Even the Nights are Better

“Poor little guy,” she murmured. “I guess your breakfast is more important than mine, isn’t it? I won’t try to move you just now. I’ll go back up to the house and fix something for you to eat, and bring it right on down here, okay? That’ll make you feel better, boy. That’ll just be so nice…”

Still murmuring in low soothing tones, she backed away and turned toward the big front doors.

But she’d only gone a few steps when she paused in shock, her hand to her mouth. A shadow flitted past her legs just inches away with a glint of white teeth and eyes in the darkness, a scrabbling of straw and a ragged flash of color swallowed up at once in the dusky stillness of the barn.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed aloud, badly startled. “What was that? Who’s there?” She peered into the dark cavernous shadows of the hay piled next to the door.

“Teresa?” she called. “Is that you? What do you think you’re doing, child, spying on me and scaring me half to death?”

There was no response from the shadows. “Teresa?” she called again. “Are you in there? Is that you?”

The silence was so profound that Carolyn, leaning forward tensely, was almost certain she could hear the child’s shallow frightened breathing. She considered crawling into the cavern between the bales and hauling the little girl out bodily, giving her a good talking-to about her behavior. After a moment, though, she changed her mind and started out the door again.

Teresa Martinez had been living at the ranch for almost four months now, since just before Christmas, and Carolyn had never actually talked to the child. As far as she knew, nobody else had, either. Carolyn had hired the little girl’s mother, Rosa, to help exercise the horses and also cook the meals for the four men that the Circle T employed on a permanent basis.

Rosa Martinez had just moved up from Fort Stockton, she told Carolyn at her employment interview. She was a dark, slim, quiet woman in her late twenties who would probably be quite attractive if she didn’t hold herself under such constant rigid control.

But her personality wasn’t any of Carolyn’s business. As manager of the ranch, Carolyn was only concerned with the woman’s job performance, and that was entirely satisfactory. Rosa Martinez seemed to be as skilled a hand with food as she was with horses. The hired men had never looked so cheerful and well-fed, even though they spent many frustrating hours trying to draw the taciturn Rosa into conversation.

Rosa’s daughter was about nine years old, a wild dark wraith of a child with clouds of tangled black hair and glittering black eyes. She didn’t seem to attend school at all. In response to Carolyn’s worried inquiries, Rosa had said simply, “Teresa, she doesn’t do good at school, and they don’t want her there. Too wild, they say, so I just teach her at home.”

Carolyn frequently wondered if Teresa ever sat still long enough to learn anything. The child seemed to be more wood sprite than little girl, a dark silent flitting presence like a small furtive animal around the ranch. As was the case with Carolyn this morning, people never knew when Teresa might be watching them, or how long she’d been there and what she’d seen. Nobody had ever heard her speak, either, but her unexpected appearances had more than once startled residents of the Circle T.

There were rumors about Rosa and her child, of course. There were rumors about everything and everybody in and around Crystal Creek. They usually originated in the Longhorn Coffee Shop and drifted out across the countryside like an invisible but all-pervasive mist. People talked of some terrible event in Rosa’s past, of a drunken abusive stepfather who had threatened little Teresa’s life and had finally been knifed or shot by Rosa in a panicked attempt to save her child.

“The kid saw it all,” Bubba Gibson reported, wide-eyed and hushed with ghoulish appreciation of the story. “Blood an’ everythin’. Never been the same since, they say. Touched in the head, they say.”

Carolyn tended to ignore the rumors. She considered it none of her business what had happened in the woman’s past. Still, Carolyn Townsend could never quite bring herself to overlook the suffering of small helpless beings, children and animals both, and she often brooded about the strange shadow-child who inhabited the Circle T.

Maybe she’d have another talk with Rosa. After all, Teresa certainly couldn’t go on like this forever, living most of the time out in the open like some wild animal, popping up under people’s noses at all hours of the day and scaring them to death. She needed a daily routine, some decent clothes, a few regular toys. She needed to ride the school bus, have the chance to be with other children….

Carolyn slipped in through the side door of the big ranch house, paused in a nearby bathroom to wash her hands, then moved into the gleaming kitchen with a sigh of pleasure.

Carolyn Townsend loved her kitchen.

