“So you’re a fifth-generation breeder.” And a fifth generation non-talker. Maybe he was genetically hardwired for non-communication.
“Yeah.” Cooper allowed himself a small smile. “We’re fairly well-known.”
That was an understatement. Loren Jensen had told her that the Cooper stud farm was one of the best in the country. “So what happened next?”
Cooper frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Cooper.” Julia threw him a reproachful glance. “One bad marriage does not a Curse make. Any curse worth its name needs some bells and whistles. So what happened? Did your great-great grandmother die and haunt the property or something? Or maybe—let’s see—”
Cooper shook his head. “Nope, it was just an old-fashioned bolt. She never came back. Either in the flesh or in the spirit.”
“So then what happened?”
Cooper sighed. “Then my great-grandfather grew up and inherited the farm and imported more horses. He was the one who really started breeding scientifically. He was one of the first in this country to apply Mendelian genetics to horse breeding. He imported three Arabians in 1937…”
“Cooper…” Julia said in exasperation, “the Curse.”
“Oh.” He pursed his lips. “Yeah. Well, my great-grandmother had my grandfather and, after five years of marriage, she ran away with the Singer man.” He thought for a moment. “She took the sewing machine with her.”
“And your grandmother?”
Cooper swerved into a parking place. “Ran off with the foreman.”
“And your mother died when you were small,” Julia said slowly. “And…and your wife left you. That’s all very sad. But where is the Curse in all of this?”
He was at the passenger door. “Well…” Cooper was looking very unhappy. He helped her down. “I guess people started putting two and two together and coming up with five. The legend is that that no woman—no female—can live on the Double C. That the Double C is cursed to be womanless. By some fluke, we also breed more colts than fillies.” He put a hand to her back and they started walking.
Julia was silent as they crossed the street. On the other side, she looked up at him, disappointed. “That’s it? That’s the curse?”
“That’s the curse.”
“You didn’t leave anything out? No wailing ghosts, no clanking chains?”
“Nope.”
“Just Cooper women who run away from Cooper men?”
Cooper winced. “That’s about the size of it.”
Julia turned it all over in her mind. “Well…” she said consideringly and watched Cooper tense. “I think that’s ridiculous. I can’t believe the things people make up.”
“You—what?” Cooper stared.
“I was expecting something more exciting. A curse. A proper one. I mean all you’ve told me is that there have been some troubled marriages in your family. So what? What’s the big deal? That’s not a curse. That’s life.”
He stopped suddenly, right in the middle of the sidewalk. “Do you mean that?”
“Sure I do.” She blinked and smiled. “A curse,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “I think that’s the silliest thing I ever heard.”
“Me, too,” he said, and she could hear the relief in his voice. “Let’s get going, then. You’ll want some time in the bookshop. Then I know a great place for lunch.”
* * * * *
Richard Abt, a.k.a. Robert Littlewood, stepped off the curb in Rockville, Idaho. He wasn’t particularly looking where he was going because there was little need to do so. Rockville was a quiet little town and he was in the residential district. Few cars were to be seen on Crescent Drive, which was a quiet, leafy road.
Abt was lost in thought. He was due to testify in five months’ time, at which point he could go back to his former life, but the thought had little appeal. He wasn’t married and there wasn’t anyone waiting for him. Besides, there was a crying need for accountants in this part of the world. He could settle in nicely here in a private practice.
Abt was happily immersed in thoughts of setting up a practice of his own—he could quietly put the word around at the next Lion’s Club meeting—when a car suddenly pulled out from the curb.
He didn’t have a chance.
By the time the low growl of the engine registered on his startled senses, he was already flying over the hood like a limp, boneless rag.
* * * * *
“Good story, isn’t it?” Cooper asked quietly. “Just shows what the human spirit can endure.”
Julia looked up, confused. She had to wrench her attention back to the here and now. She had been totally immersed in Song Li’s story, transported to Vietnam in the early ‘60s. It was a riveting book already in the first few pages. The back blurb promised the history of the Vietnamese conflict as seen through the eyes of a young girl growing up during the war.
Julia knew she was definitely going to buy it. “Have you read it?”
