Jane held a partially full gla.s.s of Jack Daniel's on the rocks as she gazed out over the sprawling front gardens. At eighteen she had won the coveted t.i.tle of Miss Louisiana and had gone on to become a top five runner-up for Miss Universe. She'd met Leah's father the following year. Their marriage had been the joining of two of the most prestigious families in the country-arranged by their fathers, of course. Even modern aristocracy made certain their bloodlines ran with nothing but the bluest blood money could buy.

"I met Johnny Whitehorse today," Leah said.

"Did you?" Jane replied.

"He's very nice."

Jane sipped her Jack Daniel's.

"Not bad on the eyes either."

"Like father, like son, I guess."

"He called me Sons-ee-ah-ray. Sons-ee-ah-ray. That means 'Morning Star.'" That means 'Morning Star.'"

"Pretty." She drank again.

"Did Daddy ever have a nickname for you?"

Her lips thinned into something less than a smile. "I'm occasionally surprised your father even knows my real real name. Then again, he has his staff to remind him." The ice in the gla.s.s tinkled as she raised the drink to her lips. "His winning this election should suit him nicely. He can now legitimately spend all his time in Washington rubbing elbows with men as power hungry as he is." name. Then again, he has his staff to remind him." The ice in the gla.s.s tinkled as she raised the drink to her lips. "His winning this election should suit him nicely. He can now legitimately spend all his time in Washington rubbing elbows with men as power hungry as he is."

Leah sighed and sank back in the chair. She'd never been comfortable with her mother's cutting remarks about her husband-Leah's father-but only from the standpoint that it forced Leah to face the fact that there was no love between them. Not that she need worry that they would divorce. Foster made certain his wife was kept financially satisfied.

"You could always move to Washington," Leah said.

"You're joking, right?" Jane laughed. "I would suffocate within a week. Nope. This is my home. My Shangri-La. I have the freedom here to do what I want, and be whom I want. If I want to climb on a horse buck naked and ride howling under the moon, I can do just that."

Grinning, Leah said, "As if you would."

Turning her blue eyes on Leah, Jane raised her gla.s.s as if in toast and said, "Wanna see me? Another couple of these and I'll be ready to parasail off the f.u.c.king Sierra Blanca."

"What if I told you that I have a crush on Johnny Whitehorse?"

"I'd say that I wouldn't blame you. He's a hunk. Just like his old man. They're walking, talking testosterone in blue jeans. They're enough to make a woman come just looking at them." Glancing at Leah, Jane grinned.

"Oops. My little girl probably doesn't know what that means yet. Or do you?"

"I'm sixteen, Mom."

"Sixteen going on thirty. Jesus, Leah, you're too d.a.m.ned mature for your age. But then again, you always were. You have an old soul. A girl your age and with your looks should be out partying every night, getting laid by the football team before you marry some jerk who'll ultimately make you feel as s.e.xually dead as an android."

"There are names for the girls who sleep with entire football teams."

"So what difference will it make when you're forty-two years old? At least you'll have your memories."

"So you're giving me your permission to sleep with the football team?"

Jane finished her drink and set the gla.s.s of ice on the floor by her chair. "Over my dead body," she finally replied.

THIRTEEN.

Even as Johnny killed the engine to his father's truck he knew that the minute he stepped into the house there was going to be big trouble. The music blasting through the open front door was a reminder of Johnny's mother. When his father listened to the records he and Johnny's mother had collected over the years, all the old hurt boiled to the surface. He would drink to dull the pain, but each song brought on a flurry of memories. He would grow angrier with each drink, then he would have to take it out on something, or someone.

Johnny buried the truck keys deep in his pocket.

Frank Sinatra crooned on the old phonograph, hiccuping each time the needle sc.r.a.ped across a scratch on the 45. Jefferson sprawled in a chair, one hand holding a bottle, the other a gun, a Magnum he'd bought out of the trunk of someone's car a few days after Johnny's mother had run off with a white man from Kilgore, Texas. He'd had every intention of finding them and killing them both, then decided his killing himself by degrees would prove more satisfying.

Johnny walked to the phonograph and turned down the volume. Jefferson looked up, narrowed his eyes, and belched. He spoke in Apache, refusing to allow anyone to speak English in his house. "Where have you been? The sun set hours ago."

"I was seeing to the horses like you told me to."

"I think you lie. I think you are f.u.c.king the man's daughter."

"No." Johnny moved to his father and reached for the bottle. Jefferson yanked it away and stumbled to his feet.

"I saw you with her today."

"She fell from her horse."

