The Widows of Wichita County (7 page)

A hand was dealt in a no-name saloon in '27. Three oilmen passed the time playing poker with a local farmer. Money centered on the table. Cards were shown. Guns were pulled from both boot and vest.

When the smoke cleared all four were dead, bleeding across the five jacks facing up from the deck. The deaths were ruled an accident.

October 28
9:00 p.m.
County Memorial Hospital

H
e felt her presence even before the perfume that was always Randi penetrated his consciousness. She said she wore it because it was the only one she had ever found that could survive in bar air.

Through the thin bandages he saw her tall, slim, cowgirl shadow moving toward him. She made his blood warm from the first day he spotted her in the middle of a line dance at Frankie's Bar. He wished he could move closer to her, now. He needed to touch her. She was the kind of woman who drew a man's hands.

“Hello, Shelby,” she whispered in a voice that was made to sing country-western songs. “I'm not supposed to be in here, but I had to drive back to pick up the rest of my stuff. I figured, what the hell, I'd stop by and see you on my way out of town.”

She stood just out of his reach.

“I don't know if you can hear me, but I need to say something. I won't feel right until I do.” She crossed and
uncrossed her arms. The plastic of her leather-look jacket made a popping sound.

He smiled. Randi was all pretend, always had been. Pretend leather, pretend fur, pretend love songs. She had probably pretended with half the guys in town, making every one of them believe he was the first, or the second anyway.

Back years ago, when she and Crystal were running wild and single, every man in the bar knew the party had started when they walked in. Crystal, with her baby-blue eyes, may have had her beaten on looks, but when a man danced with Randi, he left the dance floor feeling like the foreplay was about over.

Her low voice whispered over the machines. “I need to tell you about that first day, when the doctor brought the ring in. I couldn't be sure if it was yours or Jimmy's. You both wore that plain band Taylor's sells to just about every man. It was so out of shape, it didn't look much like a ring at all. With you and Jimmy looking so much alike, you being kin and all, it was impossible for the hospital to tell. You two even had the same blood type. Folks always said he seemed more like your son than Trent ever did. He even told me once he thought he'd been following you around since he could walk.”

She rocked from her toes to her heels. “I guess what I'm trying to say is the hospital thought it would be easier if we just identified the only husband alive. Crystal wanted you to be Shelby so bad, and me…”

He relaxed, guessing what she was about to say.

“I was never meant to take care of an invalid, much less be stuck in a small town. We don't even have insurance to cover any hospital bills.” She clicked her nails along the metal frame of the fancy bed. “I was packing to leave when the accident happened. Healthy, Jimmy
wasn't worth much. If he was hurt bad, I don't think I could…”

He closed his eyes, no longer wanting to look at her. Randi was a woman who always divided the pie in her favor. The most important person in her world lived in her skin. He could never hate her for that. With Randi, it was like instinct. Self-preservation. She would never change.

“Well…” She sounded nervous. “I just came by 'cause I've been thinking. What if there was a one in a million chance you were Jimmy and not Shelby under all those bandages and burned skin? After all, once Crystal took the ring, there were no further checks and everyone knew Shelby had a thing about never going to a big hospital. So there was no thought of transferring him.”

She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, hesitated, then put it back. “If you are Jimmy, I figured I should tell you the score. You've got a chance to come back from this as Shelby Howard and do a lot of good for yourself. You could be like the old legend of that bird and rise up out of the ashes to fly. If you're Jimmy and anyone finds out, you'll probably spend the rest of your life in a welfare hospital. But Crystal says she's already ordered thousands of dollars worth of stuff to take Shelby home and give him the best of care.”

She glanced at the door. “I got to go. There's a sign outside that says no one but family. If you're Shelby, I wish you the best. If you're Jimmy…”

Sniffing, Randi dug a balled tissue from her jeans pocket. “If you're Jimmy, keep your mouth closed and do us all a favor. You weren't a bad husband. I just couldn't love you like you wanted. It ain't nobody's fault.”

A rattle sounded at the door. She slipped into the black
ness. A nurse came in to pull the blinds and shift his position.

