by Janet Dailey
“Sí, la señorita, she goes, too.” Hector sipped noisily at the scalding hot coffee, cooling its temperature as he sucked it in. “The coffee is good.”
“It is.” Luz took another drink from her cup.
“But it is better when someone else is at the table in the mornings. When Raul is gone, I don’t drink so many cups.”
“How long have you known Raul?”
“Many years. Before this.” He slapped his hand against a lifeless thigh to indicate his paralysis.
“What happened?” Luz immediately regretted the impulsive question. “You don’t have to answer that if you’d rather not talk about it.”
“No importa.” With a wave of his hand, he assured her he didn’t mind. “This man, he wants me to break this young horse to ride. He is crazy, this horse. When I get on, he throws himself back.” Hector mimed the action of a rearing horse falling over backward, then shrugged with an open-handed gesture. “I jump the wrong way. He falls on my legs, and they die.”
“It must have been very difficult for you.” Self-consciously she clasped her hands around the cup, not knowing what to say without it sounding like pity.
“Sí.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like not to ride, let alone walk unaided,” she admitted.
“I can still ride, señora … Luz,” he corrected himself with another wide smile. “I must strap these useless legs to the saddle, but I can ride a horse. I can no longer train them to play polo, but it is enough to be in the saddle.”
“You trained horses? Then you must have played polo with Raul. Is that where you two met?”
“I have played with Raul when there was no one else. I was a good entrenador—trainer—but not a good player. Training a green horse is a talent of its own. A good polo player may not be able to teach a horse how to be a good pony, but he knows how to ride one. Comprende?”
“Yes. Teaching requires a patience that an expert will not necessarily have.” Luz smiled, never having considered that aspect before. “Then how did you two meet?”
Hector studied her for several seconds, the dark glint in his eyes assessing something. “We worked for the same man. I trained his horses. Raul was a groom in his stables. It was a long time ago.”
“Before he started playing polo,” she realized.
“Sí Then later, when he was rated in high goals and people paid him money to play on their team, he bought his own horses to ride and I trained them. Many times, I traveled to Norte America and England with him to look after the horses. Then Raul wants to buy land so he can keep horses and raise them. When we look, we find this place. We want to buy only the land, not this big, gray elephant.” The wave of his hand indicated the massive dwelling they were in, and Luz smiled at the appropriate description of the hulking manor. “The man would not sell only the land, so Raul buys this, too. He had been giving polo lessons to players at clubs, so we started this school.”
“That’s quite a story, but there must be more. You’ve only given me the highlights.” Luz doubted that it had been as easy as he made it sound.
“It is Raul’s story. I should not tell it for him,” Hector said after hesitating, giving the impression that perhaps he thought he had said too much already.
A burning log crumpled in the fireplace, making a little crashing sound that was followed by the renewed crackle of flames. Luz glanced at the ponderous oak mantel that crowned the stone fireplace. The log blaze gave off enough heat to take the night chill from the room and added a cozy touch to the otherwise austere decor.
There were fireplaces in all the rooms Luz had seen, including the bedrooms, providing the only source of heat for the great stone house, which was not equipped with a central system. For the most part, the mild climate didn’t seem to demand it. After seeing the house, Luz understood Raul’s cautions about the living accommodations. The house had all the comforts but few of the luxuries.
The rooms were sparsely furnished, containing only the basics—like this dining room with its long table that seated twenty and the massive sideboard along one wall for serving dishes. Nothing broke the severe blankness of the wallpaper covering the top half of the hip-paneled room, except for one wide mirror and the climbing stone of the fireplace. There was even a starkness about the large chandelier, suspended from the ceiling by a heavy brass chain, its curved wooden arms holding etched-glass chimneys shaded with brass. The fireplace mantel was unadorned, and only a brass stand for the poker, broom, and shovel stood beside it.
