Rose (23 page)

The discussion about the roundup continued, but the tension had returned. It seemed to grow more intense with each passing minute.

“We’d best be heading to bed if we plan to be chasing cows before dawn,” Salty said, getting to his feet. “It was mighty good, ma’am. We’ll rustle our own grub in the morning.”

“You’ll eat with us as long as you’re at the house,” Rose said. “When do you want to leave?”

“Is five too early?”

“It sure as hell is,” Monty exclaimed. “Damnation, my dogs don’t even get up that early.”

“Then we’ll have to see about reforming your sleeping habits,” George said. “And your language. Zac’s beginning to sound just like you.”

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Monty exclaimed, turning on his youngest brother.

“That’s exactly the phrase I had in mind,” George said.

Monty had the grace to blush.

“I’m not going to try to tell you what to say out on the range, but everything changes the minute you ride into this yard. That
goes for the hands as well,” George said to the men as they left the room.

Salty nodded his acceptance.

“Surely Rose has heard—” Monty started to say.

“She probably has, but there’s no reason she has to go on hearing it. Would you want people cussing around your wife, or the girl you were sweet on?”

“We’ll watch our tongues,” Hen promised. “We didn’t mean any disrespect, ma’am,” he said to Rose. “Monty just never pays any attention to what he says. Come on, let’s go to bed before you say something else stupid,” Hen hissed to his twin. They left the kitchen amid a sequence of fiercely whispered exchanges.

“Time for you to hit the sack as well,” George said to Zac. Tyler had left with Salty and the others.

“Can I have your bed?” Zac asked. “You promised, remember.”

“I promised to think about it,” George said. He had noticed Jeff’s sudden attention, and he braced himself. “You might as well go ahead and take it. I don’t think anybody else wants it.”

“Yippee!” Zac yelled. He jumped up, gave his brother a hug, and raced out of the room to tell everybody the good news.

“Where are you going to sleep?” Jeff asked. The anger in his voice was palpable.

“If you two will excuse me, I’ll go help Zac,” Rose said. “I don’t trust him not to sleep on the bare mattress rather than put on fresh sheets.”

George was relieved. He didn’t want Rose to have to live with the memory of whatever Jeff might say.

“I’m going to sleep with my wife,” George said. “You will agree that’s appropriate, even if she is a Yankee.”

George didn’t understand why his reply should cause Jeff to relax. He’d thought it would send him through the roof.

“I can’t imagine you’ll be happy in the loft.”

Now he understood.

“Rose and I will sleep in the bedroom.” He nodded over his shoulder to the door behind the coats.

Jeff looked thunderous.

“That’s Ma’s room!” he shouted, his face red with fury. “Do you mean to say you’d put that—”

George interrupted his brother. “Before you say anything, remember two things. First, Rose is my wife. You can’t say anything you please about her and expect me to forgive and forget. Second, you’d better say everything you have to say now. If you repeat any of it to Rose, I’ll knock you down.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this!” Jeff exploded. “My own brother. Are you so desperate for a woman you had to get married? You could find one in just about any town in Texas. They usually seem ready to throw themselves at your feet.”

“I’m not desperate for a woman, Jeff. I have my appetites just like everybody else, but I’m not ruled by them.”

“You must be ruled by something other than your brain. If it’s not your stomach or your groin, what is it?”

“Something you’re too full of hate and fury to understand,” George said.

“Don’t tell me you love her,” Jeff said. “I won’t believe you could love a Yankee, not even if you swear to it.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“God, I just realized. You’ll soon have half a dozen Yankee brats running about the place.”

“There won’t be any children,” George said.

Jeff stared at his brother. “What other reason could you have for marrying…her?”

“We all have Pa’s blood in our veins. Do you think I’d take a chance on fathering sons like him?”

“What did Rose have to say about that?”

“It’s none of your business,” George said, “but she agreed.”

For a moment Jeff looked nonplussed.

“But to put her in Ma’s room,” Jeff continued. “To let her sleep in Ma’s bed.”

“You know Ma would agree,” George said. “Besides, she lived
here less than two years. It’s not like any of us were born there.”

“What will the twins say?”

