Titans

by Leila Meacham

  Of all his sundry drifter jobs, Daniel had never worked on a ranch in any kind of weather. “I can ride a horse and use a rope as good as any man,” he said.

  Sloan thought it didn’t matter whether the ironmonger knew the difference between either one as long as the man stayed away from his house. “Follow me,” he said.

  By the time the men and horses set out, premature darkness had fallen and the rain and wind increased in velocity. Through the sheets of water and blast of wind, they strained to see where the noises were coming from that cattle make in distress: calves bawling for their mothers, cows mooing for their young, bulls bellowing. All these and other sounds of snorting and grunting could be heard over the fury of the storm, but sight was useless. Sloan and his men, Daniel among them, had started out riding abreast in rain slickers, their trouser legs over their boots, to better find stray or imperiled cows, but the wall of rain prevailed over the wall of men and made it impossible for them to judge the animals’ location. Sloan and his crew headed by knowledge toward the draws—the cattleman’s name for deep, narrow gorges with steep sides—to search by hearing and experience for cows that in their panic had tumbled into them. They found to their dismay that their instincts were right, the most disheartening sight a cow mooing from the rim of the ravine for her fallen calf bawling from knee-deep water. The rescue procedure involved ranch hands dropping into the ditch and positioning a lariat under the forelegs of the hapless animals, then putting their shoulders to their rumps while other cowboys astride horses on the rim tugged them up and out by the ropes.

  Daniel was the first to volunteer for ravine duty, but the wind played havoc with his rope. Its force tried to tear it from his grip, and on such slippery ground, the horse at the top of the ravine could not sustain its footing bearing the calf’s weight. As hard as he tried, Daniel’s first rescue effort to save the calf proved futile.

  “We can’t just let the little fellow drown,” Daniel hollered up to Sloan on the lip of the draw when the rancher let go the rope to preserve his horse.

  “I’m afraid we have to,” Sloan shouted down to him, surprised at the anguish he saw on Daniel’s rainwashed face. “There’s nothing to be done, and we have others to see to. I’m sorry, Lane.”

  Defeated, the men called it a day. Sloan and Daniel returned to the main house and the cowhands to the ranch dining hall to disrobe, wrap in blankets, and dry their work clothes before the room’s gigantic fireplace. By orders of their boss, if the rain did not let up, they would spend the rest of the day and sleep that night on the hard floor rather than get another drenching in a sprint to the bunkhouse. Sloan did not need influenza sweeping the ranks of his crew on top of everything else.

  Samantha fussed over him, getting him into dry clothes, tugging off his muddy, water-swollen boots, pouring hot coffee into him, but without the words of consolation with which other wives might comfort their men. She was a ranch woman. Samantha knew too well the heart-numbing devastation such a storm could wreak and no loving reassurances soothe. Both ranches had suffered floodwaters before, but in summer when ground and grass dried quickly. They were now into an early and chilly autumn, and the pastures had already given up their stored heat. Mildred’s prediction was correct. There would be no Indian summer this year. The ground would stay damp for a long time, a breeding ground for the horrible diseases that could wipe out a herd within twelve to forty-eight hours of infection.

  Mutely, in their room, Samantha and Sloan held each other in their only expression of mutual condolence for the economic loss and property destruction that awaited them. When the skies cleared, they would ride out to pastures littered and draws and drainage ditches filled with the swollen carcasses of drowned cattle. They could only guess at the numbers. They would find their rangeland a rubbish field of shredded tree branches and debris, roofs ripped off sheds, fences blown down or their wire entangled with the prairie’s refuse, hay fields ruined, and paddock railings and pens splintered by panic-stricken livestock that had freed themselves at risk to life and limb—all requiring long, back-breaking hours of labor to clear and money to replenish and repair.

  “We may be ruined,” Sloan said.

  “Don’t say that. I have some money of my own, and Daddy will help us.”

  Sloan had not told Samantha the full and embarrassing extent of his debt. Confession was coming, but not now as long as there was a shred of hope he could get out of this financial mess. “No!” he said roughly. “That money is yours, and I will not let your father bail me out. I made my own bed and will have to lie in it. He’ll have expenses enough as it is.”

