Rose(111)

“Would it change your mind about Rose?”

“It might. If you meant it. But I don’t believe you do.”

Hissing impatiently, George started to turn Jeff’s question aside. This wasn’t about him and Rose. But then maybe it was. He didn’t know. Jeff had asked the question. Maybe it would give him one of the answers he needed.

“I realized a few days ago I didn’t know what love was.”

“Ma worshiped Pa,” Jeff objected, indignant. “She was obsessed with him.”

“That’s one of the reasons I was so afraid of marriage. I loved Ma, but I didn’t want to marry anybody like her. To me love was helpless, suffocating, painful. It wasn’t until Rose came that I realized that love was strong, that it meant standing up for yourself, saying things nobody wanted to hear. I also know it means giving of yourself because it makes somebody else happy. I don’t know if I love Rose. For a while I was sure I didn’t, but—”

“I knew it. I knew it!”

“—but now I’m not sure. I know I need her, that I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without her. Is that love? I think it’s part of it. I know I want her. She comforts my spirit and body as nothing ever has. That’s part of love, too. I also know I’m never as happy as I am when I’m with her.”

“You sound like you’re obsessed.”

“Maybe that’s also part of love. I don’t know, but I’m going to learn. It’s embarrassing sometimes. I feel like a child. But I learn a little something every day. It’s like a whole new way of living. It’s a willingness to give up control. To make a commitment and have faith it’ll work out.”

“It sounds like you’ve gone crazy,” Jeff said, scowling.

“Maybe that’s part of it, too. Whatever it is, it’s something I want more than I ever thought possible. And Rose is the only one who can teach me. I’m not giving her up, Jeff, no matter what it costs me.”

“Hell!” Jeff barked. “You are in love with her.”





Chapter Eighteen


George’s sixth sense saved them.

Rain threatened. The heavy, humid atmosphere seemed to unsettle the longhorns. Just as the men had finished for the day, a particularly wild steer broke through the fence taking most of the day’s gather with him. By the time they had located the herd and put a bullet through the head of the instigator, it was too late to go back to the ranch. They had skinned the steer, cooked as much of the meat as they could eat, and wandered off to sleep, dead tired. They wanted to get as much rest as they could before they got wet.

Something woke George. It might have been the wind moaning through the trees. Or a splintering limb. It was too dark to see. Storm clouds obscured the moon. The only light came from the dying embers of the fire.

One of the dogs was awake, his head pointed downwind. He growled low in his throat. He looked toward Monty, whined uneasily, then looked back into the night. He growled again.

George didn’t know how he knew they were about to be attacked. He just did. Reaching for his gun, he fired into the blackness.

“Someone’s coming at us from the creek!” he shouted to his sleeping crew.

The raiders came with a rush, riding their mules and scrub ponies through the center of camp and firing indiscriminately.

The crew scrambled out of their beds, desperately trying to reach any cover they could find. By the time they found their weapons, the raiders were gone. It was impossible to tell how many there were. They wore dark clothes and must have blackened their faces.

The attackers rode straight through to the Mexican camp about fifty yards away.

The raiders found no one at the camp. The vaqueros were as adept at disappearing into the brush as the longhorns. George could hear the noise of a wagon being overturned, crockery breaking, metal clanging noisily against metal. The raiders were trying to ruin the Mexicans’ supplies and equipment.

Then they turned and rode back through George’s camp, a thundering, charging mass in the dark. George guessed there must have been thirty or forty men. His crew wouldn’t have stood much chance against such overwhelming numbers if it hadn’t been for one rifle, firing with nerve-racking regularity, that picked off one after another of the raiders. By the time the last of them had raced through the camp, four men were swaying in their saddles.

“Hen, is that you?” George called out to the rifleman. He received no answer.

The raiders turned and headed back again, scattered along a broad front this time, but the deadly rifle picked off three more. The attack broke before they reached the camp. The raiders melted into the dark, the hoofbeats fading quickly into the thick atmosphere.