Fire and Rain by Elizabeth Lowell Page B

the Indians who drew on Picture Cliff and then disappeared. Everyone always talks of the West as though it only belonged to cowboys and Indians and outlaws. It belonged to the women, too. In their own way, they fought just as fiercely for the land as any man ever did. I would like to have been a part of that."
     "Don't kid yourself, schoolgirl," Luke said sardonically. "No matter how they start out, women end up hating this land, and with good reason. The country grinds them up like they were corn rubbed between two rocks."
     "It didn't grind up Mariah Turner MacKenzie."
     Luke shrugged and drank coffee. "She was one in a million. I've never envied any man anything, but I envy Case MacKenzie Mariah's love. He found a woman with enough sheer grit to take on this brutal, beautiful land and never cry for mama or silk sheets or the company of other women. Hell, I take it back – Mariah was one in ten million."
     "A lot of women lived in the West," Carla said evenly. "More than a fifth of the homestead claims were taken out by women who were alone."
     Luke's eyebrows came up. "I didn't know that."
     "Of course not. Men write history."
     He smiled slightly, a flash of white against the dark beard stubble. Then the smile faded and he pinned Carla with his eyes. There was no desire in his glance now, no fire, nothing but the cold sheen of hammered metal.
    "Case's son wasn't lucky. Matthew MacKenzie married a Denver girl. She was the youngest of a big family and she spent the first ten years of the marriage having babies and crying herself sick for mama. Two of her kids survived. By the time they were in their teens, she was back in Denver."
     Luke took a sip of coffee and rotated the mug absently on the tabletop. Carla watched, afraid to speak, sensing that he was trying to tell her something but he didn't quite know how to go about it.
     "Divorce was out of the question in those days. The two of them simply lived separately – he was on the ranch, she in the city. The boy, Lucas Tyrell MacKenzie, grew up and inherited the Rocking M," Luke continued. "He was my grandfather. He married the daughter of a local rancher. She had three kids and was pregnant with a fourth when her horse threw her. By the time he got her to a doctor, she and the baby were both dead. Eight years later my grandfather married again. Grandmother Alice hated the Rocking M. As soon as my father was old enough to run the place, my grandparents moved to Boulder."
     Carla listened without moving, hearing echoes of old anger and fresh despair in Luke's voice; and worst of all, the silent, unflinching monotone of a man who knew he could not have what he most wanted in life.
     "Dad and his two brothers lived on the ranch. One after another they went to Korea. One after another they came home, married to women they had met, where they took their military training."
     Luke lifted the coffee mug again, realized it was empty and set it aside. He didn't need it. The rest of the MacKenzie story wouldn't take long to tell.
     "It was a disaster," he said calmly. "It had been hard enough to find a woman who would tolerate life on an isolated cattle ranch even in horse-and-buggy days. In the days of suburbia and flower children and moon shots, it was impossible. One of my uncles moved off the ranch and into town; his wife quit drinking and he started up. My other uncle refused to move to town. His wife made his life living hell. My two cousins and I used to sleep in the barn to get away from the arguments. One night my aunt couldn't take it anymore. My uncle had hidden the car keys, so she set out on foot for town. It was February. She didn't make it."
     Luke's lips twisted down in a hard curve. "In any case, she got her wish. She never saw the sun set behind the Fire Mountains again."
     A chill moved over Carla's skin. She had heard enough bits and pieces about Luke's past to guess what was coming next. "Luke, you don't have to tell—"
     "No," he interrupted,