Beverly Byrne (17 page)

"No,"
she moaned. "I don't want to wait that long; I can't.  Please, Tommy ...
We have sixty thousand dollars. It's what we need. That's all I care
about." Her face was white and drawn where it lay against the bed pillows.
She was staring at the watercolor of Jericho, and it was obvious that she cared
about a great deal beside.

"It's
my fault," Tommy muttered. "Jesus, why do I make such a mess of
things? If you believed you could trust me, you'd have waited. If you hadn't
lost the baby you might never have gotten this crazy idea."

She
was terrified of his guilt. She knew how much was really her fault, not his.
"You're not to blame about the baby. You mustn't think so. But we have to
get away from here. Please, can't we try to be happy?"

"Yeah,
sure," he said, managing a grin. "We're going to be happy. Why the
hell not? I'll go downtown and get some train schedules. We can plan the trip.
You'll like that, won't you?"

"Very
much. What did Western Union say? How long will it take for Mr. DeAngeles to
get our telegram?"

"A
few hours, that's all."

"Tell
me the message again."

He
fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and read aloud the wire he'd sent after
Donald Varley left the house. "Agree to purchase ranch immediately.
Please, confirm. "

Confirmation
arrived the next morning, after Tommy left to go to Pennsylvania station for more
railroad information. Amy read the words on the pale yellow paper. Then she
slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

She
went to the picture of Jericho hanging on the wall and removed it. Then she
carried it to the window filled with thin, cold sunlight. The painting was
covered by glass and the watercolors looked as fresh as the day Jessie Norman
had stroked them delicately onto the paper. Some of the proportions were less
than perfect. The long veranda framed in teak was actually broader than it appeared
in the drawing. The roof had a gentler pitch. Amy smiled gently. Sheba, the
pony, was badly done. "Mummy could never draw horses," she murmured.
"She kept trying though."

There
were two faces in one of the ground floor windows. You had to look closely to
see them. One was supposed to be her. The black hair and oversize  brown eyes
were recognizable. The other was Naduta, her nurse. It was just an ebony blob
without detail. "I didn't do Naduta well at all." Jessie had said,
laughing when she held the picture out for her daughter's inspection. Amy
remembered that long-ago day. She remembered the sun and the sounds of the
bush, and her mother's voice.

"I
don't care, I love it. It's the best picture ever," she'd said then.
"The best picture ever," she repeated now.

She
wrapped the painting carefully in a flowered silk scarf and put it away to
await packing.

BOOK
TWO

1917-21

13

AMY
WORE HER BEIGE SUIT FOR THE DEPARTURE. THE one she'd worn on her honeymoon. She
had a new coat of brown Persian lamb trimmed with mink. Lil had given it to her
as a going-away present. Amy was glad of its warmth on this first day of
February.

Lil
and Warren came to the station to see them off. They huddled together by the
platform gate, using chatter and forced humor as proof against nerves.

At
last a man walked beside them announcing, "
Silver Arrow
, track
twenty-two. Pittsburgh, Chicago, and points west. All aboard, please."

"That's
us," Amy said.

Their
redcap came by. "Right this way, Mr. and Mrs. Westerman. I'll show you to
your carriage."

There
was time only for hurried kisses and softly spoken blessings.

They
followed the porter and his wheeled cart down the long open platform to a car
marked "Pullman" in golden letters with elaborate scrolls.
"Dining car's three forward," the black man said. "Club car
right behind you. Here you are, compartment fourteen." Amy had a swift
impression of pristine order and faultless comfort.

Finally
they were alone and the train inched forward. Amy looked out at Pennsylvania
Station, and then at the blackness of a tunnel.

"Goodbye
New York," Tommy said. "C'mon, let's go to the club car and
celebrate, or hold a wake. I'm not sure which is called for."

Dawn
of the journey's third day carried them across the Mississippi into St. Louis.
Tommy had planned the trip for a minimum number of train changes, but they
could not avoid one there. With a small sense of loss Amy packed her case. Compartment
fourteen had become comfortable and familiar.

They
drank coffee and ate pancakes and cornmeal muffins at a Fred Harvey restaurant
in the station. Then they followed another redcap across a bustling expanse of
gates and platforms to the boarding point for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
line.

The
train was a duplicate of the one they'd been on. The Pullman car had the same
lavish and comfortable appointments of mahogany and brass and starched white
linen. Only when they chugged forth from St. Louis did Amy slowly realize that
she had entered a different world.

By
late afternoon she was sure of it. They reached Kansas City and moved out
across the fat flat plains of Kansas. The land was planted with winter wheat,
short and straw colored and asleep; still the power of boundless fertility rose
up and engulfed the passing train.

"Breadbasket
of the nation," Tommy murmured.

"It's
so , .." She groped for the word. "So precise."

"God's
always doing geometry," he said. She smiled with delight, and he added,
"Not original. Plato said it first. "

That
night Amy couldn't sleep for excitement. When the porter knocked softly to
announce, "Topeka in half an hour folks," she was up instantly.

They
had to change trains once more. This time there was no Pullman car. In the deep
dark before dawn they boarded a coach train that turned south into a sky streaked
with pink and red, then hurtled into a mantle of sunlight spread across the
border lands between Kansas and Oklahoma. As the vast empty spaces unfolded Amy
felt reborn.