Cooper nodded.
Julia closed the paperback and tapped the cover.
Salted Earth
. “Is it as good as they say it is?” She’d read the reviews when it had been published and had been intrigued, but had never gotten around to reading it.
“Better.” Cooper put down the pile of books he was carrying and picked it up. “I read it when it first came out. What a hellhole it was over there. It’s a wonder the woman survived in any shape to tell the tale.” His face was remote, unsmiling as if he were remembering something horrible.
“Oh, Cooper,” Julia breathed. She hadn’t thought…and yet she’d seen a thousand made-for-TV movies. And now a lot of things about Cooper made sense. She stepped closer and put a hand on his arm. It was like touching iron. Warm iron. “Was it—was it bad?”
Cooper looked down at her hand. “Was what bad?”
“The war, of course. But that’s stupid of me. Of course it was bad. Dear God, it must have been sheer hell.”
“Are you talking about the Vietnam War, Sally?” he asked.
“Well, of course,” she said, confused.
“I was five when Saigon fell,” he said gently. He thought for a moment. “I wasn’t in the Korean War, either. Or World War II.”
Julia added and subtracted and felt foolish. “Oh. Right.” She shook her head and her hand dropped. “I watch way too many old films. Sorry about that. I always get dates wrong. But—” Julia tilted her head and looked at Cooper. His longish black hair was brushed back. His suit was either an Italian design or from an excellent tailor. It was beautifully cut. His tie was silk and echoed the silk square in his jacket pocket. Today, he looked like what he was—a prosperous businessman—except for his hands, which weren’t the smooth, pampered hands of a businessman. They were large and rough—hands used to a lot of manual labor. Despite the elegant suit and the polished loafers, however, he still looked every inch a warrior. “Chuck Pedersen said you won a medal. What was it for, then? Desert Storm?”
“Nope. Joined the Navy in ‘92. And I quit in 2002 ‘cause my dad died, so I missed the Iraq war the second time around, too.”
“So, what was it? What war were you in?” Had she missed a war somewhere between New York and Boston?
“No war.” Cooper pulled in a deep breath. “Flight 101,” he said grimly.
“Cooper!” Julia was stunned. Wars were remote events, played out somewhere far away. Flight 101 had been hijacked on American soil—at JFK, not ten miles from where she had just started her studies at Columbia. She had watched the tragedy of Flight 101 unfold on CNN. The whole country had remained glued to their TV sets for four days and four nights, praying for the hostages. Everyone had followed the terrifying sequence of events live—the terrorists’ demands, the stalled negotiations and the horrifying sight of seven of the hostages being shot from the open cockpit, their bodies dropped on the tarmac one by one. “That little girl.” The memory of it had Julia’s stomach clenching. “Were you there when—when—” She couldn’t say it.
“Yeah, I was there. We’d been called in immediately. We had orders to wait for negotiations to pan out. We waited and we waited. When the little girl was—” Cooper looked away and his jaw muscles worked. “That’s when we decided to move.”
She remembered the men in black ski masks who had swarmed into the plane on the runway. Two of them had died, she remembered. “That’s what you got the medal for,” Julia said.
“Mmm-hmm.” Cooper looked around. “You about ready to go?”
“Yes, I think so.” Julia was still struggling with what he had told her. It was one thing to know a man who had been to war. It was quite another to have seen him on TV doing it. Of course, he had been wearing a ski mask at the time. And of course, she hadn’t known him then.
At the time, Julia suddenly remembered, she had been dating Henry Borsello, a history major. He had been charming, chatty, shallow and unreliable. All in all, very, very un-Cooperish. For a moment, Julia tried to imagine Henry in a ski mask, rappelling down a plane. Taking out terrorists with machine guns. Or even fixing her plumbing. She failed miserably.
“Let’s go have lunch then, Cooper,” she said. “It’s not every day a girl gets to have lunch with a real live hero.” She beamed at him. “My treat.”
Cooper looked shocked at the idea and frowned as he took her arm. “Absolutely not.”
