Читать книгу New Way to Fly - Margot Dalton - Страница 9

RICH AUTUMN SUNLIGHT spilled over the hills and valleys of Central Texas, dancing on the slow-moving river and touching the rolling acres with gentle fingers of gold. The noonday sky was high and endless, the air as crisp and clear as champagne. Far overhead, a red-tailed hawk rode the soft wind currents, rising and wheeling with effortless grace.

In a small corral pen of weathered split logs, a man straightened, wiped his hot face with his forearm and glanced up at the circling hawk.

“See that?” he muttered to the animal that lay trussed and heaving on the ground in front of him. “They’re lookin’ for you, pal. Another few days and you’d have been breakfast for those guys.”

The calf rolled his eyes and bellowed in agony. He was a large Brangus bull calf, destined someday to be a heavy thundering monster of an animal. At present, though, he was still plump and blocky, with an appealing baby look to his big dark eyes and a short blunt nose that bristled cruelly with porcupine quills.

The black-tipped quills protruded at all angles, giving the calf’s head the comical appearance of a big furry pincushion. But there was nothing funny about the anguish in his dark liquid eyes, or the strangled bellows of pain that issued regularly from his mouth.

“Pore little fella,” Brock Munroe muttered, gazing down at the calf, pliers dangling from his hand. He squinted up at the hawk again, then leaned against the corral rail to rest for a moment before returning to his unpleasant task.

He was a tall broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties with a lean hard-muscled body, a handsome tanned face and a head of crisp springing dark hair that glinted warmly in the midday sunlight. A worn plaid work shirt rested easily on his wide shoulders, the seams bleached almost white by the sunlight, and faded jeans fitted snugly over his lean hips and long muscular legs.

Brock dropped to one knee beside the trembling calf to check a half hitch in the twine that held the little animal’s legs knotted in position. Then, frowning with grim concentration, he clamped the pliers onto another quill.

“This won’t take long now, pal,” he murmured to the calf. “I already got all the bad ones. These others are loose already, an’ they’ll just come out like butter. See?” he added, holding a quill aloft in the metal jaws of the pliers and brandishing it before the calf’s rolling dark eyes.

Brock worked doggedly, his big callused hands surprisingly gentle as he labored to extract the barbs from the calf’s soft nose.

“Next time,” he muttered, “you better listen to your mama, okay? I bet she told you not to mess with those porcupines. But did you listen? Oh, no. Just like all kids, had to learn the hard way, didn’t you?”

His deep gentle voice seemed to have a soothing effect on the animal. Gradually the calf’s trembling and straining lessened until he lay still on the dusty ground, his damp sides heaving, his neck outstretched in weary resignation.

“Now, that’s the way to do it,” Brock praised him, gently working out the last of the quills.

“That’s a real good boy. You just lie still a minute longer, an’ we’ll…”

He paused, reaching behind him for a bottle of yellow liquid disinfectant, which he uncapped and poured liberally over the animal’s swollen bleeding nose. The calf bleated loudly in surprise and outrage, gave the big man a wild reproachful look and tried frantically to struggle to his feet.

Brock chuckled at the animal’s look of pain and indignation. “That stuff smarts a bit, don’t it?” he said cheerfully. “I guess I shoulda warned you.”

With effortless ease, he wrestled the animal back to the ground, knelt on the calf’s flank and untied the rope binding the legs. The calf kicked and rolled free, then heaved himself upright and faltered away to the other side of the corral.

Brock watched as the little animal shook his head dazedly a few times, then appeared to realize that the dreadful pain was over and the torturing barbs had vanished miraculously from his nose. Finally the calf lifted his head, bellowed joyously and trotted out through a partly open gate to the larger pen where his mother waited, lowing to her overgrown baby in soft anxious tones.

Brock grinned as he watched the reunion. His dog, Alvin, appeared at the gate and sat gazing up at the big man, tongue lolling hopefully.

“Hi, Alvin,” Brock said. “You look hungry. Lunch time already?”

Alvin regarded his master with concentrated attention, one ear drooping. He was a small, engagingly ugly dog, mostly Australian blue heeler with a liberal dash of something else, possibly Scotch terrier, that gave his mottled blue-gray hide a disreputable shaggy look. Alvin’s eyes were dark and perennially sad, as if the world was just a little too much for him but he was prepared to struggle bravely on.