"I think you like white p.u.s.s.y. Like your mother likes the white man's c.o.c.k." Jefferson shoved his face up to Johnny's. "You are like your mother. Your eyes look at that girl with the same fire I saw in your mother's when she looked at the white man. You want to be be a white man." a white man."

Johnny grabbed for the bottle and missed. "I don't blame my mother for leaving you. You're crazy mean and drink too much."

Jefferson slammed the grip of the gun against Johnny's cheek. Pain splintered through his face as he hurled back against the wall, stumbling into a table loaded with the collection of miniature china thimbles his mother had left behind when running off with her white man. He slid down the wall, landing in tiny shards of broken gla.s.s that dug into the palms of his hands.

Shoving the barrel of the gun against Johnny's head, Jefferson said, "I think I will kill you so I no longer have to look into your mother's eyes."

"You have no bullets in that gun," Johnny said through his bleeding teeth.

"Are you sure?" Jefferson drew back the hammer with his thumb. "Perhaps I bought bullets today. Perhaps this is the day I have chosen for us to die."

Johnny glanced at the gun cylinder, but there was sweat in his eyes and he could not see clearly.

Jefferson pulled the trigger and the hammer cracked against the empty chamber. Johnny jumped and his heart climbed his throat, choking off his breath and making him forget, briefly, about the intense ache spreading over the right side of his head.

He knocked the gun from his temple and shoved his father away. Climbing to his feet, he said, "Do me a favor, old man. Next time load the gun before pulling the trigger."

Unsteady, he made his way to the kitchen, spat a mouthful of blood into the sink, thought of puking, then decided against it. There really was nothing in his stomach to puke up anyway since he had not eaten since breakfast, and that had been nearly fifteen hours ago.

Throwing open the freezer door, he reached for an ice tray and cracked it against the countertop to dislodge the cubes just as Connie Francis began singing "Where the Boys Are." Holding a square of ice against his throbbing cheek, Johnny closed his eyes and did his best to ignore his escalating fury. He wanted to return to the living room and beat the s.h.i.t out of his father for being the kind of man who would mistreat his wife so badly she would turn her back on her only son to rid herself of her misery. He wanted to drive his fist through his father's teeth for taking his anger out on the only human being left who gave a d.a.m.n whether he lived or died.

Tossing the remaining sliver of ice into the sink, he reached into the fridge for a six-pack of Budweiser, slammed the door as hard as he could and left the house through the back entrance, digging the keys from his pocket and hurling the beer through the open pa.s.senger window of the truck before climbing in himself and fumbling with the starter. At last, the engine turned over. He slammed the gear in reverse and backed down the gravel drive, spitting rocks and sand into the night air.

Dolores Rainwater peeled her panties down her legs and tossed them on the floor where her clothes and bra lay in a heap by Johnny's boots and jeans and shirt, and four empty Budweiser cans. As sounds of drunken laughter and the whoops and hollers of gambling boys reverberated against the walls, she fell back on the bed and spread her legs.

"Hurry up. G.o.d, a girl would die from waiting on you to finish that d.a.m.n beer. How many does that make, anyhow?"

"Eight. But who's counting?" He crushed the can in his hand and tossed it to the floor.

"Your old man did a number on you tonight. You never get this bad unless you're p.i.s.sed at him."

"Shut up. I don't want to talk about my old man."

"He let you have it good-"

"I said to shut up!" Grabbing up another beer, he peeled back the pop-top and tossed it to the floor. The beer was warm and bitter and made him shudder. Glancing around at Dolores, her legs spread and her fingers caressing her nipples, he said, "Exactly how many of those guys out there have you already been with tonight?"

"That's a creepy thing to say."

"You came here with somebody. somebody. And considering you're the only girl here-" And considering you're the only girl here-"

"You know I don't care for anybody else like I do you, Johnny."

"You're a wh.o.r.e, Dolores. And a liar."

"It just so happens that I enjoy the finer things in life. s.e.x happens to be one of them."

"You are are on the pill, right?" on the pill, right?"

"Yes."

He drank the beer so fast his eyes watered. But his cheek didn't hurt any longer and the image of his father shoving a gun muzzle against his temple became as blurred around the edges as the vision of Dolores lying spread-eagled in front of him, ma.s.saging her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and pumping her hips in invitation. "You look like a p.o.r.no chick," he murmured, allowing the can to roll out of his hand and off the bed.

"Well it doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere," she replied, exasperated. Propping up on her elbows, she stared at him. "Don't tell me you're too drunk now to get it up."

"I'm gonna make you wish you hadn't said that."

"Promises, promises. You know what your problem is, Johnny? You haven't ever looked upon s.e.x as like ... recreational. You think it's supposed to mean mean something. Until you decide just to let yourself go and have fun with it you're never going to reap the benefits." something. Until you decide just to let yourself go and have fun with it you're never going to reap the benefits."

