In the Shadow of the Mountains

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Well, thank you.” He leaned across his desk and called out to his secretary. “Ethel, go and get Ramon, will you? Don’t tell him who’s here.” The woman left, and Irene felt her cheeks growing hotter, her heart racing. She had not been sure Ramon would even be in. “You and Ramon are pretty good friends, aren’t you?” Red asked, watching her eyes.

  Irene smiled nervously. “Yes, we are. A few years ago Ramon taught John how to carve. He was very good at it. But Mother, of course, put an end to that and sent John off to college. She considered carving a waste of time and energy.”

  “Yes, she would.” Red saw the excitement building in her. Ramon had never told him all of it, but he was sure that at some point there had been more than friendship between him and Irene. Ramon’s hatred of Bea Kirkland only made Red more certain that the man had loved Irene once. Bea had somehow found a way to put an end to it. He thought how sad that was. What a gloriously handsome couple Ramon and Irene would make. She seemed much more suited to someone like Ramon than to the cad she was married to. He had met a few people who knew Chad Jacobs and felt he was nothing but hot air with a pretty face. Ramon had told Red how much he despised the man.

  “I’m sorry about your losing that baby, Irene,” he spoke up. “And sorry about the hell you’ve been through these last few weeks. The past year hasn’t been very good to you, has it?”

  “No, it hasn’t. But sometimes a person just has to look ahead and keep going. It hurts too much to look back.”

  “You ever get back up into those mountains?”

  She smiled sadly then. “No. Maybe someday I—”

  “Irene!”

  She looked then to see Ramon coming through the outer office and into Red’s. It was impossible, in her present state, not to be overwhelmingly happy to see him. Ramon! How could she resist letting him embrace her? Oh, how welcome were those strong arms! How wonderful he looked and smelled and felt. Red watched them, and there was no mistaking the love there.

  “I have some things to take care of. I’ll leave you two to talk alone,” he told them. He quickly left, closing the door, and Irene looked up at Ramon. Neither of them could resist a soft, light kiss.

  Their eyes held, and Ramon quickly stepped back from her. She studied him with tear-filled eyes. How wonderful he looked! Now that she had been with Hank—now that she knew the glory of being with a man she truly loved, she knew how beautiful it must be to lie with a man like Ramon.

  “Thank God you are alive and well,” Ramon told her, his dark eyes sparkling. She could see the love was still there, and it was comforting. They had reached a point where everything was understood now. They loved each other and always would, but their lives would take different directions. They took comfort in their friendship, but they could not act on their baser desires. Now there was Hank to think about. Even if she were to divorce Chad, it would be a long time before she could get into another relationship. The pain of losing Hank was still too intense.

  “I have to thank my father for my life, I guess,” she told him. “Yellow Eagle asked if I was worth anything, and when I told him I was a Kirkland, he let me go.”

  Ramon grinned. “The papers had articles about how your father used to live among the Cheyenne and the Sioux, that he knew them well before they became ‘wild, ruthless savages,’ as the paper put it.”

  Irene smiled sadly. “Well, wild and ruthless is a pretty good description, I guess. Father always told me the Indians had good reason for some of the things they have done, but when you’re right there being a victim of it all, it’s a little difficult to sympathize with them.” She turned away. “It was horrible, Ramon, seeing Hank killed right in front of me that way.”

  “You were good friends? I remember Hank Loring. He was a fine man. The paper said he was the manager of your mother’s ranch.”

  “Yes. We were very good friends.” We made love, Ramon. I almost feel as if I’ve betrayed you, for I always thought if I turned to another man, it would be you. She turned to look at him. Yes, he would understand, if she explained it all, explained about Chad. But what was the use now in telling him? “Ramon, I came here to congratulate you on your wonderful success—and to…to apologize. I didn’t know until I went down to the B&K that my own mother had taken over the Vallejo land and made it a part of the ranch. You knew, didn’t you?”

  He sobered, a gleam of revenge coming into his eyes. “I suspected. But that is in the past now. You should not be sorry. You were not a part of it.”

