by Thea Devine
She felt the horse's muscles constricting, and his head lift up as if he were scenting the air. She had a sense of a closeness, a containment, and then she perceived the bulk of a building ahead- of hen
She yanked at the reins excitedly. The horse pulled up and veered to the left, galloping down another hundred yards or so before she managed to halt him.
It was incredible, she thought; she never would have guessed this would happen given all her circumstances being out of her control.
The horse had brought her straight back to Sweetland.
Had she returned before Ardelle? There was no way to tell without actually going into the house. If Ardelle were back, she would already have turned out her mount, and if it were true she never rode except in emergencies, she would already have changed out of her dusty clothes. She would . . .
Kalida flattened her shaking body against the wall adjacent to the back entrance to Sweetland as she heard voices. In the entrance corridor. Deuce!
•'Where the devil have you been?"
His voice was muffled; he must be near the stairwell to the second floor. Talking to . . . Ardelle. Her voice floated downwards loud and clear. "I've been here all the time, Deuce, in my room. Why?"
Damn her, Kalida thought, gripping the rifle. How was she going to counter her lies? She hadn't even planned how she would confront Ardelle. Or what she would say
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to convince Deuce she was telling the truth.
She heard his heavy footfall treading upward; he was going to talk to Ardelle. She took a deep breath. If she could make it up the stairs, she might be able to hide in his room before he got there.
The thought moved her to action, and stealthily, she nudged open the back door and slipped into the hallway.
A kerosene bracket lamp sent its long shadowy fingers inching down the dark hallway to touch her. She gripped the rifle tighter, made her way to the stairs, and looked up. No sound of voices. Her heart started pounding again. Slowly, step by step, her back against the wall, she proceeded up the steps.
The silence was ghastly, almost threatening in the way she felt that just the slightest noise would cause her to scream and do something drastic.
There was no sign of Prestina, no hum of voices as she edged past Ardelle's room. And then as her hand touched the doorknob to Deuce's room, his loud roar broke from Ardelle's bedroom: "Goddamn it, Ardelle!"
The words were so loud and so close, it seemed to Kalida, that she almost collapsed from the force of his anger. Quickly, she let herself into Deuce's room and leaned her body against the closed door, quaking with fear and trepidation.
Damn it, she thought, / have the damned gun. And I know how to use it. What can they do to me? She put her ear against the crack of the door.
She heard Deuce. And his voice was getting louder. He must have left Ardelle's room and was coming to his own.
She did the first thing she could thuik of as his voice came closer and closer, every word loud and clear.
"Damn it, Ardelle, I still do not understand, and I don't want to understand, because what you're saying makes no goddamned sense."
"I swear to you . . ." Ardelle's voice now, coming be-
hind his, conciliatory, slightly anxious. But of course she did not know Kalida would hear her. ". . . she ran off with Jake Danton."
"I don't believe you."
"He was hanging out at that old line shack back of the property, near the Haskins' line. And looking for his chance, Deuce. Honestly. You must believe me. Everything you felt about that incident was right. Your instincts were right. Kalida never belonged at Sweetland."
"Go to hell." His'last words before he opened the door and was greeted by the sight of Kalida, dust, dirt, and blood smeared, sitting in the middle of his bed, her rifle cocked and aimed directly at his heart.
I
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Chapter Twenty-one
She smiled unpleasantly and waved the rifle at him and Ardelle. "Please come in and tell me more about this abortive elopement with Jake Danton."
Deuce stalked in cautiously, his mind a powder keg of emotions.
"You too, Ardelle," Kalida ordered. "I'll shoot if you try to move." She was gratified to see Ardelle chose to bluff her way through this confrontation. She sent Kalida a meaningful look as she hobbled into the room and elaborately seated herself in the upholstered rocker.
Deuce closed the door and leaned against it, his mind clear of everything but one thought: Kalida was.in his bed again. His flinty gray eyes narrowed as he watched, then they slowly smoked to flaming charcoal. She had never looked so beautiful to him, even with her smudged face, blood-stained wrinkled clothes, her inky hair in its usual tangle, and her eyes burning molten blue as she kept them —and the rifle — riveted on Ardelle.
