A Lady of the West

by Linda Howard

  Where had he seen the man before?

  Then it came to him, and he turned pale. He’d had a beard when Garnet had met him, but there was no doubt it was the same man. It was Tanner, the gunslick who had ridden in late one afternoon and hired on, but only stayed a day or so before leaving as quietly as he’d come. But his name wasn’t Tanner; it was Sarratt, and he would know Garnet on sight.

  Garnet gave the room a good look, but didn’t see anyone he knew. That didn’t mean anything. The Sarratts had hired a lot of new men. There could be any number of Sarratt men in here right now, surrounding him.

  There was no way he was going to go up those stairs. There’d be another time, and a better chance.

  Being careful not to catch anyone’s eye, he got up from the table and slipped out the back door. When he was in the sour-smelling alley he started running, slipped and almost fell, but caught himself at the last moment with his hands. His left hand was in something foul-smelling and squishy. Garnet cursed viciously as he got up and scraped the sticky crap off his hand the best he could, rubbing it against the rough side of the building. That was just one more grievance he had against the goddamn Sarratts.

  He waited until he was a piece down the street before washing his hand in a horse trough, then he hurried to the crib where he was sleeping. It wasn’t anything more than a lean-to built against a stable, and the walls were made of unfinished planks nailed across some logs. The cracks were big enough to shoot through, and it had started getting damn cold at night. He’d have to find something better soon.

  He was sharing the crib with Quinzy, who was already rolled up in his blanket and snoring his head off. Garnet nudged him with his boot. “Quinzy! Wake up. One of the damn Sarratts is in town, maybe both of them.”

  Quinzy came awake without any of the mumbling and wiping his eyes that most men did. He sat up. “Is it Jake?”

  “I didn’t see Jake. It’s the brother, I don’t remember his front name. He’s the son of a bitch who rode in calling hisself Tanner, and left right after that. Guess he came to talk to Jake about something. Goddamn bastards were planning it right under our noses!”

  Quinzy was silent. This latest plan of Garnet’s was stupid, but there was no talking sense to him. He had it in his mind that the little gal was his, and that he had a right to the ranch. Damned if Garnet hadn’t gone as loony, in his way, as McLain had. Quinzy had drifted along with Garnet out of habit, but it looked like the time had come to part.

  “Don’t look like I’ll be riding back to the kingdom with you, Garnet,” Quinzy said. “Heard tell the land up along the Snake is mighty pretty and mighty lonesome, a good place for me to lay low for a spell. Reckon I’ll do that. Twenty years ago I was game to take on the Sarratts, or anybody else come to that, but I’m twenty years older and twenty years slower. It’s time for me to think about retiring.”

  “I hate to hear you’re not going with me, Quinzy,” Garnet said. “We been together a long time, but a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

  “Glad you’re being understanding about it, and all. I’ll ride out early in the morning, before anybody gets a good look at me. Don’t know if any of the Sarratt men know who I am, but iffen they don’t I’d like to keep it that way.”

  Quinzy rolled back up in his blankets and listened to Garnet doing the same. After a while Quinzy began to snore again. He never heard the quiet snicking of a hammer being pulled back. If there was a fraction of a second after the trigger was pulled that he heard the explosion of the shot, it was too tiny a slice of time for it to do him any good. Garnet’s bullet plowed into the back of Quinzy’s head, splattering a big portion of the front of it across the wall.

  Garnet rolled up his blankets and got his gear. There wasn’t much chance of a single shot in this part of town being investigated, but it was best to clear out anyway. He looked down at the body. “Like I said, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do,” he said in an undertone. “If you ain’t with me, you’re against me.”

  It snowed early that year, a light dusting that barely covered the ground but gave hint of the coldness to come. That morning when Victoria left the bed to look out the window at the layer of white, she felt the child move for the first time. She went very still, her hand pressed to her lower abdomen as she waited for it to come again.

  Jake looked up from stamping his feet into his boots, noticing her stillness. “What’s wrong?”

