Chapter 9
She'd just slugged her coffee with whiskey when Dink Watson knocked on the kitchen door, and Jill told him tiredly to come on in. She'd had a hell of a night, and wasn't really in the mood for facing any more problems, no matter how small. Steve was still sleeping it off in the bed, and she hadn't been able to face that either, so she spent an uncomfortable night on the couch.
"Mrs. Devlin-this here is Sam Starr; he got here afore you was up, so I just kept him with me in the barn until you was stirrin' about."
Jill nodded. "Mr. Starr; will you have some breakfast? You, Dink?"
Sam Starr was lean and bent, his hair white and his face weathered by sun and sand and many years of squinting into the wind. "No thank you, ma'am; might indulge in some coffee, though."
She didn't offer to lace it with bourbon, but poured two more cups and sat down with them, drained out and uneasy in her mind. Sam Starr made remarks about how the weather was different from Texas, and she said yes, she supposed it was, and he went on to talk about horses.
"There was a stud on our place name of Hale's Comet; he was named after Hale Devlin, and it was kind of a play on Haley's Comet back then. Anyways, that stud could run like a snakebit fool, and three, four of his get did, too. One of 'em broke track records at El Paso and Juarez, and she mighta' gone on to be might nigh good as Three Bars, except she pulled a tendon we couldn't fix."
Finishing her coffee, Jill listened toward the bedroom where her husband was sleeping off his monumental drunk, and his beating. She really wasn't interested in running quarter horses just then.
"Now this Comet D horse," the old man said, "he seems right catty on his feet, but he couldn't rightly be the colt that Hale Devlin took with him when we busted up our partnership; that was too long ago."
Jill got up and poured more coffee for them all, then, with her body shielding her movements, dropped another slug into her own cup. She needed a lift this morning, for there was still Steve to face, to convince of the futility of begging money in town. Convince him, Aaron Mercer had said, and that strong, cruel man certainly meant it.
She said, "No, Hale Devlin brought Comet D's sire from Texas. He was named Comet R, after the Rafter ranch; Comet D was for Devlin. He can run, Mr. Starr; I don't know about how well he'd do now, because he's a full twelve years old, but he can show his feet to just about anything in the county 3 and some of his get..."
Listening, she heard Steve go into the bathroom and shut the door. Into the silence, Dink Watson said, "Comet's get run at a few tracks, but mostly folks want 'em for cutting horses, show stock and like that."
Sam Starr's washed-out blue eyes found hers, and Jill looked away. He said, "You ever considered sellin' Comet D? My guess is that he's got just the blood cross I been chasin' down for years. I'd make you a fair price on him."
The shower went on, and she got a picture of herself in that same glassed-in stall, soapy and slippery, getting the meat shoved to her by Boyce Pittman. Her husband was standing in there now, baking some of the soreness from his naked body with the hot water, and somehow, she got a picture of him on one side of her and Boyce on the other, their rigid cocks reaching at her, their hands caressing foam over her squirming body, one cock probing into the cleft of her buttocks, one reaching hotly into the hairy depths of her pubic mound.
"I-I'm sorry," she said, "my husband isn't feeling too well, and I didn't hear everything you said, Mr. Starr."
He nodded, his work-worn fingers holding his coffee cup. "Said I'd like to buy your stud, was you of a mind to sell. Wouldn't plan on runnin' him none, but just usin' him to cross back on that mare's bloodline."
"We've never thought about selling him," she said. "I'd have to talk it over with Steve, but I don't know if he'll consider it ... "
Sam Starr rose, hat dangling in his hand now. He was in faded jeans and a patched, washed-thin shirt; his boots were run over at the heels. She felt sympathetic for him, though; he'd come all the way from Texas to look at a horse.
"Tell you what," she said, "if you don't mind bunking in with Dink, we'd be glad to have you stay awhile. It just might be that my husband will have to sell off all our stock, and if Comet D gets a good home ..."
Steve came into the kitchen; he had a bruise over one eye and a cut over the other; the scratch on his cheekbone was thin but definite, and the left corner of his mouth was puffed out of shape. His hair was wet from the shower, and he'd shaved, out of habit, she guessed. Wearing a short sleeved shirt and Lee Riders, he would have looked pretty good, but for the anger smoldering deep in his eyes.
