In the Shadow of the Mountains

by Rosanne Bittner

  Bea trembled. “You’re lying,” she said. Her chest heaved in great gasps of shock, and Red realized telling her about Irene’s brother had given him more satisfaction than hitting her ever could.

  “Don’t you wish I was,” he sneered. “Just ask Kirk when he gets back. The boy’s name is Yellow Eagle. Remember it!”

  He donned his hat and turned away. “Where are you going?” Bea managed to gasp. Red turned and looked back at her.

  “I don’t even know yet, but you’ll be happy to know I’m leaving Denver for now. Like I said, I’m not through with this town—or you.”

  He turned away, smiling when she called out to him once more. “Wait. Maybe…maybe we can work something out.”

  Red snickered, meeting her dark eyes again. “No, ma’am. I’ll not beg, borrow, or steal from the likes of you, and I make no bargains. I’m going to pay back what I owe Kirk. I’ll find a way. And I’ll make it big on my own. The whole world doesn’t revolve around Kirkland Enterprises, Mrs. Kirkland, in case you didn’t realize that.”

  She rose and came around from behind her desk, her eyes glistening with tears. “Is it true—about this Yellow Eagle?”

  He grinned. “It’s true.”

  She met his gaze. “I don’t mind for myself, Mr. McKinley. But I don’t want my children hurt, least of all Irene. We raised her as our own, and I love her as much as if she came from my own body. She is very trusting. To find out we have lied to her all these years would be devastating to her, let alone to find out she has Indian blood.”

  He shook his head. “You should have thought of that back in the beginning. And you’d better pray she has white babies.” He put his hand on the doorknob. “Don’t worry. I don’t want Irene hurt either, or Kirk, for that matter. But if I can ever find a way to hurt you, lady, I’ll do it! I’ll be back someday. That you can count on, Mrs. Kirkland.”

  He turned and left, and Bea actually felt faint. She closed the door and staggered to her desk, collapsing into her chair. He knew! Red McKinley knew about Irene—and more! There was a brother, a legal heir to the Kirkland empire—and an Indian! What if their friends knew that a son of David Kirkland’s was among the hated Cheyenne who were giving Coloradans so much trouble? Why had Kirk never told her! She hated him at this moment more than she could say.

  She realized now she should have known that Red knew about Irene. Kirk had never mentioned it. Had he been afraid it would upset her and she would want Red out of Denver? She didn’t feel so guilty now about the secrets she kept from her husband about Ramon, and about how she ran the business. David Kirkland had been keeping some secrets of his own.

  A son! A full-blood brother to Irene! If she ever found out—Bea quickly rose, brushing aside any concern over Red McKinley. He was leaving Denver, and his threats of revenge were nothing more than that, just threats. The man had nothing and never would. He could do no real harm, except for what he knew, and she suspected he valued Kirk’s friendship and admired Irene too much ever to reveal the truth.

  The important thing now was to go talk to Governor Evans and find out what was going to be done about the Indians. Denver’s woes had only been increased by the raiding in outlying areas. Supply trains were constantly being attacked and destroyed. Food and other supplies had been slow in coming or had not come at all. It was time to make some tough decisions about the Cheyenne, time to run them out of Colorado completely, or annihilate them. And, at the same time, she hoped, kill off one Indian in particular named Yellow Eagle.

  Elly appeared at the doorway to Chad’s office. It had been a month since the flood, and she had not had a chance to talk to Chad alone. She came into the room and closed the door, smiling at the irritated look on Chad’s face.

  “Everyone is gone, left early for some meeting about the Indians,” she told him, trying to make her voice sultry. “I told Mother I wanted to help you finish up. She said you can bring me home. Wasn’t that nice of her?”

  Chad reddened slightly, closing a file and leaning back in his chair. “What do you want?”

  She laughed. “The same thing you want. You don’t have a room at the inn anymore; you live at our house. But since you’re sleeping with my sister now, I can’t come to you there, either. We’ll have more trouble finding opportunities, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  “Here?”

