Titans

by Leila Meacham

  Leon sighed. “Yes, they do, Millie girl, more’s the pity.” He came to stand behind her and began to massage her shoulders. “But don’t you ever wonder about her? Where she is—if she’s safe, well, happy—what she looks like?”

  In the mirror, Millicent’s gaze faltered. She closed her eyes and relaxed under the knead of Leon’s hands. “I try not to. What good would come of it?”

  “Yes, what good would come of it?” Suddenly feeling an impulse to inflict cruelty, Leon slipped his hands under his wife’s arms and squeezed her breasts. “About those feelin’s that somehow keep me crazy about you despite your black heart,” he said. “Let’s go do somethin’ about them.”

  Samantha

  Chapter Seven

  Fort Worth, Texas, March 23, 1900

  Samantha Gordon looked down the long candlelit table at the guests invited to celebrate her twentieth birthday. The gathering consisted of her former classmates and the sons and daughters of fellow ranchers and their parents, all longtime friends of the Gordons. Samantha would have preferred the dinner party be held at Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad to include the ranch hands, but her mother had insisted that the rustic great room of the main house was too informal for a milestone birthday. “For goodness’ sakes, Neal,” Estelle had argued to her husband, who’d made an appeal on Samantha’s behalf, “knowing our daughter, she’d choose the bunkhouse for the party and have the guests served out of the chuck wagon.”

  Samantha had chuckled at the exaggeration when she learned of her mother’s response, but it was close enough to the truth. Still, seeing the familiar faces, listening to the laughter and chatter of amusing childhood memories, Samantha granted that it was appropriate to be surrounded on her twentieth birthday by people who had known her all her life. Cowhands came and went. Only Grizzly, the ranch cook, and Wayne Harris, the foreman, had been around since she was placed in her parents’ arms at four days old.

  There were twenty squeezed in around the long-strung table. Each year Estelle Gordon added a guest to total the years of her daughter’s life, pushing tables together and moving furniture about to accommodate the number in her town house. Her mother would be disappointed to hear it, but Samantha had determined that this would be the last of her birthdays celebrated in such a fashion. Twenty-one was the beginning of spinsterhood for a single woman, a state that Samantha saw looming and no need to honor since the only man she would have married sat across from this year’s extra guest, a stunning beauty who was sure to become his wife.

  But at the moment, Anne Rutherford was winning no points with Sloan Singleton, the Gordons’ neighboring rancher and Samantha’s one-time childhood playmate. Sloan’s handsome face wore a trace of the scowl that Samantha’s father was directing at her from his end of the table. Anne was holding forth on her theory—“from observation”—that certain human mannerisms, character traits, color of hair and eyes, and “proclivities” (a simper at the erudite word) can be credited to or blamed on one’s bloodline. “I suppose that explains my penchant for public service,” she concluded with a dazzling smile at the guest whose compliment of her charity work had initiated the discussion. “My grandmother always had an eye out for the unfortunate.”

  And you, an eye toward the gallery to see who was watching, Samantha thought, feeling a little thrill at Sloan’s displeasure with Anne for discussing heredity in the presence of her and her parents. No blame or credit could be attributed to Samantha’s bloodline, since she was adopted, a fact of which Anne was fully and artfully aware.

  Adopted. The term had never bothered her. In her early years, her parents and their relatives had shielded her from the stigma. White children were “adopted” by the Indian tribes that had abducted them. Orphans were “taken in” by relatives. The terms suggested captive and waif, the implication being that the children were charity cases, never quite one of the family who’d accepted them.

  But from the beginning, Samantha had been not only one of the family, she was the axis around which her adoptive parents’ lives revolved. She had not known she was adopted until she was six years old, when a cousin of her mother’s not seen for a decade came to visit from New York City. Cousin Ella had come presumably to admire the Gordons’ recently built town house. By then, in 1886, the cattle industry, over which her father was a reigning force in North Central Texas, was flourishing, and Fort Worth had emerged from the economic severities of the Civil War, Reconstruction, hard winters, and drought to become known as “Queen City of the Prairies.”

