by BJ James
“Ha!” Bonita tossed her head and stamped her foot. “I speak of a fever of the heart, not the body. Of longing and passion, not chills and rash.”
“Fever of the—” Hank broke off with a laugh. “Oh, Bonnie, who is there here to give me a fever of the heart?”
“There are those who would like to, but none who has. This I know. So I think I am mistaken, then I remember the papers.”
With her laughter lingering, Hank leaned against a railing, waiting for the rest of Bonita’s lecture.
“When I remember them, at first I am relieved. Then, when I think on it some more, I worry again. First you wither away to almost nothing, then the little that’s left will be torn between them.” Black brows arched like cathedrals, accentuating lines that marked a broad, patrician forehead. “Ay, yi, yi! What will become of you?”
Another sweeping gesture, another frown, and the little woman lapsed into Spanish. Eloquent verbal hand wringing, in a torrent pouring from her so swiftly it would have been unintelligible to any but the most fluent.
“Bonita.” Hank caught a fluttering hand, clasping it closely. “You aren’t making sense. What papers? I will be torn? By whom?”
The question spurred another torrent of Spanish, as rapid as the first. Hank knew the language, she spoke it with moderate facility. But this was beyond her. “English, Bonnie,” she said, soothing the agitated woman. “English, please.”
When Bonita fell silent, catching her breath in great gasping breaths, Hank asked again, “What papers?”
“The newspapers!” Bonita’s disdain was one reserved for the thick headed. “The old and yellow ones with the face of the handsome man on them. The papers you should know by heart.”
Back copies of the newspaper stories on Steve Cody. The original had arrived at the ranch and had been read when current, then dismissed. Until she’d realized the charismatic, tragic rodeo star and the squatter of Sunrise Canyon were one and the same. A friend from college who worked with a news service managed to scrounge them from somewhere, sending originals rather than copies.
“Bonnie, the newspapers have nothing to do with my distraction or my appetite. But you’re right,” Hank admitted. “I have been working harder than ever. I’m just tired and jumpy. It happens.” She meant to placate the little woman. “And though we’re mostly too obstinate to admit it, even to a Benedict.”
Bonita made a derisive sound, her ever arching brows threatened to lift to the sleek, smooth line of her tightly coiffed hair. “You’ve worked hard before, and managed to eat and sleep.”
“This time is different. This time there’s more at stake.”
“Your heart.”
“The canyon.”
“The canyon! Always the canyon! Is it worth this?” Bonita demanded.
“It is to Jake.”
“And to you?” Flashing eyes studied Hank critically. “Is it worth it to you, Savannah?”
Savannah. Steve had called her Savannah. She wanted to think that explained why her startled thoughts had been of him when Bonita called to her through the gathering darkness. But, again, an unyielding honesty would let her believe nothing but the truth. And the inescapable truth was that in a short time he had become a part of the fabric of her life.
Releasing Bonita, Hank stared over the cloistered land. Her restless mind was a morass of strange longings and niggling doubts.
Muttering annoyance at Jake, and men at large, Bonita touched Hank’s shoulder and stroked her drying hair. “Only you can say, Savannah. Only you can judge its worth.”
“No.” Hank’s shoulders rose and fell in a dejected sigh.
“Yes!”
“But I don’t know, Bonita.”
“You will.” The housekeeper spoke with an assurance based on years of watching the youngest Benedict ply her strength and fair-minded vision.
Bonita Sanchez had come to the Rafter B only a matter of months before Camilla returned to the South, taking her teenage daughter with her. A short time, but more than was needed to see the battle waged over the young girl, the veritable tug-of-war that pulled her first one way and then another. Enough to see the young Savannah handled situations and herself with a dignity and maturity far surpassing her age. Indeed, she’d thrived on the duality of her life, becoming the best she could be in her roles as Jake’s top hand cum substitute son and Camilla’s elegant and accomplished daughter.
“History,” the small woman grumbled. “It does repeat itself.”
