Titans

  “Buckley says the place has got its own underground spring as well as a good-sized house, garden, and orchard,” he said. “Why, we could turn the place from a mere cow camp into a smaller version of Las Tres Lomas, nice enough for you and your mother to visit and to invite guests. The whole property doesn’t have to become a livestock thoroughfare. We could grow our own hay against drought, and you could experiment with new grasses. We wouldn’t be out a cent for a silo and barns.”

  Samantha had not seen Neal Gordon this excited in years. His eyes were bright, his color strong and ruddy. She had not heard the whistling in his chest. She saw no overt cause for concern about his health. In his mind, the deal was done. He relished the idea of owning another full-fledged ranch with the amenities of Las Tres Lomas: a main house, real bunkhouse and ranch kitchen, indoor privies, electric lights, running water, maybe even a telephone—which Las Tres Lomas did not yet possess, since the list of subscriber applicants in the Fort Worth area was long. A second ranch would get him a notch closer to becoming a titan among Texas cattlemen.

  Her father would just as soon let slide recollections of his land-grabbing years, when he bought every parcel of acreage contiguous to his ranch that came on the market. Like now, they were times of overflowing watering wells and abundant grass and healthy herds—“the green years,” he called them. Buy now while the gettin’ is good had been his philosophy. But then “the brown years” had come, seasons of drought when most of the water sources and all the grasslands in Central Texas had dried up, and a financial crisis called the Panic of 1893 had struck the United States, casting its shadow on mortgaged ranches like Las Tres Lomas. Young as she was, Samantha’s memory of those times was sharper than her father’s, and they had bred caution in her so that now, even with ledger columns in the black and the mortgage long paid off, she was reluctant to part with an unnecessary penny. She believed in erecting impenetrable hedges against financial disaster.

  “I declare, honeybee, your daughter is getting tighter than a debutante’s corset about money,” he’d said to her mother.

  “Uh-huh, so now she’s my daughter, is she? Well, maybe Samantha’s never forgotten the deep worry lines on her papa’s face or the tense discussions around the supper table when it looked like we could lose the ranch because we were one payment away from default. Samantha’s just trying to preserve what Neal Gordon has worked so hard for so those worry lines won’t come again.”

  Her mother had not needed to say it, but her accusing eye and tone had declared clear enough that Neal had been at fault for their near financial ruin. His zeal to become one of the biggest landowners in Texas had led him to buy grazing range for his ever-increasing herds. The Gordons had been left land rich but cash poor. Neal had learned his lesson, but it was still a dream of his to see the distinctive brand of Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad—double T’s flanked by a pair of smaller L’s—spread throughout Texas. He wanted to become a titan.

  “What’s a titan?” Samantha, ten years old, had asked her father when he’d presented her with a book of Greek mythology as a birthday gift. Tales of gods and goddesses had been his favorite literature as a boy and—secretly—as a man.

  “They were gods that once ruled the universe,” Neal answered. “You can read all about them in that book. Today the word refers to people of great importance and power.”

  “And you want to be a titan?”

  “God willing,” Neal said.

  Her mother had rolled her eyes.

  As Samantha folded her napkin and excused herself from the table, the thought occurred to her that if she and Sloan were to marry and combine the two ranches, her father would have his wish.

  Since Neal had cleaned up for the day, at her suggestion, she left him to his newspapers and a nap, since he was drowsy from the bourbon and heavy meal, and rode Pony to the birthing area where she was sure to find the ranch foreman, Wayne Harris. It must be the scientist in her that she could not let a thing lie once it piqued her interest. Her father looked and acted well, but he’d received a confidential letter from a doctor. It was uncharacteristic of him not to show it to her and even less so for him to burn it. He kept personal letters for months before they ended up in the kindling bin.

  No season was more exciting on a ranch than spring when the calves were born, but no time was more mentally and physically demanding for mother, calf, and cowhand. Certain pens were designated to hold cows giving birth so that their deliveries could be monitored and assistance rendered in case of difficulties. During calving season, Wayne was in charge of the birthing pens and a master at saving cows and calves in life-threatening straits, often with the assistance of Samantha. Samantha found him engaged in just such a struggle ten minutes later.

