Sweet Wind, Wild Wind

by Elizabeth Lowell

  When she had asked to look at the whole book, her grandfather had always gently refused, saying that he was writing a personal history that shouldn’t be read until he had told the last word. After all, there wasn’t much point in reading a book without an ending, was there?

  Lara had never been able to refute that logic, and, in time, Cheyenne had written the last word.

  As soon as Lara opened the book, she confronted her own history staring back at her. There was a picture of her mother at fourteen, standing between two big men. One of them was Cheyenne. One was Larry. She had an arm around each man and her head tilted in laughter. She was giving Larry a sidelong glance that was a compound of mischief and elemental female awareness of an attractive male. Larry was looking at her with an odd expression on his face, as though a stranger stood in the place of the girl he had expected to find. The picture was dated two years before Lara’s birth. Beneath the picture was a single line of Cheyenne’s elegant writing. The writing was dated the day of Lara’s birth.

  Sometimes I think it all began that day.

  For a moment Lara had to fight an impulse to close the book. She felt like an eavesdropper. The thought brought a bittersweet smile to her mouth. Wasn’t eavesdropper just another name for historian? If she could stir through the embers and ashes of strangers’ lives, surely she had the courage to stir through her own.

  I’m worried about Becky.

  There followed a long page of a father’s concern over a daughter who was too pretty for his own peace of mind. Nowhere was Larry Blackridge mentioned.

  After that there was no entry for several months except those referring to cattle and the land, the small crises and triumphs of ranching that had remained unchanged through history. Finally Lara came to a line that had been written and then underlined later, with a note added in the margin giving the date of the underlining. Larry’s wife must be giving him hell. He’s been over here more often than he’s been home. Becky’s getting a boot out of cooking for

  ‘her men.’ Larry’s getting a boot out of it, too. Never known him to laugh so much.

  In the margin the date was a year to the day before Lara had been born.

  There was more about the ranch on the following pages and then a segment where pages had been torn out. On the frayed remainder of one page was the terse statement: Some things are better left unsaid. Instinctively Lara knew that the missing pages dealt with Cheyenne’s feelings on learning that his young daughter was pregnant with Larry Blackridge’s child. Lara closed her eyes for a moment, wishing that her own birth hadn’t caused so much pain for the people she loved.

  She turned the page and saw a cardboard-mounted picture of a newborn baby, wrinkled and tiny, staring unblink-ingly into the camera. The cardboard had been glued over a page of Cheyenne’s observations on the nature of raising cattle in a cold country. Obviously the picture had been added later. Across the bottom of the cardboard were a few lines written in an unfamiliar hand. As she read, Lara realized that it was her own mother’s handwriting. You were born today, daughter. You were born to me and only to me. You are mine in a way no one else will ever be. I will call you Lara, which means ‘shining,’ because you are the light cast by my love for Larry. Hello, Lara Chandler, with your rosy cheeks and tiny little fingers. I love you.

  Tears welled again behind Lara’s eyes. She ran her fingertips over the lines as though through them she could touch the woman who had died before her daughter ever truly knew her. Staring blindly at the page, Lara wished suddenly that she could tell her mother so many things, not the least of which was that Lara had loved her, too. There were other lines on the cardboard, lines written by Cheyenne.

  Found this after Becky’s funeral. Figured it was a more fitting way to welcome a child into the world than the poison that spilled out of me when I first found out Becky was pregnant.

  Lara smoothed her fingertips lightly over the words. How like Cheyenne to overcome his own bitter disappointment and grow into a larger love. Never once had he made Lara feel like anything but a beloved, welcome addition to his family. Never once had he even hinted that the birth of his granddaughter wasn’t every bit as joyous an event as the birth of his own daughter had been.

  “You were a rare man, grandfather,” whispered Lara.

  “You gave so much to me. I’m glad that you lived long enough for me to love you in return.”

