Darkness at Morning Star

by Joyce C. Ware

it up, thassa boy.” Reassured by his master’s return to sanity, Bucket moved back from the edge and began to graze; Bingo maintained her wary distance.

  I stared at Quinn. “Why do you do things like that?”

  He stared back, then rose to his feet in a flash of grace, one minute cross-legged beside me, the next, standing above me, arms akimbo. “Like what?”

  I shaded my eyes with my hand. I disliked having to look up at him; I disliked his intent to intimidate me even more. “Deliberately pushing people off center. You did it last night at dinner, all those stories about Morning Star, and now here, with me, using your horse as an unwilling accomplice.”

  He scuffed the toe of his boot against mine. “Those stories are true, S’rena.”

  “So, I’m sure, are your reasons for choosing to name your horse Bucket.” I pulled my foot away from his. “That’s not the point: it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it. Scaring people half to death. There’s no need for it.”

  He folded his arms and looked down at me, his outward calm belied by the muscles tensing beneath the faded blue cloth stretched tight across his lean, hard thighs. “Sometimes,” he began softly, “keepin’ a person off center is the best way to stay on top of things. When I let the best of Paw’s men go—”

  “Why would you do a thing like that?” I blurted.

  He smiled thinly. “Top hands get top wages.” His words, clipped and hard, warned me not to pursue what was clearly a sore subject. “As I was sayin’, those I got is either green as spring peas or saddle bums. ‘Cept for Cobby, of course—and maybe that breed, Sharo,” he conceded grudgingly. “The way I see it, if they always knew what to expect from me, good or bad, they’d either slack off or leave.” He shrugged. “Actually, since everyone always expects the worst of me, I’ve never had much success confusing folks with evidence of good intentions.”

  “Like the. time Basil almost drowned here?”

  Deploring the tremor in my voice as I challenged him, I stood up and began edging away, eyeing him warily. I needn’t have worried; he winced as if slapped.

  “I should’ve known there was more to you than just pretty tunes and tears,” he muttered, “being Belle’s twin and all. She been bending your ear? Cobby’s the only one who knows all there is to tell on it, and he’s not much of a talker.”

  “Cobby?”

  “Cobby and me, we built that dock up at the deep end of the pond the summer Paw brought me here to Morning Star. Cobby can’t swim, and when he saw me and the good times I had blowing and diving like a whale in a fishbowl, he figured maybe I could show Bazz how it’s done, working up, gradual like, to the deep part.

  “It ain’t much of a dock, slapped together with green wood and horseshoe nails, but Cobby reckoned Bazz’d be more venturesome if he knew there was something more’n cattails to grab on to.” He paused. “You swim, S’rena?”

  I hesitated, wondering what possible difference it made, then shook my head. “I never had the opportunity.”

  He scratched his earlobe thoughtfully, then grabbed my arm and led me to a spot, only a few feet to the right, that put me in a direct line with the mossy platform.

  I might neither like nor trust Quinn Cooper, but there was no denying the unnerving effect of his physical presence. I had never known anyone so ... so thoroughly masculine. Not blatantly so, not arrogantly—although there was more than a hint of arrogance about him—but assuredly. He fair took my breath away. I pulled my arm away as if from a burning brand.

  He looked at me in astonishment; then, as I glared back defiantly, amusement caused his eyes to crinkle at the corners. “Hell’s fire, girl,” he hooted, “did ya think I was fixing to throw you in?”

  Until then I hadn’t, but I was determined not to let my expression reveal the stab of alarm that made my mouth go suddenly dry.

  “Now lookahere,” he commanded, pointing dead ahead. “Think of yourself starting off from here, water hardly up to your belly button, then paddling out and pushing yourself off the bottom. You see how it’d be? Paddling and pushing, up and out, up and out, until a time comes when you find yourself reaching down with your toes and finding nothin’ there? Well, it’s some scary at first, and needs a lot of encouragement. That’s how the trouble started. By the time it ended, there wasn’t nothing I could say or do to turn it back to the way it really was.”

  I found Quinn’s earnestly delivered confidence unsettling; was it possible he was telling the truth? “You admit you coaxed him out beyond his depth.”