“Looks like a storm is moving in, Mr. Howard.” She straightened his arms, making his body mold to the airplane-looking splints. “Now don't you worry, that little wife of yours will be back in a minute. The only time alone she gets is when she takes her bath, and we want her to take her time and enjoy it.”

He hated it when the nurses talked like that, as if he were a child, as if they knew how he felt or what he thought.

The nurse checked the machines. “Hope the rain don't keep you up, Mr. Howard. We're supposed to get a storm tonight. The wind's already whirling around so bad even the weatherman can't make up his mind which direction it's coming from.”

She left the room without expecting him to comment.

A moment later, the door opened enough for a thin cowgirl to pass through.

He closed his eyes and wished himself dead for the hundredth time since the accident.

Old-timers used to swear that if a sane man settled on the plains, he would be driven mad by the wind before he made it through his first winter.

October 28
Midnight
Montano Ranch

T
hunder rumbled across the land in low angry bellows. Anna Montano wrapped her arms around her waist and tried not to jump each time she heard the sound. Pacing back and forth across the wide living room, she wished the walls of her ranch house were not constructed mostly of glass. At sunrise and sunset she thought the view beautiful, but now, with lightning flaring, all she could think was that the windows might crash in on her at any moment.

The reverberation reminded Anna of her childhood when her father's voice often echoed with rage off the tile walls of their villa. His solution to all disagreements was a swift and physical reaction. He would draw his belt with the precision of a gunfighter brandishing his Colt. The sons were trained to stand and take their punishment. But Anna learned to hide away, to remain silent, to become invisible. It was the way she, as the only daughter, survived.

As she grew older, she realized her father knew she
was tucked away just out of his sight, curled in some shadowy corner. His pride would not allow him to pardon her but, silently, he permitted the game.

Her brother Carlo's storms of rage were nothing compared to their father's, but Anna feared that by the time Carlo fathered children he would mirror the generation before. Since she and Carlo had been in America, her brother turned his anger more on the hired hands and less on her.

In fact, he had fired a ranch hand the morning before the rig exploded. Anna watched from the window as Carlo not only ordered the former employee to leave, he half dragged, half beat the man all the way to his car.

The man swore he would be back to even the score, but Carlo only laughed, welcoming a rematch. The threat made Anna shiver, not from fear of the stranger, but from how far her brother might go if the man set foot on Montano land again.

On the few occasions she had been the target for Carlo's anger, her husband, Davis, had done nothing to interfere. He allowed Carlo to yell and swear at her in two languages with little more interest than a bystander watching a parent discipline a child. She had been so young when they married, she knew he and Carlo saw her as little more than a child and probably always would.

She wanted Davis to stand up to Carlo, to protect her, to take her side in the argument. But Carlo was Davis's friend and foreman. She was only his wife.

She stared out into the night. Her brother would laugh at her if she called and told him the storm frightened her. He probably would not venture the hundred yards from his place near the barn to check on her. Anna thought of Helena, but it was too late to call. She must face the storm alone.

Then, in the blackness between flashes, she saw it. One lone light to the north. It had been two weeks since the rancher had offered a hug any time she needed it.

It is ridiculous. Do not think about it, she fretted. Men do not offer hugs to women they do not know, not even in this strange country.

But the light shone steadily in the ever changing sky.

It is half a mile across the prairie littered with mesquite trees,
she reasoned. Halfway between was one of those barbed wire fences she hated so much. They might be fine for hemming in cattle, but she had seen how it had cut a horse who had accidentally raced into it. Her father never allowed wire to border his fields. But Davis did. He told Carlo to keep the broodmares in the north pasture. They were not so rambunctious and, if the barbs cut one a little, it would not matter. Only the colts were important as far as looks were concerned.

Anna paced the shadowy room. Long ago she had begun to call it her cage and not her home. The heavy leather furnishings. The architectural blending of iron and beams criss-crossed over her head like bars to a cage. Even the paintings reflected Davis's taste, not hers. Only the classical music drifting around the leather and iron mirrored her taste.

In the days since the funeral, she had found it more and more difficult to remember any happy memories with Davis. She tried to think of the first time she had seen him at her father's ranch. He had stood almost a head taller than her brothers as he examined one of her father's finest horses. He was strong and silent, just like a hero in an old Western. She had mistaken coldness for shyness. Indifference for strength.

