Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “We should tell Mason,” Rio said.

  He dipped his head for a kiss so fiercely yearning that she trembled even as she returned it. He released her quickly, yet his fingers slid down her arms as though he couldn’t bear to end the contact. His eyes were as dark as a night with no stars, as empty as the wind curling through the canyon, calling his name.

  “Rio?” she asked, knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what.

  Then she heard the long cry of the wind and knew. She started shaking.

  “No,” she said in a raw voice. “Not yet. Not now!”

  She turned away from him and jammed her fist against her mouth, stopping the flow of words she had promised herself she would never speak. With every bit of strength left in her, she fought to control her emotions.

  If she came apart now, it would destroy everything that she and Rio had, even memories.

  She must not make him feel guilty for giving her what she had asked—demanded—of him. She had been strong so many times in her life. She had to be strong once more.

  Just for a few minutes.

  Just long enough to say good-bye to the man she loved.

  Looking at her rigid back made Rio feel as though he had taken a punch to the gut. He tried to speak, failed, tried again. His voice was so tight it sounded like a stranger’s.

  “Hope, if I don’t go now, it will just be worse when I do leave. And I will leave. I have to.” Then, with a self-hatred that clawed at both of them, he added bitterly, “I knew I never should have touched you.”

  After a long moment Hope turned back to him, her face desperately calm.

  “You gave me as much as you could,” she said in a husky voice, “and that was much more than I ever expected from any man. Don’t be angry with yourself for that. I’m not. I love you. And I know that my love isn’t enough for you. I knew it even before I fell in love.”

  He made a rough, anguished sound.

  Hope held her hand out to the brilliant dance of water, letting it wash over her fingers like the kisses she would never again share with him.

  “You gave me my dream,” she said. “I would give you your dream, but you don’t have one, and the one I dreamed for you wasn’t strong enough. So I’ll give you all I can, all you want. The freedom of the wind.”

  “Hope.” Rio’s voice fragmented in a harsh kind of silence. His hands clenched again. “Oh, God, I wish I were a different man!”

  “No!”

  She closed her eyes, not trusting herself to look at or touch him. She heard his anger at himself twisting viciously through every word, destroying him, destroying her, destroying love.

  “Don’t hate yourself, Rio. If you do that, you’ll hate me, too. I couldn’t bear that.” She took a ragged breath. “If you think of me at all after you leave, remember that I love you. All of you. Even the wind.”

  For an instant Hope thought she felt the warmth of his breath against her lips. Then the wind blew, taking everything away, the warmth and the man.

  When her eyes finally opened again, she was alone except for the long sigh of air through the canyon.

  “I love you, Brother-to-the-wind,” she whispered.

  Nothing answered her but the silver dance of artesian water.

  Twenty-six

  IN THE RESTRAINED silence that had become second nature to Hope in the weeks since Rio left, she drove Behemoth over the rough road leading into Wind Canyon. She made no attempt to talk to J. L. Hunsaker, the hydrologist who was going to pass judgment on the quality of Rio’s well.

  Hunsaker looked like he was on the downhill side of forty. He was lean as rawhide and burned dark from the sun. His clothes were those of a field engineer—sturdy and thick, like his lace-up boots. Even the wedding band on his left hand looked solid enough to take a beating. Streaks of silver shot through his dark brown hair, suggesting that the man himself had been hard used for his age.

  But there was nothing worn about his eyes. They were a pure brown, narrowed, and penetrating as he studied the dry, harsh land. He glanced up at the looming Perdidas and the steep, eroded foothills that bordered the canyon. Nowhere was there any sign of water, not so much as a seep with a handful of green grass around it.

  Shifting in the seat, J. L. Hunsaker shook his head. “If you’d told me there was water here before we set out, I’d have said you were crazy.”

  Hope gave her passenger a quick glance and concentrated again on the road. No matter how many times she drove it, the road always managed to give her a few bumpy surprises.

