Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

It was not Rita standing before him but a pained, contorted creature who had pushed herself beyond the edge. In that single instance of truth Rita heard what she had avoided for a decade and a half.

“It’s not the end of the earth,” Quinn said.

Lord, he’d never seen her like this! She was an angry Gypsy,

disconnected from herself. “Two things, two things, just two things,” she hissed. “That was all I wanted. I wanted to write, and I wanted to be perfect for you. I’m neither.”

“Let me hold you, darling.”

“No, you can’t hold me anymore.”

“Rita, get a grip—“

“I wanted to be perfect for you, Quinn. I was not perfect. Do you know what I mean?”

“How could you be? We were never promised to each other. You grew to be a woman while I was gone. I know you must have had lovers. It doesn’t matter now.”

“I thought,” she moaned, “that by becoming a great writer, you’d forgive me for my imperfection. I’m neither.”

Rita moaned low, all that beauty fallen into wreckage. “I did what I did in the hope you would learn and be jealous and pay attention to me. I did it to anger you. I did it .. .”

“What?”

“Carlos and I.”

The pain of his head wound came alive, and he fought for his feet and staggered around the room. Her sobs were loud and followed him until he turned to her and pushed her away.

Rita heard the screen door slam.

Vroom .. . vroom, vroom, vroom. The Jeep screamed away.

DENVER—EARLY 1980s

Bloody secrets! Bloody lies! The church, the ranch, his parents, the whole goddamned valley seemed to conspire.

This was far worse than losing Greer Little. Greer never betrayed him. He had seen truth in Rita. But what the hell, Quinn thought, he had been away at El Toro Air Base shagging the ladies, breaking hearts. She couldn’t make promises to him, for there were no promises to be made.

But Carlos? Hot and deliberate. Aimed to gore him! Why hadn’t she come to him with this before the wedding? Why did it have to be a part of the goddamned secrets and goddamned lies?

Reynaldo Maldonado returned from Cuernavaca after Rita had fled. He was shocked and hurt almost as deeply as Quinn.

“Sorry it took me so long to get here,” Mal told Quinn. “I made a couple of stops along the way.”

“Did you find her?”

“The day before yesterday she went to Carlos in Houston.”

Mal watched his son-in-law shudder.

“Apparently, she arrived in bad shape. She wouldn’t see me. Quinn, I

had no idea they were carrying on. When a woman deceives, she can carry it off so smoothly. Only, she got caught in her own web.”

“I thought she loved me more than this,” Quinn said.

“She does, beyond all reason. Don’t jump on me. My throat is dry from the salt from my eyes.”

“What kind of destructive logic consumed her with the notion that she had to become a writer to atone for a sin she never committed?”

“If anyone is responsible, I am. I should have seen it coming,” Mal said.

“Why didn’t she tell me? Why Carlos?” Quinn cried.

“Desperation from warped logic. Confusion. Quinn was the Quinn she could never really have. Carlos was the Quinn who loved her.”

“Stop it right now. I don’t want to hear his fucking name, right? I’ve got nasty images in my head. I could kill him.”

Mal unearthed his hash pipe. He found a bottle for Quinn.

“Rita grew up surrounded by dozens of drawings and wire figures and polished marble of her mother. Every pose of Mimi sang out that she was perfection. I remember Rita trying to imitate her mother. Maybe it all made her feel inferior to Mimi. When Mimi died, Rita wanted to supplant her mother in my heart. I couldn’t paint or sculpt her, and that probably cut her even more deeply.”

Quinn poured. Mal puffed.

“Then came a never-ending parade of women. What was I searching for? My dead wife. Poor Rita, always in an adjoining cabin on a cruise while daddy, next door, was banging some rich widow or some adulterous married woman. I didn’t even see her growing away, tucking herself in a corner writing poetry. Soulful, deeply hurt. That’s why I found Troublesome Mesa, so she would gain her self-respect.”

Quinn poured himself a neat double and closed his eyes. After he had

gone off to the Corps, he had tolled up the difference in their ages. It was not the number of years that counted. When a young man in Troublesome getting urges, Rita was still a little girl in the second grade. When Rita blossomed, Quinn was at the university, engaged in his flame-out affair with Greer Little. When he went into the Corps, Rita was just beginning Wellesley.

As his image of Rita had grown in the semi-isolation of the RAM unit, she had crept into his mind more and more. He equated it at first with missing the mountains. He was Colorado. She was Colorado. He looked forward to her letters and photographs. Yet he continued to correspond with her as he would a younger sister.

In a full, rich moment Mal had told Quinn what he had not seen. Rita was a glory among women, and she had waited for Quinn patiently. By the time of their marriage, he had begun to realize how deeply Rita had woven herself into his fabric.

“She’s my daughter,” Mal said. “I have to go to Houston and see what I can do.”

Quinn nodded his head that he understood.

“I’ll probably have to reach Carlos. Will she ever be able to come back to you?”

“No,” Quinn answered. “As for Carlos, if I see him, I’ll blow his face away.”

Siobhan broke her tour off and rushed back to Troublesome. She immediately grasped that the only thing she could do for Quinn was to leave him alone and be there, should he ask for help.

The ranch and other business had backed up so badly that Juan Martinez had to seek the boss out. When Juan entered the ranch office, he had to contain his shock at Quinn’s appearance. Quinn settled on the other side of the big partner’s desk and emptied his briefcase.

“These checks have to be countersigned,” Juan said. “The new fencing

along Silver Alley Creek looks very good. I want you to inspect it before I order more.” He studied a paper. “I don’t like the Mountain Feed bid. I’m for sending ten or twenty head to the feed lot and see if we aren’t spending too much per animal.”

Quinn studied the propositions, rubbing his beard and catching Juan’s eyes piercing him. “I guess I look like ten miles of dirt road,” Quinn said.

“Fifty miles,” Juan said, “after a thunderstorm.”

Quinn managed a smile as Juan rolled a cigarette, biting on the label of the drawstring to close the sack. A few of the Marines on the RAM team had rolled their own.

“Anything else?” Quinn asked.

“A lot else,” he retorted. “Siobhan and I have taken care of everything we can without you. So, what’s it to be?”

“I’m bleeding, man,” Quinn rasped, “valley of deceit, valley of lies, present company exempted. You don’t lie, Juan. I have lied for the honor of the Corps.”

“That’s not lying.”

“You’re his brother, you tell me, Juan.”

“I certainly sensed something was happening. But I don’t spy on my brother. It was none of my business. You had kept Rita longing for you for far too long. It happened in a moment when they were free. Now? Jesus, I don’t know. He is my brother, and I must come down on his side. The Martinez family is ready to leave the ranch.”