Nora

“Yes, I know,” Helen said worriedly. “What an odd storm, to come out of nowhere like this. They have said that in Arizona there have been unusual changes in the weather, causing many people to become ill. Imagine, and it is only the tenth of September!”

Cal looked uneasy. “The weather has been very odd,” he agreed. “I’d like to know if things are this bad along the coast.” He didn’t add that his brother was there and he was concerned.

“We will know soon enough, I suppose,” Helen said. “Do go and have your meal, Mr. Barton, you look so tired.”

He smiled wanly, glancing at Nora. “None of us has had much rest. Chester will be home soon, I’m certain.”

“Thank you for coming to tell us.”

He nodded wearily and turned toward the bunkhouse. Nora had to bite her lip not to call after him. If she had the right, she would tuck him up in bed and look after him. Imagine, she told herself, how silly it would sound if she voiced such a longing. She moved back into the house without saying a word.

It wasn’t until Monday that the news reached Tyler Junction about the incredible tragedy in Galveston. A hurricane had come ashore in the seaside city about midmorning the previous Saturday, submerging the entire city underwater. Galveston was almost totally destroyed, and early estimates were that thousands of people had been killed.

WHEN CAL HEARD THIS, he was on his horse and gone before anyone had a chance to question him. It was assumed that he was going to Galveston to help with rescue efforts. No one knew that he had a brother visiting there or that he was terrified that Alan might be among the dead. He didn’t cable home on the way. If no one in El Paso heard about the tragedy for a few days, he might have something to tell his family before they knew of Alan’s danger.

He managed to get on a train heading toward Galveston, but when he got to the city, all lines were down and the tracks were destroyed. He had to borrow a horse from a nearby ranch to get into the city. What he saw would give him nightmares for years afterward.

It wasn’t until he saw the devastation firsthand that he realized how impossible it would be to find his brother among the dead. Among the smashed, piled-up buildings of the city, there were more pitiful broken and mangled bodies than he’d ever seen in his life, even in the Spanish-American War. He took it for a few hours, trying to do what he could to help, and then he couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t bear the thought of his brother in that tangle of lifelessness. He rode out of town without looking back, sick at heart and soul. A saint would have a hard time reconciling what he’d just seen with any sort of divine love.

Disillusioned, shocked, grief-stricken, he couldn’t bring himself to go back to the Tremayne ranch just yet. He rode until he found a depot with a train bound for Baton Rouge, with no clear idea of where he would go after that.

He booked a room in a hotel where his family usually stayed when they traveled here on business and collapsed on the bed. He lay in bed until dawn and went down to breakfast bleary-eyed and exhausted. He wondered if he would ever sleep again.

Memories of his brother and their lives together had tormented him. He and Alan had never been as close as he and King had, but Alan was very special to him, just the same. It had been Alan who’d continued to encourage him about the oil business, even as he teased him about dry holes. The boy had inspired him to do the things he wanted to do, and he was going to miss him terribly. He wondered how he would manage….

Morose, dead-spirited, he didn’t hear the door of his room open and barely felt the hard clap of a hand on his shoulder. “Well, what are you doing here, for God’s sake? I’ve just gotten in from a little town back on the bayous, and saw your name on the register. I was visiting the family of a young lady I’ve taken a shine to…. Cal?”

Cal had Alan in a bear hug, a bruising grip, and his eyes closed on a wave of relief so great that he almost sobbed aloud with it.

“Thank God,” he said huskily. “Thank God!”

Alan pulled back, curious as he saw his brother’s ravaged face. “Why, whatever is wrong?” he asked.

Cal took a minute to get a grip on himself before he spoke. “Haven’t you…heard?”

“About what?”

“About Galveston,” Cal said heavily. “It’s been destroyed. Totally destroyed. Bodies everywhere…”

Alan was very still. His face was pasty. “I haven’t seen a paper or talked to anyone except Sally for days. When?”

“It hit Saturday, but we didn’t get the news until Monday in Tyler Junction. I thought you were there. I went at once.” He smoothed back his hair, his eyes terrible. “I almost went mad when I saw what had happened. You can’t imagine. I’ve been through a war, but this was worse. My God, you can’t imagine the devastation,” he said in a terse tone as the horrible memory of the things he’d seen and heard left him sick inside.

Alan let out a breath. “And to think that I could have been there, right in the middle of it. My God! I decided Friday to leave Galveston and come here, and took a train out that very night. The weather was worse than usual Saturday, and of course, there was some flooding. But I never dreamed of such tragedy! What of Mr. Briggs and his family? I was staying with them…. Have they identified any of the dead, Cal?”