  “A lot of people thought I was crazy,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Including the Reno bank that hired you. That’s why they’re demanding a survey of the well before they even consider a loan.”

  She hadn’t bothered to ask for another loan from Cottonwood Savings and Trust, even after the well came in. She would never again put herself in debt to anyone related to John Turner.

  “Who brought the well in for you?” Hunsaker asked.

  “A man called Rio.”

  “Rio?” Hunsaker turned toward her suddenly, his face alive with interest. “Big man? Black hair?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was clipped, almost curt.

  “Well, hell, if the bank had told me that, I’d have saved us all a trip. If Rio brought in your well, it’s as good as gold. Better,” Hunsaker added, chuckling. “Cattle can’t drink gold.”

  Hope tried not to ask, but her hunger for news was greater than her pride. Maybe Hunsaker had seen or heard from Rio.

  “Do you know Rio?” she asked as casually as she could.

  Hunsaker shrugged. “Can’t say as anyone really knows Rio. We went to school together. Colorado School of Mines.”

  Again Hope looked quickly at the hydrologist.

  “Yeah, I know. I look older than him,” Hunsaker said. “I am. I did a stint in the military and Rio was barely sixteen when he started at the School of Mines. He had his master’s degree before he was twenty. Most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”

  Her hands clenched hard on the wheel. Too hard. The truck jerked and swerved as though protesting. Automatically she brought the heavy vehicle back into line.

  Hunsaker braced himself when the water truck lurched over a particularly rough patch of road. He didn’t say anything about the hard ride. He was used to worse. At least this truck had a seat for passengers. He had been in some that had wooden benches just like a buckboard.

  “In college at sixteen?” she managed finally. “That must have been hard for Rio.”

  “Not the school part. Like I said, he was brilliant. But the people . . .” Hunsaker shrugged. “Rio was alone a lot. Being part Indian is no picnic in some places around the West. A lot of men would have grown up real mean if they’d been treated like him.”

  She remembered how Rio had fought Turner, swift and skilled and ruthless. She had wondered who taught Rio to fight, but she had never wondered why he had learned. She had known.

  “But Rio was different,” Hunsaker said. “When he had a bellyful, he’d just go out into the mountains for a while and then come back . . . soothed, I guess. Yeah. Soothed.” He smiled rather grimly. “Course, the fact that he beat the hell out of more than one loudmouth son of a bitch soothed him from time to time, too, I imagine.”

  Hope’s hands tightened on Behemoth’s steering wheel until her knuckles were white. She couldn’t bear the thought of Rio being hurt for no better reason than an accident of birth.

  Like the woman who had been so blind and so stupid that she refused to have Rio’s child. The thought of it enraged Hope.

  She would give up even the well if she could have Rio’s baby.

  Maybe this time. Maybe February is the month my period won’t come.

  “How’d you meet Rio?” Hunsaker asked.

  He had to repeat the question twice before Hope heard him. She was lost in her memories and the yearning that never left her, the dream that she couldn’t help dreaming no matter how little chance it had to
come true.

  One impossible dream had become real. Why not two?

  “People told him I needed a well,” she said. “Desperately.”

  Hunsaker nodded. “Yeah. That’s Rio. Always ready to give a hand.”

  Hope remembered those hands, long-fingered and lean and strong. Skilled with machinery. Skilled with horses. Skilled with her. So much to give and take and share. So little time.

  “Funny thing,” Hunsaker continued. “Rio was good, real good, at his work. He could have been rich ten times over. He could have taken that money and crammed it down the throat of every bigot he ever met.”

  “That wouldn’t be like him.”

  Hunsaker nodded. “Instead, he just drifted until he found someone that life had really dumped on. If they had the grit to fight, he’d help them. He didn’t ask for cash. They paid him in crops or cattle or a place to sleep, whatever they could afford. Bet he’s got stock pastured all over the West as part of his pay. But never money. No way.”