  She came closer, leaning over his desk. “Tommy Slade didn’t mind.”

  She saw surprise and even a hint of jealousy in his eyes. “Tommy Slade? You’ve been with him?”

  “You’d be surprised who I’ve been with. Don’t tell me you, of all people, are jealous?”

  “Of what?” How could he explain he was not at all jealous of whom she lifted her skirts for, that his only concern was whether they might satisfy her more than he did. He needed to know he was the best she ever had, that he was not lacking in some way. Irene had certainly not helped feed his hungry ego, his burning need to prove his masculinity to himself. When he made love to her she lay there as if she were a piece of wood. He was failing with Irene, and it tore at his self-confidence.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Elly was saying. “I just get the impression married life doesn’t suit you. Neither you nor Irene act like the blushing, happy newlywed couple who can hardly stay out of bed.” She came around the desk, kneeling in front of him and brushing her hands along his thighs. “What went wrong, Chad? Did you find out the beautiful, perfect Irene Kirkland is a disappointment between the sheets?” She met his eyes, leaning up and touching his privates. “I may not be as pretty, but I’ll bet you’ve had a lot better time with me than with her. Wish you would have waited and married me?”

  He grasped her wrist, glancing at the door. “Irene had a few physical problems. She’s all right now.”

  “And a complete priss in bed, I’ll bet.” She touched his face with her other hand. “If she’s left you feeling dissatisfied, I can help you. You know I can, and you know how I feel about you. The other men are just substitutes, for when I can’t have you.”

  He watched her eyes, thinking that except for the expensive clothes and expert attempts to do her hair and makeup, she would be close to ugly. He could just picture her hanging out in the red-light district with the other young whores, stringy hair, that distant, hungry look in their eyes—his mother’s look. Fourteen. She was only fourteen. But her big build and knowing look made her seem so much older.

  It frustrated him that she had it all figured out about him and Irene, frustrated him more that he knew how good this one was in bed. Why couldn’t Irene respond to him the way Elly did? How he would love to see wanton desire in her eyes. He had seen it a few times before they married, but somehow he had botched it all.

  He needed to know, needed to boost his self-confidence. Since returning from Colorado Springs he had been too busy, and Irene remained too sick for him to have intercourse with her as often as he would like. He was afraid Bea would hear her cries of pain. And in these delicate, early weeks of marriage, while they were still at the Kirkland mansion, he had had to be very careful. He had to show Bea how much he loved Irene, had to be home every night.

  But here sat a whore he could trust not to breathe a word, and they were alone. “You’re a little bitch, you know that,” he said, before leaning forward and seizing her mouth.

  Elly only laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him to the floor.

  John came into the parlor, where Irene sat, softly playing the piano, a distant look in her eyes. He hated to see his sister looking so sad, knew she was not happy with Chad, although he didn’t quite understand why. He came and sat down beside her on the piano bench, putting an arm around her waist. “You’re the only one I’ll miss when I go to college,” he told her.

  Irene stopped playing, turned to him, and smiled. “I wish you didn’t feel that way, but thank you anyway. I’ll miss you, too, John, very much.” She smelled whiskey on his breath, and she frowned. “John, you’ve been drinking
again.”

  He shrugged, taking his arm away and toying with the piano keys. “I found out I like it. Did you know that a couple of drinks can just about erase all your troubles? You ought to try it.”

  “You’re too young to be drinking so much, John. Besides, a couple of drinks might make you feel better about things, but when you sober up, all your problems are still there. You would have to drink constantly to keep them away forever, and you know what that would make you.”

  He grinned nervously. “I’m not in that bad shape yet. I can handle it. Besides, who but you gives a damn if I’m drunk or sober? Who gives a damn if I’m happy? Mother sure doesn’t. All she cares about is the Kirkland name, the Kirkland money, the Kirkland prestige. Her son must go to college and study law. He must be able to take over the Kirkland empire.”

