Younkin watched the ranch hand mount and ride from the Steele house toward the coming night that darkened the eastern sky. The delay was unexpected, but unavoidable. The haggling necessary to complete the purchase of the horses had taken longer than anticipated.
“I apologize again about the horses not being here at the main house. Wayne moved the whole operation to the east house last summer after he bought a pair of Morgans. Wanted to keep everything under his eye. Sometimes my son acts as though I’m already dead and this ranch is his.” Jennifer Steele looked up at Younkin and winked. She laughed. “As you can see, I’m still alive. And I guarantee Warren will have your eight horses here by early morning.”
“No problem, Jenny. I wouldn’t have gotten far with them before I had to camp for the night anyway. I’d forgotten how hardheaded you are when it comes to trading horseflesh.” The widow touched a familiar intimacy within Younkin. Jenny was so unlike Clara, yet there was no denying they had been sisters.
“Of course you’ve forgotten. It’s been six months since you darkened my door.” Again she laughed, then reached out and touched his arm. “Even if you are a brother-in-law who only stopped by to rob me of eight fine horses, it’s good to see you again, Jess Younkin.”
“Miss Jennifer.” Jenny’s maid Lily opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. She carried a pitcher of water and a bowl which she placed on a table set near the door. “Supper’s ready. Like you ordered, Mr. Jess’s favorites, steak, potatoes and gravy, and pinto beans. For dessert, we’ve got canned peaches and pound cake.” Lilly’s ivory smile beamed at Younkin.
“Don’t look like you’re about to cut and run, Jess Younkin.” Jenny’s hands went to her slim hips. “It’s not often I get company this far out. Since Wayne and Marion built the east house, supper’s a lonely time. Wash up and come inside before everything gets cold.”
“Only a crazy man would consider running away with a meal like that waiting for him.” Younkin grinned while he washed arms and hands. He threw water on his face, noting a two-day stubble sprouted over his chin. “I could do with a shave.”
“And a bath, I suspect.” Jenny opened the door for him. “But you haven’t heard anyone complaining.” They entered a hallway that led to a dining room that overwhelmed Younkin with its elegance. The darkly polished furniture, the imported mahogany paneling, and the delicate crystal chandelier that hung over a long, lace-covered dining table created the illusion that he had stepped into a mansion in Austin or Houston. The illusion was marred by the fact that the table legs sat within tin cans placed within larger cans. The larger containers held an inch’s depth of kerosene, an admission of the harsh country surrounding the house. The kerosene kept ever-present crawling insects from finding their way up the table legs and into the meal.
“There’s a grandness to this room and the lady it belongs to.” Younkin seated himself at the head of the table at Jenny’s urgings. The memories of numerous holiday parties Clara and he had attended at the Steele house crowded into his mind.
“The ‘grandness’ all belonged to Stephen.” Jenny seated herself beside her guest. “He designed everything in this house. The ‘grandness’ lost its sparkle when he died two years ago. I don’t believe a woman, except perhaps for my older sister, ever had a better man.”
Younkin glanced up from the well-done steak Lilly had placed before him. Physically, Jenny bore no resemblance to Clara. At fifty-five, Jenny was a smaller woman with bright blue eyes and sandy blond hair that only hinted here and there of gray.
Yet, in certain mannerisms such as the tilt of her head as she smiled, the gesturing hands when she spoke, the way a word rolled from her tongue, or the phrasing of a sentence, he detected the women’s sisterhood. More than anything, Jenny, like Clara, had a way about her that allowed a man to relax and open himself. A man did not have to hide the feelings he carried from Jenny.
“It’s hard with them gone, isn’t it?” Younkin sensed the common loss they shared.
Jenny thoughtfully chewed a bite of steak as though pondering the question. “I don’t know if it’s any harder than it ever was. Or lonelier. Heaven knows this country is hard and lonely for a woman or a man on any terms. What I think is ... well, it’s less interesting. Every time I see Wayne and Marion’s son Richard, I wish Stephen was here to see his grandson.” Jenny paused, her brow knitting while she sipped at her coffee. “Yes, I believe that’s what I miss the most, the sharing. Never for the things that seem so important to us all the time. The sale of cattle, the mending of fences, the exchange of money from one hand to another: they always appear important, take up most a person’s life. A man or a woman doesn’t need someone else to help with that, except to pat them on the back occasionally or to complain to. But the small things, things we tend to overlook every day, things that make up what a person really is inside, that’s when I miss Stephen.”
