Leon nodded and slipped back the pipe he’d drawn from his jacket pocket as if deciding against lighting up. “That was my notion, sure enough. I had a feelin’ that’s what it was all about. If the folks who’d birthed you had panned out, he’d ’a stepped back.” Leon chuckled. “I turned him from that direction soon enough. You were with the folks who deserved and loved you. Wadn’t no guarantee of that for you at the Holloway farm.” Leon grinned at her. “I got the impression when your pa left that he’d ’a wrestled a band of Comanche ’fore he’d let us get our hands on you. ’Course he left thinkin’ I was your father.”
Tears pressed and Samantha fought against their release. She had not come here to cry. Emotion must not be allowed to cloud clear thinking. At the moment hers was as hazy as feathers unleashed in a pillow fight. She concentrated on placing in order the events that had led her here. Logic said that Dr. Tolman, ill and dying, had sent a letter to Neal Gordon containing information of Samantha’s birth. From it, her father had learned she’d been born a twin and the name and whereabouts of the couple who’d given her away, facts he did not wish his daughter to know and the reason for destroying the letter before she could read it. He sent her to the Barrows farm in response to the classified ad with no idea that the seller was Millicent Holloway. Somehow in her absence, Neal Gordon recognized his mistake and immediately dropped interest in the property.
But then Neal Gordon discovered Eleanor Brewster’s letter in the basket of figs that alerted him to the inquiries his daughter had made into her birth. The discovery accounted for the hellish months that followed and her father’s decision to go to La Paloma as a ruse to check out the Holloways. Samantha’s throat burned as she remembered how he’d left her the day he rode off from the Trail Head on his mission of love and sacrifice. I love you, Samantha, he’d said with the last look of a warrior leaving for a war from which he knew he’d never return. And then there came the day of the picnic at Windy Bluff when Neal learned that Nathan went by the last name of Holloway, a revelation that declared the landman to be his daughter’s twin brother and Trevor Waverling her father.
Nearly all was clear now. Samantha had the answers she’d come for and the key to the mystery of her father’s puzzling animosity toward Trevor Waverling and his clumsy attempts to keep her and Nathan apart. What a web he had spun for himself! How trapped in a net of guilt and fear. Samantha knew she should hate him, but she did not. He’d suffered enough. She understood his motives and forgave them. A man is defined by his motives—the mantra that Seth Singleton and now Sloan lived by. Neal Gordon’s had not been pure, but they’d resulted from a father’s love for his daughter and the fear of her loss. Samantha regretted only that he’d not trusted the depth of a daughter’s love for her father.
Tears finally clouded her vision, and Leon laid a rough hand over hers. “ ’Course if I hadn’t made us sound so bad, you would have been reunited with your twin brother and that would have been a very good thing, but I had to do what I thought best.”
“Have no regrets, Mr. Holloway,” Samantha said. “Nathan and I have many years to make up for lost time.”
Leon said without apparent surprise, “So you plan on identifying yourself to him?”
“I do.”
“And Trevor Waverling?”
“To him, as well.” A squirrel scampered up a tree branch and perched there eyeing them inquisitively, providing a distraction for her wet eyes. “But to my mother… no. I came here to meet her, but I don’t find that necessary now. Can we keep this meeting between you and me? I’d prefer she never knew I was here.”
“I promise you this meeting will be a pleasure I’ll keep to myself. It’s wise of you to decide not to meet her. Best for both of you. As Millicent would say, ‘What good would come of it?’ Nothin’ that I can see. You must believe me on that. Go home to all those who love and want you, Samantha, and forget about the mother who didn’t.”
“My maternal grandparents? Where are they?”
“Dead. Both of ’em contemptible. Nathan knows. You’re better off never havin’ known ’em.”
Samantha nodded and stood. Leon unwound his legs and hefted himself off the bench also. “Well, that all said, Mr. Holloway, I will take your advice and go home.” She held out her hand.
Leon sandwiched it between his. “So when you go home, what do you plan to do with all these cats let out of the bag?”