  “Well, course I did! How else was I supposed to get the little critter out there? I don’t hold with throwin’ younguns in and trustin’ in the Lord to hold ‘em up. His mama, though, she wasn’t about to give me any room on it—those lawyers got a name for it, but I can’t rightly bring it to mind.”

  “Benefit of the doubt?” I supplied.

  “There you go,” he drawled, saluting me with one finger. “You see, Cobby worried some about Bazz and his maw. He purely admired Bazz’s mama, Cobby did. By the time I met her, her black hair had turned gray, and what with her squinched little face and bright shoe-button eyes, she sort of put me in mind of a mouse; but Cobby, who’d known her all her life and came with her to Morning Star, says she was the prettiest little thing he ever saw. I guess Paw thought so, too, seein’ as how he did everything but lasso the moon to win her; but she had... notions, I guess you’d call ‘em, and Paw didn’t hold much with that sort of thing, unless they were his own, of course. After a while he tired of Lottie’s notions, then Lottie herself.

  “Accordin’ to Cobby, she began lookin’ to Bazz for comfort a mother oughtn’t rightly expect from a son. She got him to thinkin’ the sun rose and set on him, which left him, accordin’ to Cobby, with about as much gumption as a suck-egg dog.”

  “But how could Cobby possibly have expected you to change that? You couldn’t have been much more than a boy yourself.”

  “Well, sure, I was only fifteen, but Cobby didn’t expect much; he just thought maybe I could give the kid a shove in the right direction. What the hell, S’rena, no one had ever took me serious before. It was s’posed to be a surprise for his folks, but I sure put the saddle on the wrong horse. ...

  “Bazz did right well at first, paddlin’ around happy as a little puppy dog. Then, like I told you, I tried taking him from this shallow end to the deep.”

  “He says you tried to drown him.”

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed at my blunt words. “The hell I did. What I was trying was to get him to duck his head. You can’t never feel at home in water if you’re fightin’ the whole time to keep it dry. First the face, then the head, then down like a pollywog. That’s how my maw learned me, and it was right about then his maw hove into sight, screeching like a kettle on the boil, her horse so spooked he dang near turned the buggy and himself over on top of her. Cobby said she exploded outta that buggy, leavin’ him to peg along after her fast he could on those bandy legs of his.”

  He slowly shook his head. “I knew we was in trouble soon’s I saw her. His eyes drifted beyond me, and it seemed as if he wasn’t telling the story of that day so much as trying to understand, fifteen years after the fact, why it had all gone wrong. either that, or he was a very accomplished liar.

  “Soon as Bazz caught sight of her he started blubberin’ like a baby in a beehive. So there they both was”—Quinn threw out his arms and let them fall helplessly to his sides—”her screamin’ and him thrashin’ ‘til he got tuckered and started to sink. Scared? Why, his eyes near popped, and when he opened his mouth to yell the water just poured down his gullet like a flash flood down a gopher hole.

  “After that I was too busy trying to keep him up to pay much attention to his maw. That’s when she loosed the buggy whip on me.” He pantomimed the flourish, ending in a convincing imitation of the crack of braided leather. “Boy howdy, it stung some. That’s when I let go of Bazz. By the time he finally got hauled up, her pullin’, me pushin’, he was sloshin’ like a water
bag.”

  “Is that when you called the poor woman a silly cow?”

  “Did I?” Quinn grinned at me. “Coulda been worse.”

  I looked back at him thoughtfully. He hadn’t denied it. I wondered what else was true; not much, I suspected.

  His grin faded. “She damn near killed him.”

  “If it happened the way you’re telling me, why did you leave Morning Star?”

  He looked at me scornfully. “Because Lottie Cooper saw what suited her, Bazz was so shook he took what his maw said for gospel, never mind what me or Cobby had to say about it, and Paw was lookin’ to get shed of me. Had been for some weeks.”

  “Why was that?”

  The light in his eyes vanished as abruptly as a snuffed flame on a candle. “None of your business.”

  “And yet he gave you Morning Star,” I continued, as if to myself. “I wonder that nobody challenged it, but I suppose that’s not my business, either.”