  “The baby moved,” she replied in a low tone.

  He came over to stand beside her. She had donned a shift but nothing else, and he felt a surge of lust as he looked at her. She lifted her hand and his replaced it on her belly, while his other arm circled her and pulled her against his body. They stood motionless and finally it came again, a flutter so faint that Jake barely felt it. He caught his breath, his heart pounding at this evidence of life. Until now, the baby had been defined by symptoms, most of them unpleasant for Victoria. But this was different; this was life.

  She let herself lean against him, knowing it would do no good to try to put distance between them. He made love to her whenever he wanted, just as he had before, with a searing sensuality that became more intense with time, rather than weakening. There was no part of her body that was sacred from his touch, and pregnancy seemed to have made her that much more responsive. Even her skin felt sensitized. Sometimes she felt she would drown in sensuality, but the loving playfulness that she had found with him before their fight didn’t return.

  Instead she resented his physical power over her, because he wielded it without love. Even after all that had happened, she still loved him; he would not have been able to hurt her so deeply if she hadn’t. He cared for her, she thought, but she was carrying his child, so why wouldn’t he feel some concern? And he enjoyed sleeping with her, that was plain enough. But not one word of love ever crossed those hard, chiseled lips.

  She bitterly resented his lack of faith in her. It still rankled every day that he could believe her capable of such betrayal. His accusation had sprung from the legacy of hate he still carried around with him; even though McLain was dead, the hatred in Jake hadn’t dissipated. Sometimes Victoria could almost feel McLain still in the house, with the ghosts of Jake’s parents, keeping the hatred alive.

  It would be best if she took the child and left. She didn’t want it to grow up surrounded by hatred; she wanted it to grow up happy, in a house without shadows. The idea of leaving teased her mind every day, but the difficulty of it defeated her. How could she leave? Where could she go? Moreover, neither Emma nor Celia would want to leave. Emma might watch Ben with great sad eyes whenever he wasn’t looking, but the ranch had become her cousin’s home. She wouldn’t want to leave it or Ben, even if he had apparently lost interest.

  Celia was growing up, rapidly leaving her helter-skelter ways behind. She was calmer, more dignified, more thoughtful. Her hair was usually neat now, her dress tidy, and she walked instead of skipping. She still spent a lot of time crooning to Rubio and trying to make friends with the great stallion, but she no longer seemed so obsessed by it. No, Celia wouldn’t want to leave.

  Jake turned her in his arms, his hand sliding up to cup her breasts. Victoria looked up at him, her eyes grave. He looked back at her with his intention plain. He’d just finished dressing, but the clothes came off as easily as they went on. He led her back to the bed, and it was another hour before they left the room.

  The winter months came with a vengeance, with more bitter cold than snow, though there was enough of both. Victoria grew increasingly rounder, her pregnancy immediately apparent to anyone who took the time to look. Her mood changed, becoming both calmer and a bit dreamy as she was increasingly preoccupied by the changes in her body. Everything was out of her control. At least the last of the morning sickness had gone and physically she felt wonderful, though she still tired easily.

  She would have thought that her increasing bulk would dampen Jake’s carnal desires, but not so. He handled her with incr
easing care and made love to her in various positions that put none of his weight on her body, but he seemed to find her as desirable as ever. If she had thought about it she would have been reassured, but it never occurred to her to wonder if other men remained as attentive to their wives during pregnancy.

  In the middle of December, Angelina gave birth. The woman had been in hard labor for over an hour before any of the men paid heed to the cries they heard coming from her small, cluttered room. Both Carmita and Lola were reluctant to attend the woman. Despite her own distaste, Victoria felt that she had to do something for her. Perhaps it was her own pregnancy that made her feel more deeply for Angelina’s plight. For whatever reason, she wrapped herself in her warmest shawl and trudged across the yard to the far buildings. Carmita threw up her hands and followed.

  Angelina turned her head on the soiled pillow as Victoria entered. Her teeth drew back in what was meant to be her usual insolent smile, but it became more of a grimace. “So! You want to see how it will be when it’s your turn?”