But the young girl torn between mother and father was a woman now. A strong woman, and for all her inexperience in matters of the heart, the lessons of youth made her a wise one. “When the time comes, you will know which choices are yours, and which you must make.”
“If it comes to that, if the final choice is mine, no matter which I make, someone will be hurt.” Hank didn’t look away from the fading color reflected on the eastern horizon.
“That’s life. You should know it well, for you’ve made such choices before. When you left the ranch to go south with Camilla, Señor Jake was hurt. When he needed you to return to the ranch, it hurt to leave your studies. And though she always knew you would leave her someday, it hurt Camilla to lose you so soon, to see your studies cut short, and to live with the knowledge that the law degree you wanted so much would never be.” Bonita paused and shrugged. “Choices. They hurt. We survive.”
“Survival isn’t always enough.”
“True, it isn’t always enough.” With a touch Bonita turned the younger woman to face her. “This time you must be selfish. You must do something you’ve never done before, choose the path that’s best for you.”
“What’s best for the Rafter B and Jake is best for me,” Hank declared with new conviction. “This is merely a lot of speculation, based on a few sleepless nights and a lost appetite.”
“Based on the reason for the sleeplessness and...”
“Only because, for once, I have doubts about what Jake wants,” Hank cut short the housekeeper’s contention. “Steve Cody’s had his share of bad luck, the Broken Spur is his chance to turn it around. What right do Jake and I have to try to spoil that chance, simply because Jake wants the borders of the Rafter B intact?”
“I can’t answer, Savannah. I know what I think, no more.”
“What you think is that we should let the man be. Give him his chance without complicating the matter,” Hank supplied for her.
“Do you want me to say yes to ease your own guilt for the same feelings?” Bonita cocked her head, watching Hank like a curious bird. “Would you feel less disloyal to Señor Jake if someone else shared your view? If so, then yes, I think the Benedicts have enough. Enough land, enough success, enough prestige, and some should be left for those that deserve it.”
Hank nodded almost absently. “Sandy does too. So does Jubal. Neither of them has actually spelled it out, but there are little things they’ve said, things they’ve done.”
“You don’t seem disturbed by this defection.”
“It isn’t defection. When the chips are down, Sandy rides for the brand, and Jubal is a friend.” When the chips are down. The words echoed in Hank’s mind.
When the chips were down the gamble would be over. Someone would win, someone would lose. She had no concept of what might follow. No idea where she would stand.
As quickly as the latter thought arose, she put it aside. “I’m a Benedict. Like Sandy, when the chips are down, I ride for the brand.”
“Even with a fever of the heart?” Bonita drew a breath, waiting for her answer. “You would turn your back on passion?”
“There is no fever, Bonita. And certainly no passion. What you’ve seen is an attack of conscience. If I can persuade Jake to back off, give Cody some time to prove himself or to fail...” Hank left the thought hanging. After a moment, as if she’d regained a lost thread of conversation, she added, “If he fails, then Jake will have his wish later rather than sooner.”
“If he succeeds?” Bonita posed
the other side of the proposition.
“Then he succeeds, and that’s all there is to it. The canyon has never been a lawful part of the Rafter B, and as you said, we survived. Jake survived. God and his health willing, he will again.”
“And you, Savannah?”
“I’ll be fine. I am fine. No fever.” She laughed, and didn’t know the melodic note rang hollowly in the night. “No rash. And Hank, not Savannah, will go on as she did before.”
“You’re sure?” Bonita regarded her steadily.
“Very.” Hank’s smile was small, but real. “Thanks for caring, it helps knowing that you do, and that you understand.”
“There are some things left from dinner in the warming oven.” With the trenchant instincts of a mother hen, the housekeeper suggested hopefully, “I could set them out before I leave.”
“Thank you, but no. Maybe later.” Though Bonita was an excellent cook, Hank knew the food would not be eaten.
“Will you sleep?”
