as they sped by.
Crystal realized just how little she understood of these proud people and their way of life, and she longed for that understanding. For some reason, it was important for her to belong with these people, to this land. Perhaps because she no longer felt as if she belonged to Dallas and the old neighborhood, it was doubly important. In fact, she realized with a pang, there was no place she could really call home. She did not belong anywhere. Suddenly she felt quite alone.
Crystal's enthusiasm renewed itself defensively, and she paid particular attention when they passed Buchanan Dam and the calm blue waters of Inks Lake. She made a mental note of a green roadsign that gave directions to Longhorn Caverns State Park, and promised herself that she would visit it before she left.
At Llano, they headed south again, winding their way through the meandering little ranching community and onto a narrow paved road. Garrett slowed their speed as the road snaked its way up and down the hilly countryside and around sharp bends. Several times Crystal spotted wild turkey and white-tailed deer.
Every few miles, a space in the fencing would indicate that a homestead lay just over the hill. Some of the gates had proud signs hanging from them with the name of the ranch or its owner printed in foot-high letters.
About seventeen miles outside of Llano, they came upon a historical marker and another state-park sign beside the road. Crystal twisted in her seat to read it as they passed by.
Enchanted Rock 9 miles
Captain John C. Hays, separated from his
range company and surrounded by hostile
Comanche Indians, defended himself from the
highest peak of Enchanted Rock, inflicting
such high incidence of injury and casualty
upon the enemy that they retreated and fled.
Crystal craned her neck and searched the rocky hills for some sign of Enchanted Rock.
"Can't see it from the road," Garrett informed. "Country is too hilly." Crystal sat back, mild disappointment sedating the sparkle in her eyes.
"Maybe you will get over to it one of these days," he said quietly, and she glanced up sharply, surprised at the perplexing tone of comfort in his voice. How changeable he was!
He shifted in his seat, rubbing a cramped knee with his large hand while keeping his eyes conspicuously upon the winding road ahead.
"It's got a very colorful history, you know," he went on. "Indians used to say it was haunted."
Crystal's eyes widened, more at his sudden talkativeness than at the legend. "Really? Just because this one man defeated them there?"
"Oh, no. The rock has figured in Indian lore since before recorded history. Different tribes used to worship there. Human sacrifices and whatnot. Some of them believed their gods lived on top of the rock. Probably because of the strange lights and sounds that come from it at night."
"You're kidding," she breathed out skeptically. For an answer, he slanted his eyes mysteriously and grinned. "It's not really haunted," she insisted. "That's just plain ridiculous."
His face broke into a wide smile that sent an inexplicably warm glow through her, and it was she who shifted uncomfortably in her seat this time.
"Well, I suppose you could make a case either way." He laughed.
Probing blue eyes turned upon her, and Crystal felt the breath catch in her throat. She turned quickly back to the safety of her window.
A while later, they turned west onto a dirt road and drove through a cloud of reddish dust for several miles. It had been some time since another automobile had passed them, and now there was not even a gate to break the monotony of fencing.
"How much farther to the ranch?" Crystal asked anxiously, feeling an uncanny excite
ment building up inside the cab of the El Camino.
"Technically, we've been on the ranch for the last twenty minutes, but the house is just ahead."
As if to confirm his report, the rig joustled over a cattle guard across the road, its wheels making rubbery knocking noises against the regularly spaced pipes welded at either end to pipes running crosswise over a shallow ditch.
A dozen questions leaped to the fore of Crystal's mind, but she did not want to press her luck by asking any of them. It seemed that Garrett Dean did not mind volunteering information when the mood struck him, but apparently he did not like being questioned, at least not by city girls. So she kept her silence and watched anxiously as the El Camino tore over the road toward their final destination.
A little farther, they topped a hill and the rig slowed as the gate came into view. It was really quite elaborate.
Beneath a high arch in the adobe wall that ran for some distance on either side of the heavy black wrought-iron gate before giving way to whitewashed fencing, there hung a thick wood sign that read "Heritage Ranch." As the El Camino approached, Garrett reached over his head and pressed a small rectangular black box affixed to the visor. The heavy wrought-iron gate swung open smoothly, and they drove through into a fairytale land of Spanish palaces, manicured lawns, and enchanting gardens.
Crystal's gasp must have been audible, for Garrett glanced in her direction. He stopped the rig in a paved parking area at the foot of a long, sloping alameda. Just the alameda itself was breathtaking, with its trellises of grapevines intertwining with fragrant honeysuckle to form a sort of long, low, wide tunnel over the stone footpath.
The house sat enthroned like a huge reclining Spanish giant at the top of the hill just beyond the alameda. It was a long, single-storied structure of brilliant white adobe with tall arched windows laced in black wrought-iron grillwork. Its slanting red roof stood out in vivid contrast.