Of all the rooms and spaces of this house, this one was the most uniquely hers, reflecting her own personality in its shining whiteness and long polished oak table, its pale blue countertops and blue gingham place mats. Muslim curtains, vivid splashes of green hanging plants and rare delft china added to its charm.

About five years earlier, when Beverly was just getting into the beauty pageant scene and her physical setting had been so important to her, she had begun nagging her father and mother about renovating their big comfortable home.

Important people would be coming to visit, she insisted passionately, people who could have a real bearing on her career. What would they think of the scarred leather sofas, the fading wallpaper, the rugged, “lived-in” look of the old stone ranch house?

Carolyn, who had always loved her home, was offended. But Frank Townsend could never deny anything to this only child of his, this beautiful daughter whom he adored, and the two of them had finally prevailed.

All in all, Carolyn thought, looking around with rueful pleasure, Frank and Beverly had probably been right. Though Carolyn had opposed many of the changes at the time, she had to admit that she liked her home the way it looked now.

She crossed the gleaming floor of dark peggedoak planks, leaning on the counter to gaze out the window at the fields bathed in springtime freshness, and smiled as the curtain fluttered in the breeze and brushed her cheek like a caress.

Then, abruptly, she remembered the animal down in the barn. She pulled out the blender and moved back over to the refrigerator. Resting idly against the open door, she contemplated what she could mix up for little dog.

“Some of that stew from supper last night,” she murmured, thinking out loud. “That’d be good, and maybe a little warm milk to go with it…”

As frequently happened these days, Carolyn suddenly had the uncomfortable sensation that she wasn’t alone in the kitchen, that somebody was nearby and watching her.

“Teresa?” she called gently, keeping her voice deliberately casual. “Are you peeking in through the window again? Why don’t you come inside and have some breakfast with me?”

She waited, listening to the silence. But there was no response, just the soft rustle of the curtains and the morning breeze whispering in the trees beyond the window.

Carolyn felt a brief shiver of alarm, remembering the disturbed young woman who had recently stalked her nephew Tyler McKinney, peering in windows and causing so much trouble at the neighboring ranch. That was different, of course, and much more upsetting. The woman had been unstable. Teresa was just a lonely troubled little girl.

All at once the telephone rang, a harsh sound in the sun-washed morning stillness of the kitchen. Carolyn walked over to the desk.

“Hello?” she said, and then hesitated, puzzled.

“Carolyn?” a voice was saying haltingly at the other end. “Carolyn? Is that you?” The caller was Cynthia McKinney, Carolyn realized, her new sister-in-law. Or, she corrected herself, not exactly her sister-in-law, but the new wife of the man who had been married for more than thirty years to Carolyn’s own sister. What did that make Cynthia?

“Hi, Cynthia,” she said cheerfully. “I’m just trying to figure out what relation you are to me. You got any idea?”

Normally, Cynthia would have chuckled at this and made some droll reply. Carolyn had been cautious at first about this new woman in J.T.’s life, this sophisticated import from Boston, of all places, but she soon found she couldn’t help liking Cynthia. The woman was so smart and strong and humorous, so warm and serious about her responsibilities, so thoroughly dedicated to making J.T.’s life better. Carolyn, always fair, had to love her for that fact alone.

But today for some reason there was no wit or warmth to Cynthia. She sounded distant and strained, not herself at all. Carolyn decided to joke her out of it, whatever the problem was.

“Hey, girl,” she said cheerfully, “come on, it’s only a pie sale. I know you get real frightened by gatherings of the natives in these parts, but you’ll be safely behind a table, and I’ll be at your side every minute with my Smith & Wesson in my handbag.”

Still no answering chuckle from Cynthia. Carolyn felt a sudden twinge of alarm—an icy finger at the nape of her neck.

“Cynthia?” she said again. “What is it, dear?”

“It’s…it’s J.T., Carolyn,” Cynthia whispered, her voice close to breaking. “He’s…oh God, Carolyn, he’s…”

“He’s what?” Carolyn asked sharply, gripping the receiver so tightly that her fingers hurt. “What’s happening, Cynthia?”

“He’s…sick, Carolyn,” Cynthia murmured in despair. “So sick…”

Panic struck Carolyn like a heavy blow at the pit of the stomach. But with characteristic self-discipline she summoned all her resources and forced her voice to sound calm and soothing.

