A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [46]
They rode their horses on the familiar trails they had ridden as children and young people. Only now Quinn was missing. Quinn’s absence hovered over the homecoming and dampened their joy.
They dipped their feet in an icy stream near big boulders a thousand feet above the ranch.
“It’s not the same without Quinn here, is it?” she said.
Carlos shook his head. “I saw him a few times when I was in San Diego on business. He didn’t talk much about why he left Troublesome.”
“I don’t know, either,” Rita said. “He had this girl, her name was Greer, whom he loved very much. When she went away to New York on an internship, he moaned on Mal’s shoulder almost every night. Then she came back, and after a year they broke up and Quinn left. Neither his mother nor father will speak about him. I know he doesn’t write to them. Some kind of Catholic thing, I think.”
“It’s not the same,” Carlos repeated. “See, even though I was the older, it was Quinn who protected me in the school yard and taught me so much.”
“And you taught him, too, Carlos. Anyhow, we exchange letters every month. I would write him more often, but I don’t want him to owe me letters. You know what I mean.”
“Funny, he’s always been a sort of hero to me,” Carlos said. “I think I’ve come to learn his lessons by practicing law now. So much of law is rotten and lies and cheating. I realized, only recently, that Quinn was never that way. If he promised you something, it was done.”
Carlos stared at Rita, hard, found a large sitting rock, and put on his boots. He was numb from the sight of her. When she had stepped into the water, she had held up her wide, twirling skirt and showed her magnificent legs, and her scooped blouse showed her magnificent bosom. Rita came to him pensively.
“I suppose we’ve both lost him,” Carlos said.
“What do you mean, Carlos?”
“I remember the day you and Mal moved into your house. The day after that you were in love with Quinn. What were you? Six or seven?”
“Did I show it that much?”
“I saw it. The three of us were together a lot.”
“Well, Quinn Patrick O’Connell has never had eyes for me. I am still his baby sister. I cried alone a lot when he fell in love with that Greer woman. And when they broke up, I can’t say that I was unhappy. I sent him photographs to indicate I wasn’t a little girl anymore, but he didn’t seem to notice. I suppose he must have a hundred women in San Diego.”
Carlos said nothing, which said everything.
“I was a fool, Carlos. No more. I want to get into things.”
“What things?”
She put her arms around his neck and drew her lips to his and pressed her body against his as a punctuation mark. Carlos held her at arm’s length in amazement. She kissed him again, but he spun away.
“Is this your way of getting even with him?” Carlos asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“What do you know?” Carlos asked.
“I know that for the last three years you have had a yearning for me. And I sent you photographs because I wanted you to yearn for me. When I knew you were coming to Troublesome, I also knew that the time had come for me to enter the society of womanhood. I know,” she went on haltingly, “how gentle you are and that I trust you and I want you to be gentle with me.”
They flung themselves at each other and held on and rocked…
“So unfair to Quinn,” Carlos cried.
“No! He made his choice. It is not unfair to Quinn. You can’t feel guilty for a man who has spurned you as a woman. Guilty of what? Discovering my lover was you all this time?”
Their bursting forth let loose torrents of restraint, a restraint of younger years. Rita and Carlos were as wild as the giant boulders and icy stream and needled ground. During the week of his stay, they went off each day, mesmerized.
When the end of the stay was at hand, both of them were sad. “How hard is it for you to get to Denver?” Carlos asked.
“I can, on weekends.”
“What about Mal?”
“I’ll tell him I have a boyfriend in Denver.”
“That part of it is true, but what about the other?”
“Quinn is gone from my life,” she said. “So, why do we have to lie?