“Yes.” Another white lie, for peace of mind for her self-appointed guardian.
“Then I’ll say good-night.” There was skepticism laden in the closure, but Hank’s mild assurances left Bonita no other recourse.
“Good night, Bonita.”
The housekeeper’s footsteps had fallen silent, and her swishing skirts disappeared around a corner as Hank turned away. There was silence again, and now unrelieved darkness. Lost in her unsettled thoughts, she faced the east and Sunrise Canyon.
From the shadow of a tree at the edge of the walk, green eyes stared at the veranda and the woman bathed in the pale light of the lantern. Hungry eyes. Angry eyes. The eyes of a man filled with lust.
The watcher was so still, creatures of the night had long since taken up their nocturne. In the midst of their song, he did not move, even his breathing was too shallow to be detected. But beneath his stillness, his mind was alive with hate and hate filled plans.
The woman he coveted crossed to the lantern, bending to it, with the light radiant on her face. His chest jerked in a breath drawn in a ragged groan. He made no other move, no other sound, as he lapsed again into stillness. When the veranda was dark and the rustle of her footsteps echoed over the stone, he waited. His silent breath quickened once more at the muted thud of the door snapping shut and the grate of the lock sliding into place.
Sleepy laughter drifted from the bunkhouse, making the night seem lonelier, the veranda emptier. He did not move. Like a predator checking the wind, he lifted his head, staring, waiting, as he had many nights before. Waiting for the light to spill from her bedroom window.
The glass was curtained. Hank was only a vague moving shadow against it. But in his mind there was more.
When the single square was dark, and the ranch house descended into a final hush, he moved away. His face was bathed in sweat, his body shook. In a voice hoarse from the lust of his imagining, he muttered a single word. A hateful name. “Cody.”
Steve was whistling as he walked from the ranch house to the stables. In the paling dawn the day was still cool, with only an underlying hint of the heat that was to come.
His tread was steady on the familiar path. His mind filled with the order of his routine as he stepped through the open door of the stables. A horse whickered, then tramped restlessly in its stall. Lorelei.
Breathing in the pleasant scent of hay, Steve chuckled. “Eager to get started, are you? Can I take that to mean you’re not going to turn mulish on me today?”
The mare was gleaming ebony, rippling darkness moving within the pearly shades, dancing and pacing nervously along the borders of her small stall. Steve considered lighting the lantern, then dismissed the thought. Electricity for the stables was on his list of improvements, but that was for someday in a far distant future. And who knew when someday and the money would come? Anyway, he liked the softness of the morning, the gradual changes he would miss in the sudden switching on of a light.
He moved away to begin his chores, then turned back. Something about Lorelei disturbed him. She seemed uneasy rather than eager. Stepping to the door of the stall, he reached out to scratch the favorite spot along her jaw. She shied away, nostrils flaring, eyes rolling and white.
“Ho, girl. Easy. What’s wrong? Something bothering you?” Disturbed, Steve looked around. With the exception of Lorelei, the stables were quiet. Too quiet? Puzzled, he looked again. Nothing, he thought, and was on the verge of attributing Lorelei’s low-keyed frenzy to an aberrant mood when a blur of color caught his attention. Blue. Pale blue, where there should be none. The sleeve of a shirt. “What the—”
He was rounding to face a rushing flurry of scuffled sound when massive arms closed around him from the back, dragging his own arms behind him. Hands clamped like vises over his wrists as a form burst from the next empty stall. The blur of blue registered only a millisecond before a brutal backhand snapped his head aside. A second followed. Then another, and another, each sickening thud accompanied by a guttural grunt of satisfaction.
Shock and reality coalescing, Steve fought to pull free. Calling on every part of his regained strength, he strained against a cage of bone and flesh. The binding clinch was impervious, the long, ape-like arms as relentless as steel. He was trapped, at the mercy of faceless marauders.
Who? Why?
