by Nan Ryan
The cold starry nights brought pain and despair as time after time Sabella reached out in her lonely bed, seeking the warmth of the lean, hard body that was no longer there. That would never be there again.
She missed her Burt.
She missed hearing his low, familiar voice whispering her name in the darkness. Missed having his strong arms around her, holding her as if he would never let her go. Missed hearing the steady, reassuring beat of his heart beneath her cheek. Missed the sweet ecstasy he had taught her to enjoy, a kind of rapture she would never know again.
While she was alone in the night, she wondered miserably where Burt was. She wondered where he went each evening. She saw him ride out almost nightly, cantering Sam down the palm-lined avenue and underneath the tall crossbars. She never heard him come in, had no idea when or if he returned. Tortured, she imagined him going to Gena de Temple or to a brothel. She envisioned all sorts of things, none of them pleasant. The thought of Burt with another woman—making love with someone else—sickened her.
Mornings brought their own special brand of misery.
The rising of each new sun found Sabella unable to get out of bed. She forced herself to sit up, only to be overcome with waves of nausea so violent, she sagged back on the pillows, groaning with agony. The smell of breakfast made her retch with such dry, racking heaves, Carmelita soon gave up on trying to get her to take a few bites of food.
Dark circles appeared under Sabella’s eyes and she began to lose weight, instead of gaining. Carmelita was worried. She expressed her concern to Cappy Ricks, and Cappy immediately sent for Doctor Ledet.
The doctor arrived that very afternoon. Cappy and Carmelita paced the quiet corridor outside Sabella’s door, each assuring the other that she was going to be “fine, just fine.”
They pounced anxiously on the doctor when he came out. Worried and talking at once, each shushed the other warningly. The doctor laughed and told them both to calm down. Mrs. Burnett, he assured them, was only suffering what many young, healthy women suffered in the beginning weeks or months of pregnancy. It was most unpleasant for the mother-to-be, but not dangerous. Any day Sabella’s nausea would cease and then she would likely be healthier and happier than she’d ever been in her life.
Relieved, Cappy and Carmelita exchanged I-told-you-so’s and then thanked the doctor for coming. Neither mentioned to Burt that the doctor had been there, so Cappy was taken aback when, well after ten that night Burt knocked on his door, stuck his head in, and asked, “What did Doc Ledet say? Is Sa … is Mrs. Burnett ill?”
“Naw, Sabella’s fine. Just a little morning sickness. Lot of women go through that. My Geneva was the same way when she first got pregnant with Elizabeth May.”
Burt nodded and said quietly, “Tell Doc Ledet he’s to come out once a week until the baby is born.”
“I’ll do it.”
Cappy didn’t care if Burt liked it or not, he took to going upstairs every morning to check on Sabella himself. Seeing her so sick and miserable couldn’t have hurt him more if she’d been his daughter.
“Sugar, I’m so sorry, so sorry,” he’d murmur sympathetically, shaking his gray head. “It’s not fair for you women to have to do all the suffering. I don’t know what the Almighty was thinking of.”
Cappy’s concern was not just idle conversation. He sat at Sabella’s bedside and soothingly pressed damp cloths to her perspiring forehead and pale cheeks. He supported her with his work-roughened hands when her weak, slender body was racked with fierce, uncontrollable retching. When the wrenching upheavals had passed, he’d rock her in his big, powerful arms as if she herself were a helpless baby.
The unflagging caring and tenderness Cappy showed Sabella were not lost on Carmelita. She had liked the big ranch foreman from the beginning. She had come to admire and respect him as well. And for the first time since losing her dear husband, Victor, she was attracted to a man. She said nothing about it to anyone. Cappy liked her, she was sure, but he’d given no indication that he thought of her as a woman.
But then why should he? Long ago she had lost her slender, girlish figure and her dark hair was now streaked with wide bands of silver. She was, she realized glumly, a plump, middle-aged Mexican woman whose place in life was solely tending the young, beautiful—and now pregnant—Sabella Rios Burnett.
