Chapter Fourteen
CAL BARTON SAT QUIETLY in the small country saloon a few miles from Tyler Junction. The one saloon in town had closed down. Probably the proprietor had been afraid of that ax-woman coming to call, he thought with bitter humor. Whatever the reason, most men came out here to get a drink when they wanted one. Alcohol was explicitly not allowed on the ranch, although Saturday nights brought their share of inebriated ranch hands.
After the second whiskey, he began to feel a little better. He had tried to see Nora, but she had sent word by her aunt that she refused to let him back into her room now that she was conscious again. She added that she considered their marriage at an end, that she was going home to Virginia and that she did not want to see him again as long as she lived.
He had been expecting it, but the terse message hurt just the same. How tragic to know that his misery had come from his own actions. If he had been more patient, and less judgmental, Nora might have settled quite happily even in such a dismal place. And if he had taken her to El Paso in the first place, she might still have their child in her body.
But looking back would not help now. He knew that his marriage was over. He didn’t blame Nora for not wanting to see him. He blamed himself as much as she did for the way things had turned out. He had seduced her, not the reverse.
Everything that had happened was his fault. The baby was his fault most of all. He wondered now whether it would have been a boy or a girl, and mourned it. His mother would mourn for him, when she knew. He grimaced. His mother didn’t know he was married. None of his people did. And before they knew it, he would be a divorced man. Nora’s parents would surely forgive her now, and she would go home to Virginia and find a man who would treat her as she deserved. He decided that playing God wasn’t very profitable after all, and he was never going to do it again.
He never got rowdy when he drank. He simply dulled his senses, paid his bar bill, got up and left. Once, when he was much younger, he’d passed out, when he and King were drinking one weekend in Kansas City. King could always hold his liquor. It was he who’d carted Cal into the hotel in a fireman’s lift and right up the steps to his room. King was married now, he remembered, apparently to a woman who was his equal in temperament. He hoped his brother was happier than he was at the moment. He dreaded telling his family what a fool he’d been, but one day soon, he would have to go home.
He tottered out to his horse and managed to get into the saddle. Good thing the animal knew the way back home, he thought dimly, or he’d never make it there. He closed his eyes with the reins tight in one hand.
“Easy, there, fellow!” A sympathetic voice woke him.
He sat up, blinking his eyes. This didn’t look like the ranch. He frowned. “Where am I?”
“Dalton’s Stable. You’re in Tyler Junction.” The old man grinned. “Tied one on, did you?”
“Looks like it.” Cal got down out of the saddle, groaning.
“You’d better go over to the hotel and get yourself a room, young fellow. You’re in no condition to make that ride home now. I’ll take care of your horse for you.”
“Thanks. Name’s Cul…Barton,” he amended firmly, barely able to remember that he was using his middle name for his last one. He left the horse with the man and started toward the hotel, but the depot seemed closer. Much closer.
He walked inside to the window. “Beaumont,” he said flatly. “One way.”
“Why, you’re just in luck,” the agent said, glancing toward a loud hissing noise outside. “The last train is just pulling out. No luggage?”
“No luggage. No wife. No nothing,” Cal murmured unsteadily. He paid for his ticket and went out the door. The agent stared after him, shaking his head.
CAL WOKE UP IN BEAUMONT with a splitting head. He got a ride out to the rig where Pike was just unfastening the last screw in a part that had unexpectedly given way.
“Damn, this had to happen now,” Pike muttered. “We’ve got no spare, and the supplier doesn’t have the part in stock. He says it’ll be January before we can get one!”
“January?”
Pike threw up his hands. “There’s no help for it.”
“Send to St. Louis, or New York, or Pittsburgh.”
“No help there. You may not have noticed, but there are several people setting up rigs around here,” Pike reminded him, and indicated the flat, sparse landscape dotted with tall derricks outside little Beaumont.
“I noticed, all right. Maybe we’re all crazy,” Cal said heavily. “It looks like the only thing we’re going to find is water.”
“Maybe that geologist was right after all,” Pike replied. He had small eyes, beady eyes, and they fixed on the other man. “What if we bring her in?”
“We’ll be rich,” Cal said.
“We could split up the stock,” the man ventured. “You know, to help defray the cost so we could get some more money to work with. Sell shares.”
“We’re not that desperate yet,” Cal reminded him. Pike didn’t know anything about Cal’s background, much less that he was rich. He’d been careful not to talk about himself. Pike was a good drill rigger, but he had a shifty look that Cal liked less the more he was around the man. He would have replaced him, but he’d been too involved with Nora.