  “In a way I was. I think my mother suspected our feelings for each other. I tried to get the truth out of her, but she wouldn’t admit it had anything to do with us. I think it did, and I’m terribly sorry.”

  He shook his head. “Do not ever be sorry for what we had, Irene. I am not.” She had been through so much that he still could not tell her about the confrontation between himself and her mother.

  His dark eyes moved over her, awakening old passions. He wore tight denim pants, with a wide leather belt and a blue calico shirt today, apparently prepared to go to a construction project and do some of his own manual labor. Like Hank, he was all man, hard, strong, not afraid to get his hands dirty. Most of all, he was a man of compassion. She realized that was the main ingredient Chad lacked—compassion. He had shown only a slight hint of it after Sand Creek, but that had lasted only as long as it had taken him to forget the incident. “I am the one who is sorry, for going to your house and hitting your husband,” Ramon said. “If I had not done that, he might not have taken you away, and none of the other things would have happened to you.”

  But then I never would have met Hank, she thought. “It doesn’t matter. For the most part I was happy, Ramon. I love the ranch, love working with horses. I even went on a roundup, learned to shoot a rifle and rope a calf. Can you believe that?”

  He grinned. “Knowing you, yes, I can believe it.” He searched her eyes. “What about you and Chad, Irene? How is the marriage?”

  She turned away. She sensed that if she told him what Chad had done, his anger would be uncontrollable. She would not be responsible for Ramon doing something irrational that could ruin his career and reputation. She reminded herself this was not Ramon’s problem. “Things aren’t what they should be yet,” she answered. “Chad will be back in Denver soon, and then we’ll have some things to talk about, to decide.”

  She heard a deep sigh. “I had hoped that getting out of Denver would help. I want so much for you to be happy. And I had hoped that some of the things I told Chad would make him think.” She felt him step closer. “I told him that if he ever hurt you that way again, I would kill him, and I meant it, Irene.”

  She shook her head, turning to face him. “Chad isn’t worth your losing everything, Ramon. We decided once that we couldn’t talk about these things. Please leave it at that. I only came here to see you and Red out of old friendships, and to apologize for things my mother did.” She tore her eyes from his and moved away from him again, walking behind Red’s desk. “And I came to tell you that the Territory is going to build a university up at Fort Collins. I wanted you and Red to have firsthand knowledge of it so you can be prepared to bid on it. I intend to join the building committee. I’m ready to get back into business.”

  He watched her lovingly, wanting so badly to be able to look at her as just an old friend now, but he knew he would never stop loving her, wanting her. He wondered how long he could go on living with this unrequited passion, pretending it was not there.

  He had given considerable thought to acting on his attraction to the young Mexican girl who cleaned house for him. Anna Garcia was eighteen, and beautiful. He had a sprawling stucco house east of Denver now, but he was so busy he was not there often. Ramon had found Anna at the shelter for homeless women. She had come to Denver with her widowed mother to find work, and her mother had died. He hired Anna to take care of the house for him, and she was a sweet, shy girl.

  He was nearly thirty now, and it had been six years since he ha
d lost Elena and Juan. He wanted a wife and family, but he wanted so much for that wife to be Irene. How long should he wait to see if he could ever possess her? The moment he set eyes on this, his first and deepest love, it was difficult to even think about Anna.

  “Well, it is too bad your personal life is still not as it should be,” he told Irene. “And I thank you for letting me know about the plans for a university.” He folded his arms. “Irene, if you need me, in any way—if that bastard husband of yours gives you any more trouble, you tell me. I mean it. Do not worry about what will happen to me. I can take care of myself. I am not foolish enough to lose everything over someone like Chad Jacobs.”

  She watched him sadly. “Thank you, Ramon, but you have your life now, and I have mine. I’ve been through so much, I don’t want any more trouble right now. The last thing I want for you is any kind of scandal. You’ve done well, but there is still a lot of prejudice in this town. I just…I wanted to say hello, to congratulate you and tell you about the university. And I wanted to tell you how beautiful the church is, more beautiful than I imagined.”

  He smiled. “There is still some interior work to do, but I have other men taking care of that. I did all the carving for the pulpit and the arms of the pews, as well as the table of sacraments.”