“Nothing, and you know it. You’re the only one who can’t get over the fact Rose’s father fought for the Union.”

“You’re damned right I can’t.”

“Well, you’re going to have to. Rose is here to stay.”

“You mean you’d choose that woman over your own flesh and blood?”

“If there’s any
choosing
to be done, you’ll do it, not me. I’ve already made my vows.”

“Well, I didn’t take any. It’s a waste of time to ask me to accept her.”

“I’m not asking you,” George said. “You know what the choice is. It’s up to you.”

“I’m not taking her,” Jeff said as he jumped up from his chair. “And I’m not taking you as long as you’re married to her.”

“Then you’d better pack your bedroll. I imagine you’ll be more comfortable with Salty and the boys.”

“You’re kicking me out?” Jeff asked, his eyes wide with disbelief. “And all because of a Yankee bitch who managed to get you so hot you would marry her just to get her into bed?”

George came to his feet with a rush. Grabbing a handful of Jeff’s shirt, he dragged him across the room like a rag doll.

“Be glad you only have one arm. If you had two, I’d beat you senseless. I’d make you apologize to Rose, but I don’t want her to know that one of my brothers would sink low enough to call a lady names. Now get out of here and don’t cross that threshold again until you’re ready to treat Rose with the respect due my wife and your sister-in-law.”

“I’ll never do that.” Jeff grabbed up one of the coats and one of the slicks and stormed out of the kitchen.

Rose couldn’t sleep. She knew George couldn’t either. But it wouldn’t do any good to talk. They couldn’t fix what was wrong by talking. At least not yet.

Their first evening home had been a disaster. So disastrous that she had resorted to a lie to make things easier for both of them.

She had heard Jeff leave. Everybody in the house had heard him. He had stormed into the boys’ room, seen her saying good night to Zac, and muttered a foul expletive.

Monty had knocked him down. Only because he got to him before Hen. Fortunately, before things got completely out of hand, Jeff got to his feet and stormed out of the bedroom. George was in the breezeway. When he let him pass, Rose decided he hadn’t heard what Jeff said.

For that she was profoundly grateful.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered to the twins and quickly returned to the kitchen.

“Anything wrong?” George asked, following her back into the kitchen.

She couldn’t tell him what Jeff had said. It would solve nothing and only add to the burden he carried already.

“I guess I was hoping Jeff wouldn’t take it so badly.”

“He’ll cool off. He’s a lot like Pa. He never stayed mad long. It was just too much trouble.”

“That’s Monty,” Rose said. “Jeff is different.”

And she knew George knew it. She let him unpack most of their clothes while she cleaned up in the kitchen. It gave him time alone. It gave her time alone, too.

“We never did get to finish papering this room before the war started,” George said when she finally entered the bedroom. “I don’t guess the boys had any reason to after Ma died.”

“We’ve got plenty of time now,” Rose said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She put the last of her clothes away, but George didn’t move. He stood staring out the small window into the night. He seemed moody and preoccupied. Rose cursed Jeff in silence. She climbed into bed. Still George looked out the window.

“I don’t know why you’re not tired,” she said. “I’m worn out. If I’m to fix breakfast at five o’clock, I’ve got to get to sleep.”
George turned toward the bed, but he looked right through her. “I don’t feel quite right,” she said. “I think I’ll go on to sleep. Why don’t you sit up for a while if you’re not sleepy?”

“Are you sick?” George asked, bringing himself out of his abstraction.

“Just tired, I think. Maybe I’m coming into my time a little early.”

George’s gaze focused immediately.

“I do sometimes,” she said.

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” George leaned over and kissed her.

Even then she felt that something stood between them.

“I’m sorry your homecoming wasn’t any better.”

“It’ll get better.”

But she didn’t believe it. When the door closed behind George, she felt as if he had closed it on her.

Why had she thought that all she had to do was marry George and all of his doubts would disappear? Why had she been so foolish as to believe that all she had to do was become his wife and she would take precedence over his family? Why had she left the kitchen? She wished she knew what had passed between him and Jeff. Then she would know what she had to fight.

But she knew anyway. She had his family to fight. George probably didn’t know it himself, but he loved his family more than he loved his wife.