Nora. He groaned inwardly. He hadn’t even said goodbye or tried to talk to her before he jumped on the train. She’d probably think he’d deserted her, which was not the truth. He’d only been hurting and drinking, and he’d done an impulsive thing. But did it really matter? She was probably on her way home even now, and wanting nothing else to do with the man who’d ruined her life. He would never forget the way she’d flinched away from him when he’d touched her hair. Her expression would haunt him forever.
She’d been so fragile, suffering from a recurring illness, and he hadn’t even known about it. She’d told him nothing. He turned away from Pike, hardly hearing the other man as he talked. Perhaps if Nora had been completely honest with him from the start, and he with her, things would have been very different. And if he hadn’t tried to play judge and jury, he might not be alone now.
“Where are you going?” Pike asked.
Cal hesitated. He thought about it for only an instant before he knew. His head lifted. “I’m going home,” he said suddenly. “Send to Corsicana for that part we need,” he added on a sudden inspiration. He gave Pike the name of the man he’d worked for after he left the army, a man who’d made a pile in oil. He ran several rigs, and if there was a spare part available anywhere, he’d know about it. Furthermore, he’d send it right on, out of loyalty to Cal.
NORA STAYED IN BED for several days, just long enough to get her strength back. Then she sat in the parlor with her aunt and cousin and forced herself to face the facts squarely. She had no parents to take care of her. Her husband had apparently written her off, vanishing without a word or a trace. She had no money and no means of earning any. But at least she was through this latest bout of fever, and despite her sadness at losing the baby, she was getting stronger by the day.
“I must find work,” Nora told the other two women.
Melly, who was still struggling with her own personal problem of confronting her parents with an increasingly impatient Jacob, leaned forward. “There’s a teaching position available at the school,” she began.
“Melly, I cannot become a teacher,” Nora said dully. “The thought of being around children makes me sad, just now.”
“Forgive me,” Melly said quickly. “I didn’t think.”
Nora waved her apology away. “In time, I might consider it. For the moment, I have no idea what I shall do.”
“You know that you are welcome to stay with us,” Helen said.
But Nora shook her head. “Not as a guest,” she said firmly. “If I stay here, it must be as a working woman.” It was hard to get the words out, a terrible blow to her pride. “If you will bear with me, while I learn the rudiments of housework—” her lower lip trembled, but she sat straighter and looked her aunt right in the eye “—I think I shall cope quite well.”
Helen’s eyes crinkled with sorrow. “Oh, Nora,” she said miserably.
“It is not so terrible!” Nora assured her. “In fact, I can iron, you know,” she said with a smile. “I learned while I… Before I was ill,” she corrected. “I am quite proficient with an iron. And if you will teach me how to get the pans the proper temperature, I think I may master cooking one day.”
“Certainly I shall,” Helen said eagerly. “You will be an excellent pupil. But, Nora, it is such a drastic change for you, for a woman of your station and breeding. Oh, how can Cynthia allow your father to be so rigid!”
Because her father knew a truth that Helen didn’t, Nora thought grimly. He knew that Nora had been pregnant and unmarried before Cal came to her rescue. She fought Cal out of her mind. If she thought about him, she would go mad.
“It doesn’t matter. I would not go back to my parents now.” She felt a new maturity, a new confidence. Her ordeal had tempered her, like steel in fire. “It won’t hurt me to learn how to do things. I must start tomorrow.”
“Are you well enough?” Helen asked gently.
“I must be. Now, as to where I shall stay.” She hesitated. “The foreman’s cabin…?”
Helen and Melly exchanged miserable glances.
“What is it?” Nora asked. “Please. Don’t try to protect me. I have learned that I’m strong when I must be. What is it?”
“Cal Barton has resigned,” Helen said dully. “He sent a cable to Chester. It arrived this morning, from Beaumont.”
“Beaumont? Is that where he is?” Nora asked with helpless interest.
“That’s where he was when he sent it,” Helen said. “He said that he would not be there past today. We don’t know where he is going. He wouldn’t say.”
“Obviously he has left me,” Nora said without inflection. “Well, it is just as well that I didn’t have to send him packing myself.”
“He never left you when you were so ill,” Melly said in a subdued tone. “It was his baby, too, Nora.”
“Melly!” Helen chided.
Nora bit down hard on her lower lip. She looked away while she fought down the pain. She could not bear to think about it, about any of it. “I know you mean well, Melly,” she managed tightly, “but please, no more.”