  “Thank God you’re here, Mornin’ Glory,” he said. “We can use your help. We’ve got a heifer in trouble.”

  “Is she going to make it?”

  “Hard to tell. The calf’s got problems, too.”

  The cow, her head held by two men and her legs tied to prevent her from suddenly leaping up in the middle of trying to save her, aborted her calf and hemorrhaged to death an hour later. Sickened by the agonizing ordeal, their boots, jeans, and shirts soaked in mud and blood and body fluids, Samantha and Wayne headed for a water tank to wash off the gore.

  “You sure have to love ranching to witness that,” the foreman said as he wrung out his shirt. “I don’t reckon I’ll ever adjust to the grief of it.”

  Samantha glanced at him. She appreciated that about Wayne—his sensitivity, despite that he gave the appearance and had the reputation of a man it was wise not to unduly provoke. He was not a tall man, but his wiry, corded frame toughened by years of ranch work and superintending cowboys gave the impression of a greater height. In age, he had looked the same to Samantha all her life, neither young nor old, simply durable and unchanging as post oak. She considered him and Grizzly her truest friends.

  “I’m glad I didn’t eat much of Grizzly’s fried steak,” she said. “Did everything run all right while I was gone?”

  “Rawbone got into a saloon fight in White Settlement last Saturday night, and I had to go bail his sorry hide outta jail. Your pa put up the money and will dock it from his pay. Other than that, no mishaps.”

  “Daddy seem okay to you? Healthwise, I mean?”

  Wayne raised an eyebrow. “Far as I can tell, MG. You have reason to wonder?”

  Samantha flapped the water from her arms and hands to dry them. “Mother and I noticed Daddy wheezing a little at my birthday party. It’s her opinion that someday he’ll have to pay the piper for that Comanche arrow he took in his lung when he was young. Also”—Samantha rolled down her sleeves—“he received a letter marked ‘Confidential’ from a doctor in the Oklahoma Territory. He threw it into the fire before I could read it. I found that suspicious. I thought it might have to do with a reply to a medical question about himself, but Daddy said it was from a veterinarian in answer to a letter he’d written him about a dip he’d concocted to get rid of cattle ticks. He read about it in a magazine article.”

  “You can believe him, MG,” Wayne said, buttoning into his shirt. “Fact is, Neal showed the article to me, and we both agreed the stuff wasn’t for us. The ticks might’ve died but the cow wouldn’t have lived.”

  Samantha blew out a little breath of relief. “Well, okay then.”

  “But the article wadn’t written by no doctor.”

  Samantha stared at him. “Are you sure? A Dr. Tolman from Marietta in the Oklahoma Territory?”

  “Sure, I’m sure. It was written by a rancher up in Denton County.”

  “Oh, God, Wayne.” Samantha put her hands on her hips, anger peppering her concern. She’d been lied to, and so adeptly, too.

  “Now, don’t go gettin’ mad at your pa, Mornin’ Glory. He might’a had a good reason for keepin’ that letter from you. The person who’d know is Grizzly. Neal can’t keep nothin’ from Grizzly, hard as he might try.”

  Sa
mantha said, “Well, I believe I’ll just go pay Grizzly a visit. You won’t mention this conversation to Daddy?”

  “Lips tighter’n a miser’s pocket. I’ll see if the magazine is still around. I may have it in my quarters in the bunkhouse.”

  Samantha removed Pony’s saddle and set the quarter horse free in a paddock, then took off for the long log-timbered building that housed the kitchen and dining room of the ranch cook’s domain. TRAIL HEAD was burned above its front door, named for the point of a cattle drive’s conclusion. Grizzly ran a finely tuned staff of four that assisted him in feeding thirty cowhands three meals a day, six days a week. Sundays, his day of rest, ranch employees could fend for themselves, which they did by usually roasting a side of beef over a pit fire, with the more skilled among them stirring up deep-dish cobblers to go with the pans of biscuits and kettles of beans. On Sundays, Grizzly attended church in town, treated himself to dinner in the dining room of the Metropolitan Hotel, and spent the afternoon as a volunteer in the Masonic Widows and Orphans Home, erected the previous year, in 1899. Nobody on the ranch saw him until he reappeared in his own quarters Sunday night, where he could be observed reading by lamplight in his chair by the window.