In actual fact Alvin was a coward, especially terrified of cats and thunderstorms. He was also a lazy hedonist, dedicated to little more than his single-minded pursuit of something to eat and somewhere to sleep. He lifted his head now and looked at Brock in mournful silence, sighing heavily.

“All right, all right,” Brock said, chuckling. “Just give me a minute, okay? I’ll put this stuff away in the barn an’ be right with you.”

Apparently mollified, Alvin fell in step beside his master, plump sides twitching as he trotted along at the big man’s feet.

“Pore little bull calf. He was sure hurtin’ some, Alvin. Likely hasn’t eaten anything for a couple days, either,” Brock said to the dog, with the companionable ease of a man who spent much of his time with animals.

In fact, Brock often conversed with animals more easily than people.

Brock Munroe’s values were basic and straightforward. He believed in hard work, fair play, being loyal in friendship and honest in business. He liked thick steaks, cuddly puppies and starlit nights, watercolor sunrises and gentle quiet women.

But he loved nothing in all the world as much as these five thousand rolling acres of trees and hay meadows, scrub brush and cactus, that spread out around him in the bright October afternoon sun.

The Double Bar ranch had been in the family for generations, like so many others in the Hill Country, but had fallen on hard times in recent years. Brock’s father, Dave Munroe, had been a carefree, hardliving man, entirely capable of leaving his ranch at the height of calving season and driving off to some poker game he’d heard of in the next county, often straggling home days later, bedraggled and broke.

Brock’s mother died when he was just twelve, leaving the boy alone with his unreliable father. And, as so often happens in such cases, Brock had grown up with a sense of responsibility far beyond his years. By the time he was sixteen he was running the big tumbledown ranch almost single-handed, and covering for his father so well that most of the neighbors didn’t even suspect what was going on.

This was partly because young Brock never complained about his situation to anybody, not even his closest friends. He saw no need to complain, or to make any attempt to change his life. Brock Munroe loved his father and he loved his home. From earliest boyhood, nothing mattered to him as much as keeping the ranch together, striving against all odds to make it viable.

Old Dave Munroe had finally driven his truck off the edge of the river road one stormy night a few years ago, and after that Brock’s life was lonelier but a lot less complicated.

“Yeah, he was a real ol’ hummer, Dad was,” Brock said to his dog, remembering how hard he’d had to struggle to pay off his father’s debts. “But he sure enjoyed life while it lasted, you gotta say that much for him.”

Alvin sighed in polite agreement and lingered impatiently on the doorstep, looking up with hopeful eyes at the big man beside him.

Brock grinned. “You don’t give a damn about life an’ death an’ ultimate fulfillment, do you, Alvin? You just wanna know where your next meal’s comin’ from. An’ more important, when it’s comin’. Right?”

Alvin gave his master a disdainful look and pushed in front to enter the house first, his plump body swaying as he made his way through a welter of scattered paint cans, old rags, bits of sandpaper and discarded pieces of plywood.

“Gawd, what a mess,” Brock muttered aloud.

“Alvin, when’s the work gonna settle down around here enough for me to finish all this, d’you think?”

Alvin made no reply, except to pause by his dish and squat. He stared up at Brock with passionate concentrated attention, his mouth partly open, his tail thumping gently on the worn linoleum.

Brock upended the paper sack of dog food, tipped a liberal amount into Alvin’s bowl and then washed his hands thoroughly at the sink. He wandered across the room, towel in hand, to give the contents of his fridge a gloomy inspection.

“What I need,” he told Alvin with a wistful note in his voice, “is a wife. You know that, Alvin? A wife would be so nice to have around.”

Alvin glanced up briefly, jaws moving with rhythmic speed, dark eyes half-closed in bliss. Then he dropped his head and buried his nose once more in his dish.

Brock watched the dog for a moment, a little sadly. At last he turned, took a few slices of bread, a chunk of salami and an apple from the fridge and wandered into the living room, which was also cluttered with renovation materials.

Brock had begun the improvements to the old house earlier in the year, when he realized that, for the first time in living memory, he was actually going to have some extra money.