Her head turned to Younkin and she smiled. “Each day, even after two years, I see hundreds of things I want to show and share with Stephen. It’s hard to put a finger on them. Perhaps it’s a verse from the Bible I’ve just read, the awkward wobble of a calf when it first stands, a wild sow running through the brush with a line of piglets behind her ... so many things.” She took another sip of coffee, and her gaze drifted about the dining room. Were the memories as burdensome for her as for him? Younkin wondered while he studied her profile. The years had not diminished the beauty of the young girl he had first met at her sister’s side in Austin twenty-nine years ago.
“Grandness,” she smiled wistfully, almost to herself. “It wasn’t always this grand. When Stephen and I settled here in seventy-five, we lived in a lean-to while Stephen dug a twelve-by-twelve room out of that little hill standing behind the house. That was our first home. Then, it seemed as grand as all this polished wood. All that mattered was that it was ours.”
Younkin recalled the small house he had built for Clara after their wedding. It had been barely larger than the dugout Stephen and Jenny shared, but his and Clara’s pride transformed it into a dream mansion.
“You know, the hardness of those times almost seems like pure enjoyment now.” Younkin listened while Jenny reminisced about the small herd of longhorns Stephen gathered during their first years together. The herd grew, as did the profits when a market for Texas beef was discovered on the East Coast.
“Cattle, Stephen used to say, that was our life’s blood. Said the land wasn’t fit for anything but grazing cattle.” Jenny shook her head. “Did you know Wayne farmed part of our acreage this year? Farming on the Steele Ranch?”
Younkin vaguely recalled hearing that Jenny’s son had tried planting crops last spring. His head moved from side to side in answer, not wishing to stop the sound of his sister-in-law’s voice.
“Cotton, grain sorghum, that’s what he planted. Said it was the wave of the future for the caprock. Stephen would have tanned him good if he were still alive. Not that plowing the land had my approval, but one day all this will belong to Wayne, and he needs to start making decisions. I thought he’d come running to his momma when the crops failed, and I could say ‘I told you so.’ ”
Nodding his approval, Younkin wiped the last trace of gravy from his plate with a biscuit and popped it into his mouth.
“I was wrong, Jess.” Jenny’s chest expanded with pride. “Wayne even made a small profit off the crops. When it didn’t rain, he tried something called irrigation, pumped water from one of the wells into the fields. Next year, he intends to plant more acreage.”
“More and more farmers are breaking the land around Haas.” Younkin drained his coffee cup. “When we first came to this country, we relied on mud holes, springs, and rain barrels for the water we needed. It’s the windmills. They helped the ranchers, but they also brought the farmers. All a farmer needs to do is dig a well, and he’s got water for his crops.”
Noting Younkin’s empty plate, Jenny called for Lily to serve dessert. When the black woman appeared from the kitchen, Younkin conveyed Abe’s message. Lily grinned and assured him she would leave a meal for Abe wrapped in newspaper on the cutting board.
“Windmills, barbed wire ... They brought the changes to this country, more than I thought I’d ever see.” Jenny cut a bite of pound cake with a fork, but left it on her plate. “Maybe I’m doing the right thing, letting Wayne run the ranch. This country belongs to the young now. Some mornings I wake up feeling like I no longer know the world.”
“Progress, that’s what Tom calls it. He tells me the world changed with the new century.” Younkin shook his head as he speared a peach slice. “Tells me my Texas is gone, part of the past.”
He paused to swallow the last of his pound cake. “I don’t know. I see the land around me, and it’s the same as when Clara and I came to Haas ... but the people are different.”
“The land never changes, just the way men use it.” Jenny reached out and gently touched the back of Younkin’s hand. She smiled.
Younkin returned the smile, a bit chagrined. “Guess I’m sounding like an old man.”
“Old men have the right to say their piece.” Jenny’s hand remained atop his.
“I reckon it’s all changing too fast for me, Jenny. When we started to make our marks on the world, we knew what we wanted. We fought the Comanche for the land, then we fought the land and weather for a livelihood. Once all the fighting was through, the life we had planned never had a chance to get started. It was over before it ever began. I never noticed what happened or how.” He leaned toward his hostess. “The world’s not the one I imagined for myself. Farmers, trains, horseless carriages, they don’t fit into the world we tried to build. Now the newspapers are telling about two men from Ohio who have built a flying machine. Sometimes I wonder if this is the same world I was born into.”
“It seems confusing at times,” Jenny agreed. “But I wonder if that’s not the way it’s always been. I suspect our parents and grandparents had visions of a world they wanted to build. I doubt if they passed on completely satisfied with what they saw. The trouble is, different men want different things. All those wants get jumbled together among one another. What finally occurs is something totally different than what anyone wanted.”