  Samantha found him in his small office next to the pantry tallying monthly receipts. Short in stature and bearish in build, he was teased as being almost as big around as he was tall, but wisely out of range of his rolling pin. When Samantha appeared in the open doorway, a frown was in place to bestow upon the intruder, but it cleared instantly when he spun around in his desk chair and saw his visitor.

  “Mornin’ Glory!” he cried, getting up to hug her. “Happy belated birthday! How did the party go? All we got from your pa was that you looked as pretty as a spring sunrise.”

  “Tell you the truth, it was just so-so this year, Grizzly.”

  Grizzly sat back down with a rueful grin. “Turnin’ twenty get you down?”

  Samantha chuckled at his quickness. “How’d you know?”

  “ ’Cause you’re a woman turnin’ twenty, that’s why.” And unmarried, Samantha was sure he was thinking. Not that her single state would be a cause of worry to Grizzly. He abhorred change. What if the man she married came in, threw his weight around, and upset things? He sniffed and looked her over. “You already been at the birthing barns?”

  “I went out to talk to Wayne and got caught in a situation. We lost mother and calf.”

  Grizzly grimaced in sympathy. “Too bad.”

  “And now I’ve come to talk to you.”

  “Sounds dire. What about?”

  “Daddy. Have you noticed anything or has he said something to suggest he’s not well?”

  Grizzly pressed his lips together, fleshy as plump plums. After a thoughtful second he said, “Nooo, not a whiff. What did Wayne say?”

  “Same thing, but I’m worried, especially since he bald-faced lied to me when I questioned him about a letter he received from a doctor marked ‘Confidential.’ ”

  “What did the letter say?”

  “He threw it into the fire before I could read it.”

  Grizzly leaned back in his chair. “Oh-oh, that’s not good. Who was the letter from?”

  “A Dr. Donald Tolman from Marietta, Oklahoma Territory.”

  Relief flooded Grizzly’s bearded face. “Oh, Samantha, hon, there’s nothin’ wrong with your pa, thank the Lord. That letter was from the doctor who put you into your pa and ma’s arms!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Grizzly’s expression held the horror of someone who’s accidentally swallowed a bone. Samantha stared back as if he had. The slip of his tongue penetrated slowly, like the return of feeling after a numbing blow.

  Samantha said, drawing out her words, “The letter… was… from the doctor who delivered me?” She recalled her mother’s mention of a doctor the time she’d held her ear to the library door at ten years old.

  Grizzly flapped his hands as if waving a rebellious audience back to its seats. “Shush!” he rasped, glancing around at the open door. He got up and, with the duck-walk peculiar to short, corpulent men, swayed to close it against any of the kitchen crew who might be listening, even though most of them understood only Spanish. Then he waddled back and sat down heavily at his desk and clamped his temples between his thumb and fingers. “Lord have mercy, what have I done?” he moaned. “If your pa ever finds out what I just told you, he’ll know the information came from me. He’ll think I betrayed him, and I’d rather be flayed alive than have him believe that.”

  Samantha could feel a stirring inside her like a cat uncurling from a long nap in a corner of a forgotten room. “How do you know this Dr. Tolman?”

  Grizzly shot her a miserable glance. “Please, Samantha, forget that name and what you just heard.”

  “Well, now, I don’t know that I can do that, but I can give you my word that what you say here will never leave this office.”

  Grizzly looked alarmed. “What do you mean, what I say here? I’ve said all I’m goin’ to say.”

  “No you haven’t. Tell me about Dr. Tolman. How do you know him? Did you meet him the night he brought me here?”

  Grizzly said sharply, “How do you know it was night?”

  “Wayne told me—long ago. He said he didn’t know anything else about that night.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Please, Grizzly. What harm would it do for me to know?”

  Obstinately, Grizzly fastened his gaze away from her, folded his arms and set them on the shelf of his belly. “Plenty, if your pa finds out.”

  “He won’t. I have as much reason to keep this between you and me as you do. He lied to me about that letter and threw it into the fire, remember. He’s obviously sworn you to secrecy and doesn’t want me to know anything about Dr. Tolman, and I understand that. I know how he’d feel if he thought I was the least bit curious about the circumstances of my birth.”