  “People paid him in dreams,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Rio is a man without dreams. When he finds people who can dream, he helps them, sharing their dream for a while.”

  There was a long silence while Hunsaker watched the land and quietly reassessed the woman who sat beside him.

  “Never thought of it that way, but you’re dead right,” he said finally. “You must have gotten closer to him than most.”

  She didn’t respond.

  Hunsaker opened the window, lit up a cigarette, and blew smoke out. Cold air poured in, but neither he nor she cared. Both of them were dressed for a winter hike.

  “Damn shame someone didn’t help Rio when he was still young enough to dream,” Hunsaker muttered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He had a hell of a childhood. Mother and father drank and he ran loose in the streets. When he got too wild they dumped him on the res with his grandparents and took off.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Twelve, thirteen.” Hunsaker took a hard drag on the cigarette and sighed. “Don’t know what his grandfather did to straighten Rio out. That was one tough old Indian, from all I hear. Had about as much give in him as a rock.”

  Hope concentrated on the road, but it was Rio she saw, a younger Rio, defiant and lonely. “Are his parents still alive?”

  “Not hardly. They wrapped their car around a telephone pole on the way home from a bar. Rio must have been about fifteen then.”

  She flinched and gripped the wheel until her hands ached. Love for Rio poured through her like a molten river, painful and beautiful at once. If she could have, she would have taken every one of his hurts on herself, healing him, freeing him to love. But that was even more impossible than her dream of sharing her life with him.

  “Rough road,” Hunsaker said. He grabbed the armrest as the truck jolted and bucked over a mound of rocks and loose sand. “Must be hard work for you coming out here, hauling water for your house and your stud.”

  Hope shrugged. It wasn’t the road that had brought the grim lines to her face, it was the loss of the man she loved. She wanted Hunsaker to keep talking, to share with her his memories of Rio, every one of them. Maybe if she could collect enough memories, enough pieces of him, he would be whole again—and so would she.

  Hunsaker smoked in silence.

  “You must be a friend of Rio’s,” she said at last. “You know a lot about him.”

  Smiling, he drew on the cigarette again. “More like a fan. Rio’s kind of a hobby with me.”

  Startled, she glanced quickly at the hydrologist. “A hobby? What do you mean?”

  “I did my thesis on dowsing. Thought it was a crock of shit, no two ways about it.”

  “You aren’t the only one.”

  “Yeah. Well, Rio heard about my thesis. He looked me up and told me I was dead wrong. I didn’t take real kindly to it.”

  Hope wasn’t surprised. For all his slow western drawl, Hunsaker was a hard man.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Fists and boots at dawn?”

  Hunsaker laughed. “No, ma’am. Even back then, I wasn’t a fool. Rio was maybe seventeen, but you forgot that when you looked him in the eye. He was one tough son of a bitch. I kept the argument to words and theories and formulas.”

  “You didn’t convince him.”

  “Nope. And I wouldn’t listen to him. So we went head to head on a piece of desert west of here. I had my compasses, survey maps, satellite photos, laser-sighting devices, the whole damned shooting match.”

  “I wish I’d seen it.”

  Hunsaker smiled ruefully, remembering. “Not much to see. Rio found water before I’d finished my preliminary survey.”

  “Really?”

  “As ever was. Made the hair on my neck stand straight up.”

  A shiver of memory went over Hope, soft electrical shocks flowing, Rio’s eyes black and deep with uncanny knowledge.

  Hunsaker shifted on the bouncing seat and stared out the window at the unpromising land. “Finding water is my profession, and I’m damned if I can figure out how water witching works.” He stubbed out his cigarette in his traveling ashtray, folded it up, and put it back in the rucksack between his feet. “So I collect stories about dowsing while I’m out doing hydrological surveys. Rio’s name comes up regular as the sun. He’s been finding water since he was thirteen.”

  Hope made a startled sound.