Carmelita and Cappy were not the only ones who took good care of Sabella. Just as promised, she was coddled and humored by the entire staff. Doctor Ledet came to call once a week, although Sabella insisted it wasn’t necessary. When the morning sickness passed, Martha cooked huge, tempting breakfasts which were served to Sabella on a bed tray.
Anytime she left her room, Blanton immediately appeared to escort her downstairs. If she wanted to sit in the sun on the south patio, he saw to it she was covered warmly with a lap robe. If she wanted to go to the beach, he insisted on helping her down the steep steps. Everyone babied her as if she were an invalid.
Everyone but Burt.
He paid her no attention whatsoever.
Whole days went by without her even seeing him. Then several. Sleepless in her big lonely bed on a cold night in early February, Sabella counted the days that had passed since she’d last seen Burt Burnett. Four. Four whole days. And nights. And then she’d only caught a fleeting glance of him as he rode Sam out alone one morning at dawn.
Sighing, Sabella turned onto her stomach and told herself she hoped it was four more before she saw him again. Or twice that long. Or never.
She closed her eyes and waited for sleep. It didn’t come. She flopped over on her back. She wasn’t comfortable. She turned onto her left side. Then her right.
Frustrated, she finally threw off the covers and got out of bed. Slipping a blue silk wrapper over her nightgown, she headed downstairs to the library. She’d choose a book, bring it back up, and read until she fell asleep.
She moved down the dim, silent corridor, descended the redwood staircase, and started down the lower hallway toward the library. She jumped when the tall, cased clock struck two. And she frowned, puzzled, when she saw a rectangle of light spilling out of the open library door.
She paused, turned to go back upstairs without a book, then changed her mind. The servants had likely forgotten to extinguish the lamp after someone had used the library earlier in the evening.
Sabella moved on.
She reached the open door, peered cautiously inside, and her heart constricted in her chest. Sound asleep, Burt sat beneath the one lighted lamp in a high-backed burgundy wing chair. On his lap were a couple of open books, and scattered about on the floor at his feet were several more. The books were spread out and all were open.
Curious, Sabella silently tiptoed closer, glanced at his sleeping face, then knelt down to one of the open books to see what he was reading.
“The Appurtenancy Rule is that law which states a water right to surface or groundwater must be … ”
Hydrology.
He was searching through the many tomes housed in this extensive library for a solution to the rancho’s water shortage. He had excitedly told her, on their honeymoon, about the water system being researched and developed by the hydrologists—desalinization of ocean water—which would change everything.
But that was still several years away.
Slowly rising to her feet, Sabella cast a sympathetic glance at Burt. She was not afraid of his waking up. He was sleeping soundly, obviously exhausted. It was chilly in the room and she worried that he might be cold. She longed to spread a warm comforter over him, but she didn’t dare.
Her gaze moved from the handsome sleeping face down over his chest, rising and falling evenly, then to the lean hands in his lap. One was spread on the face of an open book. The other was tightly clenching something. Sabella leaned closer.
Her lips fell open. Long, lean fingers were gripping a dried blossom as though it were priceless. Why on earth would he be holding a worthless wilted flower? What would he want with … with …
The entire scene instantly flashed through her mind—the terrible night when Burt had found out the truth. She had worn a rose velvet gown, and in her hair Carmelita had tucked a pink Castilian rose. The rose had fallen to the stairs as she ran to their room.
Burt had found the rose. He had saved it. He was holding it in his hand.
Overcome with emotion, Sabella slowly backed away, staring fondly at the sleeping man clutching the wilted pink rose. Tears were beginning to clog her throat. Her heart was aching with compassion, love, and a small degree of hope.
She reached the door and paused. It was then she recognized the chair in which Burt had chosen to sit. Winged, high-backed, supple leather of a rich burgundy hue, so little used it appeared to be brand new.
The Worry Chair.
Forty-Four
THE WINTER RAINS FINALLY began, but they consisted of only light, sporadic drizzle peppering the dry, hard ground. Knowing every single drop of water had to be preserved, the rancho’s many cowhands labored long hours in the cold misting rain.