"Betrayed Jake already, did you?" Ardelle said, her voice insincere with sympathy. "I expect you had nowhere else to run to. Maybe you thought Deuce or I would give you some money. Maybe we will," she added darkly, "just to be rid of you."
Deuce folded his arms across his chest as he sent Ardelle a speaking gray look. Ardelle raised her eyebrows and turned her fiery sherry gaze to Kalida.
Kalida opened her mouth to say something scathing — and thought the better of it just in time. She had to keep her wits about her now, if at no other time. Emotional outbursts would not refute Ardelle's nasty insinuations. If Deuce were to believe her, she would have state the facts as plainly and unemotionally as possible. She could see already, as her mind leapt ahead to how it would sound, that what she would say would damn her more than it would support her story. If she would be allowed to tell it.
Nonetheless, she shifted her navy-darkened gaze to Deuce and said flatly, "Jake Danton is lying unconscious, possibly dead, in that line shack."
"You were there," Deuce said, his voice as level as hers.
"I — " The falter cost her. His eyes closed to her. "I was there," she admitted finally. "I knocked him out."
"You see?" Ardelle said, as if what Kalida said utterly condemned her.
"You were at the shack with Jake," Deuce said suddenly, still watching her in that curious suspended way.
"He forced me," Kalida said, hoping to convince him by the baldness of her words and seeing, with a sinking heart, that he looked skeptical.
"That," Ardelle interpolated, "is a familiar story. I wouldn't be surprised if she says that every time about every man she has ever dealt with. Isn't that the story she told about what happened on the roundup?" She turned to look at Kalida. "Really, Kalida. I don't blame you. It's so much easier on the conscience that way."
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Kalida gripped the rifle, her anger and her feeling of being cornered almost getting the better of her. She could kill Ardelle right now, right where she sat, and it would do her no good to quiet that snidely sneering face. No good at all. Deuce plainly disbelieved her.
As Ardelle's words reverberated through the room, Kalida quickly went through in her mind what she had wanted to tell Deuce. It sounded absurd: Her father had arranged her escape. She had stolen a horse. Ardelle had chased her away. She'd hidden in the loft of the barn at the old homestead. Jake had abducted her. She had fought him, tripped him, knocked him out. Raced Ardelle to the Sweetland — for what? Only to be trapped again by the patent irrationally of everything that had happened to her.
Ardelle was right: She could make her, Kalida, go away forever. She looked over at Deuce, who was staring at her from under hooded coal-hard eyes. What was he thinking?
Probably just what Ardelle wanted him to.
"Is that where you went after you left here?" he asked suddenly, harshly. He didn't know what to make of her contradictory statements. She hadn't offered any explanation whatsoever yet, and he did not like the way she was looking at him with those blazing navy eyes.
"No," she said slowly, thoughtfully, swinging her gaze back to Ardelle. "I went exactly where you might have guessed I would go �
��where Ardelle herself surmised I would go and sent Jake to find me."
Ardelle flashed her a contemptuous look. "Really, Kalida . . ."
And Deuce's expression didn't change one jot. "Ardelle surmised?" he asked evenly, not showing just how disconcerted he was by the fact she would use anything at hand to embroider the truth. God, he wished she hadn't dragged Ardelle into her story. He was willing to believe
almost anything she told him to explain what she had done. But not deliberately using Ardelle.
Kalida could almost feel him wavering. He wanted to give her a chance. But not if she shot off wild accusations about Ardelle. If only he knew the half of it, she thought wryly; and he would —soon. She had nothing to lose now by tossing out her allegations. Ardelle would deny them, they'd give her some money, and that would be the end of her. At this point, she couldn't even seduce Deuce into believing her.
