The Hard-To-Tame Texan Page 6

  They actually strolled to the other side of that flatland and climbed the bank the Keepers had built to keep the dirt from washing away into the canyon. Silently, they stood to took down into the drop that was before them. It was there. It was not controlled land. It was wild and beautiful like looking down on something God just made.

  They looked at what was before them and felt as if they were the first to ever even see it. But they knew from the plowed field behind them that it was no surprise to anyone who lived there.

  They didn’t even bother to exclaim or comment. There it all was. Silently, they looked and filled their souls.

  There was an outjut of rock on the beginning, down-sloping of the land. Andrew went over to it and considered it, The slope was not dangerous at first and there were other outcroppings that could delay a fall.

  He tested the jutted rock and it seemed entirely solid. He sat on it rather heavily and bounced several times. It did not move. He said to JoAnn, “Try it.”

  “You sit there. I’ll sit on the ground.” It was too intimate to sit so close.

  He waited until she was settled about ten feet away from him. Then he sat easily on the outcropping.

  The scene before them was a gift. It was so beautiful. It was so peaceful. It was awesome.

  After some time, she inquired, “Was this made just for us?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why...probably.”

  So he was truthful. “I have come to a crossroad in my life. I was bitter. This makes me feel as if the world may not have been made just for my own interest.”

  “Well, damn! I thought all the time it was made for me!”

  Andrew laughed. He laughed softly, but then he found he was too amused and he couldn’t swallow all those sounds, so he laughed out loud...and the echoes of his laughter bounced joyfully around in the hollows and against the walls before them.

  She was so charmed and so amused and delighted that her own laughter mixed in with his.

  They did not touch. They exchanged glances now and again. But they were separate.

  They settled down, relaxed and amused. And they just looked at what was around them. They didn’t speak. They both knew why they’d laughed. It was in separate ways. His was astonishment that he was there and still alive.

  JoAnn laughed because it echoed so well. Two different reasons.

  His was joy of a kind of surprise.

  She laughed to hear the echoes. The intertwined echoes of shared laughter.

  Nothing fell. No rocks slid with the vibrations of their laughter. Other people had called and shouted and laughed before them.

  They had no water. They hadn’t planned to be out that long. But they each found a small smooth rock to put in their different mouths to suck on them. It made their saliva trickle into their dry mouths.

  They walked back to the house, which was closer from the tableland rift than the eastern area had been when they were searching for the dog.

  She asked, “How’d you know to come this way back to the house?”

  “My compass.”

  “I shall get one.”

  “I have several. You may have one of mine.”

  “Why...thank you.”

  “I have enjoyed our companionship.”

  That sounded very like a farewell. She considered how she should reply. She finally said, “This has been a pleasant day.”

  “For me, too.”

  As they came to a west side approach to the house, they could see it through the trees. There was a spring there, and they stopped and drank from it. What all drank there? Well, the creatures wouldn’t have hepatitis or typhoid fever. The way it overflowed into the stream, it was pure.

  And a bird flew over to deny that little supposition.

  Andrew lifted his curled fingers up as if he held the handle of a gun and said, “Pow.”

  She laughed. Boys played cowboy all their young lives. Here was another.

  He blew off his invisible smoking gun and said, “Do you see him?”

  “The bird?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked up and around. It was gone. She said, “Poor bird. You ought not shoot those who only are indiscreet.” She licked her smile to cover it.

  “It teaches them not to do it again.”

  “What a stickler!”

  “Yeah.”

  She said thoughtfully, “You are not of the live-and-let-live believers.”

  “No.”

  “It’s good to know that about you.”

  He inquired, “So that you will respect me?”

  “So that I will avoid you.”

  “Why would you...avoid me?”

  Her voice was oddly gentle. “I don’t agree with you. You will not be changed. You are too long in the tooth to correct yourself and your ideas.”

  In assimilating all that, Andrew tilted his head and squinched his eyes as he tasted the words, “Too long in the tooth to...correct...myself. That means you don’t believe I can change.”

  “More than likely.”

  “You are a woman who thinks without any guidance.”

  “Correct.”

  He looked at her. “So I have for once been...correct?”

  “Several times. But they aren’t important. The important ones are the ones you won’t change.”

  “Like—”

  “Pretending to kill the bird. The only reason you pretended is that you didn’t have a gun with you.”

  He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small pistol. It would have to be close, but it was lethal.

  She lowered her head in respect and commented, “By the time you got it out, the bird would have been gone.”

  He said, “Let’s test that comment.” He put the gun back in his pant pocket.

  She felt around on herself, which fascinated him and, after feeling her pockets, she came up with a quarter. She flipped it up, and he shot it before it began to fall.

  She said, “You’re practiced.”

  “Anyone who travels alone must be prepared in this day and time.”

  She corrected, “In any day or time.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you believe this is a dangerous time and you carry a gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “You scare me a little.”

  “You scare me a hell of a lot.”

  And she was baffled. “Why?”

  “You could ruin me.”