Still, he was doing all the work himself, learning as he went along from manuals and how-to books. Like everything Brock did, his carpentry was neat, precise and destined to last a lifetime. But the work was time-consuming and there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to complete the tasks.

Another, more serious problem was the fact that he needed advice on things like planning and color selection. For instance, Brock wasn’t at all sure how to make his kitchen convenient to work in, or which colors to choose, or where to place windows to get the most light.

Sometimes Brock toyed with the idea of asking advice of a longtime friend like Lynn McKinney or Carolyn Townsend, somebody who could give him a woman’s point of view. But he always shied away from the prospect, and he wasn’t even sure why.

Of course he told himself it was just because the place was such a mess that he didn’t want anybody to see it. But he suspected that his reluctance went deeper than that. After all, people like Lynn and Carolyn and Mary Gibson were all good friends, nice women, neighbors he’d known all his life.

The problem was, they just weren’t her.

Brock frowned and lowered himself into his sagging old cut-velvet armchair, thinking about the shadowy woman who lived at the back of his mind.

She’d been his fantasy as long as he could remember, this lovely fragrant delicate woman with the shining dark hair and vivid blue eyes, the dainty curved body and regal lift to her head. More times than he could count, he’d seen her smiling though the clouds when he rode out to bring in the cattle before a storm, heard her laughter drifting on the autumn wind, felt the soft caress of her lips in the gentle rains of spring.

Sometimes Brock Munroe ached for his imaginary woman with an urgent desire that left him limp and breathless with longing, and a savage need that other women’s bodies could never quench for long. There was just something about her that was so…

Brock shook his head restlessly.

He’d always considered this fantasy a little crazy but essentially harmless; the kind of thing that would vanish as soon as a real flesh-and-blood woman entered his life. In fact, during the years when his father had been getting harder and harder to handle, and even more recently when Brock had been struggling all alone to save the ranch from ruin, he hadn’t given the matter much thought at all.

But he was thirty-five now, and he was beginning to worry sometimes, in the lonesome darkness of the night, that maybe he was never going to find a woman to satisfy him.

There was no shortage of applicants, it seemed. Any evening that he bothered to clean up and drive into town, there were plenty of women around who appeared eager to dance with Brock Munroe, to accept a drink or dinner or whatever he was in the mood to offer. But they all fell short of his elusive ideal.

Brock had begun to grow increasingly impatient with himself. He tried to accept the fact that his dream woman was a fantasy and nothing more, and that he should let her go and find somebody real to settle down with. It was time to build a life, have a couple of kids and make the old ranch a busy happy place again.

In fact, he’d almost succeeded in convincing himself that this was the wisest course of action. And then, one night just a couple of weeks ago, he’d seen her.

Not in person, of course. After all, women like that didn’t tend to turn up in Claro County. He’d seen her on television, one night when a driving autumn thunderstorm was throwing noisy buckets of rain against the blackened windows, and the wind sighed mournfully around the eaves of the creaking old house.

Brock had been lounging in his sagging armchair with a book in his hands, pleasantly weary after a long day, almost nodding off with Alvin curled snugly at his stockinged feet. At first he thought the woman on the television screen was just another fantasy, a kind of half-waking dream. But when he sat up and looked more closely, he saw that it was really her, and he began to tremble wildly with excitement.

Then she was gone, vanishing as suddenly as she’d appeared, replaced by a lot of people talking about how well their new cars handled. Brock could still remember the searing disappointment, the way his hands shook and his heart pounded while he sat staring blankly at the television screen.

But she’d reappeared in the next hour, and several times after that.

Brock grinned, recalling as well how unnerved he’d felt when she came back on the screen. He’d been trembling like a puppy, almost too excited to get the segment recorded on tape. Now, remembering, he picked up the remote control for his VCR, flicked the buttons and activated a tape already on the machine. Then he took out his jackknife, settling back to cut pieces of salami and wedge them between slices of bread, chewing thoughtfully on his rough sandwiches as he gazed at the television.

There was a rush of noise, a flicker of snow and ragged colored bands, and then the image of a woman sitting quietly with folded hands in a soft velvet chair before a dark backdrop.