  Irene sighed. “You’ll probably like college once you’re there, John. Chad says some of his best memories are from college. You’ll make new friends, see cities much more advanced and refined than Denver, more so even than Chicago, where I was. Maybe it will be good for you to get away from here.”

  He blinked back tears, not wanting her to see them. He was going on seventeen now. Men his age didn’t cry. “Maybe,” he answered. He took a deep breath and put on a smile. “You look a little better since you got back. How are things with you and Chad?”

  Now it was Irene who looked away and toyed with the piano keys. “All right. I’ve just…had a little trouble adjusting to being married.” She reddened a little, and he suspected it had something to do with sex. He couldn’t very well ask her about something so intimate, but he reasoned a man like Chad certainly ought to know how to handle such a thing. He put a hand back around her waist.

  “Everything will work out, Irene. Chad’s a pretty good guy.”

  He turned to a whore on our wedding night, she wanted to tell him. He brought a strange doctor back with him who did a terrible thing to me. I’ll never forget it. Never! “Yes, he’s been good to me,” she answered aloud. She decided John had enough trouble with having to go off to college and with his drinking. He didn’t need to know his sister was so unhappy. She faced him again. “I really will miss you a lot, John. You’ve been a sweet brother, caring and understanding. Thank you for never letting on to anyone about Ramon.”

  He watched her eyes, wishing he understood about love and marriage, why people loved one person and then married somebody else. He liked Chad, couldn’t quite understand why Irene wasn’t blissfully happy. One thing he was sure of—Irene had loved Ramon. Maybe she still did. “Ramon is the reason I came in here,” he told her. “I told you about his leaving Denver and going back to Hacienda del Sur. He’s back now. I just saw him up at the new house. He’s there alone, Irene, if you want to talk to him.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Oh, yes, I want very much to talk to him,” she said. “Where are Mother, and Chad and everyone else?”

  “Mother’s at some kind of meeting about the Indians, and Chad is still in town. Elly stayed on to help him.”

  “Good.” She hurried toward the door, then turned. “Thank you for telling me, John. After what Ramon has suffered—you understand why I have to talk to him, don’t you? We were all good friends once. The least we can do is extend our sympathy, give him our support.”

  He nodded. “I understand.” I understand you still love him, he wanted to add. “That’s why I told you he’s up there. I know you’ve been worried about him. Just don’t look shocked when you see him, Irene. He looks pretty bad.”

  She nodded. “If Chad comes back, just tell him I got bored and lonely and walked up to the new house to see how things were coming.” She turned and hurried out, and John tinkered with the piano a moment longer, wondering at how wrong everything seemed to be, wishing his father had never found that gold in California. He closed the piano and left, heading for the liquor cabinet.

  With a pounding heart Irene approached the new house, already tired from the walk. She still had not fully recovered from the ordeal on her wedding night, and had occasional spotting and pain. She worried the doctor had done something wrong, afraid she had developed an infection that had kept her from recovering properly. She wished she could make Chad understand how much it still hurt to have intercourse, but her fear of his turning to someone else, her fear of being the cause of an early failed marriage kept her from saying anything to him.

  She stopped at the doorway, wondering if she had been right in coming here, yet unable to stop herself. She could not help being concerned for poor Ramon, and she argued with herself that it had nothing to do with whether or not she might still love him. She was only here out of the sweet friendship they once had shared.

  She opened the door and went inside, stopping short when she saw Ramon sitting at the bottom of the stairway just ahead of her. He glanced up at her in surprise, and Irene understood John’s warning about how he looked. Ramon was much thinner. At the moment he looked years older than twenty-three. She had no idea he was thinking the same of her. His first thought was to wonder why she was so thin and pale, to wonder what had happened to the beautiful, glowing Irene he had known before her wedding.