  “Well, it’s the most beautiful building in Denver.” Their eyes held in unspoken feelings. She moved from behind the desk to the door. “Well, perhaps we’ll be working together on the university project.”

  He came closer and nodded. “Perhaps.” He took a deep breath, breathing out as though to expel feelings that should not be there. “Would you like to see my office?”

  She smiled. “Yes. That would be nice.”

  He nodded, putting a hand to her back and leading her out and down the hall. He ushered her past his secretary’s desk and into a room similar to Red’s. But she felt as if she were walking into a Spanish home in Mexico. Spanish-style rugs and vases decorated both the outer office and his own office. Paintings of bulls and bullfighters, street scenes of small Mexican towns and men wearing huge sombreros, and one of Spanish soldiers decorated the walls. A huge rubber plant sat in one corner of his office, and a six-foot-tall ceramic figure of a conquistador stood in the other corner. Hand-drawn blueprints lay scattered across his desk and an extra table.

  “This is beautiful,” she told him, gazing around the room. Her eyes fell on the blueprints. “You’re so busy, Ramon. I’m happy for you.”

  “I owe part of it to your mother,” he told her. “She never thought I would amount to anything. She made me determined to prove her wrong.”

  “Well, I’m glad,” she replied. “I have to get back to my own office now. There is going to be a meeting this afternoon about the university.”

  He nodded. “I have much work to do myself.” Their eyes held. “Good-bye, Irene. Take care of yourself.”

  She blinked back tears. “You do the same.” She tore her eyes from his and left. Ramon stared at the doorway, his whole body aching for her. He turned then, swinging an arm across his work table, sending blueprints flying, damning himself for still loving her.

  Elly placed reports from the new Kirkland silver mines on Chad’s desk. “It looks like my alcoholic brother is straightening up some,” she told Chad. “He actually got this report done on time and it looks neat and correct.”

  Chad looked it over. “John’s been a little better since your father came down here and talked to him.” He sighed, looking up at Elly. “He gone?”

  “Yes. He just left, and so has everyone else.”

  Chad leaned back in his chair. “Elly, when Kirk was here, he didn’t talk just to John. He had a little private conversation with me, too, and those blue eyes of his held a threatening note. He knows Irene and I aren’t getting along, Elly, although I don’t think Irene told him the worst of it. At any rate, he warned me he didn’t want her hurt. I managed to keep things civil and to smooth his ruffled feathers somewhat, but things are getting tight right now. If I’m going to manage to keep this marriage alive, I’m going to have to go home pretty quick, and I’m going to have to be more discreet than ever.”

  “So? Let the marriage fail.” She folded her arms. “Then you and I can get married.”

  “That would never work, and you know it. You’d be disinherited, and I’d lose my position here. Besides, we both know that what makes it so good for us is that it’s forbidden. If we make it legal, all the fun will go out of our sex life.”

  She laughed. “Maybe you’re right. But I love you, Chad. I always have, and I always will. At least if you were divorced you’d be free to do what you want.”

  He shook his head. “You know Bea. I can’t go accusing Irene of anything, and if Bea finds out I beat her…” He rubbed at his chin. “If I ever get divorced, Elly, it has to be something that is totally Irene’s fault, something that can’t be denied. In the meantime, I’m stuck with her, and you and I have to face the fact that the time is coming when we can’t sleep together every night. I’ve got to get back to Denver soon.”

  Elly pouted. “I don’t want to stay here alone without you.”

  “Well, you’d better stay here for a while at least. If you go chasing home as soon as I leave, it will look suspicious. With John not drinking so much, we can eventually let him take over, hire a couple of extra men for down here, and you can come home. After that we’ll see.”

  He realized he had actually grown somewhat dependent on Elly, who was expert at satisfying his sexual appetite. He had the best of two worlds. His marriage to Irene gave him a kind of wholesome respect, at least to the outside world; while Elly satisfied his baser needs. The only trouble with Elly was that she was one he could not toss aside, as he had Susan Stanner. He had to be very careful with her.

