For perhaps ten minutes they followed their respective thoughts in silence. Then from Quantrill: 'Boy, Sandy will be mad as a hornet. But I had to do this, Jess.' He wheeled about, troubled, and went on. 'I don't expect anybody to understand.'
'Oh, I think I have it pretty well figured out.'
'Then explain it to me.'
Marrow was shaking silently with laughter as he met Quantrill's gaze. 'The way I figure it… you're just a damn fool, Teddy.'
Quantrill, fondly: 'Screw you, Jess.'
Marrow, cackling: 'I'll drink to that.'
Chapter Seventy
Sandy's journal, Wed. 14 Feb. '07
A shiny new surname for a valentine! Sweet, gruff old Jess Marrow nearly ruined my — our ceremony in the WCS chapel as he gave me away this afternoon. Ted heard his thunderous whisper to me, 'Do you really take this damn fool?' and each kept the other snorting with mirth, made worse by poor nervous Mr. Hutcherson, who had jammed the ring on his pinkie and panicked when he could not get it loose. I conclude that not all men are children. But the best ones sometimes are, and at the most inopportune times!
I was simply flabbergasted to learn, over twice-spiked, punch in the central lodge, that the mysterious buyer of the northern Garner parcel was MY HUSBAND! My cup erupteth over! I swear Ted seemed more apprehensive than proud, and I'm sure my tears did not reassure him. I hope the kiss did. I know it provoked applause from Childe (winsome but ill at ease in her first white frock), who did not yet know what I had just learned. When she did, she flew to Ted and tried to imitate my embrace. I know very well what the little stinker was thinking: another twenty square miles for her and Ba'al to safely roam.
Must ask Ted the identity of the woman who pressed that tiny package into my hand without a word before leaving the lodge. I know Ted saw her, though they never spoke. Wonderful proud bearing despite those thin facial scars I could see through her makeup. And a lovely body of which I should, I suppose, be envious. She must be a conduit to Lufo, for only he would know where in Mexico to locate the Ember of Venus. Nearly swallowed my teeth when I unwrapped it, now that I know its value. I hid it in my cleavage; chilly little critter. If I know L.. he stole it! I could never wear it in public but with some simple setting, may wear it at my throat some night for MY HUSBAND when I am wearing nothing else.
Childe is much too sophisticated since she started school, for she positively demanded to spend these next few nights with a schoolmate in Rocksprings. Not because Ted and I would be gone from here at the soddy, but because we won't be! Where do they learn these things?!
I have taken too long with you, journal, delaying until the effects of that punch wore off while poor Ted waits, ferociously patient, pretending to be interested in his holo program. I know what he is really waiting for, and I intend to be thoroughly alert when I wife him through this night!
Today's entry may be declasse with its fulsome sprinkle of exclamation marks, but this Valentine's Day has earned them. I feel valentiney all over, and it is my pleasure to sign myself…
Mrs. Sandra Quantrill
Chapter Seventy-One
February and then March slipped by before the Quantrills made a decision on their new homesite. The soddy would be their retreat, but they could not run cattle or sheep from such lodgings. Sandy had a horror of credit and said it was her right to pay cash for a house.
Their choice of the site was half by accident, really, on a bright April day as they whirred Sandy's hovercycle at half speed over their new spread. Sorel's van and its contents had long since been airlifted away, and both Reeve Longo and the hapless Billy Ray would remain guests of the government for years to come. But Ted Quantrill had only a sketchy idea where, on his new property, that shed had been erected.
It was Sandy who saw its remains, like a huge box now flattened among the oaks. 'Some people don't care how they litter,' she complained, splendid in her sun-yellow blouse and deerskin trousers as she walked to the edge of a shallow valley nearby. She shaded her eyes and peered down the broad depression. 'Where do you suppose Ba'al went to?'
'He was right behind us,' Quantrill replied. 'Maybe we went too fast for him.' There were ways to deal with a pet dog that followed your car, he reflected; but when your half-ton boar took a notion to accompany your cycle, you might think twice before you spanked him.
'I see him. He's getting a drink at the creek. Ooh, Ted,' she breathed, and stretched out her free hand. 'Come look.'
Hand in hand, they gazed across a depressed meadow blue with the blooms of that brief annual glory, the Texas Sunbonnet. Millions of the little lupines waved in unison, a soft breeze-borne undulation of softest sky blue across the meadow. A hawk patrolled the blue above, nearly motionless. Somewhere a mockingbird was defying nightingales. 'That little creek must run all year,' she said, speaking low to maintain the stillness.
In the near distance, Ba'al waded into a shallow pool, flicking an ear, whisking his ridiculous tail. Above the pool the stream turned abruptly, flowing in a broad sheet over a lip of stone. 'Our own waterfall,' Quantrill said. It might be only knee deep, but it must be dependable. It hadn't rained in weeks. 'You suppose the water's drinkable?'
'I don't care. We can treat it if we have to, honey. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'
'If you're horny — probably,' he said.
'Naughty man. Maybe after lunch. See that level area up there above the falls? We'd only have to cut down a couple of trees.'
He studied the curves of the land; nodded. 'Just above that old fig tree. We won't want to build too close to that waterfall, the noise could drive you nuts.'
'There's one way we can find out, love. Did you ever see a better spot for a picnic?'
They spread an old blanket near the waterfall and shared the beer and barbecue sandwiches. Ba'al came ambling over, grunting lazily. 'Mighty casual for a moocher,' Sandy observed, and reached into the wicker hamper. 'Here, I brought this just for you. Watch this,' she added to her husband, offering a thick peanut butter sandwich to the boar.
Quantrill could not drink beer and laugh at the same time, but he tried. If there was one thing more crammed with solemn imbecility than a cat with a caramel, it had to be Ba'al coping with peanut butter. He snuffled, turned his head this way and that, lining his tongue at the stuff clinging to the roof of his mouth, then sat down and tried to scrape it out with a forehoof. When he had finally got rid of the stuff, naturally he applied for more.
The Quantrills lay on their backs gasping. 'He's hooked, by God,' Ted insisted. 'Woman, you have no pity for a poor dumb beast.'
'Him, yes. You, no.' She tried to finish off a bulb of Pearl but saw the reproachful look of the boar and was taken by laughter again. 'Oh, fiddle,' she said as beer streamed down her wrist.
Ted watched Sandy heading for the stream, sat up, and made a scratching motion to the boar. Ba'al remained carefully clear of the blanket and Ted walked to him, scratching him around the ears, leaning against the animal, venting an occasional chuckle. It had not escaped him that Ba'al no longer cared which of them stood taller. He had suggested a leather collar, a clear sign that the great boar was domestic and not wild game, but Childe had found that her friend would have none of it. A pennant tied to his ruff, perhaps. He thought of Alec Wardrop and smiled.
The heads of man and boar jerked around in perfect unison at the urgency in Sandy's call: 'Come here!' They