“Forgive me,” Melly said guiltily.
Nora shrugged. She twisted her skirt in her hands. “I must lie down for a little bit. Tomorrow morning I will begin my duties.” She held up her hand at her aunt’s protest, looking at the older woman with tired eyes. “I don’t want to embarrass you by looking for work in the town. You must appease me. I cannot stay here and eat your food and not work for my keep. It is unthinkable. Despite my father’s claim, I am still a Marlowe. I will not accept charity, however well-meant.”
Helen got up and hugged her warmly. “You are still our niece, and it would not be charity,” she reminded her. “But I will do as you ask.”
Nora nodded. Impulsively she hugged Melly, too, who still looked guilty. “Someday I will be able to talk about it without becoming upset,” she explained a little shakily.
She left the room, and Melly sat back down with her mother. “She is suffering. But I fear that Mr. Barton is, also.”
“Chester will be lost without him,” Helen said sadly. “What a terrible turn of events. So much sorrow.”
“Didn’t you often tell me that a sorrow is always rewarded by a joy?” Melly teased.
Helen smiled. “So I did.”
Melly studied the print of her skirt quietly while her mother watched her.
“You know,” she told the girl, “I have noticed that Mr. Langhorn is joining civic clubs lately. And he and Bruce were at services this Sunday.”
Melly flushed. She wondered if her mother had noticed the brief minute she and Jacob had spent together while she explained what had been going on at the ranch.
Helen picked up her embroidery with a quick glance at her daughter. “I had thought we might invite him, and his son, to Sunday dinner next week. Your father agrees with me that he is not the roué we first thought him. In fact, your father is feeling very kindly toward Mr. Langhorn since he has offered him one of his fine breeding bulls at a very good price.”
Melly was astonished and couldn’t hide it. Her face lit up, and her brown eyes.
Helen laid the embroidery down. “Honestly, you are my child. Did you think I would not see the sparks when you and Mr. Langhorn were together? A blind woman could see that he adores you. And, I think, the reverse is also true. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Melly ran to her mother and knelt at her side, hugging her with broken, incoherent words of explanation and joy.
“Jacob was afraid that you would not allow him to court me at all, that you and Father would be against such a match because of his reputation. But he is not a bad man, and his wife was a terrible woman.”
“Yes, I know. Chester heard it from a relative of hers, not long ago,” she said gently. “Your Mr. Langhorn is welcome here, Melly. Not for all the world would I put you in the position that Nora was placed in, having to run away in secret to marry. It has taught me a sad lesson.”
“I, too, am sad about Nora. Her life has not been a happy one this past year.”
Helen smoothed back her daughter’s dark hair with a loving hand. “Nor has yours. But I see happier times ahead for us all, my dear. And Christmas is coming fast.”
Melly grimaced. “It will not be a happy Christmas for our poor Nora. Or for Mr. Barton.” She frowned. “I wonder where he has gone.”
CAL BARTON HAD GONE TO EL PASO. More specifically, he had gone to Latigo.
A pretty young woman with golden hair and big brown eyes looked at him through the screen door when he came up onto the porch. She stepped outside, and that was when he saw the bundle she was carrying. He stopped dead, his lean, dark face briefly tormented as he realized that she had a baby in her arms.
Amelia Howard Culhane stared at the lithe, silver-eyed stranger curiously. Her father-in-law, Brant, mother-in-law, Enid, and brother-in-law Alan all had dark eyes and hair. But King’s eyes were silvery gray, several shades lighter than this man’s. And he had the same lithe, rodeo cowboy physique, with long legs and wide shoulders and narrow hips. He even had the faint arrogance she associated with her husband.
“Why, you must be Callaway!” she said suddenly as she remembered the description of him she had heard early in her marriage. “I’m Amelia, King’s wife. And this is our son, Russell,” she said proudly, smiling at the tiny thing in the blanket. “Do come in.”
He took off his hat, belatedly, and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair as he followed her into the house. His bag was still in the carriage he’d hired. He’d turned that over to the stableboy, with instructions to bring the bag up to the house and leave it on the porch for him. It felt strange to be at home again after such a long absence.
“Enid!” Amelia called. “Look who’s come to see you!”
A small, dark-eyed woman came out of the kitchen and stopped in her tracks as she saw the newcomer.
“Oh, my dear,” she said softly, and opened her arms.