  “It’s true,” Hunsaker said. “Like dowsing. Odd but still true. You see, I know a lot of facts about Rio—his parents, grandparents, the wells he’s found, the people he’s helped, the horses he’s tamed, the men he’s fought, the women he could have had and didn’t.”

  For a moment Hope felt light-headed, almost dizzy.

  “But I don’t know anything about him, not really,” Hunsaker said. “Not even his name. No one does. A real private kind of man. Never shared his secrets with anyone.”

  My true name is Brother-to-the-wind.

  Rio’s words echoed in Hope’s mind, making her throat ache and her eyes burn with unshed tears. He had shared so much with her, given so much to her, taken so much less from her than she wanted to give.

  Behemoth slithered over the last sandy patch in the road, breasted a small rise, and stopped. Ahead lay a rippling silver bowl of water. A small artesian fountain danced above the surface of the new pond.

  As though in a trance, Hunsaker got out of the truck. He walked to the edge of the pond without looking away from the silver transformations of the water.

  Hope followed. The surprise of seeing water dancing in the midst of stone was new each time. So was the pain of remembering. She took off her hat and stood while the wind caressed her with restless, transparent fingers.

  “I will be damned,” Hunsaker said reverently.

  After a few more minutes, he shook himself and hauled out some forms. His questions came in a rapid stream. As she answered, he filled in blanks with a mechanical pencil. When she told him how deep they had gone to get water, the pencil lifted. He looked straight at her.

  “You got guts, lady. Anyone else would have given up halfway down.”

  Instead of answering, she simply watched the miracle of water in a dry land.

  “No wonder you’re broke,” he said. “That’s a hell of a lot of pipe, mud, and supplies.” He paused. “Heard you sold everything but your stud to pay for the well.”

  She closed her eyes, haunted by memories of beautiful black Angus waiting patiently for grain.

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  Hunsaker measured the height of the artesian fountain falling into the pond that filled the hollow where the well had been drilled. “How much has the fountain gone down since it first came in?”

  “After the first few minutes it didn’t diminish at all.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Good solid flow. Going to put a lid on it?”

  “Not right away. I know I should, but . . .” Her voice faded.

 
“Yeah, I know what you mean. That pulsing water is something to see, isn’t it? You know, you could put a small dam down in that crease.”

  Slowly she focused on Hunsaker. “What?”

  He pointed toward a dip in the rim of land surrounding the pond. There, water rippled out toward the canyon floor below, creating a stream where none had ever before flowed.

  “Drill a pipe through the base of the rim and let gravity do the rest,” he said. “If that’s not enough punch, install a wind-driven pump. That way you could have piped water and your artesian fountain, too.”

  She smiled, pleased by the idea.

  For a moment Hunsaker simply stared at her. It was the first time she had smiled in all the hours that he had been with her.

  “Don’t worry about your ranch, ma’am. When the bank gets my recommendations, they’ll lend you enough to get started again. It won’t be a quarter what you need,” he added bluntly, “because wells are dicey things. But you’ve got plenty of guts. You’ll make it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me.” He watched the rippling water with something close to awe. “Thank Rio. For a man without dreams, he sure as hell has made a lot of them come true.”

  Robert Moran’s ranch was even more remote than the Valley of the Sun. Colorado’s high, snow-covered mountains rose in jagged crowns against the cobalt-blue sky, but where Rio stood, the land was flat, dry, a frozen February landscape that offered no hint of the summer ahead.

  “That you, Rio?” Moran asked, rushing out of his new barn. His breath was a silver burst in the instants before the wind swept it away. “Thought I recognized the truck. Coming to check on your cattle and the well?”

  Rio didn’t know why he was there. He only knew that, like the wind, he had to keep moving. He shook Moran’s hand.

  “No, I’m just . . .” Rio’s voice died. Restless, angry, hungry. “Moving around, like always. How have you been?”

  “Marti will be smiling to see your truck in the yard. She’s in town right now. One of the kids had an ear infection. Other than that, all of us are healthy as horses and fat as pigs, thanks to the well you found for us.”