This same plainness was repeated throughout the house, and the overall effect was impersonal. In Luz’s opinion, there was a marked absence of trophies and prizes or photographs. Raul might live and work here part of the year, but it wasn’t his home. She remembered the den in her own home, and the way Drew had surrounded himself with his own things—an extra set of law books, golf tees on the desk, a putter in the corner, photographs of the children, and a tennis trophy prominently displayed. He had imposed his personality on the room, but Raul hadn’t done that here.
Her curiosity was aroused. Luz drank the last of her coffee and set the cup in its saucer. “As many rooms as this house has, I expected Raul to have a trophy room displaying all the prizes he’s won and photographs of famous people he’d played with during his career. Is there one and I haven’t seen it?”
“There is no trophy room,” Hector told her. “I tell Raul—in the head, you must know you’re good.”
“That’s true.” But she wondered if Hector objected to the idea, regarding it as bragging.
“Of course, Raul he is not satisfied with good. No, for him, it has to be perfección, nothing less,” he said and sighed.
“I don’t understand.” Luz frowned.
“He chases the ten, señora,” he explained quietly, almost sadly, referring to the highest status a polo player could obtain—a ten-goal rating.
“I see.” But she wasn’t sure that she did, even though she knew it had been attained by only a rare few in the history of the sport.
“More coffee, Señora Luz?”
“No, thank you.” She pushed the empty cup and saucer away from her, indicating that she was finished. “Whenever you’re ready, I’d like to go to the stables.”
“Uno momento, por favor. I will tell Anna where we will be.” He levered himself out of the chair, adjusted his crutches and leg braces, and left the room by a side door.
After he’d gone, Luz lingered in the dining room for a few minutes, then walked into the large entry hall to wait for him. Her boots made a hollow sound on the polished hardwood floor when she crossed it. The swinging pendulum of a tall, scarred wooden clock ticked off the seconds, its rhythmic ticking loud in the silence. Her glance traveled over the large hall with its open stairwell to the second floor, again noting its bareness that the clock, an area rug inside the front door, and a side table couldn’t alleviate.
She tried to shake off the observations she’d made about Raul’s personal life. It was no concern of hers how he lived or what the detalis of his background were.
She heard the sound of Hector’s approach and turned to meet him. No hat covered his curly gray hair, but he wore a light jacket, the curved metal bands of his crutches puckering the sleeves where they half-circled his forearms. Luz noticed how broad and muscled he was in the trunk and shoulders—and how skinny and emaciated his legs appeared, little more than tapering sticks jutting against the pantleg material and stiffened with metal braces. Yet there was nearly always a smile shining from his dark eyes.
“We are ready,” he announced and insisted upon opening the door for her.
Outside, Luz paused to wait for Hector to join her. The two-story house towered behind her, a huge rectangular box of massive gray stone blocks, unrelieved by decorative elements. No shutters framed the square windows and no overhang shaded the top row of stone. The low plantings in front of the house could not break the intimidating severity of its form.
“It needs a shawl of
ivy,” Luz decided.
Hector leaned on his crutches to look back at the house. “It needs something.”
As they started out, Luz shortened her stride to compensate for his laborious walk, but it wasn’t necessary. Hector moved out at a normal pace, forcing Luz to hurry to catch up with him.
They followed the eucalyptus-lined driveway that curved close to the house, then swung around the side of it. A tennis court and pool were located behind the house on a grassy expanse of lawn, a stand of poplars providing a windbreak for the house. It was unlike the layout at Hopeworth Farm; the outbuildings of the estancia were not separated from the main house by a wide green belt. A row of trees shielded the stables from obvious view, but it was a living fence that divided the house lawn from the stableyard.
As they approached the stables, Luz noticed the polo field on the opposite side of the road, and farther on a practice field before the paddocks began. The road looped through all this and came out on the other side of the house, Hector informed her, where the sheds for the haying machinery and other vehicles and trailers were located.
Luz spied Rob first, inspecting a flashy bay horse held by a young groom in front of the first stable row. Raul stood to one side, holding the lead to a chestnut that Trisha was petting. She saw the way Trisha was looking at him. “Making eyes at him” seemed such an appropriate phrase. Irritated, she pressed her lips tightly together.