"Howdy," Sam Starr said. "You'd be Hale's boy, then. I was his partner once."
"Sam," Steve said, "Sam Starr."
She poured another cup, and made room at the table for Steve. He ignored her, and eagerly talked over old times about his father, with Dink pitching in now and then, and Sam Starr relaxing. They didn't notice when she left the kitchen, and she went to sit on the porch, to stare out at the pastures where the Herefords moved, and beyond them at the little band of horses.
Maybe she ought to see a doctor, she thought. She certainly had a fixation on sex; let her husband take a shower, and she pictured herself naked between him and her lover; one of her lovers. When someone talked about breeding Comet D to a mare, she pictured the stallion's huge penis, and that image was followed by, overlapped by, Aaron Mercer's giant phallus.
And what the hell would she tell a doctor? Cure me of my sexual urges? She didn't want to be that cured, but Jill did wish she could control herself more. Take Aaron now-she was afraid of him, now that she'd seen the lengths he was willing to go to, just to "convince" someone. He had convinced her, for sure; but had it worked with Steve? Her husband hadn't seemed cowed this morning, but belligerent.
Aaron terrified her now, but still-Jill closed her eyes and rested one cheek on her drawn up knees-he possessed that compelling quality, that mesmerizing power that drew her to him. It was like being close to a beautiful snake, and admiring his grace, his markings, yet knowing the horror of his deadly fangs.
Aaron's penis was his deadly fang; it was a spear, a rhino's horn, designed for impaling softer flesh. She saw herself again writhing on it, riding its thickness, twisting and hunching upon its knobbed length.
Steve. She reached for his image and held tightly to it. Steve wouldn't go on being angry with her; he couldn't. He'd understand, once he'd talked to the lawyer and the other banker, and the savings and loan outfit over in Junctionville. He would know there wasn't anything else she could have done, that instead of raising hell with her about screwing Boyce to save the ranch, he ought to be thanking her for doing it.
She lifted her face from her knees. Maybe Steve had already talked to everybody; maybe that's why he was so loaded early in the day. It could be that he'd gotten the same turndowns she had, and now he knew what a hopeless fight he was up against.
God; they'd kill him if he didn't cooperate. Whatever Aaron Mercer wanted with the Rafter D-and she had to assume he wanted it, too-then they'd better let him have it. Otherwise, Lang and Jojo would ambush Steve somewhere and leave his body to be found, and by the time the estate had cleared probate, Aaron would have her signature on a bill of sale. And Steve wouldn't be alive. And the ranch would be lost, anyhow.
She heard the back door slam, and Dink Watson laugh. From the corner of her eye, she saw the two old men cross to the barn, and then saw the heavy-tired pickup with the camper parked back there. The rig looked new, not nearly so worn as its owner, and she thought that Sam Starr must have saved for a long time to buy it.
Steve came out on the porch, and she kept her back to him. He sat down near her on the steps, but not too near, and after a while he said, "You tried to help last night."
"Sure; I still consider you my husband."
He said, "You called that little one by name. You said Lang."
Jill sighed. "Yes, and I said not to hurt you, but he wouldn't listen."
"How do you know him? You probably know the big one, too."
"Only by name," she said. "He-they work for another man, a stranger in town, and I'd guess he sent them." She swung around to face him, and her heart went out to him about his battered face. "Oh, Steve-"
"You're keeping some weird company," he said. "First I find out you've been screwing the town banker, and right after I have a fight with you about it, along come these hoods and beat hell out of me. For this mysterious stranger, you say-not for you; not because I slapped you around and made you go down on me."
"You think that?" Her eyes blistered him for the idea. "Damn it-if I'd put those two on you, I wouldn't have tried to stop them; I'd have jumped on and helped them."
One corner of his mouth lifted. "Guess you would, at that. But what made them work me over, without a word?"
"To-to convince you," she said, "that you should sign over the ranch as soon as possible. I talked to that man; he's supposed to be a land developer, and I don't know why he wants the Rafter D. I don't care why. I don't want to see you dead because you didn't listen. Lang-that swishy one, could have cut your throat as easily as he marked your cheek. And he would do it."
Steve touched exploratory fingertips to his eye and winced. "This developer-and Pittman, too. How come the Rafter D is all that important suddenly?"
