Jo-Ann loved the kind of country they were riding across. They were five miles from the house. It smelled good: big and fresh and dry. The horses spooked occasionally. Living things skittered in the low dry brush to either side of them. They came across the track left by a sidewinder. That would spook a horse. The mountains rising in the distance were more beautiful for their promise from miles away than they were when you reached them.
"Nevada ..."
"Uh?"
"I'm a virgin."
"I'd sort of hope you was, at your age."
Jo-Ann shook her head. "My mother wasn't when she was eighteen. My father —"
"Prob'ly was when he was eighteen," Nevada interrupted. "Th' old man wasn't for foolin' around. 'Course ... your father made up for it pretty quick, when he got the chance. Uh — Come to think of it, once he started to drive a car ..."
"Nevada ... I'm very uncomfortable."
The lanky old man shook his head. "Honey, you ain't got no idea what uncomfortable is."
"I'd like a man I trust to — It could be you, Nevada."
"Missy! Don't you never say nothin' like that ag'in! Jeezuss Christ! I don't ever wanta hear nothin' like that ag'in. I won't tell your father, but —"
Jo-Ann sobbed. "But you can see!"
He shook his head. "I can't see."
"Somebody I trust. That was the point."
"I could be — I could be your grandfather. Grandfather? Hell, I could be your great-grandfather."
"Forgive me?" She sniffed.
"Sure. But look, sis. When you're eighteen it looks like that's got to be the most wonderful thing in the whole world. It ain't. It's good, but it's not the best thing in the world. You gotta learn to live with it, like you do with everything else."
"I heard my father say one time that you were the smartest man he'd ever met when it came to ... life."
Nevada shook his head. "Maybe that's because he's done some dumb things in that department. It could be that was what killed his daddy, findin' out that Junior had done it dumb again and was going to have to pay hush money."
"Blackmail?"
Nevada shrugged. "Whatever they called it. Oh, hell, it didn't kill him. He died of bourbon and hot temper and maybe of tryin' to keep up with the young woman he'd married to keep your father from marryin' her."
"Rina?"
"You've heard of her. Your daddy wanted to marry her. He was set on it. Your granddaddy married her and carried her off to Europe on a honeymoon."
"What a family! No wonder I'm crazy."
"You're not crazy, honey." He chuckled. "Maybe you're a Cord, though."
Jo-Ann reined her horse to a stop. "Sex," she said. "If you won't teach me, tell me something, anyway. It ruins lives."
Nevada reined his horse around and sat facing the beautiful dark-haired girl in the tight blue jeans and wool shirt. "Blue-eyes lives," he said. "My daddy was a buffalo hunter. My ma was a Kiowa. The Kiowa were noble people that knowed how to live. A Kiowa man never dreamt dreams about doin' it. He didn't have to; he did it. A Kiowa woman never worried about it. She didn't have to; she did it. The Kiowa wouldn't-a cared about pictures of people doin' it. What good was that? They wouldn't-a read in books about people doin' it. What good was that? They didn't make up stories about it, or make laws about it, or suppose the Great Unknowable cared how and when they done it. If children come and nobody could figure out exactly whose they was, that didn't make no difference; children belonged to the tribe, and all of 'em was taken care of. You understand?"
"Do it with whoever I want to?"
"Not quite that. Do it with whoever'll take responsibility, the way the tribe did. Responsibility. That there's the point. An ugly word with the white man. And forget all the hoodoo-voodoo. This thing we're talkin' about, it's mine, it's your'n, it's his'n, it's her'n. It's nobody else's but. And it's not worth moanin' and groanin' and worryin' and hurryin' about. Live, little girl! Pee when you have to and fuck when you want to. But you wouldn't pee on the street in public, so don't fuck where and when it ain't right — and not with the wrong man. That's all the rules they is about it."
Jo-Ann smiled and started her horse back toward the house. "Thank you, Nevada," she said. "My father was right about one thing. You are the smartest man about life either one of us has ever met."
3
She had known yesterday afternoon that she and Nevada would be returning to the house alone — alone, that is, but for Robair and the ranch hands who worked around the place. The plane bringing her new half brother and the woman from Washington wouldn't arrive before midnight.
She had continued to wish Nevada would consent to come to her bed, but she'd known he wouldn't, and she'd known better than to mention it again.
A hundred yards from the house, Jo-Ann reined her horse to a stop again. She yawned. "Would you believe I got out of bed this morning in New York?" she said. "Are you having dinner with me, Nevada?"
"I wasn't countin' on it, but you are alone, huh? Gonna eat early?"
She nodded. "Surprise Robair," she said.
"Not much surprises that man. Anyway, sure, tell him to set two places."
The dinner was what she'd asked for because she knew it was what the ranch kitchen most easily afforded — besides which she did not want to invade the food stocked for the Christmas Eve party. She and Nevada sat facing each other across the table, over steaks and potatoes, salads, and a bottle of red wine. Neither had changed clothes since their ride. Nevada actually wore buckskins. Jo-Ann wished he would wear them tomorrow night but knew he wouldn't. She would like to show up at the party in her jeans and wool shirt — and knew she wouldn't.
"If I asked him," she said, "I think my father might let me come and live here. My mother would hate it, but —"
"You'd be lonesome out here," said Nevada. "Tomorrow this house is gonna be full of folks. It isn't that way most of the time."
"You'd come and see me, wouldn't you? It's only a short drive. And I could come and see you."
"You can't count on me," he said.
"What? We've always counted on you. My grandfather, my father —"
"Not much longer," said Nevada.
"Nevada ... ?"
He smiled. "A man ain't forever, y'- know. I'm seventy years old."
"Kiowa men live to be ninety."
He shook his head. "Not this Kiowa. I tell you because you talk about countin' on this ol' man, like the Cords have always counted on me. If you tell your father what I'm goin' to tell you, then you ain't my friend. But the Great Unknowable has started callin' fer Nevada. Fer Max. That's my real name, y' know: Max Sand. I sit on my porch and look at the country. The country's callin' me. I kin hear it in the wind."
"What are you saying, Nevada?" Jo-Ann asked, alarmed.
"Promise me you won't tell."
"I promise."
Nevada stared for a moment at the bite of rare beef on his fork. "By god, that's good," he said. "There ain't nothin' better to eat than a real good piece of beef. We didn't have it in the old days, you know. This comes off a fat steer, one that couldn't a lived on the range grass. We —"
"Nevada You're changing the subject."
He sighed loudly. "Man doesn't know how long he's got. But they's signs. Mine don't read good."
Jo-Ann put down her knife and fork. "You can't read life and death from owl feathers," she said. "Or anything like that."
"Don't be so sure. But that don't make no difference. That's not what I'm readin'. I've started rottin' away inside. I can feel it, and I can smell it. When a man don't smell good —"