Thunder rattled the windows as a Texas wind blew across the land, bringing Anna back to the present.
Walking to the glass, she pressed her hand against the window where the single light shone from the north. The glass was cold, but she imagined the warmth from the tiny light. Slowly she pulled away, hating her foolishness. She was not a desperate woman hungry for attention. Her life was adequate. She did not need another man to complicate it. Her husband had been dead less than a month. What kind of woman even thought about another man holding her after such a short time?

What had Zack Larson said in the elevator that day? No questions, no strings. Just a hug.

Thunder shook the walls again.

Grabbing her coat, Anna was out the back door before she had time to think any more.

She took long strides across the muddy ground until she reached the barbed wire. Carefully she climbed over it at the post, but even her long legs could not quite make the swing. A wire caught on her pants just above her boot, ripping the material.

Angry now, and frightened, she stormed ahead, almost daring the neighbor to be a liar.

Reaching the edge of the porch light's circle, she saw him. He sat in a wooden swing on his wide porch watching the storm as if the show had been staged for him.

Anna quickly took a step backward. He would probably rebuff her for slapping him, or he might laugh at her. Or he would think he could take liberties.

She retreated another step. She had been an idiot. She knew little about this Zack Larson. Davis said once that he had been a troublemaker in school, but Davis liked few people. And Larson was more than ten years past school.

Just as she turned to go, he stood. “Anna?”

Like an animal hearing the first crack of gunfire,
she ran. Her long legs carried her across the blackness between the houses. Icy rain pelted her and the wind whipped around her like a huge belt.

Within minutes, she was home. Her entire body trembled with cold as tears chilled against her cheeks.

Unable to stop crying, Anna pulled off her clothes and crawled into bed. She shook with sobs and loneliness. For a moment, she had been a fool. She had forgotten she was Anna Montano, widow and owner of a huge ranch. She was no longer a dreamer. There were no arms for her to run to. There never had been.

In 1905, Frank Phillips drilled for oil on tribal land leased to him, with her grandparents' permission, by an eight-year-old Delaware girl.

On September 6, they hit a gusher and AAI roared, making Phillips and one little girl rich overnight.

Yet, Texas and Oklahoma ranchers still considered themselves ranchers and not oilmen, many times refusing to lease oil rights to their land at any price.

October 29
North of the Montano Ranch
On Larson land

Z
ack Larson wasted his time trying to sleep. By dawn he felt as though he had personally wrestled the storm and lost. About the time his coffee was ready, Bella had showed up in her broken-down Ford pickup.

“Morning, kid,” Bella grunted as she dragged her aging Hoover through the side door of his kitchen. “You sleep last night with all that racket the Irish were making?”

Zack grinned and poured a cup of coffee into her old pink mug she kept on his windowsill. Bella had been his mother's housekeeper and friend since before he was born. He might be thirty-four, but she still called him kid. And she still defined thunder as the dearly departed Irish throwing potatoes in heaven.

When his mother died, Zack kept Bella on even though his place was hardly big enough to demand much care. Folks told him she once had a drinking problem and had no steady job, so he figured she needed the work.

Regular as clockwork, once a week, she cleaned. Of course, her eyesight was fading and her joints were
stiff. Nothing got dusted above her head or below her knees. It didn't matter that he'd bought a new lightweight vacuum; she only trusted her Hoover. She cleaned the old-fashioned way with ammonia and water, vinegar for spots and bleach settling in the sinks long after she left. For days after the spring cleaning, Zack's eyes would water every time he entered the house. Luckily, she only felt the need to spring clean every third year or so.

He handed her the cup as she made herself comfortable at the tiny dining table crammed into a small kitchen. The yellow linoleum tabletop was covered with Zack's efforts at bookkeeping.

Bella showed no sign of being in a hurry. After all, she worked by the hour. Zack's house took her all day, no matter what she cleaned or how long they talked.

“Storm kept me up,” he finally answered. “How's the road from town?”

“A little muddy, but not bad.” Bella's chubby fingers gripped the mug. “Why?”

“I thought I'd go in after a few supplies. You need anything?”