Tommy
watched her glowing face, but did not share her joyous excitement. Instead he
stared straight ahead and drummed his fingers nervously on the armrest between
them. At one point he produced a silver hip flask. "A little brandy
soothes the nerves," he said, offering it to her.

"No
thanks. I'll have a cigarette though."

He
lit one for her and for himself, and she kept darting glances at him through
the smoke. Tommy took a long pull of the brandy, then put the flask away. She
wondered about his mood, then concentrated on the scenery.

For
two days they rode thus. Then, in the sunsoaked early morning of the sixth day
since they'd left New York, they started to climb. Amy's heart pounded wildly
and her breath came short and sharp. In an hour they had scaled the cliff and
were poised on the edge of a canyon looking into the Raton pass.

She
closed her eyes because it was too beautiful to look at, then opened them
because it was too beautiful to miss. The train started downward. It passed
miraculously unharmed between sheer, tawny rock faces; it hurtled through a
landscape honey-dipped and bejeweled and glittering, beneath a fiery red sun in
a limitless blue sky. They had arrived in New Mexico.

At
Lamy, ten miles southeast of Santa Fe, they were met by the lawyer who had
reported on the ranch to Donald Varley, and subsequently handled the purchase.
His name was John Lopez. He was a small dark man who wore a white linen suit
and a narrow braid around his neck in place of a tie. The braid was held
together by a silver clasp. It flashed in the westering sun. So did his
glasses. He seemed to shine. Amy was conscious of her rumpled suit and Tommy's
trousers, which no longer had a crease.

"Mr.
and Mrs. Westerman, welcome to your new home!" They shook hands, and he
asked them about the journey and at the same time took the stubs for their
luggage and handed them to another man slouching in the background. "Diego
will get your things and load them on the buckboard. Don't worry about any of
that. You must be exhausted. Too late to go out to your place today. I've
reserved a room in a hotel in town. "

He
led them to his Model-T Ford. "Railroad passed by Santa Fe years ago. We
have to drive from here."

The
men chattered during the journey. Amy was silent with awe. By the time they
drove into the fabled plaza, she was dizzy with excitement.

"It's
small for a place with so much history." Lopez said. "Are you
disappointed? Folks sometimes are."

Amy
was unable to answer. She looked at squat adobe structures painted white and
etched with black shadows where dark wooden beams thrust through their walls.
Gray-green cottonwood trees hugged the buildings close. A brown-skinned woman
squatted by the roadside guarding a pile of decorated clay pots. Across the way
a similar figure hovered over a collection of brightly woven blankets.
Familiarity was a wordless song in Amy's head, a sense of homecoming that made
her tremble.

"Sometimes
folks get here and they think about the Santa Fe trail and the old Camino Real,
and they're disappointed because the plaza is so small," Lopez repeated.

"What
does Camino Real mean?" Amy demanded. She felt that she must learn
everything right away, that nothing in this place must remain strange to her.

"Royal
road," Tommy supplied. "It's the name given to the route the
conquistadors traveled up from Mexico. Like the Santa Fe trail, it ended
here."

"Well,
I'm not disappointed." she told the lawyer breathlessly.

"Good,
good! Real glad to hear that. Hope you pass a comfortable night. Diego will
take you out to your spread in the morning."

That
night Tommy made love to her for the first time since she left the hospital
seven weeks earlier.

All
during dinner the intensity of Amy's excitement showed in flushed cheeks and
shaking hands. She sat beside her husband in the hotel dining room and picked
at fried chicken and thought,
I want to have a baby. Right away. I must have
a baby in this place. Then it will belong to us.

In
their small nondescript hotel bedroom she took Tommy's hand and laid her head
against his chest. "I'm so happy," she whispered. "I feel so
alive now that we're here."

"Yeah,
I know. I'm glad you're happy." He kissed her and murmured something about
getting undressed.

She
removed her clothes with fingers suddenly clumsy, and didn't wait to put them
away, but dropped them on the floor and turned to him. She was quivering all
over, and he picked her up and carried her to the bed.

Amy
pulled him down on top of herself  and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck
and spread her legs. When his climax came she was exultant. She almost believed
that she could feel conception happening inside her.

Tommy
turned away from her and faced the wall and suddenly said, "Why did Luke
come to see you in August?"

She
was so startled she almost denied it. Then she thought about Tommy's recent
mood and understood. It was too late for denials. "How did you know?"

"I
ran into Suzy Randolph a couple of weeks before we left New York. She made a
point of telling me she'd seen him leaving our house."

"She
would," Amy said. Her mouth was dry and her brain was racing. "Look,
he was in town to see a doctor. He came to talk to us because he was having
doubts about staying with the Dominicans."

"Us?"
Tommy questioned with a small laugh. "Come off it, baby. He knew I
wouldn't be home during the day."

"He
planned to wait," Amy said. She struggled to make her tone normal.
"We talked a bit, and he saw that his doubts were silly. Just nerves. He
wanted to go back to Dover right away. And he made me promise not to tell you.
He was ashamed of himself."

There
was silence when she finished this explanation. Amy couldn't bear the thought
that they would begin their new life with a fight about Luke.
"Please," she said, stretching out her hand and touching his
shoulder, "believe me, that's all there was to it."

"Ok,"
he said tonelessly. "Whatever you say."