“And the older you get, the less your wants and needs mean to anyone but yourself,” Younkin concluded.
“Or maybe we keep trying to build that world that never had the chance to begin.” Sympathetically, she squeezed his hand. Her blue eyes searched his face. “I believe Wayne left a box of cigars here the last time he came to visit. And I know there’s a bottle of bourbon in the parlor. Can I interest you in either?”
“Both.” Younkin grinned. “There’s not a better way to top off such a feast ... a good smoke, fine whiskey, and the companionship of a lovely lady to share them with.”
A faint blush of pink touched Jenny’s cheeks when they rose and moved into the parlor. After she seated him in an overstuffed chair by an open fireplace, Jenny poked a splinter of kindling into the flames to light a cigar, then passed it to him. He drew deeply, letting the blue smoke fill his lungs, then exhaled with pleasure while Jenny poured two fingers of Kentucky bourbon into two glasses. She gave one glass to Younkin, then settled into another chair by the fire with the other. Normally, Younkin would have disapproved of a woman drinking strong spirits, but Stephen had never raised an eyebrow when his wife drank. Over the years, Younkin had grown accustomed to seeing Jenny sipping hard liquor.
“It surprised me that you never remarried after Clara’s death.” The fire’s reflected flames danced in Jenny’s eyes.
“Never seemed like there was time. When I gave up my badge, there was the stable.” Younkin drank from his glass. It was the first drink he had taken in weeks. To his surprise, he discovered he really did not want it. The meal and Jenny’s company were enough to satisfy him. “Besides, I doubt if any woman would have me.”
“Now you’re fishing for compliments, Jess Younkin,” Jenny chided him and chuckled. “I’ll wager you broke more than one woman’s heart when you didn’t start courting again.”
Younkin sipped at the bourbon and smiled.
“You always did cut a handsome figure, Jess. I remember when you first came to my daddy’s house in Austin.” Jenny placed her glass on the floor and leaned toward the fire. “I was more than a little jealous of Clara. There was a time I used to pray you’d steal me away in the night and marry me.”
Younkin’s head snapped to the woman. He stared at her, uncertain he had heard correctly.
“Don’t look at me like I’m some wicked Jezebel, Jess Younkin. We’re too old and we’ve known each other too long to banter words about.” Jenny’s gaze met his defiantly. “Whether you’ll admit it or not, you’ve always had an eye for me too. A woman can feel that, even if the man never says a thing.”
“I’ll admit it. You were a beautiful girl, Jenny.” Younkin took a nervous swallow of bourbon. “You’re still an eyeful for any man.”
Jenny sank back into her chair, her eyes still locked on her guest. A pleased little smile moved over her lips. “Took you enough years to say that.”
“A man doesn’t go after his wife’s sister.” Younkin felt off balance by the turn of their conversation, like some wet-behind-the-ears grammar-school boy. “Not if a man cares for his wife—no matter what he feels about the sister.”
“Not that you’d have gotten anywhere. What Stephen and I had together was something special.” That same smile remained at the corners of Jenny’s mouth. “What I never understood was why you never came calling after Stephen’s death.”
“I guess I wasn’t sure of how you felt.” Younkin shook his head and downed the last of the bourbon. He waved an arm about the room. “No, that’s not it. I thought about riding out here often enough. It was all this that stopped me ... this ranch and the finery Stephen gave you, things I always wanted to give Clara. I could never give you what Stephen had. It didn’t seem right for me to come calling.”
“My fancy house, hmmmm.” Irritation crept into Jenny’s voice. “Do you believe this is all there is to me? My house and the fancy things in it?”
“No, but a man—” Younkin attempted to explain.
“A man lets his pride stand in the way of things that are important more often than not.” Jenny rose from her chair and stood before Younkin. “Jess Younkin, come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”
Pushing from the soft cushions, Younkin followed the diminutive woman through the luxury of her home. Each room they passed through was less impressive than the preceding one as they walked toward the back of the house.
“Each room is a bit of history.” Jenny glanced up at Younkin. “As Stephen got the money, he added a new room to our home. He never tore anything down. He said the rooms of the house were a living measure of how far we’d come in life.”
Eventually, Jenny stopped in front of a plain, wooden plank wall near the back of the house. An equally unadorned door stood at the center of the wall.
“Wait here a moment. I’ll get the lamp. What I want you to see is inside.” Jenny touched his arm, questioning.