Hearing their approach, Raul straightened. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” She managed a smile, although it cooled some when she directed it at her daughter. “You’re up and about early this morning, Trisha.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She shrugged. “New surroundings, I guess.” But her glance strayed to Raul, as if he were the real cause for her sleeplessness.
“I trust you slept well last night, Mrs. Thomas,” Raul said. “And that your accommodations were not too unsatisfactory.”
“My room is very comfortable, thank you.” Her glance skipped over him as she tried not to notice the rough weave of his slate-blue sweater or the way it gave bulk to his leanly muscled torso.
“You haven’t tried the shower yet,” Trisha declared, a wicked light dancing in her eyes. “When I went to take mine this morning, it nearly scared me out of my wits. I turned the faucets on and the water pipes started rattling and clanging so loudly I had visions of the bathroom being flooded. Nothing happened, but it’s the first time I’ve ever been serenaded by a shower. Although I have to admit it was wonderful. There was tons of hot water. I could have stayed under there for hours.”
Luz was disgusted at the way Trisha encouraged Raul to form mental pictures of her naked in a shower. She considered it a tasteless and cheap ploy.
“The plumbing in the house is old,” Raul said.
“The house is old,” Luz inserted, criticizing its condition instead of her daughter’s behavior, which she refused to do in front of him.
“I did warn you, Mrs. Thomas, that you might find conditions here less than luxurious,” Raul reminded her stiffly.
“It wasn’t really a complaint, merely an observation, Mr. Buchanan,” she informed him coolly and turned away, encountering Hector’s puzzled look as she did so. “Would you ask the groom to walk the bay horse around for me, Hector? I’d like to see how he moves.”
The request was repeated in Spanish, and the teenage groom led the flashy animal in a wide circle. “You know horses, Señora Luz?” Hector wondered aloud.
“Believe me, she does,” Rob stated positively, and the pride he took in her knowledge gave a much-needed boost to her ego.
They spent the morning looking over the selection of polo ponies for sale and deciding which ones Rob definitely wanted to ride before making a final decision. At noon, they returned to the house for lunch. Afterward, Raul had horses saddled for all of them and they rode out to the pastures to look at some of his young stock.
As they cantered through the tall grass toward the distant herd of grazing horses, Luz felt her horse tug at the reins. She eased the pressure on the bit, letting the animal increase its stride and draw slightly ahead of the others. The freedom of the wind in her hair and the vastness of the horizon were powerful sensations. She longed to gallop her horse until she came to the end of that earth and sky.
As she approached the herd of young horses, they spooked friskily and began a mock stampede, charging away from her. Sighing with regret, Luz reined in her horse and stopped to watch as the mixture of yearlings and two-year-olds wheeled and came racing back to investigate the intruders in their pasture, curiosity overcoming their mock flight. She heard the muffled pounding of hooves coming up behind her as the others rode up to join her, but the limitless land claimed her attention. Its distance strained her eyes, almost making them ache with its immensity.
When a horse and rider came alongside her, Luz didn’t even turn to look. ‘Tell me, Hector, how do you resist the urge to gallop as long and as far as you can across this land?”
“It is difficult,” Raul answered her, and she stiffened at the sound of his voice, her gaze running to him in surprise. Ever since they had started out from the estancia, Hector Guerrero had ridden at her side. “You are enjoying your ride,” he observed, and Luz guessed her face was still flushed with the pleasure of that fast canter. She scraped a strand of windblown hair off her cheek.
“There’s just so much open country,” she said. “Texas is flat, but it’s nothing like this.”
“No. The Pampa is special. Every Argentine, whether he is born in Patagonia, the Andes, Buenos Aires, or the Chaco, feels an identity with it. For one born here, there is no other place.”
“Were you born in the pampas?”