Although he’d watched the commercial dozens of times, Brock still caught his breath when he saw the woman. He sat and stared at her with rapt attention, his lunch forgotten in his hands.

She was so exquisite, lovely and desirable, so exactly the woman he’d visualized all these long lonely years. Her dress was plain, dark and beautifully fitted on a dainty curved body. She had wide blue eyes, an oval face with high cheekbones and a lovely warm mouth, and her skin was cream, almost translucent, in breathtaking contrast with her shining black hair.

Brock continued to gaze at the woman, studying every nuance of her voice and gestures. She had the calm assured manner and the elegant, high-born Spanish look that ran through so many prominent Texas families. In fact, Brock had always visualized his woman in white lace with that dark hair pulled straight back from her face and gathered low on the nape of her neck, and jewels in her dainty ears.

But this woman wore her hair in a short bouncy style, the kind of casual sophisticated haircut that looked simple but probably cost enough to stagger any poor working rancher. Brock didn’t know if he liked the hairstyle or not, but there was still no denying that this was his dream woman, the exact face and form that had haunted him throughout his life.

Her name was Amanda Walker, she told the camera with a calm gentle smile. She was a native of Dallas, but had worked in the retail industry in New York for a number of years, and she wanted to let the world know that she had just opened her own business, a personal shopping service in Austin, Texas.

Brock settled back in his chair, wondering for the hundredth time just what a personal shopping service was. He frowned when Beverly Townsend appeared on the screen and pirouetted slowly, while his dream woman talked to the camera about the outfit that Beverly was wearing.

Brock didn’t like to see his dream woman in the same setting as Beverly. In fact, he’d never had a lot of admiration for the beauty-queen looks of Beverly Townsend, although his friend Vernon Trent, who was engaged to Beverly’s mother, assured him that Beverly was a much different girl these days. Apparently she’d fallen in love with a nice basic kind of guy, and set aside a lot of her airs and pretensions. Still, Beverly represented the jet-set life-style to Brock Munroe, a type of glamour and idle sophistication that he had scant respect for.

“Notice how versatile the blazer can be,” the dark-haired woman said in her sweet musical voice. “It works well with a slim skirt for the office, and equally well with chinos for the weekend, so it’s really a dual-purpose investment. And the blouse, although it’s quite expensive, can also be…”

Brock watched Beverly’s lovely body turn slowly in front of him, but he was unmoved by her golden beauty. He had eyes only for the slim quiet woman in the chair, who was now discussing what she called “the art of accessorizing.”

“A lot of women will choose a tasteful expensive outfit, and then go out and buy big plastic earrings that exactly match the color of their blouse,” Amanda was saying. “That’s a fatal error. Now, these small gold hoops are…”

Alvin wandered into the room, looking sated, and fell with a heavy thud onto the floor at Brock’s feet, resting his chin mournfully on his front paws.

“Hey, Alvin,” Brock said, waving the heel of the salami roll, “did you know that it’s a fatal error to buy plastic earrings that are the exact color of your blouse?”

Alvin lifted his head and stared blankly at his master, then caught sight of the unfinished chunk of salami and gazed at it with sudden attention, his ears alert.

“You glutton,” Brock said in disbelief. “You’re stuffed, Alvin. You couldn’t possibly want to steal the last morsel from a poor starving man.”

Alvin half rose, his tail beginning to wag slowly as he continued to stare at the small piece of meat with fierce concentration.

“All right, all right,” Brock muttered. “Here, let me have one last bite an’ then you can take the rest.”

He tossed the meat to the plump dog, who caught it in midair and chewed it with pleasure, sinking down again to worry the last mouthful in his teeth while Brock watched him gloomily.

“If you had plastic earrings that exactly matched your blouse, you’d never get to wear ’em anyhow, Alvin. You’d eat the damn things,” Brock said, nudging the dog with his foot.

His brief interaction with his dog had caused him to miss the end of the television commercial. Brock reached for the control to rewind the tape, and was about to settle back for another viewing when his telephone rang.

“Hello?” Brock said, lifting the receiver and glaring at Alvin, who had finished the salami and was now giving speculative attention to Brock’s uneaten apple on the coffee table.

“Hello to you. Is this my best man?”

