Irene lay in bed, her throat bandaged, dark circles about her eyes. She looked up at Chad, her eyes filled with hatred and bitterness. “Why are you even here?” she asked. “I’m sure…you would have been quite happy…if I had died out there.”
Chad sighed, bringing up a chair to sit down beside her. “No, I wouldn’t have. My God, Irene, when I heard what had happened, I can only thank God you’re alive, that I have this chance to tell you how sorry I am about what I did a couple of weeks ago. That’s the God’s truth, Irene. I’ve never hit a woman in my life.”
“Or raped one?”
He closed his eyes, putting his head in his hands. “Never.”
“You never had to. You just charmed them all into your bed, but you were never quite able to do that with me, were you? That’s…what made you so angry with me.”
“Partly.”
“I don’t care anymore, Chad. I don’t care about anything, now that Hank is dead.” She met his eyes. “I loved him, and I don’t care if you know it. He was the kind of man you’ll never be—a real man, who respected women, appreciated them. I…can’t live this way any longer, Chad. I’m divorcing you…no matter what the shame.”
“No!” He felt the desperation rising. She couldn’t do this! He would lose everything! She would tell Bea, tell the world what he had done! He had no defense. If he tried to drag her name through the dirt, he would just be all the more ostracized. Everyone knew what a fine person she was. Bea would never believe her daughter could do any wrong. She thought the world of him, but if it came to a showdown between himself and her daughter…“Irene, you have to give me a chance to explain. We’re still husband and wife. I did something terribly wrong, I know, but…men do that sometimes when they’re crazy with jealousy.”
“It wasn’t jealousy. It was something much more, Chad…something from deep in your soul…your past…something that could drive you to beat me again. I can’t live with that fear.”
He couldn’t fail! A divorce would mean he had failed as a man, as a lover; and he would fail in his career. He had no choice now but to tell her the truth. Irene was discreet. He could trust her. What did it matter if his own wife knew, if it meant he could keep the marriage together, even if it was just for appearance sake. “Irene, I—I can understand why you turned to Hank. I really can. I don’t blame you for that anymore. I don’t even want to know if—if you had an affair with him. God knows I drove you to it.”
She watched him in surprise, mixed with deep suspicion. It was hard to believe anything he told her anymore, hard to feel anything but hatred for him. She swallowed back a painful lump in her throat. “I don’t want to talk about this now, Chad,” she said, a tear slipping down her cheek. “You don’t know what I’ve been through. After what you did…Hank helped me…loved me. He was…a good, good man. To see him killed…in front of my eyes was…worse than losing the baby…worse than being beaten by my own husband. Nothing matters anymore, Chad,…nothing.”
He thought how vulnerable she was now, how easy it would be to win her sympathy. He leaned closer. “Irene, listen to me. These things do matter. They matter because…no matter how much you hate me, I still love you. I always have…even when I strayed. I—I hold you in such reverence—”
“Reverence!” She turned her face away. “My God, Chad, what kind of a fool do you take me for?”
“It’s true. That’s why when I thought you might have been with Ramon, or with Hank, I just went crazy, Irene. I—I grew up with a mother who was nothing more than a whore, Irene. That’s the God’s truth. She was always bringing strange men home.” He hesitated. He would not tell her what one of them had done to him. He couldn’t tell her that! That was one thing he would never tell anyone! “That does something to a boy, Irene. It—it makes him afraid to trust any woman, makes him look at women as worthless. Can you imagine what it might be like…for a boy coming into manhood…to see his mother entertaining all kinds of men except his own father? Can you imagine what it’s like to be told by your drunken father that you’re a bastard, that he isn’t really your father at all—to find out your father was some stranger you’ll never know, some one-nighter your mother slept with?”
She looked at him then, remembering his growling words that awful day he beat her, remarks about her being like his mother. “A bastard? Your father told you you were a bastard?”