  She stepped closer, and at first neither of them said a word. Ramon thought how pitiful and vulnerable she looked. She stood there in a yellow linen day dress that had apparently fit her a few weeks ago but now hung on her too-slender body.

  “Hello, Ramon,” she finally spoke softly. “I…John told me you were here. I wanted to tell you…how terribly sorry I am…about Elena…and your little son. I wish there was something I could do.”

  He slowly stood up, and in spite of his loss of weight, she was still struck by his grand physique, still moved by his firm chest revealed by his open shirt. He wore a crucifix around his neck. Again their eyes held for a long time, saying a thousand things, even though neither of them spoke for several quiet seconds.

  “There is nothing anyone can do,” he told her then, his voice dull. “I will tell you the worst part, mi querida.” His use of Spanish for “my darling” stabbed at her heart. Why had he called her that? She turned away. “The worst part is that I did not give Elena the love she deserved. We were happy together, and we both loved our Juan so much.” His voice began to break. “But…she knew she was not…the only one in my heart.”

  “Don’t say it, Ramon.”

  “Why not? What does it matter any more? My grief is not so much for my own loss, but for what I never gave Elena when she was alive. The very night she died, I had just made love to her.” He watched her stiffen. “And then I turned around and lay there in that bed, thinking of someone else. I received a proper punishment for my infidelity, did I not?”

  “I didn’t come here for this, Ramon.”

  “Didn’t you? You have wondered if I still love you, and I could not say it before because of Elena. Now I see it was all for nothing. All I did was hurt a woman who loved me very much…and now she is gone. Now I am free to love you, but it is too late…for both of us. Life can be so ironic, can’t it? Now you belong to another man, but John tells me he does not think you are very happy. Look at me, Irene.”

  She swallowed back a lump in her throat, her eyes misty as she turned to face him. His eyes moved over her, too knowingly. “I think John must be right,” he told her. “You do not look like the happy, glowing bride.” He stepped closer. “Elena never looked the way you look. What has that man done to you?”

  She reddened. “I’d better go. I can see you don’t appreciate my coming here.”

  “Wait.” He touched her arm. “Forgive me, Irene. I tell myself it is not my business, but I cannot help it. I am just as concerned for you as you are for me.”

  His touch brought on all the old needs and desires. Right now she only wanted to be held by a strong man who truly cared for her, sympathized with her. She turned and nearly collapsed against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. “Irene,” he said softly, “mi vida.”

  She could not help sobbing then. S
he needed to let it out, all the pent-up horror of the strange doctor, her disappointment in Chad’s callousness to her needs, the cruel fact of Ramon’s being married when she was free, and now that she was married, Ramon was free. Yes, she still loved him. What did it matter that he knew? He had already admitted the same to her. And where was the harm in letting him hold her? It certainly wasn’t as terrible as what Chad had done on their wedding night.

  “My poor Irene,” he told her as she wept. She found it ironic, after his own losses, that he should be so concerned about her.

  “I came here…to express my sympathy,” she sobbed. “You’re the one who needs consoling, not me.”

  “Perhaps it is something we both need,” he answered, kissing her hair. “We have quietly loved each other, mi querida, and we have both suffered. It tears at my heart to think you are unhappy. Tell me what is wrong.”

  She pulled away, taking a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress. “I can’t.” How could she tell him something so intimate, especially when she knew he still loved her? The important thing was that she still believed it could be good with a man, knew instinctively that if it was Ramon Vallejo making love to her, she would not feel the pain, or at least she would not mind it. Ramon would have understood, would have been patient.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she added then. “What good would it do to tell you, Ramon? I’m a married woman now. I spoke my vows before God, and I meant them.” She wiped at her eyes and faced him. “Chad is basically good to me. He’s not a drinker or a wife beater or any of those things.”

  “There are other kinds of abuse.” He reached out and touched her face. “You are not well, Irene. He forced you too quickly, didn’t he? Perhaps he has already cheated on you.”