  “I don’t know much, at all, about you. How could I ruin you?”

  “By luring me into your trap.”

  She laughed in whoops. She laughed until she had to stop and lean one hand against a tree. The tree was what told her she was nearer the house. She assimilated that and continued to laugh. She found a handkerchief and blotted her eyes and discreetly blew her nose. She said, “You’re hilarious.”

  “You’re fantastic.”

  “Come on, Andrew, you could barely tolerate me until just now. You must be a needy man.”

  “No.”

  “You have women lined up?”

  “No.”

  “You’re out of your mind. If you really believe any of what you’ve just said, you aren’t working with a full deck.”

  He was silent.

  “No reply?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  She considered him. She said, “You’re right. I wouldn’t.” And she walked on back toward the house...and he kept up.

  So actually, that day, Andrew had walked about as far as the doctors and Mrs. Keeper had advised.

  The fact that no one saw them speak was no surprise. Andrew was a nerd to everyone else in the area. If a good woman like JoAnn couldn’t speak with him, it was no surprise to anyone else. Neither could they get Andrew to talk with them.

  It was rather remarkable that no one came to JoAnn’s room before dinner. She stripped and showered. Having dried herself with a large towel, she went to her bed and piled the pillows at the head of it.

  Her beautif
ully made female body naked, she got into bed, pulled up the sheet and a small blanket, put earphones on her head and turned on the news.

  JoAnn’s stomach growled. Being a guest was a chore, but she’d always had snacks in her room. She opened the drawer of the bed table and pulled out a variety of cookies and fruit. She had a glass of water on the glass top of the bed table.

  She watched the news. She didn’t want to think or give any replies to anyone. Especially not to him. To the man with whom she’d walked. She not only didn’t believe his words, but she also thought he was a middle-aged snot. He could hardly tolerate her before he’d changed at the end of that very day.

  She figured he was a needy man, and he thought she’d be honored. Yeah. Sure.

  Five

  To go to dinner, Andrew Parsons bathed, quite carefully shaved and dressed with attention. He could use a haircut. Well, he would be okay for now. He’d see to the haircut tomorrow. He smiled at the mirror. He was pleased with his image.

  JoAnn was about what he wanted. A little too independent, but available. And adjusted to—Actually, she had made him adjust. No, tolerate. She was firm and didn’t give one inch! She had forced him to be civil. Hmmm. He’d thought he was the one in charge. He’d have to consider her more closely.

  Close? He smiled into the mirror as he considered being...close...to her.

  Carrying the unneeded cane with some élan, he walked down to the first floor where the dinners were held. There was a meeting room where they all gathered. It was attractive. They were offered quite small glasses of wine or fruit juice.

  Andrew entered as would any known person. And Mrs. Keeper was kind enough to see him and gather people around him. He had a glass of wine.

  Before then, he’d never realized how well Mrs. Keeper handled guests. She was firm that people talk to each other. She never loosened the social rope to allow them to drift away or to take over the conversations entirely. She was steel!

  Mrs. Keeper was steel? Andrew was shocked. He observed the fragile—lady, for she was one. She was relentless. She guided the conversations. She knew what they each knew, and she pulled it out of them with such gentle tact that he was shivered. She was a steel woman, attractive and unbending but gently so.

  Mrs. Keeper’s manners were perfect. She appeared to be kind, gentle and a lady. However—If one observed and listened, everything went her way. She was courteously, gently relentless.

  The really appalling part was what she did was right! That was demeaning.

  Having assimilated the real facts about Mrs. Keeper, Andrew then glanced around again to see if JoAnn had yet arrived. She was not there. He smiled a bit in anticipation. He was eager to see her again.

  Then... then...Mrs. Keeper said, “Shall we?” And she took the arm of the male who would be seated to her right, and they went into the dining room. The arm she accepted was not Andrew’s.

  He tagged along rather like a bit of wood caught in the current. Hmmm. He was not a bit of wood.

  A footman found his place for him and indicated the chair in kind, smiling attention.

  Andrew frowned. He was lost in the middle of the table. He looked to see where JoAnn would be. But it wasn’t near to him. Damn.

  He watched to see if the laggard got there in time or would she be late? The Keepers didn’t encourage lateness.

  The chairs were all filled? Where would she sit? He would offer his chair. She would be charmed by his gesture.

  When JoAnn didn’t appear, Andrew became concerned. He stretched up in order to see if she was there.

  JoAnn.

  It had taken him a while to realize she was special. She had been around like a flea in his shirt. Now the agitation was in his pants.

  She did not arrive. Where was she? He could hardly get up and go see. He stopped one of the servers and said, “Miss Murray, the redhead? She isn’t here.”

  And the server said, “I’ll check.”

  Andrew remembered to say, “Thank you.”

  It was odd that he paid no attention to the people on either side of him. He did not assimilate what all they ate or what they said or disagreed about. Andrew had been picky and pushed things aside and ignored them. This time, he ate. It was probably because of the long walk. He was hungry.