Cal lifted her bodily off the floor and hugged her warmly. His little mother. He’d missed his family so much. And now he needed them more than ever before.
“It’s good to be home,” he said, putting her down with a wan smile.
“You’ve been away for years, it seems,” she chided, “and hardly ever a letter! Can you stay until after the New Year?”
He shrugged. “I might as well,” he said. “We’re waiting for a major part on the drill, and we can’t get one until the first of the year.”
“Why not use a part off another one?” she suggested sagely.
“Because this is a new type of drill. The old ones won’t fit it, more’s the pity. My partner is staying there to protect our interests until we can start again. Hopefully it will only be a delay of two or three weeks. I must learn to be patient.”
“Brant and Alan and King will be glad to see you,” she said. “They could never understand why you wouldn’t settle here and be part of the ranch business.”
He grinned. “Latigo is King’s. We all know that.” He glanced at the woman standing beside his mother and frowned slightly. “King, married and a father,” he said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t believe it when Alan told me he’d married.”
“Neither could I,” Amelia offered, tongue in cheek. “We had a very rough beginning. But Russell has been our greatest joy. He is only two weeks old,” she added.
Cal didn’t touch the child. He tried to, but his face was rigid and he forced a smile. “I’m no good with children.” He shrugged. “But he’s sweet.”
“He’s the image of his father,” Amelia said dreamily.
“King was never a baby,” Cal corrected. “He was born throwing orders around and breaking horses.”
“So I’ve heard,” Amelia replied with twinkling eyes.
“Come and have some cake with us,” Enid invited, pushing back her sweaty, gray-streaked hair. “I’ve just been cleaning the stove.”
A reminder that she did her own housework, and it hurt. It brought back thoughts of Nora that were painful.
They talked a little until the coffee boiled and the cake was sliced onto a china plate. Then the baby cried, and Amelia announced that he needed changing and went down the hall with him.
Enid sat down with her son and the tray of coffee and cake that he’d carried into the parlor for her.
“Now,” she said to Cal. “Tell me why you’ve come home, in mourning and wearing a wedding band.”
He caught his breath audibly. He’d forgotten the band, which was one of a set he’d purchased in St. Louis when the train stopped there, figuring that a ring would make Nora less conscious of her condition.
He looked at the ring long and hard.
“You’ve married,” Enid prompted.
He looked down, shamefaced. “Yes.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the whole sad tale. “She…lost our baby this week.”
“And you left her alone?”
“She didn’t want me with her,” he said. “It has been difficult. She’s an eastern woman, a socialite. She never wanted to marry me in the first place, but I…compromised her. I took her back to the ranch where I was working as foreman and installed her in the cabin. She had never cooked or cleaned.”
Enid was getting a sad picture. “And…?”
“The lifting was too much for her,” he said coldly, not sparing himself. “Beyond that, she contracted a fever in Africa. It recurs. She became very ill and lost the baby.”
“There is so much more,” Enid said solemnly. “Isn’t there?”
He smiled wanly. “I discovered too late that I love her.”
“And she?”
“Oh, she hates me,” he said pleasantly. “I cannot blame her. I dragged her into a life of drudgery to teach her humility. But it was I who learned the lesson.”
“A socialite living in a foreman’s cabin,” Enid said heavily. “How could you not bring her here, properly, to your home?”
“I could not because she thinks she’s married to a ranch foreman named Callaway Barton,” he said with a mocking smile. “Because of the combine business, I couldn’t tell her uncle who I was, much less could I tell her. She thought me a poor, dirty cowboy and bemoaned the fate that shackled her to me.”
“Oh, Cal,” his mother said, shaking her head. “You have made a mess of it.”
“Indeed I have. She would not even speak to me. I had too much to drink and went to Beaumont. From there, I had nowhere else to go. Except here.”
“Is there no chance for the two of you?” Enid asked.
His broad shoulders rose and fell. “She will have gone back to her parents in Virginia by now. Her father is the most appalling snob, and her mother does what she is told.” He looked up with twinkling eyes. “Unlike the women in this family.”
“Oh, I never did what your father told me to,” Enid agreed. “Eventually he realized it and stopped trying to boss me. Amelia is just the same,” she added with glee. “It’s a treat to watch King try to get his way with her.”
“She seems very gentle,” he began.
“Looks,” Enid said, “can be deceptive.”
The sound of horses outside brought them both to the front porch, where a tall, lithe man with dark hair and silver-gray eyes dismounted beside a slighter, older one.
“King! Father!” Cal greeted, going forward to hug them.
