This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [26]
“Did she die before the accident?”
“Yes. She died a couple years after you and your mother went back to the Piney Woods. It was a blessing, in a way, for toward the end she had to be locked in her room. But let’s talk of more pleasant things. You have a beautiful place here. I’ve always loved this place. Your land borders on ours. Did you know that?” She laughed at Summer’s expression. “No. Your land doesn’t reach out fifteen miles, but ours reaches almost that far. You have a strip in here that borders the creek—I’d say it’s two or three miles wide. You’ve a valuable piece of land as far as Slater is concerned. The south of your land is another part of McLean’s Keep. That wily Sam!” She laughed again and shook her head. “He laid out this homestead. I don’t think he thought J.R. would come back for Nannie. Maybe he thought he would marry her himself.” Her eyes danced with mischief. “That Sam was a true Scotsman!”
The hint that Sam would have married her mother for her land didn’t go down well with Summer, but she kept her eyes on the distant hills and never allowed her feelings to show.
“And you, Ellen,” she asked, “have you been widowed long?”
Her eyes took on a sad, faraway look again. “Travis was just a little boy when Scott died. We stayed at the ranch for a few years, then went to Nacogdoches, where my people lived. We came back about twelve years ago and brought Jesse with us. It was about time, too. The man I trusted to manage the ranch had about stolen us blind. I do declare, you never know whom to trust. Jesse took things in hand. You know, I have the finest house in west Texas if 1 do say so myself. Do come and stay as long as you like, Summer. What good is having a fine house if you can’t show it off?” She laughed and held her hands over her ears in mock dismay. “What must you think of me?” she wailed.
“I think you’re a very nice lady, who is proud of her home.”
“Oh, Summer. I want us to be friends.”
“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be.” Summer’s eyes found her young brother and she called to him. “I want you to meet my brother, Ellen.”
Summer saw no more of Travis until the evening meal. He came in with Jesse. The two men stood side by side waiting for the meal to be placed on the table. How alike they were, and yet so different. Both were tall, lean and brown. One smiled easily, the other seldom, if at all. Travis was politeness itself. Gone was the lecherous image he projected earlier, and in its place a boyish friendliness. Summer privately conceded that her opinion of him could have been colored by Slater’s bitter warning.
Sadie appeared when the meal was over, and Summer assisted with the clean-up. Sadie was unusually cross with Mary, and the little girl finally went to the bunk in the back of the kitchen and lay, sucking her thumb, watching with large, round eyes. Ellen was distantly polite to Sadie, and ignored the little girl completely. It was with relief that Summer invited Ellen to the veranda when the work was finished.
As soon as the two women left the room, Sadie went to the washstand and bathed her flushed face. It was a struggle to crush the feeling of apprehension that stirred restlessly when in the presence of Ellen McLean and her son. Son-of-a-bitch! A mule’s ass of the first string; a spoiled, conceited bastard, whose sexual urges ran to cruelties and perversions. The women in Hamilton had told her plenty about him. Even the whores refused his money unless they were desperate for cash. Her heart had come up in her throat when