“Let ’em roam free,” Samantha answered. “No more keeping secrets. No more sweeping dust under the rug. We’re all family. Regardless of our misguided steps, our hearts have been in the right place. There’s room in them for everybody. Also”—she withdrew her hand to cup her abdomen—“I want that bag empty when my child is born.”
Chapter Eighty-One
Sloan met her at the train station and held her fast and long. “Your mother is with Neal at the Triple S,” he said. “He’s drilling a hole through the front window watching for you.”
“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
“No, but they know, Sam. Your father figured out where you went and why. From the looks of your mother, he’s told her everything. Her eyes are fiery red, and your daddy has on his wooden face, the kind he wears when he’s playing poker and has a losing hand.”
“If I know him, he won’t play a card until he sees all of mine,” Samantha said.
The Neal Gordons were standing to await her arrival when Samantha walked into the great room, her father stiff as a plank, her mother limp as a pillow with the feathers removed. Estelle’s eyes did indeed look sandblasted and fastened on her in mute, heart-rending appeal. Neal’s thoughts were indiscernible behind the hard screen of his gaze, but they were as easy to read as the days he’d surveyed the endless brown acres of his ranch that threatened the demise of his domain.
She held out her hands to them. “Mother, Daddy, let’s sit down together,” she said. “We have something to discuss.”
She started at the beginning.
When it was all over and the truth exposed, feelings expressed, misperceptions and false impressions set right, transgressions forgiven, and eyes dried, Samantha left the room and stepped out onto the front porch to breathe in fresh air. She had left Neal and Estelle in the great room, her mother revitalized, thrilled over the coming grandchild, her father looking washed-out but like a draw cleaned of debris to receive fresh water in the spring. He would always be wary of Trevor Waverling. Samantha was prepared for that. Neal Gordon would keep an eye out for Trevor’s encroachment on his territory as he had for Mexican marauders and the Comanche years after peace was made between country and nation and posed no threat to his land. It was his way.
“What… will you call him… Trevor Waverling?” he had asked.
Samantha had thought a moment. “Whatever the name my child chooses for him,” she’d said.
The night was dark and cold. Samantha shivered and suddenly felt the warmth of her woolen shawl draped about her shoulders. From behind, Sloan wrapped his arms around her, drew her tightly against him, and laid his chin upon her head. “Since it’s a night of confessions, will you hear mine?”
At last it was coming. In October an article had appeared in the monthly magazine The Archaeologist under the title “Dinosaur Relic Discovered in Box of Libby String Beans.” The mysterious and amusing appearance of the fossil had made national news in the country’s scientific community. In shock, Samantha had recognized the accompanying photo. A coldness had seized her bones. Without the description of the box and cup towels, she would have thought Todd responsible for the theft and shipment of the skull to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, but the culprit had been Sloan. Paleontologists had identified the partial skull of the dinosaur as a sauropod.
Her heart pumping, Samantha had retreated to her makeshift laboratory where she could count on clarity and reason to prevail. Surrounded by relics and compounds, she traveled back in her mind to the day she found the skull missing. She and Sloan had parte
d at the crossroads to their ranches after his proposal that Sunday morning. To her disappointment, looking uneasy, he had refused to go with her to the site of her discovery and had posed a strange question. Sam, you know that I would never make a decision, do anything, that wasn’t in your best interests, don’t you?
When she’d asked the reason for the question, he’d answered: Just for reassurance that you understand I’d never do anything intentionally to hurt you.
I know that, she’d said.
I love you, Samantha Gordon.
I know that, too.
And she did know that, then and now, and for all the days of her life. Sloan had already taken the skull by then, ostensibly from Todd the afternoon before when he doubled back to the site. From that point of recollection, Samantha could only hypothesize, but she believed Sloan had interrupted Todd’s theft of the skull and taken it to prevent him from destroying it as surely as the traitor had destroyed her Kodak. Samantha had figured out how Todd had feigned his innocence of the charge. Possibly Trevor Waverling had worked it out as well but couldn’t prove it and was waiting to catch Todd in another false step.