She shook her head. Hair that had never known a style wiggled around her wrinkled face. “I learned a long time ago, kid, to bring what I need when I come all the way out here. No sense driving into town for something you should have remembered. When I was young, we only went to town once a month and that was plenty. Folks nowadays think the Farm-to-Market Road is the interstate.”

“Now, don't give me a hard time—” Zack fought down a grin “—or I'll get married again on you.”

Bella snorted. “Oh, please, not that.”

Zack remembered the hell his wife had put Bella through. From the moment they married, Bella could do nothing right. The only time his wife stopped complaining
about the housekeeper was when she started picking on him. It took Zack only a few months to discover he did everything wrong, then a few more months to decide not to change. By the time he got around to telling his wife the bad news, she was packing.

He smiled at Bella, the only woman he needed in his life. “You want me to bring back some of that Chinese food for lunch while I'm running my needless errands?”

Bella acted like she pondered the question. “It's hardly fit to eat.” She scratched her chin. “'Course, I'll be mighty busy today. Don't know if I'll have time to stop and eat, much less cook anything.”

Zack cut her brainstorming short before she did any damage. “Extra egg rolls and extra sauce, right?”

“You talked me into it. But I'll still make you a batch of brownies for dessert. Them Chinese places never have fit desserts.”

He nodded as if they'd struck a bargain. “I'll be back in a few hours, and we'll eat. Then, if the ground's not too wet, I'll work on the fence that borders the Montano spread.”

Bella sipped her coffee slowly. “Sad about the accident. That poor beautiful woman left all alone. She's not stuck-up like some folks claim. I go over now and again to help her clean.”

Standing slowly, Bella reached into the canister on the counter and pulled out two cookies from her stash. “Not that her place needs cleaning. You could eat pudding off the floor and not get a flea's-weight of dirt.”

She dipped a cookie into her coffee.

Zack knew better than to interrupt. He scooted the canister closer to her.

She munched as she continued, “Her husband would
call me and insist I come. She didn't say a word when I'd show up. He'd tell me to clean the place, and she'd just stand there. Then he'd leave, and I'd sweep spotless floors and mop like I was doing some good.”

“Odd,” Zack mumbled. He stood and put his cup in the sink. He had no intention of gossiping about Anna. But shutting Bella up once she got started was harder than delaying birthing after a heifer took to ground.

Bella shook her head. “Not so strange. He was wannabe rich. Thinking he needed a housekeeper, too proud to consider his wife
was
one. He'd brag about my work and ignore hers. I felt sorry for her. She's a real lady, better than Davis Montano deserved. And she can paint, too, real good. Pictures that make your heart sad to look at them. In a movie I heard a man once describe a painting that brought out feelings like hers do. He said the artist's tears must have blended with the colors. Her work's like that.”

Zack stared out the window toward Anna Montano's place. He could imagine her painting. But he also remembered the slap she gave him the last time they met. A slap that should remind him she was not interested in even speaking to him.

She was a proud, now rich, rancher. He had to fight to keep the loans paid when they came due. She came from Europe, a place he would spend his life only dreaming about. He had never been farther away than Oklahoma City. Enough people in town remembered the trouble he got into the year his folks died that they probably told Anna Montano she would be better off if she never spoke to her neighbor for the rest of her life.

He grabbed his hat and nodded toward Bella. “Wash that old quilt on the porch swing, would you?”

“The one your grandma Larson made?”

“Yeah, and put it back beside the swing.”

Without waiting for the questions, he headed out, telling himself he was crazy for losing sleep over what he
thought
he saw standing in the rain last night.

Three hours later, he stood knee-deep in mud, trying to install a stile over the barbed wire fence between his ranch and Anna's when he sensed her again, just as he had last night.

Zack looked up. She was riding full-out from the west. Her body moved in long, fluid movements, a part of the horse. Zack watched her as she spotted him and reined her mount.

He lifted one gloved hand to the brim of his hat and tipped his Stetson slightly in greeting.

Her only response was to turn and ride away.

Zack smiled as he tugged off his glove and reached in his pocket for the scrap of material he had found in the very spot where he was now installing a walkover. She might never set foot on his land again. But if she did, she would have a place to get over the fence without ripping her clothes—a place well hidden by thick brush and the roll of the land from anyone who might be watching from the Montano buildings.