He climbed over her, rocking back and forth on his hands and knees; the bed felt as if it were rolling like a canoe on waves. Grinning, Dolores slid her hand down his belly and wrapped her fingers around him.

"You know I love you, Johnny. We're a team. We're gonna make it out of this h.e.l.lhole, you just wait. You won't have to let your father beat you up any more and I won't have to live in that hovel on the reservation. Tell me you love me, Johnny. Just once."

He kissed her as he slid inside her, sank deep, drawn deep as she lifted her legs around his waist and clutched him close. "I don't love you," he whispered as she squirmed against him, making little whimpering noises in her throat. She didn't seem to hear him. Or maybe she simply did not care. He was not the only boy who used her body; there were plenty, and probably most of them were more than willing to tell her what she wanted to hear even if it was a lie. But he had never used those three words to anyone. Not to his mother or father. Not Dolores or the few girls he had made it with since turning fourteen. There had never been a person worthy of them ... until he happened one day to see Leah Foster riding her stallion along a creek bed that skirted her father's property. He had known for certain the day she smiled up at him from Norman's convertible.

As the traffic light turned green, Johnny eased his foot off the clutch, gave the truck a little gas, then felt it shiver, sputter, tremble like an animal in death throes before dying. He pumped the clutch and turned the ignition. Nothing.

The car behind him blasted its horn. Johnny glanced up into the rearview mirror, frowning as the car's bright lights reflected back into his eyes. He tried the ignition a second time, then slammed his fist against the steering wheel and shoved open the door.

He was too d.a.m.n drunk for this. He should have gone home immediately after leaving Dolores, but the idea of facing his father when he had had this much to drink was not a good idea. He had never lifted a hand against his father and he wanted to keep it that way.

With horns blaring behind him, Johnny at last managed to lift the hood of the old Dodge. The traffic light cast an orange glow over the engine parts before turning red.

"Hey, buddy, you gonna move this heap tonight or what?"

Johnny looked up. A middle-aged man with a beer belly straining at his shirt b.u.t.tons stared at him, hands on his hips, a Stetson shoved back on his head. He wore a gaudy Rolex watch encrusted with gold nuggets and diamonds, and his belt buckle, or what Johnny could see of it below the man's belly, was a gold-and-silver replica of Texas. Johnny had seen a thousand of him-a Texas oil man with a stable full of quarterhorses. They moved into Ruidoso like locusts every year to run their animals on the track, acting as if they owned the place.

"Well?" the man shouted. "You habla ingles?"

Johnny gave him a flat grin. "You habla Apache?"

"You movin' this piece of c.r.a.p or what, smart-a.s.s?"

"No." Johnny slammed the hood, leaned against the truck and crossed his arms. "I think I'm going to let you you move it since you want it moved so bad." move it since you want it moved so bad."

The light turned green and the cacophony began again from the dozen cars backed up down the highway.

"Look, punk, I gotta be at the track in five minutes. Now I'm tellin' you, get this junk pile outta the highway before I get really p.i.s.sed."

Shrugging, Johnny got in the truck, shifted the gear into neutral, and got out again. The Texan continued to glare at him as Johnny walked toward his car, a sparkling new top-of-the-line Cadillac-black with gold trim-with dealer tags still stuck in the back window. A young woman with bleached hair and fake eyelashes, wearing a rhinestone halter top that exposed most of her tanned b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and a leather miniskirt that hardly covered her crotch, stared at Johnny as he dropped into the seat beside her and flashed her a smile.

"Holy c.r.a.p," she said, looking him up and down, her painted mouth curling and her tweezed eyebrows rising. "You an Indian, honey?"

"In the flesh." He slammed the door and locked it.

The Texan slowly moved toward his car, his jaw sagging and his beady eyes becoming round as pennies.

"You gonna kidnap me or something?" the woman asked, starting to breathe hard.

"You want me to?" He shifted the transmission into Drive. "Ever made it with an Indian, lady?"

"Uh-uh. But lookin' at you I'm beginning to wonder what I've been missing."

"That fat old man your father?"

"Hardly."

"Your husband?"

She shook her head, smiling.

"You a hooker?"

"Not unless you want me to be." She winked.

Johnny looked out at the Texan, who continued to stand in the middle of the street, jaw sagging, expression dazed. Johnny flipped him the finger, then eased the car against the rear fender of the truck and pushed it out into the intersection, bringing traffic to a screeching halt.

"Hang on, lady," Johnny said, then stomped the accelerator as hard as he could.