“They’ll never identify them all,” Cal said, turning away. He still couldn’t bear to remember the things he’d seen. “I’ll have to cable the ranch,” Cal said. “They may hear about the hurricane and they won’t learn all of it. We have to let them know that you’re all right.”

“You didn’t cable them from Galveston?”

Cal’s eyes darkened. “The lines are down,” he said evasively. “I’ll go over to the Western Union office and do that right now. I’ll be back in a minute.” He smiled warmly at Alan. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

Alan nodded. “So am I.” He smiled, too, because it was nice to know that his brother cared so much about him. Like King, Cal didn’t show his feelings often, or easily.

ALAN STAYED ON IN BATON ROUGE while Cal got on the next train for Tyler Junction, and slept with pure relief most of the way there. The stories he heard on the way about the flood in Galveston made him even sicker, now that he’d seen it for himself. He hoped that one day he could forget the sight, even as he thanked God that he hadn’t had a relative there. The horror grew daily, along with the threat of terrible disease. He might have offered to help again, with Alan safe, but he had his own job to do back in Tyler Junction, making sure that the Tremayne ranch’s cattle weren’t lost as well. And there was no shortage of volunteers to help in Galveston, for the moment.

There were reports of severe flooding all over Texas, and he prayed that Galveston’s tragedy wouldn’t be repeated anywhere else. If the rivers that lay on each side of the Tremayne property ran out of their banks again, there could be devastation for the combine as well as Chester and his family. They had to be his first concern, now that Alan was out of danger. He could do nothing for the dead. They would have to be left to providence and their poor, grieving relatives. He could have wept for their families.

Despite his relief at his brother’s safety, he arrived back at the Tremayne ranch pale and depressed. He said nothing about what he’d seen, although Chester had heard enough to turn his stomach; things he hadn’t dared share with the women.

Cal had enough to do for the first couple of days after his return home, making sure that the Tremayne cattle were safe. He’d cabled Beaumont from Tyler Junction to make sure that his rig was still standing. The lines had been down at first, but he’d made contact with his drill rigger, and everything was all right. That was a relief. He dreaded hearing that the wind had cost him his investment. Perhaps this was an omen that he was on the right track.

His melancholy was noticed, however, and remarked upon. He came to report to Chester a few days later while Nora was sitting on the porch alone.

He hadn’t paid much attention to his surroundings since his return. Nora had noticed his preoccupation, and she had a good idea what had caused it.

She rose gracefully from the settee where she’d been perched, and stopped him just as he was about to knock on the front door.

“You’re still brooding about Galveston, aren’t you?” she asked gently. “There was a terrible hurricane on the East Coast last year. I lost a beloved cousin. And I have seen floods, although not one on such a scale. It is not difficult to imagine the devastation.”

He was surprised by her perception. His pale eyes narrowed as he searched her earnest face. “It’s something I’ll never speak about,” he said tautly. “Least of all to a woman.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Am I made of glass, sir?”

His gaze went down her body in the slim skirt and white embroidered blouse. “I wonder, considering the blazing path of some of your contemporaries through saloons with axes.”

She giggled softly at the reference to the zealous temperance leagues. “Wouldn’t I look at home with an ax in my hand?”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t suit you.” He frowned at her. “You’ve been subdued since your arrival. You ride well, and Chester mentioned that you can even handle a fowling piece. Yet I’ve not seen you indulge your fondness for it.”

She could shoot, but not well. She had missed her shot in England and blown out a priceless stained-glass window that dated to the Tudor period. Her host had taken the loss of his prize window with stiff-lipped good grace, but Nora hadn’t been invited back. She hadn’t handled a gun since then, either. “It’s too hot to shoot,” she said evasively.

“It has been unseasonably cold lately.”

She searched desperately for a reply.

He lifted an eyebrow, waiting for it.

She cleared her throat. “Very well, if you must know, I do not like guns and I find most of them too heavy for my arms,” she said proudly. “I miss.”

He chuckled softly. “You fraud.”

“But I can shoot, after a fashion,” she said curtly. “It is only that I have difficulty with the weight of a rifle.”

“And what of the safari in Africa?” he persisted.

She paled and averted her eyes. “I do not like to speak of Africa. It is a…tarnished memory.”

He wondered at her wording and the expression on her face. What a puzzle she was becoming.