  I could tell he didn’t like my tone. “You’re right about the last part, lady. About the first, my brother and your sister plumb wore themselves out tryin’.”

  “Why wouldn’t they? It’s his mother’s family’s land; Belle spent half of her life here. But I’m beginning to understand why she didn’t write me earlier. If your father was anything like you, I probably wouldn’t have been any more welcome at Morning Star when he was alive than I am now by you.” I compressed my lips, willing them not to tremble with the anger I felt. “How could you turn your own brother out to make his way among strangers while you live in your father’s house yourself? It’s ... it’s... unconscionable!”

  Quinn snorted. He stuck his hand under my nose, his thumb and forefinger pressed so closely together I could barely see daylight between them. “See that there, S’rena? That’s how much family feelin’ I got from these folks!”

  His eyes flashed fire. He pulled the brim of his hat low, and when he next spoke, his voice was as cool as long-extinguished ashes. “He’ll do just fine, ol’ Bazz will. He’ll have enough to build a parlor around that fancy pi-yanner of his and then some. As for Belle’s deprivation of sisterly companionship. Cobby says no one ever heard tell of you ‘til before you showed up.

  “Course her time was pretty well taken up with Paw,” he added in a tone calculated to offend. “After his will was read and she learned she’d be getting hardly enough to dust a fiddle, well, she was powerful flummoxed. All that sweet-talking and tail-swaying for nothing.” His grin slowly faded. “At least my maw was an honest whore,” he drawled, looking at me speculatively through narrowed eyes. “I haven’t figured out yet what kind you are.”

  I slapped him. I hadn’t meant to, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, and as my hand descended, he grabbed my wrist cruelly, bringing tears to my eyes.

  “You think tears in those pretty eyes are going to get you anything Belle’s bold looks couldn’t?” He laughed harshly, abruptly loosing my wrist as if he found the feel of it abhorrent. The marks his strong fingers left on my white skin bloomed fiery red. “Quite a pair, you two. One of you heads, the other tails”—I colored at his lewd implication—”but the same coin when all’s said and done.”

  The last was said in a mutter, almost as if he were reassuring himself of a conclusion already reached. I started to speak, then thought better of it. If Quinn Cooper wanted to see Belle and me in black-and-white terms, no words of mine would change that, and I had no reason to care one way or the other.

  He returned my silent stare, his lean figure, clothed in dark leathers, an exclamation mark against the sky. A hard man. Capable of tenderness, no doubt, but only as a convenience, a cloak to be donned and discarded at will. The inner light I had sometimes seen dancing in his dark eyes was, I now suspected, fueled by animal spirits devoid of human compassion. He turned, preparing to climb back up the bank to his horse.

  “Where were you when your father had his accident?” I demanded.

  “Here. At Morning Star,” he answered shortly. I could tell the question was not to his liking.

  “But where exactly? Surely that’s no secret; you must have been asked at the time.”

  He turned back toward me, eyes narrowing as he perceived the intention of my interrogation. “No one had to ask me; I was ready enough to say. I was with him, cuttin’ out cows the outfit I was with was looking to buy. You thinkin’ maybe I spooked the bull that made his horse rear and throw him? Or just kind of calfed around ‘til he lost enough blood? That’s what Bazz likes to think.” His face hardened, deepening the grooves that led from his nose to the downturned corners of his mouth. “I couldn’t save Paw; no one could. But it’s easier for Bazz to think I let Paw die, maybe helped it happen, than admit he cheated himself.”

  “Cheated himself? By preferring music to running cattle?”

  My scornful attitude amused him. “Running cattle’s what you do on a ranch, S’rena. Bazz knew Paw: he knew what store he set on this land and his cattle; knew he wasn’t a tolerant sort of fellow.” Quinn shrugged. “Bazz took his chances same as me when I left.”

  “The fact remains he was disinherited of the only home he ever knew.”

  “Hell, S’rena, that’s not the burr under ol’ Bazz’s saddle. He don’t give a hoot for Morning Star; what riles him is the gold.”

  “Gold? What gold?”

  Quinn greeted my bemused expression with a broad grin. “You think I don’t know what’s going on up to the house? I seen them candles twinkling past the windows late at night and those puffy little pouches under Belle’s eyes the next morning. Time’s runnin’ out, and they haven’t found it yet, have they?”