  The pages turned beneath Lara’s fingers, pages revealing Becky’s love for Larry, pages detailing Cheyenne’s stoic acceptance of what he could not change. Only rarely did Cheyenne’s anger surface, and then only at what he perceived as an injustice toward the one truly innocent party in the whole tangle – Lara.

  The Queen Bitch got on her high horse again. Told me I couldn’t bring ‘that bastard’ to the Christmas party. I told her I’d see her in hell before I’d hurt my own granddaughter and that, if she didn’t want us at the party, she’d better be standing in the doorway with a shotgun and a round in the chamber.

  And then a few days later:

  Larry apologized for the QB. Said Lara was of course welcome to the Christmas party. I told Larry that if he didn ‘t muzzle that bitch on the subject of Lara, he could find himself another ramrod. I don’t blame his wife for hating Becky, but I’m damned if I can see any reason to take it out on Lara. A sweeter child God never made. The pages turned faster and faster beneath Lara’s hands, memories swirling around her, history changing with each new insight, each new understanding, each new point of view. Her mother died in a mountain storm, leaving behind a child who didn’t understand why she was alone. Larry’s mistress died in a mountain storm, leaving behind a man who became more cruel with the passing of each loveless day. Cheyenne’s daughter died in a mountain storm, leaving behind a father who knew only that Becky had loved well but not wisely. An adulteress had died in a mountain storm, leaving behind her lover’s wife, a woman whose emotions had twisted and shrunk until nothing was left of her but a single-minded desire for revenge on the man who had never loved her.

  And through all the seething years, an adopted boy grew up always beyond the reach of love, always wanting it, never having it, until finally he believed that vengeance, not love, was the only human emotion that endured.

  In a strange way Becky’s death brought together the two men who had shared her life. When life had troubled either Larry or Cheyenne, they sought each other out, sometimes to talk, often simply to share a silence that demanded nothing, because each man knew that there was too much between them ever to be either described or eased with something as intangible as speech. Each crisis in their lives was bluntly stated in Cheyenne’s increasingly frail hand. By the time Lara turned fourteen, Sharon Blackridge had had her first bout of cancer and surgery. When the cancer recurred, Larry came to Cheyenne in the middle of a spring blizzard.

  Larry wants me to make sure that Lara doesn’t marry anyone until Sharon is dead. I told him that seeing as how Lara is only fourteen, he didn ‘t need to get all in a lather about her love life just yet. He didn’t say a word, just looked at me. I knew then that he ‘d had Becky before she was fifteen.

  Came real close to killing him right then. Hadn ‘tfelt that way in years. Hope I never do again.

  It was a long time before Larry’s name was mentioned in the journal. Lara read about the ranch, her grandfather’s pride in her grades and his regret that he wasn’t rich enough to send her to college. The pages turned and the years with them, and she was working at the cafS in town.

  I’m worried about Lara.

  The words went through Lara like a cold wind, echo of Cheyenne’s worries years before, when Becky was young. Heard that Carson was courting her. A good man and a fine cattleman, but lacking tenderness. And she’s such a gentle little thing. Considered warning her, but didn ‘t. Everybody’s got to measure his own dreams. She’s eighteen, and she’s had a crush on him since she was thirteen.

  Hell, I should go
down on my knees and thank God that Carson didn’t notice her sooner, like Larry did Becky – or if Carson did notice, he was too damned decent to seduce a child. Good thing the Queen Bitch is too sick to care about gossip. She ‘d make life hell for Carson and Lara both.

  The entries became more and more sparse, with greater lengths of time separating them, as Cheyenne’s health began to decline. Larry’s first stroke was noted, as was Cheyenne’s own heart attack. Sharon Blackridge’s long, slow descent into death was recorded, ending with the day of her funeral.

