“Come on in, Rita,” Smoke told her, then turned to Beans. “Wake up those in the house; if they’re not already awake. Get some coffee going. As soon as Hanks finds out his girl is gone, we’re going to have problems.”
She was limping from her long walk, and she was tired, but still could not conceal her happiness at finally being free of her father. Over coffee and bacon and eggs, she told her story while Fae and Parnell and all the others gathered around in the big house and listened.
When she was finished, she slumped in her chair, exhausted.
“I wondered why the gunnies were holding back,” Hardrock said. “This tells it all.”
“Yes,” Lujan said. “But I don’t think they came in here with that in mind. No one ever approached me with any such scheme. And both sides offered me fighting wages.”
“I think this plan was just recently hatched, after several others failed. Rita’s attack did not produce the desired effect; Hanks didn’t attack Cord. Blackie failed to kill me. So they came up with this plan.”
Smoke looked at Rita. The young woman was asleep, her head on the table.
“I’ll get her to bed,” Fae said. “You boys start chowing down. I think it’s going to be a very long day.”
“Yeah,” Beans agreed. “ ’Cause come daylight, Hanks and his boys are gonna be on the prowl. If this day don’t produce some shootin’, my name ain’t Bainbridge.”
Silver Jim looked at him and blinked. “Bainbridge! No wonder they call you Beans. Bainbridge!”
Hanks knocked his wife sprawling, backhanding her. “You knew, damn you!” he yelled at her. “You heped her, didn’t you? Don’t lie to me, woman. You and Rita snuck around behind my back and planned all this.”
Liz slowly got to her feet. A thin trickle of blood leaked from one corner of her mouth. She defiantly stood her ground. “I knew she was planning to leave, yes. But I didn’t know when or how. You’ve changed, Dooley. Changed into some sort of a madman.”
That got her another blow. She fell back against the wall and managed to grab the back of a chair and steady herself. She stared at her husband as she wiped her bloody mouth with the back of her hand.
“Where’d she go?” Hanks yelled the question. “Naw!” Dooley waved it off. “You don’t have to tell me. I know. She went over to Cord’s place, didn’t she?”
“No, she didn’t,” Liz’s voice had calmed, but her mouth hurt her when she spoke.
“You a damn liar! ” Dooley raged. ”A damn frog-eyed liar. There ain’t no other place she could have gone.”
Outside, just off the porch, Lanny was listening to the ravings .
“This might throw a kink into things,” Park spoke softly.
“Maybe not. This might be a way to get rid of Cord and his boys in a war that even if the law was to come in, they’d call it a fair shootin . Man takes another man’s kid in without the father’s permission, that’s a shootin’ offense.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. You right.”
“If she did go to the Double Circle C,” Lanny added.
“Where else would she go? Her and that damn uppity Sandi McCorkle is good friends.”
“Rita is no fool. She just might have gone over to the Box T. But we won’t mention that. Just let Hanks play it his way.”
“I’m gonna tell you something, woman,” Hanks pointed blunt finger at his wife. “I find out you been lyin’ to me, I’ gonna give you a hidin’ that you’ll remember the rest of your life.”
“That would be like you,” she told him. “Whatever don’t understand, you destroy.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Dooley screamed at her, slobber leaking out of his mouth, dribbling onto his shirt and vest.
She turned her back to him and started to leave the
“Don’t you turn your back to me, woman! I done put with just about all I’m gonna take from you.”
She stopped and turned slowly. “What are you going to Dooley? Beat me? Kill me? It doesn’t make any difference. Love just didn’t die a long time ago. Your hatred killed it. Y hatred, your obsession with power. You allowed our sons to grow up as nothing more than ignorant savages. You...”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Dooley screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Lies, all lies, woman. I’m ridin’ to get my kid back. And when I get her back here, I’m gonna take a buggy whip to her backside. That’s something I shoulda done a time ago. And I just might take it in my head to use the whip on you.”
Liz stared hard at him. “If you ever hit me again, Dooley. I’ll kill you.” Dooley recoiled as if struck with those words. “And the same goes for Rita. But you’ve lost her. She’ll never come back here; don’t worry about that. I’ll tell you where she’s gone, Dooley. She’s gone to the Box T.”
“Lies! More lies from you. Cord planned with you all on this, and you know it. He’s con-spired agin me ever since we come into this area. He’d do anything to get at me. He’s jealous of me.”
His wife openly laughed at that.
Dooley’s face reddened and he took a step toward his wife, his hand raised. She backed up and picked up a poker from the fireplace.
“You were warned,” she told him. “You try to hit me and I’ll bash your head in.”
He stood and cursed her until he ran out of breath. But she would not lower the poker and even in his maddened state he knew better than to push his luck.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he said, then turned and stalked out the door.
She leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, listening to him holler for his men to saddle up and get ready to ride. She did not put down the poker as long as he was on the front porch. Only when she heard him mount up and the thunder of hooves pound away did she lower the poker and replace it in the set on the hearth.
She walked outside to stand on the porch, waiting for the dust to settle from the fast-riding men. She noticed Gage and several of the other hands had not ridden with her husband.
The foreman walked over to the porch and looked up at the still attractive woman. There was open disgust in his eyes as he took in the bruises on her face.
“I ain’t got no use atall for a man who hits a woman,” Gage said.
“That’s not the man I married, Gage.”
“Yeah, it is, Liz. It’s the same man I been knowin’ for years. You just been deliberately blind over the years, that’s all.”
“Maybe so, Gage.” She sighed. She knew, of course, that Gage had been in love with her for a long, long time. And her feelings toward the foreman had been steadily growing stronger with time. She cut her eyes toward him. “You’re not riding with him?”
“Me and the boys punch cows, Liz. I made that plain to him the other day. He still has enough sense about him to know that someone has to work the spread.”
“What would you say if I told you I was going to leave him?”
“Then me and you would strike out together, Liz.”
She smiled. “And do what, Gage?”
“Get married. Start us a little spread a long ways from here.”
“I’m a married woman, Gage. It’s not proper to talk to a married woman like that.”
“I don’t see you turnin’ around and walkin’ off, Liz.”
She looked hard at him. “Mister Hanks and I will be sharing separate bedrooms from now on, Gage. I would appreciate if you would stay close as much as possible.”
“I would consider that an honor, Liz.”
“Would you like to have some coffee, Gage?”
“I shore would.”
“Make yourself comfortable on the porch, Gage. I’ll go freshen up and hotten the coffee. I won t be a minute.” “Take your time, Liz. I’ll be here.”
She smiled. Her hair was graying and there were lines in her face. But to the foreman, she was as beautiful as the first day he’d laid eyes on her. “I’m counting on that, Gage.”