"Ardelle sent Jake," she reiterated firmly. "Who else knew I was going there but Prestina, who had promised to tell only you? How else would Jake have known? And why was he still on Sweetland, tell me that, when you supposedly fired him? And that line shack. That place is godforsaken. I'm willing to bet the only one who knew about it besides you was Ardelle. Not Jake. Jake wouldn't have had time to explore the boundaries. Wouldn't have cared to, I wouldn't think. You haven't run cattle there for years. Think about it, Deuce. She doesn't want me here. Jake is still here. I wind up back here, claiming Jake abducted me on the heels of her story that I ran off with him. Why would I have, if I came here for help to begin with? Ask her why she hates me so much. Ask her why Jake is still hanging around." She stopped at the blank-ness of his expression. It was no use. She couldn't accuse Ardelle flat out to him. It would sound insane. She had to prove it somehow.
Prove it somehow.
Ardelle was not infirm, she thought. She had only to make Ardelle drop her cane and run.
"You think it doesn't make sense, don't you?" she said to Deuce, her mind furiously busy trying to figure out n'hat to do to expose Ardelle. As long as she kept talking, as long as her accusations sounded like fairy tales . . .
"No," he said, "it doesn't make sense."
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Kalida looked at Ardelle, her eyes glinting steely blue. "There is a reason that makes sense," she said slowly, and Ardelle chuckled.
"This is more entertaining than a theatrical show in town," she said to Deuce lightly. "Do go on, Kalida, your imagination is extraordinary."
Kalida smiled at her and slid off the bed. to walk around to where Ardelle was sitting, all the while aware that Deuce was watching her intently, watching his aunt, and not making a move to stop either of them. Not, thank heaven, chasing her out of the house. Yet.
"Ardelle was at the line shack, you know," she said to Deuce. "You may wonder how that is possible. / certainly didn't expect to see her when Jake brought me there. He tied me up and brought me there. Uncomfortable ride, too," she added, nudging Ardelle's smooth white cheek with the nose of the rifle. "She can walk, Deuce. She's always been able to walk. And to ride. It was a better cover for her to pretend not to though. But she was there, and she gave Jake tacit permission to do with me whatever he liked —at least tonight—and she was willing to talk about the reasons why. Weren't you, Ardelle?"
"Perfectly extraordinary," Ardelle murmured, rocking back and forth, hoping the movement covered her growing agitation. She had to try to bluff her way out now, and she wasn't at all sure Deuce would believe either of them.
"So now she's in league with Jake?" Deuce questioned with a sardonic edge to his, voice.
"For a long time, apparently," Kalida said, moving away, willing him to believe just that little'much she was telling him. She couldn't bear to look at him in that moment. There was no way to convince him other than to force Ardelle to become mobile, but even that did not prove she was a thief and in cahoots with Jake.
"Monstrous lie," Ardelle muttered.
Kalida whirled on them. "You're so good at denial and lies yourself," she hissed at Ardelle. "Deny you've been stealing the Linaria —and with Jake's help."
The room fell dead silent.
Ardelle said nothing, just stared at Deuce and shrugged helplessly.
Kalida turned away again. Stupid chance to take. It sounded insane. She sounded insane. Her best chance was to dive out the damned window again and run as fast and as far as she could get, just as she had thought before she came back here tonight. Deuce would never trust her. The outcome didn't matter. Ardelle had won, and she knew it.
Ardelle rocked herself back and forth complacently, sparing a snide little covert smile for Kalida, as if to say, How could he buy that? Really, Kalida.
His face was impassive, his eyes closed as he leaned his muscular body against the door; as if he were blocking the way out —but whose way out, Kalida wondered, as she watched him assessing her words. And she knew she didn't want not have to prove to him what she had said was the truth. She wanted him to believe it because he believed in her. But how was it possible? Ardelle was his aunt, family, and Kalida was the daughter of a schemer who had stolen from him.
How hopeless could it be?
"Utterly ridiculous," Ardelle said suddenly, impatient to hear Deuce's reaction to Kalida's accusation. He couldn't entertain it, she thought, even for a second. It sounded crazy. She had counted on it sounding crazy, impossible.
Deuce said nothing.
Kalida's heart fell to her feet. There was no telling what 'ie was thinking, except she could almost scent his negative emotion against her.
"What some people won't do," Ardelle said in an
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undertone, shaking her head as if in compassion, as if to say Kalida had no choice; he couldn't have expected her to ask for mercy. And he knew by now she was full of guile. He must know that.