  Lara turned the page, began to read and felt reality dropping away from beneath her feet in an icy, terrifying rush. She read the lines, then read them again, unable to believe, refusing to believe. Yet even as she fought the truth, she felt a page turning over, history shifting inexorably, revealing a new part of the past, a new clue to a truth that tore mercilessly at her soul. She wanted to hurl the book from her, to scream denials, to tear the page out and burn it to ash as bitter as the end of her dreams; but all she did was numbly read the lines again and again, hoping against hope that she was wrong.

  First day back from the hospital. Good to be here again, but I came home to die and I know it. It’s time and then some. All that holds me here is little Lara. She’s such a gentle thing. I pray to God that she’ll find a man worthy of her, but I doubt that I’ll live to see it. She hasn’t so much as looked at a man since she stopped seeing Carson a few years ago. I wonder if –

  There was a break in the sentence and in the journal, as though something had interrupted Cheyenne. His next words told Lara what that interruption had been.

  Larry came. Told me that he ‘d finally outfoxed the Queen Bitch. She thought she ‘d fixed it so that he would never have a child of his own blood inherit the ranch. But as soon as she died, Larry drew up a new will. When Larry dies, Carson has one year to marry Lara. No marriage, no inheritance. And it has to be a real marriage. Carson has two years to get a child or to prove that Lara is sterile. After a long time Lara forced herself to stop reading and rereading the lines as though she could somehow make the words change by sheer effort of will. She turned the page with a hand so cold that she couldn’t feel the heavy texture of the paper. There were no more entries in Cheyenne’s journal.

  Lara turned back to Cheyenne’s last entry, irrationally hoping the words had changed. They hadn’t. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the rich sunlight flowing through the windows over the bed. She tried to think constructively, to apply her intelligence to this discovery as she would have to any other new historical fact, but all her thoughts revolved relentlessly around Carson’s cruel deception, returning to it again and again, unable to think past it.

  An act. All of it. He never wanted me. Not four years ago. Not now. An act. All of it. He never wanted me. Never wanted Never. Me. Lara wished that she could cry to ease the ache and burning of her eyes, but no tears came. She felt as though all her strength had vanished in a single terrible instant, leaving her worn and old, unable to cry out in anger or agony or even despair, a stranger in her own body, a stranger in her own life.

  She had been so sure of herself and love, so sure that her understanding of reality was valid and Carson’s was not. She had been wrong.

  There was a reason Carson had never said he loved her. He didn’t. He never would. Four years ago he had sought her out for the sake of revenge on Larry Blackridge, but Carson hadn’t been cruel enough to follow through. Four months ago he had sought her out because she was the key to ownership of the Rocking B. That was the “mistake”

  Carson had referred to when she had asked why he wanted her back. He had let her get away four years ago when he had her roped, thrown and ready for branding. But he hadn’t known at the time that Sharon would die and Larry would attach unthinkable terms to the inheritance of the Rocking B.

  There was also a reason Carson hadn’t tried to protect her from pregnancy. It wasn’t because he had been too caught up in the passions of the moment to remember to guard against conception. It wasn’t even because deep down inside himself he had wanted to have a child to raise and love. It was because the sooner she was pregnant, the sooner he was secure in his claim on the Rocking B. Like Larry, Carson had wanted only the land. Like Larry, Carson had married a woman he didn’t love in order to keep the Rocking B. Lara heard the front door slam and wished suddenly that she had had the sense to flee while she could. Yet even as the thought came, she knew it was too late. The pages of history had already turned, taking her with them, imprisoning her in a world she had understood too late. She was married. She was pregnant.

  And she was in love with a man who loved only the land. Was that how her mother had felt? Caught in a trap of her own making? Pregnant. In love with the wrong man. No place to flee because everywhere she went she would drag the heavy golden chains of her love behind, chains anchoring her to a man who loved the land more than he loved the mother of his child.