“What’s happening, Cynthia?” she asked gently. “I’ll come right over, but just give me some idea for now, okay?”

“He was…he was out in the stables all night with Ken, working over some horse that was foaling.” Cynthia paused, struggling to control her voice.

“I know, Cynthia,” Carolyn said quietly, though her blue eyes were darkening with worry. “Manny was there, too, and he stopped in here on his way back to town. Doesn’t J.T. realize that he’s getting past the stage when he should be up all night with foaling mares?”

“Apparently not,” Cynthia faltered, still struggling to compose herself. “Anyway, he and Ken came in for breakfast and I thought he looked awfully tired. I wanted him to go up to bed and catch a few hours’ sleep but he just scoffed at the whole idea, said no man worth his salt sleeps in the middle of the day. He had to get back out and see to getting the early calves branded. And then all of a sudden…” Her voice broke and she began to sob quietly at the other end.

“All of a sudden what?” Carolyn prompted. There was an increasingly familiar and ghastly feeling to this event. She was beginning to have a panicky sense of déjà vu, as if she’d lived through the same dreadful moment at some time in the past.

“He was putting on his hat, walking out the door and then he just…just kind of sagged, would have fallen if Ken hadn’t been right behind him and caught him. We…we helped him upstairs and into bed but he’s…oh, Carolyn, he’s all gray and sweating, and he seems to be in such pain, he can hardly recognize any of us….”

Gray and sweating…in such pain…

An image flashed unbidden into Carolyn’s mind—her tall sturdy husband Frank two years ago just after his massive coronary. Fear stirred and churned at the core of her, choking her, leaving her breathless with terror.

Not J.T.! she screamed soundlessly. Not him, too! I can’t bear to lose any more of the people I love, I just can’t bear it, oh God, please don’t let it be….

“Is somebody with you, Cynthia?” she asked. “Everybody’s here. I mean, Tyler and Ruth and Lynn, and Lettie Mae and Virginia, and Ken, and we’ve called Cal in Wolverton, and Dr. Purdy….”

“Oh, good,” Carolyn said. Nate Purdy had been caring for all of them for more than three decades. Now, just the thought of him ministering to J.T. brought her comfort.

“Is there anything else I should do, Carolyn?” Cynthia asked in a low voice, still sounding helplessly childlike, completely out of character. “Anybody else I should call, or anything?”

“Not now, dear,” Carolyn said gently. “Sit down, put your feet up and get Lettie Mae to make you a cup of her cinnamon tea. I’ll be over right away.”

“Oh, thank you,” Cynthia whispered, with such relief in her voice that Carolyn knew she had to get over there without delay.

She hung up the phone and grabbed a sweater from a hook by the door, flung it over her shoulders, took her car keys from the countertop and ran out to the garage.

“OKAY,VERN,” Martin A very said cheerfully, riffling briskly through a stack of papers. “I think that finishes it. The transfer of title’s in order, the taxes are all paid up to date, and your man owns his property outright, once he signs this last release of funds.”

Vernon Trent smiled at his old friend, who paused to answer the telephone and deal with the caller, a solicitor for a local charity.

“When did you start answering your own telephone?” Vern asked, chuckling at Martin’s glowering expression. “Can’t you poor underpaid lawyers afford secretarial help these days?”

“Very funny, Vern,” Martin grumbled, running a hand through his thick graying hair. “Actually, my secretary called in sick this morning, so I’m doing double duty.”

“Billie Jo?” Vernon asked in surprise. “I saw her at Zack’s last night, and she looked healthy enough then. Bursting with health, you might say.”

Both men were silent for a moment, thinking about the beauteous Billie Jo, with her gorgeous body, her mane of strawberry-blond hair and sexy pouting red lips.

“Yeah,” Martin said dryly. “And that’s not all she’s bursting with, old friend. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that she’s not alone this morning.”

“You think Bubba’s visiting the sickbed?”

“I’d bet on it,” Martin repeated.

“God, he’s a fool, isn’t he?” Vernon commented absently.

“Maybe we old bachelors just don’t understand, Vern. Or maybe we’ll be the same if we start to suffer through a midlife crisis. We’ll be whining and sniffing around girls thirty years younger than us, buying bad toupees and silver Camaros….”