Sloan had meant to return the skull to her, but then Samantha had confided the cause of the conflict between her and her father. Already deeply concerned about the breach between them, Sloan had realized the relic would widen it, perhaps irreparably. Neal Gordon would insist on his oil field; she would fight for her burial ground. The man who loved them both had decided the wisest course was to keep the skull in his care until he could decide what to do with it.
Samantha examined every opportunity for Sloan to have confessed his possession of the fossil but found none that he did not believe would jeopardize first their engagement and then their marriage. He did not know of Anne’s visit to pump Samantha for an explanation of Sloan’s waning interest. The girl’s concern had been justified. Sloan Singleton was in love with Samantha Gordon and always had been. Anne’s visit was proof enough that he’d had only her best interests at heart in taking and keeping the skull. Again, as with her father, he had not trusted her love for him not to believe the obvious—that he had married her with expectation of cashing in on the evidence that oil, barrels of it, was under the ground beyond the fence of the Triple S.
The skull had been in the Christmas cabinet. All the evidence pointed to it. Sloan’s reaction when Billie June suggested it as storage space for her luggage, his efforts to keep Daniel out of the house, and the bath towel episode over Daniel’s repair of the doorjamb made it clear. Sloan had spirited the skull away during the night when he learned the cabinet was to be sorted out the next morning. He stole out of the house to the ranch kitchen, removed the cans of string beans, and used the box and cup towels for packaging material. The address he’d taken from The Archeologist. He hadn’t had the heart to deny the skull to posterity. A man’s motives define him. Indeed they did. Sloan’s had not been self-serving. He had acted out of love for his wife and a needless desperation to preserve their marriage, but Samantha had to hear the admission from his own lips.
“The confessional is still open,” she said.
Once again she left Sloan behind. She must do this herself, she told him. Samantha boarded the train to Dallas the next morning, Thursday, January tenth. In Dallas from the train station, she took a cab to the office of Waverling Tools and was greeted by Agatha Beardsley, who regarded her appearance with annoyance. “Does Mr. Waverling know to expect you?” the receptionist asked.
“No, he doesn’t. I came with the hope I’d find him in and that he’ll not view my unannounced visit as an intrusion.”
“He’s in, but I’m afraid I can’t guarantee the latter. Mr. Waverling is very busy and has a train to catch in an hour, but I’ll see if he will receive you.” Miss Beardsley’s crisp disapproval of the threat to her employer’s schedule made clear, she said, “Please be seated until I come to fetch you.”
“Of course,” Samantha said and obediently took a seat.
She disappeared and within seconds, Trevor, strides ahead of Miss Beardsley, swung through the door to the reception room. “Mrs. Singleton—Samantha! What an unexpected pleasure! I hope all is well.” He searched her face for signs that justified his remark and extended his hand.
Samantha rose to accept it and felt the warmth of paternal feeling through her glove. “All is well but soon to be even better, I believe,” she said, smiling. “Should I return later? I understand you’re very busy and have a train to catch.”
Trevor shook his head adamantly to disavow the notion and shot a glare at Miss Beardsley. “Neither is absolutely of any consequence, I can assure you. I can grab a later train. I’m only going to Beaumont on the coast. Come into my office. And Miss Beardsley, will you see that we’re not disturbed?”
A little over an hour later, Trevor summoned his receptionist. She was shocked to see signs he’d had a good cry, but she had never seen him look so happy. Mrs. Singleton had her handkerchief out and appeared as if she, too, had recovered from some deep emotion that had left her eyes puffy and pink-rimmed, but her lips were smiling also. What in the world?
“Miss Beardsley, where is my son?” Trevor asked.
“At the Loving Convalescent Home, sir. He went over there this morning to visit his brother.”
“Call the place and have somebody tell Nathan he’s to meet his father at his grandmother’s house. It’s very important. He’s to come as quickly as he can. Have Benjy bring the Concord around, then call my residence and tell my mother to expect us.”