That hurt Rose deeply.

There was no appeal from that. It wasn’t a matter of reason, something she could argue against. It just was. She knew that if her being his wife broke up his family, it would always stand between them.

Still she wanted him to come to bed. She’d be content to just hold him as she had done that night in Austin. She didn’t think she’d ever been so happy as when they’d lain side by side, their arms around each other, her husband wrapped in sleep.

And in her love.

Why had she sent him away? He needed her. He desired her. She could have used that to help bind him to her.

But she didn’t want to hold his affections through the bed any more than she wanted to do it through her cooking. She wanted him to love
her
, not her accomplishments. It didn’t matter that George seemed to think of her accomplishments as part of her. She knew there was a difference.

She had been foolish to think her only problem was to convince him he wanted children. That might prove easier than convincing him she was more important to him than his family. Or at least as important. And she now knew she wouldn’t be happy until she had achieved exactly that.

Closing the door on Rose was like a physical pain. He could almost feel the skewering of the enormous pressure of his physical need which had been building in him since his marriage. It took a few moments to restore his equilibrium.

He was almost annoyed by the enormity of his physical response to Rose. He had so many questions that needed answering, but his mind could only focus on the one question about which there was no doubt: his desire for Rose.

It was torture to be around her and not be able to touch her, to kiss her, to claim her as he had in his dreams time and time again.

But he couldn’t. If he didn’t mean to be a proper husband to her, he should leave her untouched. Only George didn’t know if he could.

But rather than tease his mind and body with what he couldn’t have, George tried to turn his mind to his family. They had trapped him between two forces. Jeff’s anger he had expected.
The importance of keeping the family together had surprised him.

He hadn’t known how much he cared until Jeff stormed out the door. Rose was right about that. He would do anything for his brothers. He would have come home without Jeff’s encouragement. He might have waited longer, he might even have enlisted at some army outpost first, but he would have come home. They were his responsibility. He wouldn’t run from it any longer.

He guessed he’d gotten that much from his mother.

He wanted to get to know his brothers. He needed time to begin to understand them, to help them know each other better, to help them
want
to become a tightly knit family, to seek out and nourish the hidden parts of them their parents’ legacy had left arid, infertile.

He worried about Tyler. Nobody seemed able to reach the boy. It was up to George to find a way to break through Tyler’s isolation and draw him back into the comradeship of the family.

Now his marriage had given him another person to try to understand, to weave into this network of threadbare souls.

George asked himself if his changed attitude toward his family had anything to do with his marrying Rose. Maybe he hadn’t been just reacting to Peaches’s slander. If he hadn’t been aware of how he felt about his family, why couldn’t he have misunderstood his feelings for Rose?

He wasn’t talking about liking her, or finding her attractive, or even wanting to make love to her. He was talking about wanting to marry her because he couldn’t imagine his life without her. What would he do if it came to a choice between keeping the family together or sending her away?

That question scared him to death.

Up until this minute he’d have been sure he would sacrifice Rose. Yet now when the possibility was staring him in the face, he didn’t know what he would do.

His feelings went much deeper than he had suspected.

Stupid of him. He’d been so busy trying not to think about wanting to touch Rose, kiss her, make love to her, he had lost sight of all the little steps which led up to love. Pleasure in her company, the excitement of seeing her first thing in the morning, of her comforting presence at the end of the day; to wonder if she was happy, what she was like before they met, if she had ever loved anyone else.

He didn’t know if what he felt was fascination, lust, or a deep-felt longing that would never go away.

But he knew he couldn’t think about her without feeling that delicious contentment. There was something about her that he needed. And it had nothing to do with the physical needs of his body. He was surprised to find he resented not being able to make love to her tonight, that he was tempted to say to hell with her cycle. Yet, that wasn’t what made the difference.

Simply put, Rose embodied everything he needed to be happy. How could he even consider giving her up?

He couldn’t. He hadn’t.

But what about Rose? Wasn’t it possible she would be better off with someone else? It wasn’t fair to deprive her of the chance to have a family. There were many good men looking for wives. Surely she could find one to love, to make her forget him. Maybe it would be better if she went farther west where the feeling between the Union and the Confederate states wasn’t so strong.