"I told you I didn't care why! Between them or maybe together, Aaron Mercer and Boyce Pittman are playing some kind of deadly game that has us in the middle, and we're not big enough to stand up to them. They'll hurt you, maybe kill you, and I-" Jill stopped, not wanting to say she loved him, her pride still hurt from the bad time he'd given her.
Steve said, "Experts have tried to kill me-Koreans, Chinese, Charlie Cong; I'm still here."
Exasperated, she flared at him. "Damn it, don't be ridiculous! Where are your mortars, tanks, airplanes? Where are the medics, the helicopters? This is a different kind of war, Steve-and all the odds are on their side."
"What do you expect me to do about it? Let them bang me around?"
Carefully, she said, "Sell the place. That's safer by far, and there's an offer-a big offer, Steve. Ninety thousand dollars, all told. That leaves us with seventy, plus all the stock and machinery. We can buy a smaller place, one with lots of water, thin out the horses and keep the brood cows-"
"My," he said, "but you've been a busy little wife. Very businesslike, rational and logical, and yes-that's a hell of a lot of money. From this Mercer guy, I guess. Have you been playing around with him, too? Does that go with the concerned wife game-all that screwing! around?"
"Please," she said, "I'm trying not to fight." And there was a heavier guilt inside her now, a burden that she couldn't unload, but had to keep secret. If Steve knew about Aaron, that would finish it all.
"Okay," he said. "Could be I'm pushing this too hard, but it was a jolt-hearing that bastard brag how he stuck it to you, that Pittman. I want his ass for it, and the best way to do that-"
"Is banging his child? That's getting back at me, more than at him. A better way is to sell the Rafter D out from under him. I don't know what's going on at that bank, or why Mercer isn't dealing directly with Pittman-"
"Oh, come on," he said bitterly, "after laying him a few times, you know him well enough to call him Boyce."
"Damn it-are you going to listen?
Steve stood up. "Both of them have to buck the Homestead laws, and if they're in a hurry, too goddamned bad; that'll slow them up. Maybe I can't stand up to them head on, but I've been in a guerilla war for a while, and those tactics work pretty good. And now, Jill-right now, I'm not going to listen, because I can't. I want to, but I can't; not now, anyway. Maybe later I can be rational and logical and get it all easy in my head, but right now I'm shook up."
She looked up at him, and felt a quick lightness, because he hadn't said he hated her, because he said maybe later it would all work out, and he could forgive her for laying another man. Men, she thought, and wasn't all that certain that she wanted absolution for a sin that had been partly necessary. There had also been need and loneliness, and they could equally share the blame for that.
He said, "I'll take the truck, and later on-sometime-I'll let you know where I am and what I'm doing. If they get after you, leave word at the feed store for me to call you. I'll call anyhow, every day. Jill..."
"Yes," she said.
He shrugged, and walked back into the house. Stung, she called after him. "Steve-stay away from that child!"
His voice floated back. "Do I tell you who to lay?"
And Jill knew that she'd broken up any communication they might have had going for them again. He was a stubborn, hard-nosed man, just what the army needed as an infantry sergeant, but he'd have to change to get along worth a damn in civilian life. The rules were different here, and maybe that included the old laws about cleaving only unto each other. And possibly she was still looking for an out, an excuse for having enjoyed herself so much sexually with her two lovers. Jill climbed up from the porch steps and stood uncertainly for a moment, until she saw Steve cross from the kitchen and make for the barn.
More talk to Sam Starr and Dink, she thought, then he'd be off to town, where he could bang his hard head against the money walls, if he hadn't already done so. After a few more bruises to his ego, he'd go his mulish way and find that kid, that Sherry child.
Jill snorted; it would do Steve good to have the kid slap his face-or better yet, laugh like hell at him for a dirty old man. His great lover act would collapse then, and his idiot plan for revenge with it. And they would be safer all around.
For if they were going to buck Aaron Mercer, they didn't need another major enemy in Boyce Pittman. Oh. Boyce would fight now, for the fat profit that had to be in this for him somewhere, but he'd turn tiger, if his daughter was hurt.
Outside, the truck started up, and she looked through the window to see it roar away, carrying her husband, very probably on his way to screw a fourteen-year-old girl.