Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

The family hadn't even flown out here together. Her flight had landed at San Francisco, where Nevada met her at the airport. An Inter-Continental Airlines company plane, a Beech Baron, had flown them to the ranch landing strip. She had been the first to arrive. The Beech went back to pick up her new brother and his girlfriend, and she had been alone at the ranch with Nevada.

They'd had horses saddled and had gone out to ride across the sandy, rocky countryside.

"You always was a natural in the saddle. Shame your parents decided to move you to California."

"I think I could have been happy here."

"Uhmm. That mean you're not, where you are?"

"I might be. But who knows how long I'll be there before I'm packed up and sent somewhere else? There's nothing permanent, Nevada."

"Don't feel like you got no roots down," he said.

Jo-Ann shrugged. She frowned at a coyote limping across the ground in front of them. It had been bitten by a rattlesnake apparently and was dying. Nevada pulled a .30-30 Winchester from its scabbard on his saddle, took aim, and put the creature out of its misery.

"I'm shoved this way and the other," she said. "Obviously, I've got nothing of my own. I'm so — Nevada, I'm so goddamned dependent !"

"Who ain't, your age? Of course me, I had to go out younger. But that was another time, another place. You're the daughter of Jonas and Monica. You gotta get your education and be smart and sophisticated-like. Who's not dependent at that time of life?"

"Do you believe that man he found in Mexico is really his son?" she asked.

"I expect he is," said Nevada. "I remember the girl. Sonja Batista. First thing he had to do after he sudden-like inherited everything was go to Germany to see how they made plastics, since that was what his daddy had bought into. He took Sonja Batista with him. I was surprised when he didn't marry her. Pretty thing, she was. All this was before he met your mother."

"That wouldn't have made any difference. They never really loved each other. She was a piece of ass. He was a cock. That's all either of them ever wanted."

"Young lady," said Nevada sternly, "you shouldn't use them kind of words. Anyhow, you're wrong. I don't know what happened, but they did love each other. At least twice. Once when they made you. Once when they got together again. I didn't see the first part. I saw the second. You got a point if you wanta say they're not the kind of folks that fall in love in the romantic way. But don't put 'em down, Jo-Ann. Love ain't always a lifetime thing."

Jo-Ann loved the kind of country they were riding across. They were five miles from the house. It smelled good: big and fresh and dry. The horses spooked occasionally. Living things skittered in the low dry brush to either side of them. They came across the track left by a sidewinder. That would spook a horse. The mountains rising in the distance were more beautiful for their promise from miles away than they were when you reached them.

"Nevada ..."

"Uh?"

"I'm a virgin."

"I'd sort of hope you was, at your age."

Jo-Ann shook her head. "My mother wasn't when she was eighteen. My father —"

"Prob'ly was when he was eighteen," Nevada interrupted. "Th' old man wasn't for foolin' around. 'Course ... your father made up for it pretty quick, when he got the chance. Uh — Come to think of it, once he started to drive a car ..."

"Nevada ... I'm very uncomfortable."

The lanky old man shook his head. "Honey, you ain't got no idea what uncomfortable is ."

"I'd like a man I trust to — It could be you, Nevada."

" Missy! Don't you never say nothin' like that ag'in! Jeezuss Christ! I don't ever wanta hear nothin' like that ag'in. I won't tell your father, but —"

Jo-Ann sobbed. "But you can see!"

He shook his head. "I can't see."

"Somebody I trust. That was the point."

"I could be — I could be your grandfather. Grandfather? Hell, I could be your great-grandfather."

"Forgive me?" She sniffed.

"Sure. But look, sis. When you're eighteen it looks like that's got to be the most wonderful thing in the whole world. It ain't. It's good, but it's not the best thing in the world. You gotta learn to live with it, like you do with everything else."

"I heard my father say one time that you were the smartest man he'd ever met when it came to ... life."

Nevada shook his head. "Maybe that's because he's done some dumb things in that department. It could be that was what killed his daddy, findin' out that Junior had done it dumb again and was going to have to pay hush money."

"Blackmail?"

Nevada shrugged. "Whatever they called it. Oh, hell, it didn't kill him. He died of bourbon and hot temper and maybe of tryin' to keep up with the young woman he'd married to keep your father from marryin' her."

"Rina?"

"You've heard of her. Your daddy wanted to marry her. He was set on it. Your granddaddy married her and carried her off to Europe on a honeymoon."

"What a family! No wonder I'm crazy."

"You're not crazy, honey." He chuckled. "Maybe you're a Cord, though."

Jo-Ann reined her horse to a stop. "Sex," she said. "If you won't teach me, tell me something, anyway. It ruins lives."

Nevada reined his horse around and sat facing the beautiful dark-haired girl in the tight blue jeans and wool shirt. "Blue-eyes lives," he said. "My daddy was a buffalo hunter. My ma was a Kiowa. The Kiowa were noble people that knowed how to live. A Kiowa man never dreamt dreams about doin' it. He didn't have to; he did it. A Kiowa woman never worried about it. She didn't have to; she did it. The Kiowa wouldn't-a cared about pictures of people doin' it. What good was that? They wouldn't-a read in books about people doin' it. What good was that? They didn't make up stories about it, or make laws about it, or suppose the Great Unknowable cared how and when they done it. If children come and nobody could figure out exactly whose they was, that didn't make no difference; children belonged to the tribe, and all of 'em was taken care of. You understand?"

"Do it with whoever I want to?"

"Not quite that. Do it with whoever'll take responsibility, the way the tribe did. Responsibility. That there's the point. An ugly word with the white man. And forget all the hoodoo-voodoo. This thing we're talkin' about, it's mine, it's your'n, it's his'n, it's her'n. It's nobody else's but. And it's not worth moanin' and groanin' and worryin' and hurryin' about. Live, little girl! Pee when you have to and fuck when you want to. But you wouldn't pee on the street in public, so don't fuck where and when it ain't right — and not with the wrong man. That's all the rules they is about it."

Jo-Ann smiled and started her horse back toward the house. "Thank you, Nevada," she said. "My father was right about one thing. You are the smartest man about life either one of us has ever met."

She had known yesterday afternoon that she and Nevada would be returning to the house alone — alone, that is, but for Robair and the ranch hands who worked around the place. The plane bringing her new half brother and the woman from Washington wouldn't arrive before midnight.

She had continued to wish Nevada would consent to come to her bed, but she'd known he wouldn't, and she'd known better than to mention it again.

A hundred yards from the house, Jo-Ann reined her horse to a stop again. She yawned. "Would you believe I got out of bed this morning in New York?" she said. "Are you having dinner with me, Nevada?"

"I wasn't countin' on it, but you are alone, huh? Gonna eat early?"

She nodded. "Surprise Robair," she said.

"Not much surprises that man. Anyway, sure, tell him to set two places."