King’s eyes, so pale a gray that they seemed almost transparent, smiled into his brother’s. “I’m glad you came home at last,” he said. “How goes the oil business?”
“Slowly,” Cal replied.
“Good. You can stay for Christmas.” Brant Culhane chuckled, daring his son to refuse.
“I might as well,” Cal said. “I have very little else to do. I’ve quit the Tremayne ranch.”
“You accomplished the changes, then?” Brant asked solemnly.
“As many as possible. Now it’s a matter of time. Chester seems to be on the right track. At least I think he is. It was a good idea, to let me go as a foreman and ease him into the changes, rather than send orders to that effect,” Cal replied. “It also gave me the opportunity to be a short distance from Beaumont and the drilling rig. Pike can handle things until I return.”
“Is he trustworthy?” King asked as they went into the house.
“That I don’t know,” Cal murmured. “There’s something about him that makes my neck hair bristle. I’ll watch him. But his character hardly matters if we’re sitting on another dry hole.”
“There you are!” Amelia laughed, coming forward with the baby to greet King.
The change in the older man was astonishing. The hard, ruthless look fell away from him. He smiled at Amelia, and there was such a radiance about him that Cal was shocked. In all their lives together, he’d never seen that sort of expression on his older brother’s face.
“Hello, imp,” King murmured, and bent to kiss Amelia with tender affection. His lean hand touched the tiny head in her arms. “How’s my Rusty?”
“Don’t call him that!” Amelia groaned.
“He’s my son, I can call him Rusty if I like,” he reminded her teasingly. “Besides, he’s going to have red highlights in his hair, if it isn’t red altogether. Your mother was a redhead, you once told me.”
“Yes, she was,” Amelia had to confess. She adored King with her eyes. “You look tired, my darling.”
He smoothed back her hair. “So do you, little one,” he said deeply. “You had no sleep last night at all. He was fussy.”
“And you sat up with me,” she reminded him warmly. “But I didn’t have to go out and work all day. You did.” She caught his hand with her free one. “Come along and I’ll pour coffee and cake into you. It will refresh you no end. Enid’s made a lemon cake…!”
“They go on like that all the time,” Brant chuckled, watching them walk away. He shook his head. “Never saw anything like it.”
Neither had Cal. He felt more empty than he ever had, because now he could see what it would have been like if he and Nora had been close, if they’d had their baby and were married because they loved each other. He loved her, but she’d never loved him. If she had, his supposed profession as a working man would not have mattered to her. It hurt him to know that.
Brant talked about the ranch as they joined the others.
“Alan went back to see that girl outside Baton Rouge,” he said amusedly. “Looks like it may be serious this time.”
“Yes, and he’s talking about a career in banking, in Baton Rouge. I don’t think he’s going to settle here,” Enid said over her shoulder as she poured coffee into more cups.
“I never thought he would,” Cal remarked. He sat down again and sipped the rich black liquid. He glanced at his brother with warm eyes. “We’ve all known forever that Latigo would only belong to King. His heart lives here.”
“In more ways than one,” King replied quietly, with possessive eyes on his wife and child as he lifted his cup to his lips.
Enid picked up her own cup. “Cal is married.”
“King!” Amelia exclaimed, grabbing at a napkin to mop up the scalding coffee that had landed on his jeans.
King was staring at his brother, oblivious to the coffee. “What the hell did you say!” he burst out. “Married, and you never brought your wife to us?”
Cal glowered in his mother’s direction. “I couldn’t bring her here,” he said before the question had completely escaped King’s tight lips. “I was playing at being a ranch foreman, and she took it for the real thing. She’s a rich easterner who had a problem with her attitude toward lesser beings.” He shifted uncomfortably and averted his eyes.
“He was teaching her a lesson by letting her live as a ranch foreman’s wife,” Enid continued. “She taught him one instead and went home. He got drunk.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Cal muttered.
“You’re welcome, my dear,” she said sweetly.
King knew there was more than that, but Cal looked shattered enough. “Regardless of the circumstances, it’s nice to have you home,” he said firmly.
Enid knew she was being censured, without a word being spoken by her taciturn son. She grinned at him. “No need, King, dear, I’m finished.”
He chuckled. “Harridan,” he accused.
She nodded. “Living with your father caused it.”
“That’s right,” Brant sighed, “blame it on me.”
Cal felt secure again, welcome and safe. He sat back in his chair with a quiet sigh. But the smile on his face wasn’t a real one.