The Bridal Promise. Virginia Dove

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СКАЧАТЬ cucumber slices helped soothe her swollen eyes. The task of repairing her makeup served to pull her back together. Perri armored herself in one of the few business suits she had brought with her. Most everything she had to choose from made her look like she was on her way to a funeral. She didn’t kid herself. She was about to go into battle. As she locked up, she noticed the sun was on its way back. It lifted her spirits to see that for now, the storm had passed. Knowing a drive would clear her head, she headed east past the grain elevators.

      On impulse, she stopped into the local florist for a half-dozen roses. Perri watched the owner’s daughter take great care to arrange them in leaves and baby’s breath, tissue and ribbon.

      Shyly, the girl eyed Perri’s business suit, with its fitted waist and mandarin collar. The severe style of dress might have gone unnoticed, but for how effortlessly it displayed her sleek, trim shape. And the fact that it was black. Nobody wore black at high noon unless they were on their way to a funeral.

      Or a gunfight, Perri mused. How appropriate.

      “Anything else?” the florist inquired.

      “Thank you, no.” Perri smiled. The teenager before her was so fresh and pretty, with the dramatic looks of the Plains Indians.

      “Here’s your change then,” the girl chirped, making the purchase. “Y’all come back.”

      “I already have,” Perri whispered to herself, halfway to the door.

      Back inside the car, Perri placed the beautifully wrapped roses on the seat and headed for the back roads. The sky had cleared to a bright, shiny blue, and it was wonderful to get off the highway. It felt right to wind through little towns, past pastures and railroad tracks, past small ponds and under the gentle arch of the windbreaks. She stopped in the middle of the road until an egret could make up its mind which way to fly.

      As she drove on, a red pickup turned onto the road in front of her. A big black rottweiler riding in back seemed to smile as they drove past old Bohemian Hall. Some of her ancestors had settled right here after the Land Run of 1889.

      She followed behind as the dog and his pickup led her onto Route 66. Her eyes automatically checked a field of wheat on the driver’s side of the road as she made the turn. “Short oats. That’s not right,” Perri muttered, frowning slightly. The wheat should be solid gold and ready to drop by now. Even she knew that.

      The bridge over the railroad tracks into town looked a little shabby, and somehow smaller than Perri remembered. A World War II fighter plane, permanently parked in front of the American Legion Hall, seemed to let the traveler know he had entered another time. Spirit Valley, Oklahoma, announcing right up front that its ideals were as much a part of the past as the old plane, the tracks and the weathered bridge. Perri stopped at a light and tried to make sense of it all.

      Elms lining Elm Street beyond the underpass had been planted over fifty years ago and now stood tall as she drove into the cemetery. She unwrapped the roses with her window down, listening intently. The sound of the wind filled the silence. No birds sang. At one time, hundreds of scissortails had inhabited this area.

      Perri got out of the car with the separated roses. As she placed single white roses on different graves throughout the section, she asked herself what would they think? What would they do differently?

      She approached a marble bench and bent to touch the new marker surrounded by funeral wreaths. Perri stared hard at the stone, before reverently covering it with the last rose. What have you gotten me into, Gannie? Rage, grief and a sort of deep, deep hurt she bad always associated with the loss of innocence, warred within her.

      No one but Gannie had known exactly how she had felt. No one but Gannie had ever learned all of the truth about the most important event in Perri’s life: when she had lost him. “Why make it so I have to work with Matt?” she pleaded softly. “You know I’ll always love him. Why put me through this kind of pain?” What plan or project could be that important?

      Dry-eyed and thoroughly bewildered at the part she now had been assigned to play, Perri stared at the fluttering rose for a long time. She had wanted a tribute that wasn’t staked in, fighting with the wind in order to stay.

      Knowing the roses would most likely be blown apart and away before she made it out of the cemetery, she got back in the car and drove on. The sight of a martin frantically tailgating a hawk kept her from dwelling upon what lay ahead. Perri didn’t look back.

      

      Perri parked in the lot adjoining the courthouse and the professional buildings. She made her appointment dead on time. The lawyer’s secretary eyed her outfit and smiled in understanding. “Go on in, Ms. Stone, please.”

      Perri took a deep breath, knocked once and opened the door. Help me through this, Gannie, please, she prayed as she entered the room.

      “Hello, John,” Perri smiled at her old friend and Gannie’s champion.

      The room’s other occupant had obviously arrived early for their appointment and now stood with his back to the door. She noted that his stance was relaxed, as if this were his turf, not hers. He didn’t turn around upon her arrival, but instead stood staring out the window at the now-defunct railroad depot which housed the Spirit Valley Historical Museum.

      Over his shoulder, Perri could clearly see the bronze plaque declaring that this spot had been the western boundary for the Run of the Unassigned Lands. At noon on April 22, 1889, the starting gun had sounded and two million acres of Indian Territory had been opened up for the Run.

      By nightfall, a tent city had sprung up on the spot where they now stood. What their ancestors had seen that day, and shortly thereafter, bore no resemblance to the view through the window over which Matt Ransom now brooded.

      She crossed to the upholstered chair the attorney indicated for her use. So. It would be a war of silence rather than reproach. Very well, Perri thought grimly.

      John Deepwater retrieved the folders from his desk and handed one to Perri. With the dignity and grace that was so much a part of him, he turned to Ransom and said: “Shall we begin, Matt?”

      Without a word, Matt took the file and his seat.

      “I can read this word for word or just use plain English. You tell me,” John announced.

      “English,” Matt said impatiently, not sparing a glance in her direction, “I’ve got a lot to do before sundown.”

      Perri calmly nodded her assent. He was going to have to work harder than that to provoke her this time.

      “Okay,” John began, “you both inherit the bulk of Gannie’s estate and share the duties of co-executors. The acreage behind the house that borders the Ransoms’ is left to Matt, up to but not including the horse barn. You split the oil royalties.” He paused on a wry smile. “I figure that will keep you two tied up in paperwork with the oil companies for at least a year and a half.

      “Perri gets the house and the surrounding acres, from the horse barn to the highway, including the graveyard.” The attorney raised his eyes, as if to check and see how they were taking the fifty-fifty split. “And you both inherit this project of hers—the ‘Donated Land’ out on the lake. The money, accounts, etc., are divided equally, aside from some bequests listed on page two.” Pages rustled as the inheritors followed along.

      “If СКАЧАТЬ