Kalida raised the rifle once again, at the disdainful note in Ardelle's voice. Damn her, Ardelle was not going to get away with this, even if it meant that she, Kalida, would be sent away from Sweetland forever. Her feelings for Deuce hardly entered into it anymore. Her feelings for revenge were paramount, almost vital in their intensity.
What would convince Deuce? she wondered as she eyed his tall muscular body leaning against the door. He was still motionless, impassive. Was he waiting? For what? For which one to speak, for which one to trip herself up?
"Deuce, this is —I can't sit here and listen to this anymore. Why don't you just give her some money — enough to take her to Miles City. That's the place for her," Ardelle said into the bleak silence. "I just can't stay here a minute longer and listen to her."
"I haven't said anything-yet," Kalida countered harshly. "But don't think I'm not going to." Now or never, she thought.
"Say away," Ardelle invited, sitting back in the chair, that chippy little smile in place, her eyes burning dark red fire in challenge. The chit can't hurt me, she thought complacently. But the scene was taking on the aspect of her worst nightmares, when she had actually imagined Kalida confronting her after having discovered the truth. But then, she had never thought Kalida would be spirited enough to fight Jake. To hear him tell it, Kalida wanted him, would be happy for a chance with ;him. And he would have taken her with him, she knew. He never would have killed Kalida. She should have done it herself, damned girl.
She waited, noting that Deuce's hooded eyes were focused on Kalida. And the damned gun. What could
Kalida say that would damn her and not sound deranged?
"When Ardelle told me," Kalida began in a nonchalant conversational tone, "that she had been stealing the Lina-ria one by one systematically over the last few years, it was like everything fell into place."
"Your father was probably stealing them one by one over the past few years," Ardelle interjected nastily. "That's how she knows details, Deuce. That's how she knows anything."
Kalida's face hardened. It was a good ploy, she thought; excellent. A lot could be blamed on her father's greed. Too damned much. But
not this, she vowed, and turned back to Deuce. "She knew where you were every minute of the day. She knew where the herd was, when you were moving it, when the patrol would be on night watch. When you'd be away from the ranch. And she did the account books; she told me so herself. She wanted a piece of Sweetland, pure and simple, because your father apparently left her nothing in gratitude for her years of nursing him. So she thought she'd build herself a little herd, piecemeal, with your prime stock. That's what she told me," she added, as she detected the merest flicker of a muscle movement in his jaw.
"She was scared to death of your interest in me," she went on, "because she knew I was no homebody. That I'd been involved with Father's business, and I probably would want to be involved in yours. And if I started looking at numbers and breeding forms . . . Well, she needed to discourage your interest in me. She tried teaching me to be a lady, and I was hardly cooperative in that respect. But then there was Jake, her partner, interested in me already for his own reasons, eager to help her dishonor me for still others. Anyway, she said they occasion-Lily hit other syndicate members to make it look like a band of thieves was operating in this area. She said four of your men have a cut. She told me all of this herself,
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out at the line shack."
"Really, Kalida," said Ardelle, standing up. "Deuce, this girl should be institutionalized. Do you realize that if her father had the guts and the wherewithal to take his herd back from you, it could have been him taking the Linaria also? What better deal for him! A little at a time, not too greedy, crossbreed a few at a time, and eventually, he gets ready to make his big move. Fortunately, fate took a hand. Don't you see how perfect it is that Kalida accuses me, but she herself knows every detail of how it was done? Was her father not on patrol with you? Did he not know all your comings and goings —as a neighbor? Did he not bribe you with Kalida when he wanted into the syndicate?
"And we know why, don't we? Kalida was to be his informant, to get him out of trouble if you should ever discover the reality of what he really had been doing." She hobbled across the floor and patted the rifle head. "A good try, Kalida, but as you can see, Deuce and I do know the truth. You're a liar and a cheat, possibly a thief, and we're well rid of you. Now, do excuse me. These bedtime stories have made me excessively tired." She motioned for Deuce to move from the doorway.