  The lack of cleanliness in the room was appalling. There was a small fireplace but the fire had burned down and Angelina hadn’t been able to replenish it, so the room was decidedly chill. Despite that, sweat beaded on Angelina’s grayish face as she suddenly contorted in another pain.

  “Quickly, rebuild the fire,” Victoria instructed. She wasn’t herself too certain what to do, but warmth and cleanliness seemed a good place to start. With Carmita, she managed to get clean linens on the bed, though the mattress beneath was grimy. Carmita was the experienced one and took over with Victoria’s blessing. The soiled negligee Angelina had been wearing was removed and replaced by one of Carmita’s own, as hers were voluminous enough to fit over Angelina’s swollen breasts.

  The woman strained in labor all afternoon and into the night. Her lovely dark eyes sank back into her head and her lips were raw and bleeding from the scrape of her teeth.

  Jake knocked on the door and tugged Victoria outside when she opened it. He pulled her within the folds of the heavy sheepskin coat he wore, wrapping her inside his own warmth. “Let Carmita handle it,” he growled. “You don’t need to be out here.”

  The wind bit through her skirts, and her breath fogged the air. “If it were me I would want all of the help anyone could give.” She leaned against his muscled body, and his child moved strongly within her. “I think she’s going to die,” she whispered, strangely desolate. It wasn’t just that she would be enduring childbirth herself in a few months, but that Angelina was so alone and would die so unloved.

  If Angelina was truly going to die, Jake didn’t want Victoria in there watching it. He tried to bully her back into the house, but she refused to budge. He was on the verge of physically carrying her when she lifted her wan face and said, “How can I expect anyone to help me if I’m not willing to help when I can?”

  “Your situation is different. You have family—”

  “Angelina doesn’t. She has no one.” She lifted her fingers to his lips, the first time she had touched him voluntarily outside of bed since the day she had told him she was pregnant. The light touch seared him all the way to his soul, and he trembled. He caught her hand and turned her palm against his cheek, cold and beard-rough.

  “Shall I send Emma to help?” he asked in a hoarse voice. He could barely speak.

  “No.” Victoria’s smile was wry. “She isn’t married. It wouldn’t do at all. But perhaps—if Lola will come. Ask, but don’t order her. It should be her decision.”

  He let her go back inside the dingy little room with its coppery odor of hot, fresh blood and wished that she had just a little less the lady of the manor’s ingrained sense of responsibility.

  Lola did come, along with the news that she had prepared a light meal for them and left it in the kitchen; she would stay while they ate. Carmita took herself off for a hasty meal, but Victoria didn’t feel that she could endure food right then. She was tired, and her stomach was a little queasy.

  Angelina had been lying with her eyes closed for over an hour. She didn’t open them now, but she said in a surprisingly strong voice, “You might as well eat. I would if I could.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Victoria replied, sponging the woman’s face. The time between contractions was short. For a while they had been almost constant, but nothing had happened and now they were spaced a bit further apart.

  It was the last time Angelina spoke. Close to midnight she was delivered of a fat little girl with a crop of thick black curls like her mother’s and the cord wrapped around her blue neck. Victoria wrapped the small body in a towel, her heart breaking.

  They couldn’t stem the flow of blood and Angelina was too weak to fight. She was unconscious and never knew that her daughter had died while trying to be born. A few hours later she too died.

  Carmita and Lola took charge of cleaning the bodies for burial and refused to allow Victoria to help. She was sent back to the house, her body weighed down with weariness. Her own child was merrily kicking her ribs, letting her know that it was doing well.

  To her surprise, Jake was sitting in the kitchen hunched over a cup of coffee that was no longer steaming. He looked up when she entered.

  “They both died.” Victoria’s voice was colorless.

  Jake got up and held her in his arms. As he carried her to their room, she clutched his shirt and wept, her tears hot against his shoulder.