  “You can get a loan from our bank if need be. Daddy will vouch for you at Cattleman’s.”

  “Absolutely not.” Not until the final bitter end would he disclose to Neal Gordon how he happened to get in this hole, which he’d have to do if his father-in-law stood behind him, Sloan thought.

  “You can try another bank.”

  “Noble Rutherford would use his influence to blackball me.”

  Samantha let out a sound between a chortle and a scoff. “And how would that set with his daughter’s altruistic reputation? If we can hold out until the well comes in, neither ranch will have to worry about money. Half the royalties will be mine, you know.” It had been an agreement Neal had insisted upon when he signed the drilling contract with Waverling Tools. The lease payment was to go into the till of Las Tres Lomas, but if oil was found, the royalties would be split between him and his daughter—“It all goes into the same pot anyway,” he’d said with a wink at his daughter and son-in-law.

  Sloan said, “That well coming in—if it does—is a long way off, honey.”

  Samantha combed her fingers through his damp hair and said wistfully, “I wish a kiss could make it all go away.”

  “Try it anyway,” Sloan said.

  A weary tension compounded by the assault of wind and rain at the dining room windows eliminated all efforts to make conversation around the table during supper. To relieve the anxiety and gloom, Millie May suggested a game of bridge, but only four could play. “Oh, count me out anyway,” Daniel said. “I’ve never been much of a card player.”

  “No, take my place, Lane,” Sloan said. “I insist.” He could not have his sister’s lover wandering around his house while he was engaged at the card table.

  “Insist away, but I say no thanks,” Daniel said and turned to Samantha. “Would you happen to have anything in the house you’d like me to put my hand to? My assistance to your husband proved worthless today, but if you need any repairs that need to be done before I have to get to work, I’d be glad to do them. I’m pretty good with tools.”

  Before Samantha could speak, Billie June spoke up proudly. “You should see how Daniel maintains my apartment, Sam. There’s not a hinge that squeaks, a doorknob loose, or a cupboard door off-kilter like we have here.”

  Ignoring Sloan’s glare at Daniel, Samantha said, “Why, that’s very good of you, Daniel. As a matter of fact, we have a number of things around here that could use your tool kit, don’t we, girls?”

  Sloan said pointedly, “I believe you asked me if I could use your help, Lane, and believe me, I can. If the rain lets up, we can mend fences tomorrow. How about giving me and the boys a hand?” Dammit! He could not have the man run around his house with hammer and saw while he was out at the ranch.

  “Be happy to,” Daniel said, smiling equably. “Soon’s I get to your wife’s list.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Lenora, leave the room, please, and close the door—tight,” Trevor ordered, his jaw barely moving. “Benjy, ride over to Todd Baker’s house and tell him that he and Nathan will not be catching the train to Fort Worth tomorrow. Preliminaries for the drilling site at Las Tres Lomas have been postponed.”

  “Should I tell him why, boss?” The coachman’s voice, scratchy with grief, could hardly be heard.

  “Yes.”

  Mavis was staring at Nathan, shocked from her former trance.
“What did you say, Nathan?”

  Trevor had gotten to his feet, hands balled at his sides. “That’s enough, Nathan. You leave the room, too. Go call the Triple S and tell Daniel what’s happened. He’s to stay there until I call for him.”

  Nathan swallowed hard, his heart pounding. It was out now. He could not put the bird back into its cage. He noticed his father’s powerful fists that could send him sprawling into tomorrow—if he could land a punch. “Not until I tell Grandmother the truth she needs to hear, Dad. Zak and I will be out of here by morning, but I’m not leaving without your mother knowing the truth about her sons—both of them. It will be the only way you and she can bear Rebecca’s death.”

  Mavis’s puzzled stare swept from grandson to son. “What truth is he talking about, Trevor? What haven’t you told me? What have you kept from me this time? And why is Nathan talking of leaving?”