“Sí. Many miles from here.” Raul’s horse sidled into her liver-colored chestnut, and his booted leg rubbed against her. “Che!” he exclaimed and spoke sharply to his mount in Spanish. The horse shifted away and the contact was broken, but for Luz the sensation lingered.
When Trisha rode up on the other side of Raul, the vague truce that had seemed to exist between them ended. “What do you think of the young ones, Luz?” She stood up in her saddle for a better look at the horses as a brave yearling trotted toward them, reared in a mock feint, then dashed back to the safety of the group.
“Sí,” Hector said, encouraging her to give her opinion. “You have an eye for the young ones, Señora Luz.”
“I think you have me mixed up with Raul,” she murmured tautly and squeezed with her legs, ordering her mount forward at a walk to take a closer look at the young stock.
“Ahh.” The long, comprehending sound came from Hector, then he slid a knowing glance at Raul and said in Spanish, “Now I know why she spits at you like a tiger cat protecting her kitten. She thinks you will harm it.”
“She is wrong,” Raul responded in the same language, aware their exchange in Spanish was attracting Trisha’s attention. “I am not interested in her kitten.”
“In the tiger cat, perhaps?”
“No. Los caballos,” he snapped.
“Caballos—horses,” Trisha translated. “I know that one. It appears I’m going to need a Berlitz course in Spanish.”
“It was rude to converse in Spanish when you cannot understand the language. My apologies,” Raul said, reverting to English.
“It’s all right. I just always wonder if I’m the one being talked about.” She smiled, unconcerned, and turned to watch her mother approach the young herd, guiding her horse in a long arc that steadily swung closer to the yearlings.
“Your mother, she is good, señorita,” Hector said.
“Luz is great at handling horses, but she’s lousy with people.”
“Maybe that’s because you can trust horses,” Rob suggested dryly. “People can hurt you, but horses can only break your bones.”
Raul saw the quick glance Trisha darted at Hector. “Rob, you are tactless.”
“No, señorita, Señor Rob, he is right,” Hector inserted, pointing to his
lifeless legs strapped to the saddle. “This does not hurt me as much as unkind remarks about a cripple.”
“I’m sorry, Hector,” Rob mumbled, his neck reddening. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you ever do,” Trisha accused.
Raul ignored their bickering to watch Luz work her horse close to the herd of young animals, then stop to study them. She was good. The wind ruffled her hair and let it catch the gold of the sun. He remembered how vibrant and flushed with excitement she’d looked when he’d first ridden up, her gaze fixed on the land. It was an image that stayed in his mind.
It was late afternoon when they rode back to the estancia and left their horses with the grooms at the stables. At the house, Luz went directly to her room to shower and change before dinner. She paused inside and leaned against the door to look about the plain room.
The double bed had a heavy carved headboard and foot rails. There was a nightstand and lamp beside it. A straight-backed chair sat in the corner, and a tall chest of drawers stood against an otherwise bare wall. Fresh logs and kindling were arranged in the brick fireplace, waiting for a match. The stark, ivory-plastered walls were outlined by heavy, stained molding and wood trim. The braided rug on the floor next to the bed was the only real patch of color in the room.
She pushed away from the door and walked over to the bed, where she sat down and tagged off her riding boots. In her mind, she kept seeing Raul lifting Trisha down from her horse after they’d all ridden into the stableyard. Trisha had asked for his help in dismounting, which made it all the more frustrating.
With her boots off, Luz stripped out of her clothes and left them piled on the chair seat, then entered the connecting bathroom she shared with Trisha. The noisy water pipes reminded her of this morning’s incident when Trisha had been so provocative, telling Raul about the shower. Luz didn’t remain under the hot spray for long, not caring for the knocking, banging song of the water pipes.
After wrapping the long towel around her like a sarong, Luz opened the connecting door to her room. Her glance fell on the empty chair seat where she’d left her riding clothes. A noise came from the closet area. When Luz turned toward the sound, the housemaid, Anna, who bore a striking resemblance to Brunhild, stepped out. Her hand went to her chest in a gesture of shocked surprise when she saw Luz standing there.