Younkin did as she requested, watching her disappear into the darkness beyond the door. He heard the striking of a match and the chiming clink of glass as she lifted and replaced the chimney of a lamp.
“Jess, you can come in now,” she called to him.
He opened the door and stopped as he crossed the threshold, bewildered by what met his eyes. The room was small and cramped, no more than twelve by twelve. A feather bed, a chiffonier, and a dresser were crammed into the space. Worn wooden planks covered the floor, but the walls were dirt. The room was cool, and the effluvium of earth permeated the air.
“This is what Stephen and I originally began with, Jess. This is the dugout we lived in for three years.” Jenny extended a hand to display the room. “Despite all the finery, we never stopped using it. More than any other room in the house, this is me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted or needed.”
Younkin’s gaze moved about the cramped confines of the room. It radiated a strength that stemmed from the land out of which it was carved. Jess required no further explanation. He understood and shared something with her that exceeded his ability to define in words.
“I still use this room, Jess.” She crossed the floor until she stood directly before him. The dimness of the kerosene lamp erased all traces of age from her face. For a moment, Younkin gazed upon the young beauty he had met in Austin half a lifetime ago. Jenny’s lips trembled. “It’s my bedroom ...”
She paused. Her eyes darted from him to dance nervously about the room, then back to him. He saw uncertainty, doubt, within her gaze. She drew in a deep breath. “I’d like for you to spend the night here ... in this room ... with me.”
She needed no other words. Younkin reached out and gently touched the softness of her cheek. The doubt faded from her blue eyes. His hands cradled her face. Awkwardly, he leaned down, his lips tenderly covering her small mouth as he securely enclosed her in his arms.
Younkin sopped the last of the egg yolk from his plate with a hot biscuit that dripped butter and honey. He closed his eyes and sighed with satisfaction as he savored the last bite of the breakfast. “A man could get fat and sassy if he was fed like this every meal.”
“You could use some meat on your bones. You look a mite skinny to me.” Jenny smiled at him across the kitchen table. She lifted a smoke-blackened pot. “More coffee?”
“A half-cup. Any more and I’ll bust.” Younkin held out his cup, enjoying the warm lethargy that suffused his body.
The sound of approaching horses came from outside the house. Jenny finished pouring the coffee, then rose to open the kitchen door. “It’s Warren and the horses.”
Younkin downed a hasty gulp of coffee, scalding his tongue and the roof of his mouth.
“Take it easy. It’ll be a few minutes before he reaches the house.” Jenny moved back to stand beside Younkin. Her hand rested on his shoulder. “I had forgotten how quickly a night can pass.”
Younkin stood and slipped his arms around her slender waist. He tenderly hugged her to him and lightly kissed her lips. “What we had was good, Jenny. It was right. When I get back ...”
“When you get back, I’ll be waiting here for you.” A blush of color reddened her cheeks. She smiled shyly and shook her head, a bit embarrassed. “I feel flustered. After last night, it seems kind of funny to feel this way ... I can’t let myself get shy now.”
“Shy?” Younkin’s eyebrows rose.
She glanced away from him. “I guess what I’m trying to do is propose to you, Jess Younkin, since I don’t think you’ll ever work up the courage to do it yourself.”
Her eyes rolled up to study his face. “I want Wayne to take over the ranch, but this is a big spread. There’s plenty here for two old people to make a life of their own on, to find a new purpose in living. Call it a dowry, but it’s what I’m offering—it and myself.” Younkin’s arms tightened about her. The awkwardness of last night had vanished. He kissed her, allowing all the new life he felt to flow from his body to hers. Reluctantly, their lips parted. “It’s an offer I believe I’ll take you up on ... when I finish what I started with ...”
“I understand.” Jenny nodded, a smile of pleasure spreading over the beauty of her face. “I’ll be expecting you, Jess Younkin. If you don’t come back, I just might come looking for you.”
The sound of the approaching horses grew closer. Their heads shifted to the kitchen door.
“I’ve got to finish this, Jenny.” Younkin turned back to the woman who stepped from his arms.
“I know.” Jenny reached out and took a newspaper wrapped bundle from the cutting board. “Don’t forget this.”
“Abe would never forgive me.” He took the food Lily had prepared and walked outside with Jenny beside him.
“Take care of yourself, Jess. And remember, I’ll be waiting for you.” With a light kiss to his cheek, Jenny abruptly left him and reentered the house.
Younkin watched the door close behind her, then walked from the porch to greet the cowhand who approached.