His eyes actually teared, and intuition told her the tears were genuine this time. “I have no doubt he was right,” he answered, running a hand through his hair, his cheeks reddening slightly. “I saw enough to figure it had to be true.” He sighed and leaned back in the chair. “My mother was a whore and my father a drunk, Irene, and that’s the truth. That’s why I always avoided talking about my childhood. That’s why I made up reasons why they couldn’t come to Colorado. The gifts I gave you from them were gifts I bought myself. I haven’t seen them in years, and I don’t care if I never see them again.”
She closed her eyes. “You could have told me a long time ago. I would have understood.”
“Maybe. It’s hard for me to talk about it. When I started thinking about you and Ramon, you and Hank…I don’t know. It all just boiled up in me, all the rage against my mother. You’ve always been different—special—a woman I could trust. Then I got scared maybe you were like all the others, my own wife, I couldn’t stand it. That will never happen again, Irene, I swear before God. As far as the other women…I guess it’s just my way of looking for the love I never got from my mother.”
“I gave you plenty of love, Chad. You had no reason to turn to those other women. You’re leaving something out.”
“No. I swear I’m not. I just—I grew up totally confused about women and love and all those things. I married you because you represented all the stability I never had before—trust, loyalty…”
“And why did you expect those things of me but not of yourself? I can’t do it all alone, Chad.”
“I know.” He cautiously took her hand. How could he explain that deep inside he needed the other women, that they represented proof of his abilities as a man, that they really meant nothing to him, while his marriage to her meant everything? If only she could overlook the affairs. He had to have the others, for his own peace of mind. “I want to try once more, Irene. Please give me another chance. I’ll take you back to Denver. Once I get John and Elly settled into running things here, I’ll be back myself. We’ve both had some bad experiences here. We need to go back home.”
She pulled her hand away, still not able to bear his touch. She could not forget the horror of what he had done. No matter what he told her, the fact remained he had beaten her and raped her, pure and simple. “I’m sorry for your childhood, Chad. I hope you mean it about never hurting me again, but who knows when something might trigger that desperate fear in you again? I need time to think about all of it, time to mourn Hank.”
She sniffed, more tears coming. “I suppose…it is best I go back to Denver. Right now the memories here are too painful for me to stay. I’m ready now…to go back and get involved in my work in Denver. I’ve lost everything that was dear to me here.” She met his eyes. “We’ll talk when you come back to Denver. I tried my best to love you, Chad, and you did nothing but hurt me in return. Such things are not easily forgotten.”
He sighed. “But we are still husband and wife. The vows we made require us to try once more. Just give me a chance, Irene. Let me make it up to you.”
She watched his eyes, gray and pleading, looking so sincere. How many other times had he looked that way, only to be lying through his teeth? “At least you have finally opened up to me, Chad. You should have done it a long time ago. After losing the baby, you came down here and got involved in your work and acted as if nothing had happened. All I have wanted is to be able to really talk.”
He nodded. “I know. I stayed away because of my own guilt, because I figured it was my fault about the baby. Acting as if everything was all right was just my way of avoiding the tr
uth. I didn’t come home much because I couldn’t stand to see the look in your eyes, to know what I had done to you. I know you think I lie about a lot of things, but I meant it when I said I was sorry about the baby. I have so many faults to work on, Irene, and I know I’m not much good in some ways. But I am sorry about that, and about…about what I did to you that day I came home. That’s why I came back to see you, that day Hank wouldn’t let me in. Maybe if he had, we would have straightened all this out, and this thing with Hank wouldn’t have happened.”
Hank. The mention of his name brought it all back. With Hank at her side, it could all have been so different. She would have left Chad for certain, no matter what the shame. She would have had all that much more reason. Now Hank was gone. The pain of it brought a sob to her throat. All she would ever have was the memory of those precious few hours in his arms, that one beautiful moment when she discovered the true ecstasy of being a woman.
Now that Hank was dead, she didn’t want his name or his memory muddied. He would be buried beside his beloved wife and daughter. “There was never anything between us like you’re thinking,” she told Chad. “He took care of me after…after you were here. You hurt me bad, Chad. I needed help. When I think of how you left me, I’m not sure I can ever forgive you. You’ve done so many things that prevent me from loving you the way I could have. Right now I can’t think about how or if we can ever have a decent marriage. I just want you to know there was never anything going on between me and Ramon or me and Hank. Just don’t ask me to make any decisions right now.”