“Vern!” Brock said, grinning cheerfully. “Hey, it’s almost time, ol’ buddy. Did the condemned man eat a hearty meal?”

“Look, Brock, I’m not getting executed, I’m getting married. I think there’s some difference, you know.”

“That,” Brock said, “depends entirely on your point of view. What’s up?”

“Just checking,” Vernon said, sounding almost too happy to contain himself. “Making sure you’re going to remember to bring the ring, and all that.”

“Look, Vern, I like you some, but if you bother me one more time about that damn ring, the wedding’s off. I won’t come.”

Vernon chuckled. “Come on, have a heart. It’s a big day for me, Brock. I’ve waited forty years for this woman, you know, and I want everything to be just perfect.”

“Well, you sure do sound a whole lot happier than any man has a right to be,” Brock said, feeling suddenly wistful. “An’ you don’t have to worry, Vern. I’ll bring the ring, unless Alvin eats it before I can get it to you.”

“If he eats it,” Vernon said in the dark tone of one who was well acquainted with Alvin’s habits, “then Manny will just have to do a little emergency surgery this afternoon. You tell Alvin that, Brock.”

Brock chuckled. “I’ll tell him,” he said, looking down at Alvin, who seemed to understand the conversation, and was eyeing his master with sudden deep apprehension.

“So, it’s three o’clock at the courthouse, okay? Second floor?”

“Yeah, Vern. As if you haven’t told me that about a thousand times already. I’ll be there.”

“Are you dressed yet?”

Brock laughed. “No, Vern, I’m not dressed yet. I just finished pulling a couple dozen porcupine quills outa one of my little Brangus bull calves, an’ now I’m having my lunch.”

“But…shouldn’t you be getting ready by now? It’s past one o’clock,” the other man said.

“Vern, settle down,” Brock told him gently. “Everything’s gonna be just fine. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be there before three, an’ I’ll have the ring, an’ you an’ Carolyn will get married, an’ then we’ll all go out to the Double C for a nice big party. Nothing will go wrong. Relax, okay?”

“I guess you’re right,” Vernon said. “I just can’t believe it’s really happening, Brock. I’m so damned happy.”

“Well, you deserve it, fella,” Brock said gently. “An’ I’m happy for both of you. I truly do wish you all the best, Vern. Now, go have a stiff drink or something, an’ try to pull yourself together, an’ I’ll see you in a little while.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Brock sat staring at the telephone for a long time. At last he levered himself upright, dislodging Alvin, who had fallen asleep on his master’s stocking feet. He walked to his bedroom.

Unlike the rest of the house, this room was tidy, with a bright woven rag rug on the hardwood floor, a clean faded spread covering the neatly made bed and a bank of worn colorful books in handmade shelves along one wall.

Brock gazed wistfully at the books. Normally, he allowed himself a half hour or so of reading in the middle of the day, a treat that he looked forward to all morning.

But then he recalled the panicky tone in Vernon Trent’s voice and shook his head.

“Poor ol’ Vern,” he said to Alvin, who had followed him into the room and was trying to scramble up onto the bed. “I guess I should try to be early if I can, just so he doesn’t fall apart before the ceremony gets under way. Alvin, you’re such a mess,” he added, watching the fat dog struggle in vain to scale the high old-fashioned bed. Alvin fell back heavily onto the rug.

Brock scooped up the dog and tossed him onto the bed, grinning as Alvin gathered his dignity with an injured air, turned around briskly a few times and sank into a ragged ball in the center of the mattress, ears drooping contentedly, eyes already falling shut.

“Gawd, what a life,” Brock commented enviously, watching the sleepy dog for a moment. Finally he turned, stripped off his shirt, jeans and socks, and padded down the hall to the bathroom, his hard-muscled body gleaming like fine marble in the shaded midday light.

He showered energetically, singing country songs aloud in a pleasant deep baritone, toweled himself off and then examined his face in the mirror, fingering his firm jaw.

“Better shave again,” he muttered aloud. “There’ll likely be somebody taking pictures, an’ Carolyn’s not gonna like it much if I’m showing a five-o’clock shadow in every photograph.”

He lathered his face and began to shave carefully, thinking about the strange twist of fate that had brought his dream woman to appear to him on the same television screen with Beverly Townsend, the daughter of the woman that his friend Vernon Trent was marrying today.