  “I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about! The only gold I’ve seen or heard of here is that ring on your finger.”

  Quinn raised his eyebrows in exaggerated surprise, then burst out laughing. “How long you been here, S’rena, five, maybe six weeks? Just how many things am I s’posed to believe no one’s told you?”

  “I know all about you!” I cried.

  He smiled. “Oh, not quite all,” he murmured. His approach was so slow, his smile so lazy, I had no hint of his intention until he reached out and pulled me close. There was no tenderness in the dark eyes that searched mine, but he smelled warmly of horseflesh and leather overlaid with a subtle spiciness of his own. Inhaling it—how could I not?—I felt... breathless.

  Mother Rogg had often warned of the weakness of the spirit in the body’s thrall. Alarmed, I struggled to heed an admonition I had never thought would apply to me, but it was already too late.

  The abrasive passage of his unshaven cheek over mine seemed a caress, no matter its roughness; the heat of his lips persuaded a willing response to their urgent demand. Dimly perceiving I would never have experienced a kiss remotely like this if I had married Ernest, I allowed my aroused senses to whirl my remaining misgivings into oblivion.

  Chapter Six

  I wish I could say I tried to free myself from Quinn’s embrace, but in all honesty I cannot. Not only did he end it, but he scrambled up the bank without so much as a by-your-leave, pausing at the top only long enough to brush his hands against his Levi’s, giving me shamed cause to wonder whether he was freeing them of dirt or my touch. Did he think me easy? It was a humiliating thought.

  Chastened, I retrieved my hat and breakfast sack, mounted Bingo and headed back to the ranch. Despite myself, I stole a glance over my shoulder. He was still there, watching after me. Seated on his horse, shoulders hunched, arms folded back like dark wings, hands clutched atop the saddle horn, Quinn seemed a predator, more hawk than man. Or perhaps, considering his easy, sometimes playful manner, a cat was a more apt comparison: soft paws releasing cruel claws when least expected.

  I urged Bingo to a faster pace, shivering as a bank of dark clouds fast advancing from the west devoured the sun. As we topped a rise affording a view across the working heart of the ranch to the great stone house beyond, its shadowed bulk seemed more fortress than residence, guard
ian of long-ago dark events and of secrets I was only beginning to suspect.

  After relinquishing Bingo to Sharo, who had become almost as fond of her as I, I trudged up the path to the house. As I approached, my earlier dour impression was reinforced by two dark shapes huddled side by side behind the pillars, sheltering there from the wind gusting ahead of the clouds. Shrouded, ominous, they put me in mind of the Furies, those Roman daughters of night and darkness Malcolm Wilcox had once described to me. They had haunted my dreams for days afterwards, always threatening, sometimes wearing faces of haunting familiarity.

  As I uneasily watched, one of the shadows, slighter than its companion, rose swiftly to glide away like a twist of smoke. I was almost sure it was Spotted Fawn. The other, bulkier, figure—it was Rita, I realized—turned to enter the house.

  A moment later the door opened again, and Basil stepped out between the pillars; another moment, and the sun beamed forth once more, transforming his auburn hair into a bright copper helmet. Catching sight of me, he waved. I could see the welcoming gleam of his smile from where I stood below him on the path, and the relief that swept over me was so great I fair stunned him with the intensity of my greeting.

  He laughed, fending me off as one would an eager . puppy, but the laughter did not quite reach his gray eyes. Although his smooth-skinned face had yet to acquire the grooves that made his half-brother seem older than the few years that separated them, something had served to make Bazz wary of expressing emotion; something that now caused him to shift restively under my intent scrutiny.

  Why did some fathers insist that the twig must emulate the tree? Did it spring from a monstrous sort of pride? Denied eternal life, had Ross Cooper’s next best hope been a reverential facsimile of himself by his sons? Poor Bazz! Seen as counterfeit by his father, his legitimate family claim to the ranch had been ignored, bypassed in favor of Quinn, the bastard tarred by his father’s brutal brush.

  “Belle tells me you were out early again this morning,” Bazz said. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe you two are really twins!”