Giant Read Free

sustaining of these trees in this land. Between the rows were the clean straight lines of irrigation ditches. The fertilized soil lay in tidy ridges at the base of the tree trunks.
    “Bick sets out to do something can’t be done, why, he’s possessed till he does it better than anybody,” Pinky observed. “Be putting in a ski jump next, shouldn’t wonder, middle of August middle of the range, bringing snow by air lift from Alaska.”
    Past the old whitewashed adobe schoolhouse, the Big House with its towers and intricate grillwork, past the old carriage house and the vast garage. But no cars stood waiting there, only the vine leaves stirred in the hot wind as the visitors drew up before the Main House and peered toward the shaded enclosure.
    Vashti essayed a “Yoo-hoo!” It emerged a croak from her parched throat. “Either they’re gone or they’re all dead. Can’t be gone, this hour.” With amazing agility she climbed out of the car, smoothing her crumpled skirts, adjusting her belt, wiping her flushed face as she want toward the porch, her feet and ankles slim and small and neat beneath the ponderous superstructure.
    “Leslie! Bick! Where’ve you all got to, anyway?”
    Instantly it was as though the enchantment under which Reata Ranch had lain now was broken. The volley of shouts as the Mexican children were freed from the schoolroom; the crunch of gravel under heavy tires; a telephone ringing and a man’s voice answering it; Dimodeo rising from where he had knelt near the pool and calling in Spanish to his men. “El mediodia! Noon!” A distant hum of noonday sounds from the houses of the Mexican section on the outskirts of the headquarters building.
    Leslie Benedict emerged from the house, cool, slim; about her a sort of careless elegance. The Paris buyer at Neimans in Dallas had said of Leslie Benedict that she wore indistinct clothes with utter distinction. The buyer was rather proud of this mot. Sometimes she elaborated on it. “What she wears never hits you in the eye. It sneaks up on you. No tough colors, ever. And no faddy stuff. You know. Never too long or too short or too full or too tight or bustles or busy doodads. My opinion, Mrs. Jordan Benedict’s the best-dressed woman in Texas and doesn’t even know it. Or care.”
    Now at sight of her guest Leslie’s rather set smile of greeting became one of warmth and affection.
    “Vashti! What a nice surprise!”
    “Thought you’d all gone off and died.”
    “Where’s Pinky?”
    “In the car there. We’re so hot we’re spittin’ cotton.”
    The contrast between the two voices was startling; the one low, vibrant; the other high, strident.
    “I thought it was the others from the Big House. Come in, come in! Something cold to drink?”
    “Hot coffee I’d druther if it’s handy.”
    “Of course. After twenty years and more in Texas wouldn’t you think I’d know it’s always hot coffee?” She called in Spanish to someone unseen within the house. She went to the veranda entrance. “Pinky! Come in!”
    “Where at’s Bick?”
    “He’ll be here any minute. Come in out of the sun.”
    Vashti, sunk in the depths of a cool chartreuse chair, fanned her flushed face with an unavailing handkerchief. Her inward eye on her own expanse of beige silk, her outward eye on Leslie’s slim grey-blue shantung, she voiced the self-doubt that tormented her.
    “Look, Les, does this look too fussy? Traveling, I mean. Light beige?”
    “Well—beige is—is good in Texas. The dust.” The soft dark eyes kind, friendly.
    “I don’t know,” Vashti panted unhappily. She narrowed her baby-blue eyes to contemplate the entire effect of Leslie’s costume. “Now, take you, piece by piece—shoes and stockings and dress and everything, why you’re just right, every single thing. But to look at you quick you don’t look like anything.”
    At the startled glance and then the quick flashing smile of the other woman Vashti’s customary high color took on the