  “I’ll miss you so much, Chad,” she was telling him.

  “I imagine you’ll find other comfort.”

  She smiled wickedly. “Maybe. But they won’t be you.” She put her hands on her hips, walking to a window. She wore a paisley print taffeta dress, which rustled as her heavy frame moved about, and Chad thought how she always wore dark colors and rather ugly dresses, or was it her build that made them seem ugly? “Mother and Father make me so angry…Father coming down here and threatening you, Mother expecting you back in Denver. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have so much to worry about. I wish they’d hurry up and die so K-E would be in our hands. You could divorce Irene and we’d all be a lot happier.”

  “I wouldn’t go planning anything in that direction. They’re both healthy as a couple of horses.”

  She looked at him, then sauntered around his desk and leaned down, kissing him lightly. “Well, horses get sick and die, too, you know.”

  He grinned. “I know.”

  She sat down on his lap, a bigger load for him than she realized. “I know that pretty soon we won’t get to be together so much. But we’ll find ways.”

  He grinned, meeting her mouth then, moving a hand to grasp at her breast while they kissed hungrily. She met his tongue suggestively, then left his mouth, closing her eyes and putting her head back as she sat up straighter to let him unbutton the front of her dress. He kissed at her throat as he reached inside to toy with a taut nipple, both of them quickly lost in each other while outside a light rain peppered the window. Neither of them realized John had come to stand in the doorway.

  “Well, well.”

  Elly gasped and jumped up, fumbling to button her dress, while a red-faced Chad sat staring at John, who watched them with an ugly sneer on his face. “I suspected something like this was going on, but to see it in the, uh, flesh, so to speak, kind of makes a man want to puke, you know what I mean?”

  “What are you doing here?” Elly demanded, nearly screaming the words. Her face was livid with anger.

  John smiled. “I brought a telegram I happened to pick up. I decided it was important enough that Chad should read it right away.”

  “You deliberately sneaked
in here to try to catch us,” Elly fumed.

  John sobered, his words turning into a near snarl. “If you’d behave like a proper lady, there wouldn’t be anything to worry about!”

  “John, listen—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Chad,” John said, coming closer, his own face showing his fury then. “What a pair of stinking bastards you are! My own sister! I don’t know which one of you I detest the most—my sister for sleeping with her own sister’s husband, or you, for sleeping with your own wife’s sister! Six of one and half a dozen of the other, wouldn’t you say? Any way you look at it, it smells worse than rotten eggs!” He shoved papers and ink pens off Chad’s desk, leaning over and grabbing Chad by the shirt front. “You lying, cheating, wife-beating son-of-a-bitch!”

  Chad brought his arms up between John’s, pushing hard and quick outward to force John to let go of him. He rose from his chair, and they faced each other challengingly. “Calm down, John! There are a lot of things you don’t understand here.”

  “Oh, I understand, all right! I understand my sister is a slut, and you’re no better than a damn gigolo! Maybe it’s not my business when it’s the sluts in Old Colorado City you’re with, but when it’s Irene’s sister, that’s a little too much to take! I think I told you once what I’d do to you if you hurt Irene again!”

  “I haven’t hurt her! Not physically. I told you that wouldn’t happen again. As far as Elly and me…” He glanced at Elly, who stood glaring at John, looking ready to light into him. “It’s only been since she got back from school,” he lied. “You know Irene and I were having problems. Irene stayed down on the ranch so much, and Elly and I have been working so closely these last few months—”

  “Save it, Chad!” John breathed deeply for self control, moving angry eyes between Chad and Elly. “The two of you are lower than the dirt under a snake’s belly! I don’t want to hear your excuses!” He moved his eyes to Elly. “And I don’t need to tell you what our dear mother would think of this! You’d both be out scrubbing privies for a living!” He stepped back, enjoying the fear in both their eyes. He sneered. “Don’t worry, dear sister and brother-in-law. I promise not to tell. But for one reason only, and that’s Irene! I don’t intend to be the one to give her the biggest hurt she’s suffered yet!” His eyes began to tear with rage. “She’s been through enough hell. I think I’ll spare her this one.”