  History repeating itself generation to generation, a loveless legacy of ambition and power passed from father to son, world without end, amen. Bitterly Lara thought that maybe the traditional historians were right. Maybe men had always loved the land and the glory more than they had loved the women who made their damned dynasties possible. World without end, amen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Lara, that Canadian storm is sweeping a few loons down our way,”

  called Carson from the stairway, coming closer with each word. “If the storm holds off, let’s go out to the pond and listen to them sing to the rising moon. It’s the most beautiful – “ Carson’s words stopped abruptly when he saw her. “Lara? What’s wrong, honey? Are you sick again? Should I call Dr. Scott?”

  Eyes closed, Lara made a weary gesture with her right hand. “It’s all right, Carson. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

  Confusion replaced concern on his face. “Pretend? Pretend what?”

  “That you care.”

  “About what? The loons? Honey, you’re not making any sense.”

  “About me.” Lara’s hand went over her womb. “About us,” she whispered.

  Carson went very still. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “About the sins of the fathers,” Lara said bitterly, feeling a hot, almost violent rush of anger through her blood. She looked at Carson for the first time, and her eyes were black with pain and unwanted knowledge. Her words were tight, formal, as though she had chosen them for a treatise. “About history and land and the inheritance thereof. About men who love the land more than they love anything else, even the women who love them. About Larry and Sharon and Becky. About you and me. About the Rocking B and marriage.”

  Lara watched Carson’s expression become as bleak as her voice. Without a word he came to stand over her. He saw the open journal, spun it around and read the last page. He began to swear tonelessly, the words all the more terrible for their lack of emotion. He turned toward her, reaching out to hold her.

  “Lara – “ he said hoarsely.

  She knew then beyond any doubt that it was true, every word of it, every cruel betrayal. She flinched from Carson’s hands. ‘‘“‘Don’t. The act is over. You had your dream. I had mine. Too bad they both couldn’t come true.”

  Carson’s hands flashed out and closed on Lara’s face, pinning her beneath his glance. “It’s not what you think! I wanted you before Larry ever wrote his goddamned will!” Carson forced himself to slow down, to take a deep breath, to cope with the disaster he had foreseen and yet had prayed would never come. “What we have is too good to throw away. When you get past your first anger, you’ll see that,” he said urgently. “You have to. I won’t let you go, little fox.”

  “Why? You’ve got all you ever wanted – revenge and the Rocking B. Or was there something in the fine print of Larry’s will that Cheyenne missed? Some kind of bizarre minimum time limit for marital relations?” asked Lara, and the bitterness of her words drew her mo
uth into a thin downward curve.

  Carson’s eyelids flickered, the only pain he allowed himself to reveal. He had known this might happen, but he had hoped so desperately that whatever they had built together would withstand the blow. Now the cold certainty was growing that he had been wrong. The blow had come too soon. She looked too pale, too remote, as icy and untouchable as a winter moon.

  Chills chased over Carson’s skin.

  “Do you really want to know the fine print?” he asked, his expression bleak.

  “I’d be a fool if I didn’t. I’m tired of being a fool.”

  Slowly Carson released Lara from his grasp. “You want revenge, is that it?” he asked, curiosity and something else in his tone, something very like the agony that was clawing at Lara. “I guess I can’t blame you for that.”

  “I want to know the dimensions of the fool’s paradise I’ve been living in,” she corrected.

  “Tool’s paradise.’ Is that how you think of our time together?”

  “Spare me the fake sentiment,” Lara said, clenching her hands together. “I can take the rest but not that. Not that!”

  “Lara,” Carson said achingly, reaching toward her again. When she flinched away, his hands dropped to his side. He closed his eyes. He had anticipated losing her, but he hadn’t known how much it would hurt. He hadn’t allowed himself to know. He had told himself that she loved him. Surely she would understand that he had wanted her as well as the land. But she didn’t. And when he thought about it, he couldn’t blame her for that, either. He had gambled on her love being great enough to hold them together, no matter what He had lost.

  Carson’s eyes opened slowly. There was nothing to show what he was feeling except the deep brackets on either side of his mouth.

  “Cheyenne hit the high points well enough. The rest is simple,”