  If he was hungry, why wasn’t JoAnn there? She’d walked as far. Had she fainted in the shower? He signaled the server he’d spoken with.

  That person came to Andrew and said, “Yes, Sir?” as he looked at Andrew’s depleted plate.

  “Miss Murray...”

  “Someone has gone to her room. One of the women. She has a key. If there’s no reply, she will enter the room. We are careful of our guests.”

  “Thank you.”

  “As soon as we know about her, we’ll tell you.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  So one of the women went down the hall and tapped on JoAnn Murray’s door as she listened carefully.

  From inside the room came, “Who is it?”

  “It’s I, Ginny. Mr. Parsons was concerned about you not being at the table.”

  JoAnn said through the door, “I’ve decided to skip supper.”

  The woman asked, “Is there anything I can bring to you?”

  “Thanks, but no.”

  The woman said, “Sleep well.”

  JoAnn replied, “I shall.”

  And that was the sum of it all. JoAnn Murray was going to sleep. So the woman went back and told the server what had been said to her through the door, and he went to Andrew and said, “Miss Murray is going to sleep.”

  While that shocked Andrew, he realized they’d walked too far—for JoAnn. She was exhausted. He should have paid more attention. He ate his second plateful more slowly. He replied with courtesy to the openings given him. He started no conversation nor did he ask any questions of his own. He didn’t know to do that. He only knew he was primary.

  Andrew felt he’d done his share of table talk in replying. When he could, he excused himself from the table and walked out of the room. He went to JoAnn’s door and tapped quietly so that if she was asleep, she would not waken, but if she was awake, she’d come to her door.

  She did not come to the door nor did she open it. She heard the quiet tap and surmised it was Andrew. She did not want to talk to him...at all. She was fed up with the struggle each time of making him pliant. She’d done her share. Anything would slide him back into being a snot. She wanted nothing more to do with him.

  Why not?

  She sighed with endurance at her other half and retorted in her brain, “He’s a winky-dink. He loves himself. He isn’t a part of the general population. He feels he is unique. He is not unique at all, he is a bore.”

  Her other self considered that reply and thoughtfully agreed it was probably so.

  So her two other parts, which enjoyed debate, settled down and watched TV while the sound was in her earphones. Gradually, she yawned. Then she drank some water. And finally she blinked off the TV, removed the earphones and settled down to sleep.

  She dreamed. In her dream, Andrew was missing. Not his dog but he was missing. He’d gone to walk and gotten lost. He had had the compass, and he knew how to read it. He’d lost it when he’d fallen. Why had he fallen? He’d been looking back to see if she followed him.

  Why in this world would she be out—following him?

  Uhhhhhhhh... curiosity? She wanted to know if he could walk again after that dead horse had been lying on his leg for over some fifty hours.

  Her counterself thought, that was some time ago. He was just about completely recovered.

  Yeah. Why the cane?

  That was an asinine retort from her alter ego. It agreed with her. So she flopped over to go back to sleep. She didn’t sleep. She lay and her eyelids opened. There was nothing interesting to look at. She could not again close her eyes. She ground her teeth.

  Then she pried herself up, put on the earphones and turned the TV back on. There was a show on with some nighthawk w
ho thought anything he said was clever. It was odd. Why did all those people laugh? That was baffling until she remembered the audience was given directions via printed cardboards.

  She found a movie that was almost finished. It was extremely emotional and tense! JoAnn had no idea at all what was happening. That the people were horrifically upset was obvious but—

  And some sort of flying something with a dark, wide, flapping cape came down and swooped the heroine away!

  The heroine struggled and screamed at some height. That was a stupid thing to do in those circumstances. So the woman fell from the sky and screamed even worse.

  Such stupid conduct irritated the liver out of JoAnn and she turned off the TV. She lay in a lump. She was irritated. She wanted to go home.

  Now, how was she going to manage that? She had been sent by her mother to help her mother’s dear friend straighten out a man who didn’t know about the real world. JoAnn did not want to have anything more to do with the blob who was the guest in question.

  Although she rattled her brain, JoAnn could not find any other friend or semifriend who would come and help with the creature who was Andrew Parsons.

  He was not only an irritating man, he was obsolete. Who wanted to deal with a man who felt like time was from over two hundred years ago when this country was just getting organized?

  In San Antonio, the Alamo fell to the Mexicans in 1836.

  Think of that. It was less than two hundred years ago. They had no trucks, no tanks. They rode horses and had guns that they had to reload with every time they’d been fired. All that was not even two hundred years ago!

  They just had buggies, wagons, horses and shank’s mare. That meant walking. If you had no horse, you walked.

  In that time, there were no cars, no trains even. Not an airplane in sight of mind. Well, they’d had big kites some long, long time before. Thousands of years. A kite so big that a reckless man could ride one of the giants up in the air and look at what all might be coming their way.

  And they used kites to figure the length of an intruding tunnel that would go under the wall of the castle they were accosting. JoAnn was glad she hadn’t lived then, but her time was now.