Chapter Twelve
“Talk to me, Cooper,” Julia said before taking another bite of her chiliburger. She thought of sighing with delight but didn’t, out of respect for Alice.
“Ahm…” Cooper signaled for another cup of coffee. Probably to gain time while he thought of something to say. Julia was going to have to work on that with him. His eyes lit when he thought of something. “You like it here?”
Julia put her cup down carefully and looked around The Brewery. It had stained hardwood floors. Against one wall was a working fireplace and the merrily burning logs added coziness and warmth. It was haphazardly—and charmingly—decorated with old copper pots as planters and a wagon wheel as a chandelier. Pewter serving dishes were arranged on a trestle table decorated with earthenware vases full of what were essentially weeds—Bishop’s Weed, vetch and water mint. A large wicker basket held dried pampas grass and bulrushes. The kitchen area was open, divided only by a huge old-fashioned marble-topped chest that served as a counter. She brought her attention back to Cooper.
“It’s great,” she said softly, watching him expectantly. “Your turn now.”
His jaws worked as he mulled over something to say. “Er…nice day, isn’t it?”
They were sitting by the large window and had a good view of the deteriorating weather outside. Grey clouds were dimming the already weak late afternoon sun. A sudden gust of wind rattled the shutters loudly. Julia laughed and after a moment, Cooper did, too.
“I guess you’re not too good at this talking thing,” she said.
“Nope.” He leaned back so the waitress could clear the dirty dishes from the table. He drank the last of his coffee and eyed her warily.
“How come it’s so nice here?” Julia asked.
Cooper blinked. “Beg your pardon? Nice where?”
“Here. In Rupert.” Julia waved her arm, encompassing the warm café and the town outside. “This place is great. The food is wonderful. The decor is authentic. It’s a truly great little café. Bob’s Corner Bookstore was wonderful, too. It had a good selection and Bob was nice. It was a perfect small town bookstore. We walked down two perfect small town streets to get here and they were planted with larch and geraniums. The plants were well-tended and there wasn’t a pothole in sight. Rupert could be in a guidebook.
Great Small Towns of the West
.” She folded her hands under her chin. “So what went wrong with Simpson?”
Julia could almost see the wheels turning in Cooper’s head as he turned the question over in his mind. “Well…maybe towns are like people. Some are hardy and some aren’t. Some withstand hardship better than others. Horses are like that, too,” he added after a moment.
It was one way of looking at it. “So…when did Simpson start to…ah…” Julia tried to find a word that wouldn’t be too strong, or reek too much of must and decay, “decline?” she finished delicately.
Cooper paused to consider. “Guess maybe the death-knell was when the new interstate ran forty miles west of Simpson. That was back in ‘84.”
“You mean surveyors draw a line in the map for a road and a town goes down the drain—” Julia snapped her fingers, “—like that?” It was a novel concept, and she realized that her time in Simpson was the first time in her life she’d lived anywhere that wasn’t old and picturesque and in a guidebook. It was odd to think that she was living somewhere that might just drop off the map in a few years.
“Yeah. But then that’s how most towns in the West were founded anyway, so I suppose it’s poetic justice.”
“What do you mean?”
Cooper visibly relaxed. The history of the West was something he knew a lot about, judging from the history books she’d seen in his library.
Cooper leaned to one side as the waitress deposited two servings of dessert and two steaming cups of coffee in front of them.
“Most of the towns out here were founded on a whim—where a miner happened to pitch a tent, then another miner joined him—or where a settler was buried, or where there was groundwater. In Montana and Wyoming, it was even more arbitrary. The railway engineers just took a pencil and a compass and marked off fifty-mile lengths along the tracks for where the trains needed to load up with water and that’s where they founded the railway towns. Likely as not, the towns were named after the engineer’s mother or wife or daughter. Lotta towns named Clarissa and Lorraine out there. Not more than a shack or two sometimes. Some grew, some didn’t. Simpson was luckier than most—for a while, anyway. There’s a lot of underground water around Simpson and there’d been a vein of gold that ran out around 1920. Then for a while there was cattle, and that was profitable until the railway changed its route. Since then there’s been a slow decline. It’ll become a ghost town soon.”