'Nothing interesting to tell you today. No new gossip, nothing going on. Except there's the strangest old man wandering around town.' Addie walked over to the nightstand and picked up a spoon, flipping the bowl of it against her palm as she spoke. 'I saw him outside the apothecary shop after I picked up your medicine. He looks like one of those old drovers-heavy beard, long hair, and kind of a weather-beaten face.'
A tired smile crossed Leah's face. She was paler than usual and strangely listless. During the past few months her perfectly white hair had lost its brilliance, her dark-eyed liveliness had all but vanished, leaving behind a mixture of resignation and peace.
'Lots of old cowboys wandering around nowadays. Nothing strange about that.'
'Yes, but he was standing outside the shop as if he was waiting for me to come out. He looked at me so hard, just staring and staring, and he didn't stop until I reached the end of the street. It gave me the strangest feeling, all creepy inside. And he must have been around seventy or eighty years old!'
Leah chuckled. 'Older men always like to look at a pretty girl, honey. You know that.'
'The way he looked at me made my skin crawl.' Addie grimaced and reached for a green glass bottle. It was one of a large assortment of medicines on the nightstand, medicines that could not cure the relentless spreading of cancer through Leah's body but eased the pain of it. Dr. Haskin had said it was all right for her to take a dose whenever necessary. Now every hour of her day was punctuated with a spoonful of opiated syrup. Carefully Addie held a spoon up to Leah's lips and used a handkerchief to dab at a stray drop which had fallen on her chin.
'There. You'll feel better in just a minute.'
'I already feel better.' Leah reached for her hand. 'You should be visiting with your friends instead of fussing over me all the time.'
'I like your company more.' Addie smiled, her dark brown eyes gleaming impishly. For all its charm, her face was not spectacular. Her cheekbones were blunt and her jawline too pronounced. However, she gave the impression of striking beauty. She had an allure no one could precisely describe, a luminous warmth that shone through her skin, a ripe intensity in the color of her eyes and honey-brown hair. Jealous women could point out the flaws in her looks, but most men considered her to be nothing less than perfect.
Addie set the spoon down on the bedside table and eyed the high stack of sensational novels filled with stories of helpless maidens, daring deeds, and villains foiled by conquering heroes. 'Reading these again?' she asked, and clicked her tongue at Leah. 'Are you ever going to behave?'
The gentle teasing pleased Leah, who had always prided herself on having plenty of spunk. Until the cancer had struck she had been the most active and independent woman in Sunrise. The idea of marriage, or any other claim on her freedom, had never tempted her. But she admitted it had been a blessing in disguise when Addie had come to live with her.
The child and a nominal inheritance had been left to her at the unexpected death of her sister and brother-in-law. Raising a three-year-old girl had been a responsibility that changed Leah's life, making it richer than she had ever thought possible. Now at the age of sixty, Leah seemed happy as a spinster. Addie was the only family she needed.
Although Addie had been born to Sarah and Jason Peck and brought up in North Carolina for the first three years of her life, she couldn't remember any other parent but Leah, any other home but this little town in central Texas. She was a Texan down to the marrow of her bones, had inherited the Texans' lazy way of speaking and flat, stretched-out accent, their need for open sky, their hot temperament and deep-rotted sense of honor. She had inherited the strength and backbone of the Warner family, which had risen to greatness and fallen into decay long before Addie was born.
The Warners had founded the town of Sunrise near an overland trail that was eventually replaced by miles of railroad track. Texas cattle had stamped out that trail, tough, hardy longhorns with square faces and eyes that glittered with the fire and meanness of the Mexican fighting bulls they had descended from. Twice a year the longhorns were driven up north on long trail drives to Kansas, Missouri, and Montana.
It had taken tough men to run those cattle drives, men who couldn't afford to have families, men who were willing to live in the saddle for weeks on end, breathing thick dust and eating food that had been cooked over a fire made with dried buffalo dung or cattle chips. But in spite of the hardships, there was freedom in the life they had chosen, and an irresistible challenge in taming the longhorns and the land they rode. Leah often entertained Addie with endless stories about Russell Warner, her great-grandfather, who had owned one of the largest spreads in Texas.
Now the time of cattle barons and their huge cattle outfits was over. The range was no longer free and open, it was fenced into barbed-wire pens. Everyone had a little piece of Texas. The cowboys, the life and spirit of the old system, had drifted west, or turned into homesteaders, or even turned to rustling. The clumsily sprawling acres that had once been the Sunrise Ranch were now covered with oil workers, metal fences, and oil rigs. Addie felt sorry for the old cowboys that ocasionally wandered through town, so taciturn and resigned to the fact that the only kind of life they could· ever belong to had been taken away from them. Old men with no place to rest.
'See this?' Addie held up the green glass bottle and turned it in the sunlight. 'The man I was telling you about-his eyes were exactly this color. Real green, not just muddy hazel. I've never seen anything like it. '
Leah shifted against her pillow, looking at her with sudden interest. 'Who is he? Did anyone mention his name?'
'Well, yes. Everyone was whispering about him. I think someone said his name was Hunter.'
'Hunter.' Leah put her hands up to her cheeks.
'Ben Hunter?'
'That sounds about right.'
Leah seemed aghast. 'Ben Hunter. After all this time. After fifty years. I wonder why he'd come back. I wonder what for.'
'He used to live here? Did you know him?'
'No wonder he was staring at you. No wonder. You're the spitting image of my Aunt Adeline. He must have thought she'd come back from the grave.' Pale and upset, Leah reached out to the nightstand for a headache powder, and Addie rushed to the water pitcher to get her something to wash it down with. 'Ben Hunter, an old man,' Leah muttered. 'An old man. And the Warner family all split up and moved away. Who would have dreamed it back then?'
'Here, drink this.' Addie pressed the cool glass into one of Leah's hands and sat down next to her, patting the other hand with unconscious vigor. Leah downed the powder and a few sips of water, then clasped the glass with trembling hands. 'My goodness, why are you so upset?' Addie chided quietly, hardly knowing what to say. 'What did this Ben Hunter ever do to you? How did you know him?'
'There are so many memories. Lord have mercy, I'd never have guessed he'd live this long. He's the one, Addie. The one who killed your great-grandfather Russell. '
Addie's mouth dropped open. 'The one who-'
'The man who ruined the family and the Sunrise Ranch, and killed Grampa Warner.'
'He's a murderer, and he's just walking around free as a bird? Why isn't he locked up somewhere? Why didn't they hang him for killing Russell?'
'He was too slick. He hightailed it out of town as soon as people began to realize he was the one who'd done it. And if that old man you saw today really was Ben Hunter, then it seems he was never caught.'
'I'll bet it was him. He looks like the kind of man who's capable of murder.'
'Is he still handsome?'
'Well… I guess… for an old man. Maybe some old woman would want him. Why? Was he handsome when he was younger?'
'The best-looking man in Texas. That's not a yarn, either. He was something else. And everyone liked him, even though there were rumors he'd been a mavericker and even a rustler. Charming when he wanted to be, smart as a whip. Why, he could read and write so well that some said he'd graduated from some fancy eastern college.'