  Her father’s prosperity and the city’s relative civility had warranted his wife to insist on the construction of a house in town where their daughter could attend school and “be near the more cultural aspects of life,” as Samantha recalled her mother explaining to Cousin Ella when she stepped from the first-class coach of the Texas and Pacific Railway.

  “And who is this?” Cousin Ella had demanded of the shy little girl peeking around her mother’s skirts. “Where in the world did she get that strawberry-blond hair?”

  Her mother had taken Samantha’s hand protectively. “This is Samantha, our daughter.”

  “Daughter? I didn’t think you could have children, Estelle.”

  Holding Samantha’s hand tightly, her mother had slipped her arm through Cousin Ella’s. “Yes, well, that’s true,” she said and lowered her voice. “We’ll talk about it when we get home.”

  So it was that Samantha gradually came to understand that she’d not actually been born physically to her mother and father. She’d been given to them as a miracle from heaven, a difference they said made her even more special. Even so, to avoid any unpleasantness that could develop, friends and family never referred to the adoption, so that in time the fact of it was almost forgotten or never known. But Samantha always remembered whose loving hands had rescued her from what could have been a terrible fate.

  She became aware that Todd Baker, a recent graduate of the Jackson School of Geology at the University of Texas and former classmate whom she’d known since her cradle days, had begun to regale the group with stories of their school experiences at Simmons Preparatory School in Fort Worth, where Samantha, the only girl in their science courses, had “given the boys a licking.” She had hardly been listening to the conversation that had turned from genetic theory to geological science.

  “Exactly what is paleontology, Samantha?” Anne Rutherford was asking. Samantha perceived that her polite query was a ploy to earn back Sloan’s favor. It failed. His countenance grew darker. All faces but his and her parents’ turned to her inquiringly. Samantha’s special interest in the history of the Earth through the study of rocks and fossils and plant life was another subject uncomfortable to the couple who had raised her.

  She gave a brief answer from her long-ago textbooks. “It’s the study of life-forms existing in prehistoric times,” she said.

  “And they can be determined from old rocks and fossils?” Anne asked, smooth brow rising skeptically.

  “Surprising as it sounds, yes,” Samantha answered. “For more than a century, geologists have extracted a remarkable timetable from rocks of how Earth has evolved. You might say they are documents and records of the past.” Samantha turned to another guest. “Marcia, tell us about your trip to San Francisco,” she invited, annoyed at Todd for prompting another line of conversation he should know her parents wished to avoid.

  Marcia’s reply never penetrated her thoughts. Her mind was on Sloan and the understanding wink he’d given her at her adroit turn of the conversation. She’d averted her eyes lest he rightly interpret the flush that warmed her cheeks. It was the only secret she’d ever kept from him, her feelings for the boy-grown-man who had romped with her through childhood. She was doomed for spinsterhood, little doubt about it. How could she ever love another man when her heart belonged to Sloan Singleton?

  Dr. Donald Tolman read aloud the letter he’d just written. Hearing his words rather than reading them in silence lent a different perspective. He could
better place himself in the position of the man to whom he would be mailing them. How would he feel if he were Neal Gordon reading this letter? Would he tear it up, burn it to ashes with no one the wiser of its contents? Or would he lock it away to be found with his papers after his death? Show it to Mrs. Gordon? To Samantha? No, no, he believed he could say with certainty that Neal Gordon, that tough, rugged, ruthless rancher with a heart gentle as a lamb for his adopted daughter, would never, ever show the letter to Samantha. Neal Gordon was known as a man who jealously guarded what was his, and of no one was he more protective and vigilant than the young woman he’d taken and raised as his own flesh and blood.

  Donald Tolman was certain of that fact. He had kept tabs on the Gordons and the baby he’d left with them twenty years ago. He would have called the couple on it straight enough if they hadn’t been the people he’d judged them to be—decent, caring, starved for a child. This he’d known from a late sister who lived in Fort Worth, a friend of Estelle Gordon. She’d died ignorant of the little bundle her brother had surprised the Gordons with at midnight one late March. When Mrs. Mahoney, his midwife, had come to him with the rejected twin, an adorable baby girl, he’d known exactly with whom to place her. No papers were drawn up. No rules of adoption followed. Back in 1880, registration of orphaned or abandoned infants on the Oklahoma frontier was slack at best. It had been a clean handoff to the Gordons with no government agency involved.