  Neither life nor nature paused. Work on the ranch went on, and Victoria’s girth continued to increase. Though she knew she would get much larger before it was finished, her shifting center of gravity made her feel constantly off-balance. Stroking her belly now during the baby’s more acrobatic movements, she could discern a foot from an elbow, a hand from a knee.

  “Jesus,” Jake said one night, amazed at the force with which a tiny foot had thudded against his hand. “This feels like two wildcats in a sack fighting to get out.”

  “Thank you, how reassuring.”

  He grinned and continued stroking his hand lazily over her belly. “Do you think it could be two?”

  “No. I’ve counted one head, two feet, two knees, two elbows, and two hands. In whatever position, there’s only one baby.”

  He was relieved. The thought of her in labor with one child was scary enough.

  Late in January Celia filched an apple from the storeroom and carried it out to Rubio. It was a beautiful morning, cold and crisp. A few inches of snow covered the ground, but the sky was cloudless. Her blood was singing through her veins; perhaps, just perhaps, Luis would be able to join her in her secret place in the loft. It was harder to find privacy now that winter kept the men close to the house. When spring came, she thought, she and Luis would ride out to a private place and spend the entire day making love.

  Rubio was prancing around in the largest corral, snorting and shaking his head as he enjoyed his exercise. Dual trails of steam blew from his wide-open nostrils. He cavorted like a colt, and his red hide gleamed like polished mahogany in the bright sun.

  Celia climbed on the fence, content just to watch him. He was seldom playful, so she didn’t try to coax him to her to take the apple. In time he would work out his kinks, then he would come over to her for his treat. It had been weeks since he had tried to snap at her and he no longer shied when she patted his sleek, muscular neck.

  He was beautiful, she thought, beautiful in much the same way that Luis was. They were both magnificent animals, dangerous and simple in their instincts.

  Luis. Celia shivered. Just the forming of his name in her mind made her go soft and warm inside, the way she felt when they were making love. Her breasts tingled, and she thought of his mouth sucking at them. Luis.

  Her grip on the apple loosened and it fell to the ground. She knelt and reached for it through the fence, but it was a good foot beyond her fingertips. Rubio was on the far side of the corral, his proud head lifted high. She was safe enough, she thought, and climbed over the fence.

  Even inside the ho
use they heard the piercing screams of an enraged horse. There were shouts and the sound of men running. There was another scream, only one, but this one was different. It went through Victoria’s heart.

  She ran. Emma tried to catch her. “Victoria, no!” Emma had a hard grip on her arm, but Victoria thrust her aside with violent strength. She didn’t notice her unwieldy body as her feet flew over the snow.

  “Celia!” she screamed. There was no answer.

  In the corral a knot of men on horseback had thrown several ropes over Rubio’s head and were fighting him to a standstill. Jake was one of the men. He dismounted and ran to a small crumpled heap on the ground. As he went down on one knee, he saw Victoria flying toward them, her face a white mask.

  “Ben, grab her!” he yelled.

  Ben ran, intercepting her before she could reach the corral. He held her by wrapping his arms around her from behind, locking them under her breasts. She kicked and heaved, but his iron strength held her.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked, trying to claw his face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Celia. Celia!”

  Jake shifted his body so that he was between Victoria and Celia, but she could see the blue of her shawl, matted now with mud. The tan of her skirt. The white tumble of petticoats. A small shoe, lying by itself in the snow. A silky blond lock, stirring in the wind. And a lot of red. Celia hadn’t been wearing anything red.

  “Get a blanket,” Jake called sharply over his shoulder, and someone ran to do his bidding.

  Victoria twisted, still trying to tear herself free. Ben was talking to her, trying to calm her down, but his words didn’t make any sense. Emma was standing rooted to their left, her hands pressed over her mouth as if to hold her own screams inside. Her eyes were black in her colorless face.

  The blanket was brought and Jake wrapped it around the small bundle. Luis rode up and a stark look tightened his lean face. Without a word he swung down and climbed through the fence.