Some of the hands cleared the shallow irrigation ditches of debris and built temporary cistern tanks of anything that would hold water. Others monitored and moved the great herds of listless cattle about, driving them to the few remaining grassy upland meadows.
More than one cold drizzly morning, Sabella stood at a rain-streaked window and watched a squadron of slicker-garbed cowboys ride out to relieve those who had worked’ through the night. She stayed at the window until the exhausted night crew came riding in.
Knowing Burt and Cappy worked alongside the weary men through the long dark hours of night, Sabella couldn’t relax until she caught sight of Burt’s big paint stallion, Sam, followed closely by the rangy sorrel Cappy rode. When the pair were in sight, when she could see for herself that both men were upright in the saddle, she breathed a little easier.
They were safe. They were home. They were all right.
Burt was all right. But on the fourth night out, Cappy caught a slight cold.
Sabella noticed it that evening when Cappy came up to look in on her. She warned him that he’d best stay indoors until he had conquered the sniffles. Cappy laughed away her concern. The stubborn, loyal ranch foreman rode out again that very night, refusing to stay behind, insisting he felt as fit as a fiddle.
“Jesus, it’s my fault,” lamented Burt, his gray eyes clouded with worry. “I should have ordered him to stay behind. I should have—”
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Doctor Ledet. “Nothing could have kept this old cowboy inside when there was serious work to be done on the range.”
More than a month had passed since Cappy had contracted the cold. Had he taken care of himself the way he should, he might have gotten well in two or three days. But he didn’t. And he hadn’t.
What had begun as nothing more serious that a bothersome head cold had tenaciously lingered and finally had turned into a dangerous, life-threatening case of double pneumonia.
The big, ruddy-faced foreman, who had never been sick a day in his life, now lay pale and lifeless in his bed. His lungs badly inflamed and filled with vile fluid, he struggled to breathe. He could barely swallow. He could hardly speak, his vocal chords failing along with his respiratory system.
For the past twenty-four hours, Cappy had begun drifting into and out of consciousness. Doctor Ledet didn’t mince words. He said flatly Cappy Ricks was slipping slowly, and dangerously close to death.
The doctor put a comforting hand on Burt’s shoulder. “Better get some rest now while you can, Burt. He’ll need you. I think he’ll make it.”
“I will,” Burt said.
Dropping wearily into a chair pulled up to the bed, Burt sat there with Cappy as the March sun went down and the room filled with shadows. Blanton came in quietly, lighted a lamp, and asked Burt if it would be all right for Carmelita Rivera to look in on Cappy.
“She’s awfully worried about him.” Blanton’s voice was low, soft. “The two have become good friends in the weeks he has been laid up here.”
Burt rose to his feet. “Of course. Maybe she’d like to sit with him until bedtime.”
“I’m sure she would.”
Carmelita was so worried about Cappy, she didn’t sit in the chair beside his bed, she stood over him. Watchful for any sign of change, she was elated when his pale eyes opened and he recognized her.
Her heart felt as if it might explode when he tried to smile and rasped hoarsely, “Dear, sweet Lita.” No one else called her Lita. No one else ever had. Only Cappy. It was music to her ears.
Tears flooding her dark eyes, Carmelita took his callused hand in hers, and whispered, “Can I get you anything, Cappy? Some broth? Hot tea?”
“Burt,” he murmured, as if it were a matter of life and death. “I must speak to Burt.” His words were barely audible.
“Right away,” she told him, pressed his hand to her cheek, and left.
Down the hall in the library, Burt was asleep in the winged back burgundy Worry chair. Blanton gently shook him awake and informed him that Cappy was conscious and had asked to see him.
Burt hurried to Cappy’s side. “What is it, my friend? What can I do for you?”
Cappy croaked anxiously, “Son, there’s something I have to tell you before I go and—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Burt told him, trying to smile.
“Don’t count on it,” rasped Cappy. Then quickly: “I know you think Sabella is—”
“I don’t want to talk about my wife,” Burt interrupted.
“But I do. I have to.” Cappy weakly clasped Burt’s forearm. “I have to talk about both your wife and your father.”