  Now, though, he couldn’t die without some record left behind of the child’s parentage in case it might be of interest to someone down the line, presumably Samantha. She was aware the Gordons were not her parents. How could they be, they being rangy, dark, big-framed, the direct opposite of their fair, delicately boned daughter with hair the color of an autumn sunset.

  Dr. Tolman read the letter again, silently this time, to make sure he’d not left out the few details he knew. He’d stated the names of the parents as Leon and Millicent Holloway, and the place of birth as their farm, but he wasn’t sure of its location near the Red River. He listed Bridget Mahoney as the attending midwife. According to Bridget, she’d been visiting her sister in Gainesville, another midwife, but she was out on a call when she was summoned to the farm, so Bridget had gone in her place to assist in the birth. Bridget was a closemouthed sort, so as far as Dr. Tolman knew, he, Mrs. Mahoney, and the Holloways were the only people, besides the Gordons, who knew Samantha had not been wanted. His midwife had come to him in Marietta in the Oklahoma Territory with the child, bearing only the skimpy information that the mother refused to nurse her. Dr. Tolman decided not to include that information in the letter. Perhaps the child’s parents had been unable to care for her and depended on his midwife to find their daughter a good home. He’d been so happy to have a normal, healthy child to present to the Gordons that he’d asked few questions of Mrs. Mahoney, and the Gordons had asked even fewer of him. Beggars could not be choosers. In the letter, Dr. Tolman stated that he could give no further information except the little girl had been born with a twin brother.

  His conscience satisfied, Dr. Tolman licked the flap of the envelope and sealed the letter. The post office was located not far away. He threw a couple of pills down his throat, gulped a glass of water, took up his cane to assist his weakening frame, and made his way to the door.

  Chapter Eight

  The fifth day after her twentieth birthday, Samantha awoke from a nightmare that had not reoccurred in years. In it, she was a waif abandoned miles beyond escape before the door of a dark, forbidding house located in a landscape as barren as a moon crater. Heart racing and mouth dry, ears still holding the cry that had awakened her, she blinked at the abrupt reality of the morning sun pouring through silk-draped windows into her French-inspired bedroom, lighting the rose-papered walls and graceful furniture and the canopied bed in which she lay. Its benevolent warmth fell upon her like the reassuring smile of an angel. It’s all right. You’re in your mother’s house. You’re safe. With her heartbeat steadying and a sense of rescue, Samantha burrowed deeper into the downy comfort of the bed as the last vestiges of her dream faded away.

  She could blame Anne Rutherford and Todd Baker for the return of her nighttime horror—Anne for bringing up her bloodline theory at her birthday party to make a point of Samantha’s lack of one, and Todd for trotting out stories of her laboratory experiments from their school years. Those strands of conversation had led to her mother asking over the menu at Tea and Crumpets yesterday, “Now that you’ve turned twenty, darling, have you any regrets about… anything?”

  It was like Estelle Gordon to couch possibly painful subjects in vague terms. “Anything” referred to the question of whether Samantha regretted her choice of avocation. Did she regret staying behind to learn the business of ranching over her opportunity to study natural science at the Lasell Seminary for Young Women in Massachusetts? And… was she ever curious about the family and roots from which she came?

  “No, Mother, I have no regrets about anything,” Samantha had answered. “I wouldn’t change my lot for anything in the world.”

  “Lot” meant her home, her parents, her situation in life. Samantha was noted as one for not hedging the truth. Don’t ask if one did not wish a straight answer. Her mother had looked at her over the rim of her teacup with a gratified smile in her gaze.