“Uh, Mr. Waverling, what about your trip to the coast? Mr. Lane called from Beaumont to say they’ve struck a gusher at Spindletop. He’s very excited, and he’s wondering when you will be arriving. He says the sight is something to see.” Miss Beardsley, herself excited at the news, consulted a lapel watch she pulled from its moorings on her shoulder. “It’s twelve o’clock. I took the liberty of checking the next train to the coast, and if you hurry, you can make the one o’clock.” She looked expectantly at Trevor, ignoring the intruder who would keep her employer from his appointed course.
“That’s all very exciting news, Miss Beardsley, but I have my own to tell my family. Now if you’ll hold down the fort for the rest of the day, my daughter and I will leave you to it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me correctly. Miss Beardsley, meet my daughter, Samantha Gordon Singleton. She’s Nathan’s twin sister.”
Miss Beardsley’s jaw still hung slack when Trevor escorted Samantha through the reception room to the waiting carriage.
Epilogue
In April 1901, Nathan Holloway married Charlotte Weatherspoon two weeks after his twenty-first birthday. It was the wedding of the year for Dallas society. The ceremony was conducted in the First Baptist Church of Dallas and officiated by the highly esteemed George W. Truett, the leading clergyman of his day. Over five hundred guests attended. Trevor Waverling served as Nathan’s best man; Nathan’s brother, Randolph, and Daniel Lane as groomsmen. Mavis, Samantha, and Sloan, along with Neal and Estelle Gordon, and Leon and Lily, accompanied by her husband, were escorted to pews reserved for the groom’s family. Millicent was not among them. Nathan had cut ties with his mother.
“April is such a perfect time for a wedding,” Mavis stated. “It’s a period of new beginnings and should be the month that starts the New Year, not January, for heaven’s sake. What were the Gregorians thinking?”
For the ranches of Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad and the Triple S, April was indeed the start of new beginnings. Midmorning of the third week in April, Jarvis Putnam, driller of Derrick One, so the well at Windy Bluff was identified, knocked on the front door of the ranch house at Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad. Silbia answered and immediately stepped back.
Jarvis jerked off his oil-covered driller’s hat, a steel-plated affair, and swiped a large bandanna handkerchief over his black-speckled face. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I’m sure I look a fright, but I must see Mr. Gordo
n and use your telephone, if you please.”
Silbia had never met Jarvis Putnam, but from the looks of him, he was part of the rough crowd of men that had been digging around out at Windy Bluff. She was wary of letting him into the house, dripping black goop all over her clean floors. “What for?” she demanded.
“To let Mr. Gordon and my boss know we’ve struck oil.”
Derrick Number One was to be the forerunner of many more successful wells drilled over the one thousand square miles of the combined ranches that would produce millions of barrels of oil from the sandstone and carbonate reservoirs under its properties. For easy reference, the Triple S and Las Tres Lomas de la Trinidad did not change their names but operated under one brand that symbolized their consolidation. The brand of the biggest cattle ranch of contiguous acreage in Texas was a simple S/S/S/. It was Samantha’s idea to use the slash marks to represent the three tributaries of the Trinity River. Despite the physical evidence of vast oil production that came to dot its acres, Las Tres Lomas and the Triple S maintained their inherent character. Cattle was their business, and to that end, as Texas roared into the new century propelled by the discovery of petroleum throughout the state, new breeds were introduced to achieve better beef quality and easier adaptation to the environment of Central Texas. Experimentation with grasses led to improved rangelands where eventually healthy Santa Gertrudis and Herefords and Beefmasters grazed on green pastures teeth to jaw with oil derricks and pumping jacks.
Of those family members and associates who sat on the groom’s side of the aisle or who stood with Nathan during his marriage ceremony, financial fortune smiled on most. Within a few years, Waverling Tools patented a roller cutter bit enabling oil drillers to bore through hard rock with amazing speed. Daniel Lane was the designer. The two-cone bit revolutionized the industry, poured millions of dollars into the company’s coffers and Daniel’s pockets, and set the company on its way to becoming a world leader in the design and manufacture of petroleum equipment.