In his helplessness, the questions reverberated in his mind. Concentrating on answers, he reverted instinctively to old habits. Pain and anger were pushed to the back of his mind. Nothing mattered so much as the riveting resolve to know these men as more than a collection of perceptions. More than the Ape and Blue Shirt.
Reeling and groggy, with every blow he struggled to focus on the man in blue. Paying for each desperate effort with ever more vicious retaliation. Fists pummeled his body, low and hard, brutally smashing at bone, bruising soft tissue. On and on.
Time crawled.
Seconds were hours. Minutes, an eternity. Steve struggled stubbornly against unjust odds. Until he conceded, at last, this was a fight he couldn’t win, that his only hope was to survive.
A man who spent a lifetime living by his wits, who walked away from broncs he couldn’t ride, not in defeat, but with a resolve to have his day, accepted the inevitable. His body went slack. His mind closed down, silencing the echoing questions. Waning consciousness stuttered briefly, then snuffed out.
The frenzied beating continued. In maniacal rage there was no mercy for the battered and bloodied man who was dead weight in his captor’s arms.
“Enough!” The deep voice boomed through the hastening morning. “Stop. No more.”
“Like hell!” the smaller of the men snarled. “Not til I teach the son of a bitch to keep away from her.”
“I said stop!” The command, spurred by alarm, climbed a decibel above the frightened thrashing of stabled horses. “I said I’d help you rough Cody up a little to warn him off, but I won’t be party to beating him to death.”
“You’re in this now, too deep to back out.” The labored retort was punctuated by a solid, jolting blow.
“I said no!” Letting Steve crumple to the ground in an inert heap, the massive hands that had held him shot out, closing around a blue clad arm raised to strike again. “I won’t let you do this. Not again.”
“You can’t stop me.”
The grip that could break a bone as easily as a match stern tightened savagely. “I just did.”
“What if he saw our faces? He could have recognized us.” Blue Shirt was wheedling, coaxing the simpler man to his view.
“He didn’t.” The stolid answer rang with rare conviction.
“You don’t know that, and we can’t take the chance. We can’t just leave him.”
“I can.” The massive man turned his back on his brother and only friend and walked away.
“Wait.” The call was a command, in a tone that expected obedience. The broad back neither flinched nor hesitated in the retreat from the stables. Command turned to a whine. “You can’t ride out now.�
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“I can.” Leading his horse from the far side of the barn, the huge man stepped into a saddle that barely contained his bulk. “I am,” he growled with a new finality. He walked the bay a little distance away, then eased into a steady trot.
Staring after him, stunned belligerence withering, Blue Shirt found a new direction for his rage. But not before he finished what he’d begun. First he opened the stall that held Lorelei, swinging the gate wide. Then he returned to his victim. Kneeling, he caught Steve by the hair, bringing a swollen and bleeding face to his to whisper a final warning. “A message from the lady, squatter. Clear out, or next time will be worse.”
Dropping Steve’s head, Blue Shirt stood and backed away. With a snarled curse and a parting kick, he raced to his own horse. Wheeling the animal in a neck breaking circle, he whipped it into a furious race after the bay.
The thunder of hooves faded, after a while the stables were silent. The frightened horses had ceased their agitated clamor when Steve moaned and stirred. Lightning ricocheted off the walls of his skull, leaving a steady thud of agony in its wake. He lay as he was, not daring to move, not sure where he was, or what had happened. All he knew was that he was alive, and as the thudding in his skull became a familiar, mind jarring timpani, he wasn’t so sure that was good.
Forcing himself to take stock, he realized his face was stiff and sore and his ribs ached nearly as much as his head. His eyes were swollen, he felt the taut, pulsing pressure in blood filled tissue. When he strove to blink away the dirt and grit clinging to his eyelids, a red haze clouded his vision. When he tried again, he realized his lashes were heavy and clotted.
With a grim frown and a set jaw, he wedged his arms beneath him and tumbled on his back. Bare rafters loomed over him, solid shapes floating in a hazy mist.