“I won’t. All I’m asking is that you wait…wait until you’re healed, wait until I come back to Denver, before you make any drastic decisions. Will you do that much?”
She put a hand to her eyes. “Yes, mainly because I’m simply too tired and too full of grief to go through a divorce right now. God knows the pressure we would both be under once the news hit the papers. The public loves gossip about the rich. I’m not ready for that right now.”
He breathed an inward sigh of relief. If he handled things right, she wouldn’t divorce him at all. At least he had stalled her for a while. “Thank you, Irene, for loving me enough to give me this chance to make up for everything.”
“I didn’t say that I love you. You destroyed those feelings, Chad, almost from the first night of our marriage. I only said I’d wait and think things over.”
“It’s a start. I’m just glad you weren’t killed out there.” He rose, relieved that he had been able to calm her initial plans to divorce him. He could hardly wait to tell Elly that Irene was going back to Denver. “As soon as you’re well enough, I’ll take you back home. Your parents are going to be damn glad to see you once they find out what happened.”
“Yes. I miss them. I especially miss Father.”
Chad left the room, and she lay there thinking about Hank again, wondering how she was going to go on living without him. She should be able to turn to her husband, but that was impossible. Chad was trying, and she felt sorry for his childhood, but that did not erase what he had done. Nothing could. Right now all that mattered was Hank was dead. Dead! She had not even been able to tell him once more that she loved him, to tell him good-bye. She didn’t even have Sunrise anymore. Yellow Eagle had stolen her precious horse, the one thing that gave her a link to Hank. The torture of it engulfed her again, and again the tears came.
John came into the room then—John, her sweet, loving brother. He smelled of whiskey, but that didn’t matter right now. He took her into his arms and held her. They were not Hank’s arms, but they were more comforting than her husband’s. “Don’t let go,” she remembered telling Hank once. Now he would never hold her again.
“What all really happened, Irene?” Kirk asked his daughter. They sat alone in the parlor of Irene’s house in Denver. The commotion of Irene’s return was over. Chad had gone back to Colorado Springs, and after fuming and fretting and mothering Irene for three days, until Kirk finally arrived, Bea was back at work.
Irene looked at her father, seeing that same, strange fear she had seen in Bea’s eyes when the woman questioned her about the attack, the same look she had seen occasionally over the years when the Indians, especially Yellow Eagle, was mentioned.
“You know what happened,” she told her father. She sipped on a cup of tea. “Hank and I were out exercising the horses. We were on our way back to the ranch when…when I heard the arrow.” She stared at her tea. “In that one swift second, Hank was dead. He fell from his horse. I couldn’t just ride off and leave him there. If he was still alive, the Indians might have tortured him. By the time I realized I couldn’t help him, it was too late to try to run. I grabbed Hank’s rifle and shot at them. I killed one of them, wounded another.”
He smiled at sad, bitter smile. “So, you’re not only a good ranch hand, you’re an Indian fighter now, are you?”
She smiled in return, but her eyes were teary. “I guess I am.”
Kirk shook his head. “Irene, do you know how lucky you are to be alive?”
She studied his eyes—so blue, blue like Yellow Eagle’s. “Only because I was a Kirkland. Yellow Eagle himself attacked me, held a knife at my throat. He was ready to…” She looked down at her tea again. “He asked me if I was worth much. When I told him who I was, he immediately got off me and backed away.” She met his eyes again. “Why did he do that, Father?”
Kirk forced a look of confusion, while his heart raced with the joy of knowing his son was still alive and all right, mixed with the fear he would be caught by the soldiers and would give away his identity. He didn’t care for himself, but Irene…thank God the man had not killed or raped her. If Irene discovered he was her twin brother…
“I’m not sure,” he answered, hating piling lie upon lie like this. “I used to be close with the Cheyenne. Maybe one of his uncles or one of his parents once knew me, talked about me. I’d like to think I still have a lot of friends among the Cheyenne.”