A muscle flexed in Burt’s lean jaw and his dark eyebrows lifted. “What does Dad have to do with Sabella Rios?”
Tears filled his eyes, his voice faint, Cappy finally told Burt the secret that had been plaguing him all these months. He admitted that Raleigh Burnett, shortly before he died, had confessed to stealing Lindo Vista from young Teresa Carrillo—Sabella’s mother.
Burt listened, speechless and horrified, as Cappy sadly explained that long ago Raleigh had promised his dying friend, General Norman Patch, to hold Lindo Vista in trust for the general’s ten-year-old sister-in-law, Teresa Carrillo. When Teresa turned eighteen, she was to take possession of her inheritance. Cappy told Burt the entire story just as it had been told to him.
“Don’t think too harshly of your father, Burt,” Cappy, tiring, said in conclusion. “He was a good man … He saved General Patch’s life in the Mexican War and … and … what with taxes and all saved Lindo Vista.” He paused, fought for a breath, and added, “I should have told you … should have told you before … ”
“Doesn’t matter,” Burt said, patting the sick foreman’s night-shirted shoulder. “Wasn’t your place to tell me; it was Dad’s. You had nothing to do with any of it.”
“Now you can understand why Sabella … why she would … ” Cappy again paused, resting, then added in low, soft tones hardly above a whisper, “See, she thinks you were in on it. She believes you knew everything. You’re being too hard on her, Burt, and she—”
“Get some rest, Cappy,” Burt cut him off. “You’re tiring yourself.”
And finally at four a.m. Burt retired to a guest room for a few hours of needed sleep.
At shortly before six a.m., Blanton knocked on Sabella’s door.
“Sorry to disturb you so early,” Blanton said when she opened the door. “Cappy wants to see you.”
“I’ll be right there!” she said. “Five minutes!”
Her hair in wild disarray, her hastily donned dress uncomfortably tight around her thickening waist, Sabella flew down the stairs and into Cappy’s room. His eyes lighted slightly when he saw her lean over him.
“Hi, sugar,” he said weakly.
“Hi, yourself,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on his fevered cheek. She took his hand. “Sorry I look such a fright.”
“You look p
retty as a picture to me,” he managed.
“No such thing! My hair hasn’t been combed and I’m getting so big and fat, my clothes are too tight.” She smiled then and said, “You know what I’m going to do, Cappy? I’m going to name my son after you.”
“Your son? It’s Burt’s son, too,” he wheezed, holding her hand. “Listen to me, Sabella, I know that there’s bad trouble between you and Burt. You’re right. Your land was stolen—but young Burt knew nothing about it. Honest to God, he didn’t know anything about it.”
Sabella’s dark eyes widened, but she said, “You’re wrong, Cappy. Lindo Vista belonged to my mother and—”
“I know, I know. But Burt didn’t know. Never knew. He knew nothing about any of it. He had no idea that his father had stolen the land from your mother. Nor did I, until Raleigh finally told me the whole thing when he was dying. He asked me to tell Burt.” Cappy’s sick eyes closed for a second, he drew a painful breath. “I didn’t do it. I knew how much Burt loved you both. Knew it would hurt Burt real bad and I foolishly hoped that … that … ” Cappy’s eyes fluttered weakly open. “He’s a good man, Burt is. One of the best. It’s not right for the sins of the father to be visited on the son. You think about it.”
“I will,” Sabella said.
Forty-Five
SABELLA EXITED CAPPY’S ROOM to find Burt leaning negligently against the wall. His dark head was bowed, his beautiful silver eyes were closed. The dim, early morning light made his cheekbones stand out and his eyes sink back in shadow. He looked ruggedly handsome in a frayed denim shirt, dirty blue jeans, and a three-day beard. He also looked tired, worried, and haggard.
Sabella’s heart began beating so she couldn’t trust herself to speak. A small smile came to her lips as she stared adoringly at the dark, brooding man. She was instantly filled to overflowing with love and compassion for him. Absurdly, she half expected Burt to open his eyes, see her, and anxiously sweep her up into his arms.