  Grizzly cut her a razor-sharp glance. “Well, then, why are you all of a sudden? You’ve never been curious before.”

  Samantha frowned thoughtfully. “I really don’t know. I was only this morning reflecting that I was way past the time for Daddy and Mother to worry that my real parents would show up. That was always a fear of theirs—Daddy’s, especially—that they’d come looking for me. As for me, except for the one time when I was fifteen that I asked Wayne what he knew about my birth, I never thought about it again… until… this came up.” Samantha looked at the cook entreatingly. “I’d do nothing with the information, Grizzly. Why would I? I’d just like to know… what you know, that’s all, and then I’ll be satisfied and mention it no more. Please, my friend?”

  Grizzly let out the sigh of a cook who knows his pot roast is overdone and cannot be rescued. “The doctor came in the middle of the night with you. You weren’t but a few days old. I heard the buggy drive up. Don’t ask me how. I usually sleep sound as a hibernatin’ bear, but that night I was awake. It was a good thing, too. It wasn’t no time before Neal was bangin’ on my door wantin’ my key to the ice room. He needed milk but had no idea where the key was, or otherwise I’d never have known nothin’ about you until the next day.”

  The cook paused, as if deliberating whether to go on.

  “Please, Grizzly. What else?”

  “Your pa said, proud as I’ve ever seen him, ‘We got us a baby, Grizzly,’ and I got the picture immediately. I told him to go on back to the house, I’d bring the milk.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I took the milk to the main house and the doctor, he had brought a baby feedin’ tube, and he showed your folks how to use it, warm the milk, that sort of thing. He put a little honey in it. Oh, Lord, it was all somethin’ to see, you no bigger than a man’s hand, and your folks hoppin’ all over themselves with joy. Your mother kept sayin’, ‘Oh, thank you, Dr. Tolman.’ That’s how I recognized the man’s name.”

  Samantha sat mesmerized, picturing the scene. “And… did this doctor say anything about…
anything else?”

  “Nary a word, Mornin’ Glory, and that’s the truth. He came, he delivered, and he left. That’s all I know, and it’s more than your pa wants you to know. That’s why he destroyed the letter. He wants no thread to lead you back to where you came from. You need to get that in your pretty head and leave it there.”

  “I have no intention of following a thread anywhere, Grizzly. I’m satisfied and grateful to learn that Daddy is okay, but I just wonder… why did Dr. Tolman write to him? What was in the letter?”

  Grizzly sighed again. “Now see, it’s that kind a’ questionin’ that can get you into trouble. One question leads on to another and then another, and before you know it, the bread crumbs have led you into somethin’ you can’t get out of.”

  Samantha rose and hugged the expansive breadth of the cook’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Grizzly. I’m not following bread crumbs anywhere. My roots are here. The family and people I love are here. I want no other.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” Grizzly said, sounding unconvinced. He levered up from his chair and took down his badge of authority hanging on a peg. He slipped the neck of the capacious apron over his head and turned around for Samantha to secure the ties. “Just remember this, young lady. Your daddy loves you more than life, but there is no such thing as an unbreakable connection. There are some things in this world that unconditional, everlastin’, endurin’ love can’t stand up to, and the biggest is betrayal. It’s only natural for an adopted child turnin’ twenty to be curious about where she came from, who her folks were, if she has any left, but I’m advisin’ you to hold to your word and let the matter go.”

  Had she heard a faint echo of an experience in Grizzly’s past that made him speak with such authority and caution? Grizzly possessed a Christian name, but Samantha had never heard it. As far as anybody knew, he had no relatives. He received no personal correspondence and had never introduced anyone as a member of his family. Hardly beyond a boy, he had been hired as the ranch cook’s helper by her father’s father and had lived on Las Tres Lomas ever since. It was assumed his kin were all dead or he had forsaken them or vice versa. It remained unstated, but Grizzly considered the Gordons and Wayne Harris his family; the ranch, his home. Samantha had never had cause to wonder how it was that he had come to Las Tres Lomas alone in the world, but now she was convinced he’d been orphaned or abandoned.