Vernon threw back his head and laughed at this skillful thrust. “Maybe you, Martin,” he said. “Not me, that’s for sure. I’m nowhere near that dumb.”

“Speaking of being dumb,” Martin said cheerfully, “I was talking to young Ben Waldheim and his wife the other day. They said they made you another offer on your house, and you won’t sell.”

Vernon shifted awkwardly in the padded chair. “That’s true,” he admitted.

“How come, Vern? Why’re you hanging on to that drafty old barn? Why not let the kids have it? They want to renovate it, got all kinds of plans.”

Vernon shrugged. “I don’t have time to move and find another place and all that,” he said defensively. “Besides,” he added with a grin, “that’s my ancestral home you’re talking about, Martin.”

“Bull,” Martin said calmly. “Your ancestral home was a little suite above the drugstore. Your daddy didn’t even buy that house till you were fifteen.”

“That’s right,” Vernon said with a small faraway smile. “You know, I can still remember the day he took my mama over there and gave her the keys. She looked like he’d given her Buckingham Palace.”

“Well, that it ain’t,” Martin said. “Those days were thirty years ago, Vern. The old place is falling down around your ears. You don’t have any interest in fixing it up, so why not let it go?”

Vernon frowned stubbornly, thinking about the big stone house he’d inherited from his parents. Martin was right, it was falling into disrepair, growing rickety, faded and musty, and he was getting to hate it more with every passing year. But still, he panicked at the thought of moving out and getting a little apartment. That would be admitting that this was his whole future and he was never going to have a wife or a family….

“You could move into my building,” Martin said, as if reading his thoughts. “It’s a real nice little complex, adults only, with a recreation center and a pool and everything. Real sophisticated for Crystal Creek.”

“I know, Martin. I’ve seen it, remember? It’s just that apartment living doesn’t appeal to me all that much, for some reason. I’d rather just keep living where I am and work real hard so I don’t have to go home much, than move into an apartment.”

“Then build yourself a new house. Dammit, man, you’ve got lots of money. Get yourself out of that lonely old place.”

“A new house wouldn’t be any less lonely, Martin,” Vernon said quietly.

Something in Vern’s voice made Martin hesitate, then glance down awkwardly at the pile of papers on his desk as if searching for a way to change the subject.

“Well, that’s it,” he repeated at last with false heartiness. “You can tell Scott the deal’s through.”

Vernon looked over at the dapper lawyer and mayor of Crystal Creek, then down at the pile of legal documents. He drummed his blunt fingers on the desktop, and his pleasant square features darkened briefly with worry.

“I hear Carolyn’s really upset about the Hole in the Wall,” he ventured. “Has she said anything to you, Martin?”

Martin shrugged. “Just in passing one night a few weeks ago when we were all over at the Double C for one of Cynthia’s fancy dinners. She’s not happy about it, that’s for sure.”

Vernon creased one of the papers thoughtfully, head lowered, eyes concentrated on the careful movements of his tanned hands. “I’m glad we’ve been able to keep it quiet,” he said.

“Now, Vern, you know as well as I do what this town’s like,” Martin said mildly. “Everybody finds out everything, sooner or later.”

“Maybe not,” Vernon said. “Nobody knows the details of the sale of the dude ranch but you and me and Scott Harris.”

“And J.T.” Martin said. “But he’s no gossip, that’s for sure.”

“Right. So if we all stay quiet, maybe we can keep it safely under the rug until Carolyn’s had a chance to find out for herself that the Hole in the Wall won’t be such a bad neighbor after all.”

Martin chuckled. “She’s not an easy girl to convince of anything, Vern, never has been. What a woman.”

Both men were silent for a moment, but this time their faces were affectionate as they thought about Carolyn Townsend. The phone rang and Martin cursed mildly, then lifted it and barked a greeting.

“Carolyn,” he said after a brief pause, his voice softening. “What a coincidence. We were just talking about you. How are y’all this fine spring day?”

Vernon tensed in his chair and sat erect, eyes fixed on Martin’s face. But Martin was unaware of his friend. He was listening to the voice at the other end, his debonair face slowly turning ashen.

“God, Carolyn” he muttered finally. “That’s terrible, girl. What can I do?”

Vern made frantic gestures, but Martin waved him to silence and listened to the caller again.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Vern’s here with me now and we’ll both come right on over.”