Because, of course, Brock was fully aware that if he decided to make use of this connection, he could learn more about the mysterious woman, maybe even get to meet her.

He paused, razor in his hand, and gazed into his own dark eyes, wondering if he really wanted to meet Amanda Walker. After all, there was a certain risk to having dreams come true. The woman in his fantasies had warmed and sustained him through a lot of hard lonely years, but would the reality of her be as satisfying as his dreams?

Brock frowned, thinking about the woman in the velvet chair, recalling her air of sophisticated grace and calm elegance. That hadn’t really disturbed him, because he’d always pictured his woman as being quiet, gracious and serenely poised. What did bother him was the kind of superficial ambience the television commercial exuded, the popular idea that “image was everything.” And despite her serenity the woman on the television screen seemed ambitious, almost a little hard-edged.

Brock shook his head, still gazing thoughtfully at his reflection. The misted glass of the mirror shimmered before his eyes and he saw her face again, that lovely pure oval with the warm sapphire eyes and a mouth made for kissing. She was gazing at him, inviting him, lips softly parted, blue eyes full of tenderness and an alluring elusive promise so wild and sweet that his knees went weak and his body began to tremble with longing.

Then, abruptly, she vanished and Brock was staring into his own brown troubled eyes again, feeling strangely bereft.

“You’re such a fool,” he told himself, gripping the handle of his razor in a shaking hand. “You’re such a goddamn fool.”

Grimly he returned to his task, forcing himself to concentrate on the day ahead. But then he remembered the joyous tone in Vernon Trent’s voice and his friend’s unashamed declaration of happiness, and he felt lonelier than ever.

At last he finished shaving, rinsed off his razor and cleaned the sink mechanically, then wandered back into his bedroom to dress.

He paused in front of his closet, gazing in brooding silence at the few clothes that hung there, mostly Western-style shirts and clean folded jeans.

When Vernon had asked Brock Munroe to be his best man, he’d questioned Brock tactfully about suitable clothing for the occasion, and Brock had assured his friend that of course he had a dark suit.

And he did, but it was the same suit he’d worn to his high school graduation, almost twenty years ago. Brock lifted the suit bag from its hanger and unzipped it, examining the garment inside and wishing that he’d taken the time to buy something new for the wedding.

Brock frowned, holding the plain black suit aloft in his brown callused hands and gazing at it. He’d tried it on recently, and it still fitted reasonably well. How could anybody possibly tell that it wasn’t brand-new?

“After all, I only wore the damn thing a couple times in my whole life,” he said defensively to Alvin, who was watching him with sleepy detachment. “It’s just like new. Why should I spend all that money on another one, just for one day?”

He thought again of Amanda Walker’s television commercial, and remembered her sweet voice commenting that image perfection consisted of tiny intangibles that added up to a total look.

“Tiny intangibles!” Brock scoffed aloud to his dog, trying hard to feel as confident as he sounded.

“Like what? Clean socks? No soup stains on your tie? Well, I can look after stuff like that as well as the next guy, Alvin. I’m not worried.”

He dressed rapidly in the dark suit and a crisp white shirt that he’d spent almost half an hour ironing the day before. Finally he slipped on black socks and sturdy polished brogues, knotted his dark maroon tie and glanced at his watch in sudden panic.

“Look after things, okay, Alvin?” he said, heading for the door, rushing out through his cluttered kitchen and down the walk to his truck. A minute later he was back in the room.

“Forgot the damn ring,” Brock said to Alvin with an abashed grin. He rummaged in a bureau drawer for a small velvet case, which he slipped into his suit pocket.

Alvin coughed and gnawed rudely on one of his hind paws.

Brock gave the ugly little dog a cold glance. “Alvin,” he said, “you’re a real hard dog to love, you know that?”

Then he was gone, running lightly out through the house and down to his truck.

Alvin waited a moment, listening to the fading hum of the vehicle motor down the long winding road. Then he stood, yawned and scrambled off the bed. He paused to scratch himself with great energy, then wandered out into the messy living room, checking wistfully to see if any surviving bits of the salami had somehow lodged under the chair or coffee table.