But no sooner did he think of sending Rose away than he knew he couldn’t do it. He might not know the true nature of his feelings just yet—and that made him feel rather foolish—but whatever his feelings, they were tenacious.

He just hoped they were honest and honorable as well.

The first week of the roundup was hell. The work was brutal. The heat was murderous. And the tension was homicidal. Jeff never came near the house or mentioned Rose’s name, but his anger hung in the air like a sword over their heads.

Tempers stretched to the limit were sent hurtling over the edge by his forked tongue. George counted himself lucky that neither Monty nor Hen had shot Jeff. The only thing that prevented a blowup was that with ten men working the cattle, George was able to keep Jeff away from the twins nearly all the time.

Branding, cutting, and counting calves was nothing compared to driving a fifteen-hundred-pound longhorn from the brush. They didn’t want to leave their familiar haunts. Many of them had grown up without being herded or bothered. Quite a few had never been branded. The twins had done their best, but keeping the rustlers at bay, watching for Cor-tina’s bandits, and trying to stay alive had taken up too much of their time. Every fifth or sixth animal was an unbranded bull.

The longhorns wouldn’t come out of the brush without being driven. Some slept during the heat of the day and grazed at night. They turned foul-tempered when anything disturbed their sleep. George was glad he had been able to find some Mexican
vaqueros
to go in after them. The
vaqueros
had a knack for understanding the longhorns and knowing how to come out of the brush alive.

He also hoped that hiring the
vaqueros
would help build up some loyalty to his ranch. He couldn’t pay them a wage, but the beef and hides he gave them would help support their families. He hoped it would make them less likely to steal from him or allow their friends to do so.

Once the
vaqueros
had flushed the longhorns from the brush, it was up to the rest of the men to herd them to the corrals. Driving the wild-eyed, mean-tempered beasts anywhere was hot, exhausting, and dangerous. The men needed fresh horses every couple of hours.

Some of the cattle couldn’t be rounded up. They were wilder than deer and just as fast and agile. They swam like ducks, jumped like antelope, and fought like wounded boars. When aroused, they would attack anything that moved.

One day George heard the bleating of a calf. Almost immediately he heard the sound of steers stampeding through the brush. At first he thought they were running away. Then he realized they were running toward the calf calling for help. Within minutes a dozen steers were closing in on the thicket where the distress call came from. George heard a terrific disturbance from within the thicket. Even at a distance, he could see the chaparral shaking. Suddenly a wolf exploded from the brush chased by half a dozen longhorns. Even running for his life, the wolf couldn’t match the longhorns’ speed. Right there before George’s eyes, they chased the wolf down and ground him beneath their hooves.

George decided not to disturb this thicket until they had time to calm down, but both the unwanted bulls and the poor-quality cows would have to be culled if he was going to upgrade the herd. He would give some to the
vaqueros.
Some more would be butchered by the rustlers. Those left would be shot for their hides and tallow.

The work of branding was hot and rough, but using the pens made it possible to brand the full-grown bulls as well as castrate them without as much danger of being killed. With five ex-Confederates, five Randolph brothers, and as many as ten Mexicans, the work progressed steadily. George intended to work his way over every inch of their land and a good bit more besides. No one else had a ranch within fifteen miles. Theoretically every cow belonged to him and his brothers.

But not everyone agreed. Hardly a day passed that he didn’t come upon a bleached cow skeleton. Some of them must have been killed even before the war. There were no ranches around, but there were people who thought they had a right to Randolph beef. Jeff might believe they only took what they needed to survive, but George soon decided that “what they needed to survive” seemed to be a steady diet of beef.

Having come upon a homestead here and there, George found himself agreeing with the twins. He saw no signs of farming, of domestic livestock, of people determined to build
up a homestead which could support them and their family. He saw untended, weed-filled gardens, an old cow, maybe a bony mule, and run-down cabins. Yet no one looked hungry.

It wasn’t hard to guess why.

“They’re all part of Frank McClendon’s clan,” Hen told him. “Mean as snakes and lazy as hogs. One of them got himself a job with the Reconstruction, and now they act like they can do anything they want.”