He murmured a farewell and hung up slowly, staring at his friend across the desk with a stricken expression.

“That was Carolyn,” he said unnecessarily. “J.T.’s had a heart attack. They just brought him in to the hospital by ambulance.”

“Oh, my God,” Vernon whispered, gazing unseeingly at Martin’s face. Despite the shock of the news his first thought, as always, was for Carolyn. He recalled the woman he loved and the way she’d looked earlier in the day, with the spring sun in her hair and her eyes as blue as the morning, telling him fiercely that she’d seen enough of suffering and death….

“I’ll go right over there,” he muttered, getting hastily to his feet and stuffing the papers into his briefcase. “Maybe I can help somehow. Coming, Martin?”

Without a word, Martin took his suede jacket from a coat tree by the door and followed Vernon out into the bright morning sunlight.

CHAPTER THREE

THE SHABBY LITTLE visitors’ lounge at the Crystal Creek Community Hospital seemed filled to overflowing with people. Most were crowded into uncomfortable chrome armchairs and long slippery vinyl lounges while a few, like Ruth Holden and Tyler McKinney, stood near the automated hot drink dispenser sipping blankly at foam cups of the vile black liquid that passed for coffee.

Vernon was fairly certain that Tyler McKinney could have been drinking battery acid and he wouldn’t have been aware of it. The young man’s face was pale and haggard, bleak with fear, making him look twenty years older. In fact, Tyler McKinney, on this bright spring morning, looked more than ever like his father.

Lynn, beside him, had obviously run in from the stables and not taken the time to change her clothes. She was small and shapely in her riding gear. Her beautiful tanned face was wide-eyed and strained, and she kept glancing desperately toward the door as if waiting for someone.

While Vernon and Martin edged toward a vacant couch, Sam Russell followed them into the crowded room and Lynn went to him, moving blindly into his arms like a child, oblivious to everyone else in the room. Sam held her in a close embrace, patting her heaving back and murmuring to her, his blond head close to her auburn one. Vernon swallowed and looked away from them, sinking down onto the couch and glancing around.

Cynthia McKinney sat across the room from him, with Rose Purdy, the doctor’s wife, on one side and Carolyn on the other, both of them holding her hands firmly and murmuring to her by turns. Beverly Townsend sat next to her mother, her lovely golden face streaked with tears.

Vernon couldn’t help wondering as he looked thoughtfully at Beverly if the tears were real or if they were just there for effect, in case somebody from the media might be around snapping camera footage of the bereaved family.

But as soon as he framed the thought, he chided himself for being uncharitable. He knew Beverly had her good qualities, and that Carolyn, despite her frequent impatience with the girl, loved her daughter deeply. Still, Vernon found himself wondering sometimes how a woman as generous, intelligent and practical as Carolyn Townsend could have produced an offspring so self-absorbed and shallow.

As he was gazing with cool appraisal at Beverly, a couple of children came wandering into the room hand in hand. They were little girls of about seven and three, both wearing institutional gray bathrobes. The older one trundled a mobile IV unit along beside her, strapped to her left arm, and the other one limped badly, trailing a leg in a heavy steel and plastic brace.

While Vernon watched in amazement, Beverly got up, smiling through her tears, and gathered the smaller child tenderly in her arms. She murmured something to the older girl, then took the child’s hand and walked from the room still carrying the younger girl. Vernon watched them go, stunned by the little tableau and the obvious warmth and sincerity of Beverly’s interaction with the children.

He shook his head and then smiled automatically as Reverend Howard Blake and his wife, Eva, came into the room, followed by Bubba Gibson, who looked hastily assembled and a lot less chipper than usual.

Vern shifted awkwardly on the hard vinyl seat, waiting for his chance to go to Cynthia and offer his own sympathy and support. But she was surrounded, and the crowd seemed to be growing by the minute. There was another stir at the door and Cal McKinney entered, limping slightly from an old rodeo injury. He was followed by Serena Davis, who looked quiet and pale.

No wonder, Vernon thought, glancing at his watch. Cal was already notorious for how fast he drove that stretch of highway between Wolverton and the home ranch, but he must have set some new records today. His body was tense, his hazel eyes glittering with tears as he was gathered into the arms of his family.