  The ridges of Trevor’s cheeks burned with a white heat. “Because he broke his word.”

  “Broke his word?” Mavis pushed up unsteadily from her chair, dumping Scat to the floor, the cane wobbling under her hand. She teetered toward Nathan, suspicious eyes probing his face. “What truth, Nathan? Tell your grandmother.”

  “Nathan, I’m telling you—” Trevor threatened, but Mavis motioned with her cane for him to remain silent.

  “My father didn’t cause the death of his brother, Grandmother,” Nathan said. “Your son Jordan committed suicide by drowning. The proof is in a letter he wrote to my father. I’ve read it. Rebecca witnessed her uncle’s suicide. She must have. It explains the ditty she was always repeating, the same lines she heard her uncle often quote and wrote in his letter. She saw him walk down to the pier—down to the seas again—with no idea, even if she’d been capable of thinking it, that he meant to take his own life. By the time she realized he was drowning, it was too late to rescue him. Today’s storm brought it all back to her, locked her in that scene, and she must have run down to the river with the intent that this time…” Nathan’s voice faltered from a sudden clog of grief “… that this time she would save him.”

  The thin red capillaries in Mavis’s eyes stood out starkly against their white background. Stiffly, she turned her attention to Trevor, standing still as a portrait subject before the window where the rain pattered with playful indifference to the drama unfolding inside.

  “Is this true, Trevor?”

  A muscle pulsed along Trevor’s jawline. “Yes, Mother, it’s true.”

  Mavis tapped closer, peering at her son as if to make out the shape of a shadow in the dark. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you? Oh, Mother, must you ask?” Trevor’s guffaw sounded dredged from the bitterest depths of his soul. “How could I not have kept it from you? The son you loved, idolized, the fulfillment of all your maternal dreams, had committed suicide. He had denied you the future you’d counted on—Jordan running the company the way you thought Dad would have wished, marrying the girl you approved of, giving you the sane and whole grandchildren your heart yearned for.” Trevor paused and closed his eyes briefly as if drained of words. “Most importantly,” he said, with less force when he gazed at her again, “he left you with the lasting grief of knowing that all your mother’s love was not enough to save him from himself. Now you tell me. Could you have lived with that?”

  Silence, save for the cheerily crackling flames, held the room in thrall. Nathan saw his grandmother attempt to speak. Her delicately lined lips formed words that did not come. Spittle formed at the corners of her mouth. Finally, she rasped, “I loved you both, only differently, Trevor, and you permitted me to believe… Dear God, why ever did you do such a thing?”

  “I just told you, Mother. And as usual you didn’t hear me. But you know why. I had always been a disappointment to you. I could at least leave you with an untainted memory of Jordan.”

  “And you… spared me the truth because…”

  “Give it a guess. What other reason could there be but one?”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “Very well, then. Because I love you.”

  “Not because it’s what your father would have wanted?”

  “My father would never have allowed you to suspect for a second that I was responsible for my brother’s death.”

  Mavis weaved as if struck, and Nathan moved to catch her if she toppled, but with trembling effort, she held herself steady with the cane. When she spoke, her voice sounded like dry wheat rustled by the wind. “And you thought living with that suspicion would be easier for me to bear than the suicide of your brother? You couldn’t have been more wrong, son. Good Lord, no.” Tears filled her eyes. “What paltry knowledge you have of me and I of you. How little we know of the love we have for each other.”

  Trevor’s rigid countenance softened, and there was the movement of a hard knot pass down his throat. “You suppose it’s too late for us to learn?”

  “Never for a mother, no matter how old she is, nor the need for forgiveness, no matter how long overdue the realization.”

  Trevor stepped toward his mother, arms held out, and Nathan said, “Come, Zak.”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Trevor asked from the doorway of Nathan’s room. The police had come and gone and taken everybody’s statements. Night had fallen. Mavis was resting. Funeral arrangements could be left for tomorrow.

  “I’m heading out to California first thing in the morning,” Nathan said, folding his shirts. “I believe the worst of the storm is over.” He hoped his father would not make the parting hard. Their hearts were all heavy enough. “I’ve always wanted to take a look at the place,” he added.