“Well, they’re through living off our beef,” George said.

George had expected trouble—he rarely passed a day without seeing someone watching, either on horseback or on foot—but none came. The McClendons lived to the east of the ranch. That was the area George worked first. After three weeks they had cleared everything they could move out of the breaks and tangles. Nothing remained but about fifty rogue steers.

And he gave those to the
vaqueros
to shoot for their meat and hides.

“Do you have any family left?” George asked Rose.

She could feel him slipping away and there was nothing she could do about it. She might have had a chance if she had been able to see him for more than a couple of hours each day, if she had a chance to talk with him alone, if she hadn’t started her cycle.

As it was, they met only at the table. Breakfast was a quick scramble to eat and get on with the work. Supper was no better. Everyone came in exhausted, covered with dust, sweat, thorns, and innumerable cuts, burns, and abrasions. By the time they had washed, tended their wounds, and eaten dinner, it was time to go to bed.

“Only my uncle’s wife and children,” she answered. “They don’t seem like family. I’ve never even met them.”

George shared her bed, but he was too exhausted to do more than give her a hasty kiss and a quick good night. She understood that it must be difficult for him to touch her and then go to sleep with nothing more than a chaste kiss, but she
longed for the little intimate touches, the brushing of fingertips, a small hug, an arm slipped around her waist.

Nothing.

She had tried to talk to him. He listened, but after a day of giving orders, he had no desire to talk. And neither did she, not really. She couldn’t talk about the things that touched her most deeply. They had already made a deal. She was the one trying to change the rules after they had been agreed upon.

“Shouldn’t you let them know you’re married?”

Once in a while she would catch him looking at her in the strangest way. It was almost as if he were looking at a stranger, studying her, trying to figure out who she was, what she was. Other times he looked right through her. That was when she knew he was thinking about his brothers.

She started to wonder if she had made a mistake in thinking George could come to love her. It was pretty hard to fall in love with a woman you barely had time to think about.

“They wouldn’t care, not since my uncle was killed. They think everyone who lives in Texas lives on a plantation and owned hundreds of slaves.”

Rose told herself this was a bad time. Things would be better after the cows were rounded up and sold. But she knew that every passing day made it harder for George to change. He had been at his most vulnerable in Austin. He had moved away from her ever since.

She considered asking him to take her to Austin, anything to get away from the family, but she couldn’t expect him to stop the roundup when she had everything she needed for the next several months.

Except his love.

“Surely there’s somebody else. How about your father’s family?”

Every time she saw him stare at Jeff’s empty chair, she knew that his feelings for his brothers were stronger than for her. She knew it every time he looked at Tyler with that crease
between his eyes. She knew it when she saw him make a point of spending a few minutes with Zac every evening.

Even when he didn’t have time to spend with her.

“They wanted him to become a minister. They disowned him when he went to West Point.”

And his brothers’ behavior had done nothing to allay his fears about the bad blood in his family. Jeff was sharp-tongued and cruel. He seemed to look for ways to make the twins furious. Monty and Hen were in savage moods most of the time. They were merely beastly the rest of the time. Tyler hardly recognized anybody’s existence. Only George and Zac seemed to have any emotional equilibrium. Maybe George was right. Maybe they were all crazy.

“Then you really are alone in the world.”

They might be, but George wasn’t, and it was George she loved.

She couldn’t go forward and she couldn’t go backward. She would go crazy if something didn’t happen soon.

“Not anymore.”

George’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point. Rose had told him that this was the time when she could conceive, so for the third night in less than a week he lay in bed next to her, unable to kiss her, unable to touch her. The other nights he’d slept under the stars, dreaming of lying next to her, of holding her in his arms.

When he was away, it seemed that staying away from her was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But when he lay next to her, a forbidden zone of two feet between them, it seemed much harder.

For a solid week he’d tried not to think of her when he was in the saddle and an angry cow was coming at him. He tried not to remember the warmth of her eyes when he was about to place a red-hot branding iron on the side of a fifteen-hundred-pound bull already pushed to the point of madness
by castration. He tried not to think of her as he made his plans or gave out the instructions for the day. He inevitably lost his train of thought and confused everyone.