  Samantha wondered if her father, alone at the ranch while she spent the week of her birthday with her mother in Fort Worth as she did every year, was asking the same question. At twenty, did Samantha have regrets about anything? He wouldn’t ask out of pride and maybe a secret fear of the answer, but that didn’t mean he didn’t question whether she was as happy as she might have been if things had worked out differently.

  Darn Anne and Todd for causing them to wonder even a trifle if Samantha had regrets! She didn’t. It took only the image of that little girl in her nightmare and the terror it evoked to make her realize how lucky she was. Her mother was so easily readable. It was clear that Todd’s reminiscences had triggered a memory of the time the Gordons, unbeknown to Samantha, had been asked to meet with the headmaster of Simmons Preparatory School. Samantha, too, had been called from biology class and walked into the headmaster’s office to find her parents and Mr. Latimer, the chairman of the science department and her favorite teacher, seated before his desk. She was sixteen years old and in the final months of her schooling before graduation.

  “What’s the purpose of this meeting, Headmaster?” Neal Gordon had demanded. “Is our daughter in trouble?”

  The headmaster had exchanged a grin with the chairman of the science department. “Absolutely not,” he said, and pushed a letter across his desk for the Gordons to read. “Your daughter has been accepted at the Lasell Seminary for Young Women in Massachusetts to pursue a degree in science.” He tipped his head to his colleague. “You have Mr. Latimer here to thank for sending Samantha’s résumé listing her outstanding credentials to the school. It only remains for you to fill out the application form to make it official, Samantha.”

  Samantha remembered woodenly intercepting the letter before it could reach her parents’ hands. She was aware of the prestigious, highly respected institution known for its radical and innovative approach to women’s education, especially in the field of sciences. She had followed the career of Annie Montague Alexander, a Lasell graduate whose work with fossils and the study of paleontology was internationally recognized. Sensing her parents’ stiff dismay, Samantha read the glowing reply to Mr. Latimer’s request for enrollment, then pushed the letter and its attached application form back across the desk.

  The two academics regarded her with puzzled expressions. “Uh, Miss Gordon, perhaps your parents would like to read the letter,” the headmaster suggested.

  “It is for me to decide whether I wish to attend Lasell Seminary, and I decline,” Samantha said. “May I now return to class?”

  Mr. Latimer shifted his flabbergasted gaze to the Gordons. “Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, your daughter is the most bri
lliant student I’ve ever taught. She is a natural scientist. Surely you support this opportunity for Samantha to fulfill her calling and contribute her gift to the world. It’s a rare privilege that will not be extended again once she’s out of school.”

  Neal Gordon had stood up, offering his arm to Estelle. “My daughter knows what she wants and doesn’t,” he said. “That’s how she’s been raised, and as she says, it’s not for anyone else to decide.”

  Later in the day, Mr. Latimer had approached her. “Miss Gordon—Samantha—I beg you. Don’t give up your dream to become a scientist for the sake of your father. You know how much you love research and the study of plants and animals.”

  “Which I’ll have plenty of opportunities to do at Las Tres Lomas, Mr. Latimer, and an interest is not a dream. I’ve made my choice.”

  “Your father made your choice.”

  “I’m devoted to the ranch. Ranching is in my blood.”

  “How can that be? You’re devoted to your father’s passion for the ranch, not yours. If he owned a chain of candy stores, you’d feel the same loyalty.”

  “Probably,” she’d admitted, “but I wouldn’t feel the same about candy that I do about cattle.”

  Mr. Latimer had hardly spoken to her again.

  Todd’s birthday present to her had been a pair of tickets to a lecture given by a noted paleontologist who was to speak on structural and sedimentary aspects of fossil strata as a means to identify possible oil traps.

  “Were you being thoughtful or provocative, Todd? What’s the point of either?” Samantha had scolded him later in a private conversation when everybody had adjourned to the parlor for ice cream and cake.

  “No point at all,” he’d said. “I thought you’d like an opportunity to keep up with the times. Petroleum exploration is the next great archeological dig, Sam. Ginny and I are going to the lecture, and my boss will be there. I want my future wife to meet him and learn what her geologist husband will be doing. I thought you could bring along a friend, and we could make it a foursome.”