Part 26 (2/2)

”I've been watching you.”

He smiled broader. ”What about Taylor?”

”I suggested he spend more time with Reva, and Reva asked for him so I gave him to her.”

”Oh, you did, did you?” Hank laughed. ”So you and Reva divided us up. I guess I should be glad you didn't flip a coin.”

She pulled away from him. ”If you are through laughing at me, I suggest we go.”

He caught her arm. ”Did you really mean it, Amanda? Have you realized at last that you love me?”

She didn't quite like the way he put it, but truth was truth. ”Yes,” she said. ”I have finally realized it.”

He drew back a little, a grin splitting his face. ”I guess all this stuff about you'll go with me wherever I go is a marriage proposal.”

Her embarra.s.sment was returning. Wasn't this a time for champagne and diamond rings? But he was standing here in a b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt, lines of tiredness around his eyes, and she was filthy and tired. ”I guess so.” She looked down at her hands.

”Wait until I tell our grandkids about this,” Hank said. ”They'll never believe their grandmother did the asking.”

She squinted up at him. ”You ever tell anyone about this and you'll never beget children with me, much less grandchildren.” She turned on her heel and walked away from him.

He caught her and pulled her against him with his one good arm. ”I apologize, baby. I just wanted to give you some of what you've given me. You can't imagine the h.e.l.l you've put me through, knowing you were mine yet having you fight me. I died some every time you looked at Driscoll. I gave up hope once that you'd ever realize that you belonged to me and I walked out, but then you came strolling into the Union Hall. You have made me completely miserable.”

She smiled against his sweaty s.h.i.+rt. ”I'm glad. You've upset my life too.”

He kissed her forehead and held her a moment. ”I think we better go. My arm's beginning to bleed again and it'll be hard driving back with one arm.”

”I'll drive back,” she said.

He pulled away from her. ”You?” He grinned. ”Amanda, do you realize what the steering is like on the Mercer? And the brakes? Why, you couldn't even-”

”Who do you think drove up here?” she asked angrily.

”That was different, that was...”

”Was what?” she demanded.

”Necessary.” He wasn't smiling any longer.

”And now it's not necessary? You think you're a better driver with one arm and a fever than I am with two arms?”

”As a matter of fact, I do.”

She stepped back. ”All right, it's yours,” she said, gesturing toward the car. She stood aside and watched as he worked on the intricate starting procedure. His wound opened and he looked dizzy a couple of times, but he kept turning the crank.

She went to him. ”Please, Hank,” she said. ”Please let me help.”

Hank looked at her. He'd always known he'd do whatever she wanted if she asked him with a please. He knew it was one of the most difficult things he'd ever done, but he let her drive. She was worse than he'd imagined. She drove too fast, her steering was erratic, she pa.s.sed other cars when she couldn't see around them. She kept asking him questions about when Whitey and Andrei had kidnapped him. He mumbled that Andrei had never meant to shoot him but a tree on the mountainside had fallen and scared Andrei so much that the gun had gone off. Hank ducked, but not quick enough. Andrei thought Hank was dead and pulled him into the cabin to get the body out of sight, then he'd left him. Hank had slept until Amanda arrived.

”Does it hurt much?” Amanda asked, looking at him.

He got a little sick every time she took her eyes off the road. ”Not as much as death would.”

Amanda thought she heard him say something else, but it sounded too much like, ”Taylor had the right idea about women: keep them locked up,” so she was sure she was wrong.

They stopped for gas twice and bought sandwiches and coffee, then were on their way again. They didn't reach the Caulden Ranch until sundown.

And by then it was all over.

As soon as Amanda pulled into the service road near the pickers' camp they could see that many of the people were gone. Hank was pale and weak, and Amanda wanted to get him to a doctor but he wouldn't go. ”I want to see your father,” he said. Amanda nodded, took his hand in hers and they started walking.

Joe Testorio saw them and came running with the news. Everything had happened within minutes. Whitey Graham had been giving one of his speeches when two cars drove up, one containing the sheriff, the district attorney and a deputy, the other car containing four deputies. The D.A. made a request for peace, but one deputy pointed out Whitey and said they had a warrant for his arrest and were taking him. The officers started making their way through the crowd.

But then something happened, Joe wasn't sure what, but later someone said that a bench with some men standing on it had tipped. The noise and the men's yells were enough to send the crowd into pandemonium. A deputy fired a shotgun over the crowd's heads to quieten them. It had the opposite effect.

Three minutes later the crowd began to pull back, and on the ground lay the sheriff, the D.A., a deputy and two workers, one a boy of thirteen, all of them dead.

If possible, Hank grew a little paler when he heard the news. Amanda tightened her grip on his hand.

Hank walked into the Caulden house without knocking and strode into the library, Amanda beside him. J. Harker sat at his desk, looking as if nothing had happened.

”Come to threaten me?” he asked, looking at a b.l.o.o.d.y Hank and a defiant Amanda. ”So much for your campaign against violence. The governor's sending the State Militia out. They'll shoot your unionists on sight. You've lost, Montgomery, you've lost.”

”You don't realize it, but you're the loser. All you had to do was give the workers a decent pay raise-money you could well afford-and you could have prevented this. Now the world will hear about the Caulden Ranch.”

”Hear how your unionists killed the D.A. and the sheriff,” J. Harker said. ”The country will tear your union apart. The D.A. was a loved man, with a wife and kids.”

”What this country will hear about is the inhuman conditions that caused them to riot. And I'm going to be the one to tell them. I'm going to describe in detail what went on here, what pushed these people over the brink.”

”And I'm going to help him,” Amanda said.

J. Harker snorted. ”You can go to your room. I'll get someone to replace Taylor.”

”Has he left you too?” Amanda said softly.

”Ran off with that two-bit Eiler b.i.t.c.h,” Harker muttered. ”But he can be replaced.”

”Now you have what you wanted: you have this enormous ranch all to yourself. You have no wife with a past to embarra.s.s you, no daughter to play childish pranks and make people think you're less than perfect, no future son-in-law to intimidate. But you've lost something else too: you don't know it yet, but you've lost control of this ranch. You've shown your greed to the world, and you may be willing to let people die so you can make money, but the world's not going to let you. Your day is over, and Hank and I are going to help see that it's finished.”

”Are you through now?” J. Harker said, his eyes angry. ”Then you can get out. I don't need any of you.” Even as he said it, he knew he was lying, but pride had ruled his life and he was too old to change now.

”Goodbye, Father,” Amanda said and turned to look at Hank. ”Ready, darling?”

Hank nodded and they left the library, but he stopped her in the hall. ”Amanda, if I wasn't sure before that I loved you, I am now. Will you marry me?”

”Yes,” she whispered, then smiled. ”And our son will be a king.”

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