She was tired of traveling and was determined to reach her destination soon; therefore, she had taken this shortcut pointed out to her by several of the Prince’s vaqueros. Prince Michale, son of the King, owned these vast lands by right of some obscure hereditary title. More beefaloe than she had thought existed on the entire planet roamed the land. She understood the beefaloe were a strain bred from the sheepaloe to exist in dangerous areas—beefaloe could protect themselves from the rare snarves and packs of volves, where sheepaloe were docile and stupid creatures.
A bull dwarfed her and the burro and pawed the ground in front of her and snorted. He tossed his long horns, showing his displeasure. She continued to sing, low and throaty.
“I’m just as headstrong as you, so you’d best clear the trail,” she told the bull as she finished her song.
Strangely, she felt herself smiling. The bull reminded her of the parting scene in Lonestar.
Jon, the smith’s son, had thought her his for the taking; in fact, for over a year he had acted in a very possessive manner. And, therefore, none of the other young men would have anything to do with her. Jon’s ever-looming presence intimidated them. Though she didn’t truly dislike Jon, she found herself resenting him more and more and she felt herself boxed in. freedom somehow denied. He reminded her of the bull. Head down and charge. Overpower. Overwhelm with brute force, personality developed from his strength and large size. He had taken it for granted that they would marry. And she had been ready to marry, but realized Jon wasn’t the one. There were some fine and gentle young men in Lonestar worthy of interest—yet none had challenged Jon for time with her. All of which confused her: she did not want to be the object of competition, she did not want a violent man to pay her attention, and yet it would take both to free her from Jon.
“You are leaving?” Jon had asked, bewildered. His thick black hair drooped across his shoulders and his giant left fist seemed to spasm.
“Yes. My brother does not return, now that he is enrolled in that fancy school.”
“He does not need you. I do.” Jon’s voice boomed. Rebecca was surprised. Jon must have seen her determination to leave for he had never admitted to needing her. He wouldn’t make a bad husband, she thought wistfully, but she did not want to tote and carry for him. It was just something she didn’t want to do, she wasn’t purposefully trying to break the mold.
Carefully, she explained that she’d promised her mother on the day she had died that she would care for her younger brother. “I told her I would watch over Kellen until he became a man,” she finished. Kellen was now of adult age, but was he a man?
“You are carrying loyalty to a fault,” Jon accused.
“No, it is my way. There are no other Sings left, that I am aware of, and I have a sworn duty.” She didn’t want to argue—he wouldn’t understand the real reasons. Such as her yearning for new ideas and places and people. Could that be what affected Kellen? He’d changed so much recently and she hadn’t grasped how deep the changes in him were until his absence gave her the distance she’d needed to assess him.
Jon brought her back. “But we are betrothed,” he protested, and she thought she detected a trace of guilt in his voice.
“Are we now, Jon? Have we set a date? Have you formally asked me? Have you formally consulted and asked my family?”
“Your family is Kellen and he is in Crimson Sapphire. If he cared in the first place, he would have not left you alone.”
Guilt of her own struck. The truth of his words was that she had not been able to control Kellen, not much younger than herself, sufficiently to keep him out of trouble. She even suspected that the Lonestar hierarchy had pushed Kellen into his role as emissary to the King to get rid of him. “Since he has not returned, that very fact probably means that my task in raising him is not yet complete.” She was becoming weary.
“Take after your brother, do you not?” he sneered in the rejection. “In addition to his thumb drums and your lutar, you share the same affliction. Peace. Love. Forget yourself and your own needs. Preach the word, whatever the hell that is. Well, I tell you, every man on the planet is out for himself, the King included. And nobody’s gonna listen to that crap Kellen spouts. Take what you can get when you can get it. That’s the lesson of life, beefaloe crap.”
“Every man, Jon? What about women?” Her voice became dangerously low.
He ignored the warning signals. “Can I bear a child? Are there female padres? Think you to change life?”
“No, Jon, I....”
“Can women provide as well as men?”
“Jon, you infuriate me.” She had found something on which to hang her anger. “That merely proves my point. Things change. Times change. At least it will be different in Crimson Sapphire.”
“Will it?” he asked, obviously trying to keep the anger out of his own voice.
She hoped it would not be like Lonestar. But she was afraid Crimson Sapphire was only a larger, more cosmopolitan version. Her hope hung on a slender thread. The King had appointed only women as criminal judges. Rumor had it that TJ Shepherd had done so because women had more empathy, sympathy, compassion and all the other fancy terms the King chose to apply. But she suspected secretly that since women suffered more from violent crime, the King had chosen to put them on the judicial bench because they would be tougher to sway and mete out harsher judgments. After all, the King had a no-nonsense reputation as a ruler and administrator. She spoke not, for this was an old argument between them, but it had never before become so personal, always simply being hypothetical.
“This leads nowhere,” she said, her voice flat.
She saw that he saw she wouldn’t change her mind. “Goodbye, then, Rebecca Sing,” he said, his voice low and resigned.
“Goodbye, Jon.” She knew both could come up with no special words, even though she tried. And, because of this, she realized that her decision was a right one. Until it was proved wrong in Crimson Sapphire. If.
“You shall return?” he asked, sounding as if he were begging.
“I do not know.”
“City life in the capital may scare you off.”
“I do not frighten easily,” she said kindly.
“Yes, yes I know.”
And now here she was so very far from home, still determined, but apprehensive at the enormity of what she’d done. Her entire life altered, staked on guesses and speculation and hope. What was she doing giving up everything she knew, leaving all her friends and her family’s home?
To find Kellen, of course, and yet she knew there was more, more bubbling just under the surface....
The bull beefaioe seemed to catch her somber mood and snorted one last time and stepped aside as if he were a human making way for her.
Through the long grass she rode, a lithe-limbed young woman, blonde hair braided to the middle of her back, blue eyes squinting at the sun judging the time, pert nose not hiding the mouth which always seemed to be hunting a smile with warmth already in place, ready to latch onto the smile.
Was Kellen a fool? Or was she? Both had, she suddenly realized, a compulsion to give of self. She shook her head, she must find Kellen and watch over him, for surely he would land himself in a passel of trouble and not worry or bother about himself, but about others. He needed someone to care for him, someone to protect him from himself.
What would she do when she arrived in Crimson Sapphire? She fingered the gold Shepherd-imprinted coins in her pouch, half of which were legally Kellen’s from the sale of their family farm.
She had committed herself. The gold felt heavy.
Suddenly, a whoop shattered the air and shouts, yelps, and whistles erupted across the silent range. A full twenty vaqueros on horseback spilled over a knoll on her right and raced