“I suppose maybe you do. It was so strange, being right there, being touched by that wild renegade. I was sure I would lose my hair and my life. It still gives me shivers, the way he looked at me.”
Kirk stood up and lit a pipe, turning away. Yellow Eagle! His son! If only he could see him just once. “What was he like? I guess I’m as curious as the next man.”
“As curious as the whole city of Denver,” she answered. “Bill Byers has already been over for a firsthand account for the newspaper.”
You’re telling them all about your own brother, he wished he could tell her.
“He was taller than most Indians,” she was saying. “He could even be considered handsome. It was strange, looking at that dark skin and painted face, with blue eyes looking back at me. His hair is dark brown, not nearly as black as full-blooded Indians. He was well built, strong, but there was a viciousness in his eyes that made my blood run cold. It seemed to disappear when I told him who I was.”
Kirk’s back was to her. He puffed on the pipe a moment, breathing deeply to control his emotions. “Thank God the name apparently meant something to him.”
“The newspaper is making you out to be an old Indian fighter, once a friend to the Cheyenne,” she told him. “I don’t think people will hate you for it. Most of them already know you once lived among them. They understand that was a long time ago, before they became so warlike. Actually, you’re turning into a kind of hero. ‘The name that saved his daughter,’ they’re saying. ‘It was only because Irene Jacobs was a Kirkland, the daughter of our founding father David Kirkland, once a mountain man who lived among the Cheyenne, that she was spared.’”
He turned to look at her. “Well, maybe they’re right—about the name, I mean,” he said, smiling. He sighed, sitting down across from her again. “I have to tell you your mother says you’ve changed, Irene. I can see it too, in your eyes. It’s something more than the Indian attack. What’s been going on down there? Why were you off riding alone with Hank that day?”
She took
another sip of tea. “A lot of things have happened. You have probably already noticed Chad and I aren’t…the marriage isn’t what Mother thinks. I’ve been terribly unhappy since losing the baby, and things just got worse.” She faced him squarely. “You might as well know Hank had become…more than a friend.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I loved him, Father.”
He held her eyes, showing no surprise. “What has Chad done to you? I know you, Irene. When you spoke those wedding vows, you meant them. You loved Chad. A woman like you doesn’t fall in love with some other man for just any reason.”
She shook her head. “It’s my problem, Father. I have to work it out with Chad.”
He leaned closer. “Irene, this is no fool you’re talking to. You have some faint bruises left on your face and arms. I’m an old, seasoned man who knows the age of bruises, and those aren’t from your attack. They aren’t new enough. What happened, Irene?.”
She reddened slightly, setting her cup aside. “Please, Father. It’s for me and Chad to work out.”
He reached out and took her hands. “Maybe so. But no man lays a hand on my Irene, understand? I’ve watched Chad. I have figured for a long time he’s free with women. I was hoping maybe he had straightened out. I’ve always wondered about the night you lost that baby. Chad wasn’t just upset that night. He seemed almost scared to me—like a little boy who had stolen something and was afraid he might get caught. What happened that night, Irene? You can tell me. I don’t worship him the way your mother does, even though he did save my life once.”
She met his eyes. “Why do you turn to other women, Father? Is it that common for men to do that? Am I supposed to keep forgiving and forgiving?”
He looked surprised and leaned back. “So, you know that much about me, do you?”
“Father, we all know. But you’re our father. It’s easy to forgive your father, but not your husband.”
“It’s different with me and Bea,” he tried to explain. I married her so you would have a mother. Why hadn’t he just told her the truth from the beginning? “Back when we got married, people sometimes married for necessary reasons. I was ready to settle and wanted a wife. Bea was in an unhappy situation she wanted out of. I guess we married for the wrong reasons, but we learned to love each other in our own way. We still do. But you know your mother. She always wanted to be rich, and it became an obsession with her. I was just a tool to help her get there. The richer she got, the more I fell by the wayside. You know for a fact how she felt about that loan I made to Red McKinley. Things like that would make her so mad she wouldn’t let me near her. Your mother can be a cold, calculating woman when she wants to be, Irene.”
In the Shadow of the Mountains Page 56