  “What about Charlotte?”

  Nathan looked up in surprise. “What about her? I hardly know her.”

  Trevor handed him an envelope, somewhat damp. “She sent this by way of the Weatherspoons’ butler. The poor man almost drowned delivering it, but that would have been better for him than if he hadn’t.”

  Nathan chuckled dryly and opened the envelope bearing his name in fine script. Mr. Nathan Holloway.

  My dear Nathan,

  I have learned of your sister’s death, and I yearn to be with you at this tragic time to be of what comfort you would allow on the basis of our limited friendship.

  Selfishly, I feel you would be a comfort to me. I knew Rebecca only slightly, but I feel I could no more forget her than I could not recall the fragrance of roses. May I await your call?

  Sincerely,

  Your devoted friend, Charlotte

  Trevor’s eyebrow was hitched when Nathan finished reading the note. “Well?”

  “Well,” Nathan repeated, feeling tears rush to his eyes on a surge of gratitude. He tucked the note inside his shirt pocket.

  “Nathan, you’re not going anywhere. Put those things back where they belong.”

  Nathan looked at Trevor questioningly. “I’m not fired?”

  “As my son or my landman? Well, a father can’t very well fire his own son from being his flesh and blood, now can he, and you’ve given me no reason to fire you as my landman.”

  Nathan continued packing. He would leave his suits and dress shoes behind. They’d make his duffel too heavy for the road. “But I did as your son. I gave you my word, and I broke it.”

  “You did what you thought was right, and as things have turned out, you were right and I was wrong. A man can’t hold to a promise that makes it wrong to keep.”

  “You sound like Leon.”

  “He’s a good man to emulate. I’ll have to do more of it.” Trevor came around to the side of the bed where Nathan continued packing his duffel and curbed his hand. His eyes were as red-shot as Nathan’s own. “Don’t go, Nathan,” he pleaded. “I could not bear to lose my son when I’ve already lost my two…” His voice broke. Trevor let go his hold and shook a handkerchief from his coat pocket.

  Nathan said, “Two what?”

  Trevor blew his nose. “A misnomer. Forget I said that. I spoke fr
om the memory of losing another child I thought of as mine. Her loss was a long time ago, before Rebecca. She was the daughter of a friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nathan said. For a moment he experienced a jolt of déjà vu. Forget I said that. The exact words he’d heard from Leon in the barn the day his world fell apart, the time his stepfather had declared he wasn’t about to keep another secret from him. When Nathan had asked what secret, Leon had said, Ah, forget I said that. It don’t pertain to you, so don’t pester me about it.

  They had not returned to that exchange, but Nathan recalled how Leon’s eyes had shifted and his face closed, a sure giveaway more was to the story than he let on. Nathan had that same sense of evasion now.

  “You’ve no cause to leave, Nathan,” Trevor said. “No father could be prouder of his son than I was of you today. You have no idea what you did for your grandmother and me.”

  Actually, he did, Nathan thought, but it was a reconciliation that he himself would probably never know. “I’d be much obliged to stay,” he said, forcing his voice to remain steady. “It would have been awfully hard for Zak and me to leave another home.”

  “Harder on us if you’d left.” Trevor put his arm around Nathan’s shoulders to lead him from the room. “Leave those things for Lenora to put away, and let’s go see if we can entice your grandmother to eat a bite of supper. Also,” he said, “I’d be grateful if you telephoned the Triple S to get word to Neal Gordon that drilling will be delayed.”

  It was Samantha who answered the telephone when Nathan called and asked to speak to Daniel. Oddly, for no reason she could name, the landman had been on her mind on and off since early afternoon, lighting unexpectedly like a butterfly as she helped Billie June unpack, cut the bread for supper, counted her points at the card table. “I hope you all are not drowning there in Dallas,” she said. “We’re on the verge of it here.” From the pause, Samantha sensed she’d said something inappropriate. “Nathan? Is everything all right?”