Checkmate

By Pharoah'sCat

Author's note: El Tigre to John in Tiger by the Tail. "You should have been a bandit. You have the nerve for it." (also...the aforementioned humor is easier to fond if you imagine some of Don Sebastion's dialogue as interpreted by the marvelous Frank Silvera.

John Cannon stormed away from the Montoya casa in a state of high dungeon. He was furious; at Don Sebastion, at Manolito, at Victoria and at himself. He had left Don Sebastion's bedroom shortly after the old lion's ruse had been exposed. He hadn't trusted himself not to say something…a great many somethings… he might regret.

With no where else to go he stalked to the stables, and picked up a curry comb to work on one of the Cannon horses who had done buggy duty bringing he and Victoria here. He took to his work with vigor. A sharp nip on his arm from the horse let him know that he was using too much vigor. Resigned, John tossed the currycomb into a bucket with the other brushes… apologized to the horse…and went to stare out into the desert from the stable door.

All right. He knew he didn't and probably couldn't understand the relationships Victoria had with her father and brother. But he has always tried to respect them. After all, she was a Montoya before she was a Cannon. And if he had had Annalee, and still had Buck and Blue, (neither of whom was actually an 'easy' person), she had her family and her past with them. And, if he was being honest, though he always held Don Sebastion at a wary distance, he had to admit that he often enjoyed Victoria and Mano's high volume, high speed arguments in Spanish...some of which he could follow and some of which he could not. And, since most of those 'discussions' were just teasing and bantering and a few even ended up with Mano having something poured over his head… well…it was hard to begrudge anyone that.

Often, it was a family dynamic he enjoyed; often, but not always. And not all of it; not the games and so-called 'jokes.' Like the one Don Sebastion had almost gotten away with. For god's sake had signed away his land, Victoria's land…and Blue's future …based on a level of deceit and gamesmanship that he could barely fathom. John didn't play games and frequently being wrong footed by various Montoyas grated on his sense of ethics and morality. And his pride. To complicate matters further, seeing Victoria overwhelmed with grief when she thought….when they all thought…when apparently Don Sebastion WAS actually dying… had torn un-bearably at his own heart. He would have signed a deal with the devil to ease her pain. And he had in fact done nearly that; in John's mind, Don Sebastion was running a very close second to the devil.

But worst of all, it had turned out that after Mano and Victoria had discovered the old man's theatrics they hadn't told him. That was the knife twist. The old man had faked illness to get what he wanted, and then Mano and Victoria faked believing him to get what THEY wanted. It was confusing and exhausting. They had used him in their game to get back at their father. That hurt. Especially being used as a pawn by Victoria. Pacing briefly outside her father's bedroom door he had heard how she had confronted her father about his deceit, but it was poor comfort to him.

Oh, there had been a big to-do with Don Sebastion extravagantly apologizing and saying he would tear up the contract they had each signed. And he had no doubt that the Don would. Almost no doubt. But it wasn't enough. Victoria had apologized too, perfunctorily, before she turned her attention back to telling her father, exactly what she thought about him, and Mano had offered a smile and a shrug. It wasn't enough. None of it was enough.

Early the next morning, after avoiding his and Victoria's bed until he knew she was soundly asleep, John sent Buck and Blue back to High Chaparral. As Mano left to 'escort' the less than enchanting Anita on her travels home, and Victoria packed, still muttering in Spanish about her father, John knocked politely on Don Sebation's study door.

"Mi amigo! Please come in, come in." The Don rose from behind his desk to offer John an enthusiastic handshake, and indicated the American should sit.

With a sigh, Don Sebastion said, "I am sorry you were…."…he hesitated…"so inconvenienced over the last few days."

John said nothing.

Hurrying on, Don Sebastion continued, "I know these tricks and games my children and I indulge in are…"again he hesitated "…difficult for a man of your character. But, here …let us tear up this ridiculous contract we signed and have a toast to our renewed partnership." He smiled as he scooped up the papers from his desk with a flourish and waved them about.

John said nothing.

"Oh, I know! We should burn them and then use the flame to light cigars! Yes, much better!" He rummaged in his desk drawer looking for cigars.

John said nothing,

Don Sebastion was beginning to be discomfited by the silence. And he now noticed, for the first time, that Cannon's eyes were flat and cold; as cold as the ocean depths. "Please…my friend…say something," he finally asked.

John shrugged. "You can burn the contract, or tear it up, or put it where the sun don't shine as far as I'm concerned. Its still a contract, and when I sign my name, I give my word and that doesn't change."

Don Sebastion stared at him, open mouthed in astonishment.

John cleared his throat and leaned over the desk, placing some papers of his own where Don Sebastion could see them.

"Now of course, without access to my books back at the ranch, these are just estimates, really. The cattle count should be pretty close though, as we were just about to make a big delivery to the army. The horses, I am a little less sure of; the hands were working to bring in about 20 from the mustang herd, plus another dozen we were going to trade with Gray Wolf's bunch for…but I don't know whether any of that happened since I have been here. Of course, I will send definite word once I get back to the ranch."

"Now…as to the ranch house and other structures…"

"Stop! Stop!" Don Sebastion stood up and came around the desk, looking at John with concern. "What are you doing? Are you ill?"

"I'm fine…I'm just trying to give you some basic information about the property that is part of our deal. Now, as I was saying…about the buildings…"

"But we don't HAVE a deal!" Don Sebastion grabbed the signed contract off his desk and hastily tore the papers into many pieces. "See! There is no deal!"

John balefully shook his head. "Those are just pieces of paper. I gave my word. "Now … " he tried again…"the buildings…"

Don Sebastion stared again at his son-in-law. Then fled from his office into the living room. He reached the bottom of the stairs and yelled at the top of his lungs, "VICTORIA! VICTORIA! Come down here this instant."

Victoria emerged from the bedroom, and stared angrily at her father at the foot of the stairs. "Papa. I am already more angry with you than I can even say. Bellowing like a wounded bull isn't helping."

The don took the steps 2 at a time and grabbed his daughter by the wrist, hauling her, protesting loudly all the way, unceremoniously down the stairs and into his office.

"Talk to him!" The don demanded loudly, pointing at John. "Talk to your husband!"

Thoroughly confused by now, Victoria looked back and forth between her father and her husband, finally settling on the latter.

"John? What is happening?"

John, who had risen when he wife entered the room, looked at Victoria calmly. "Well, I don't really know what all the fuss it about. I was just trying to provide your father with some information about the land and property in our deal"

"Deal? What deal?" Victoria inquired.

"That's what I said," the don interjected.

"The contract we signed." John said patiently.

Even more baffled, Victoria looked at John. "But that contract was just Papa's silly trick. He should have torn it up by now," she continued, turning a mistrustful eye on her father.

"I did, I did!" Don Sebastion insisted, picking up small scraps of the contract from his desk.

"Then…what on earth…John?"

"Well, dear, as I explained to your father, when I signed that contract it meant that I gave my word, and whether the actual piece of paper exists is irrelevant. Now, if I can JUST be allowed to continue explaining about the buildings and ranch equipment and other property we can get through this much more quickly. Then we can get back to the ranch and start packing."

"Packing?" Victoria repeated faintly.

"Yes, packing. I am sure your father will give us a decent amount of time to pack up our personal belongings, but he will also need to establish his presence there soon"

"Now…"John turned back to Don Sebastion. "About the furniture…of course, many pieces came with Victoria when she first moved to Chaparral but most are too big to travel with over an extended journey, so I am sure you two can work out what pieces will go and what will stay." He looked hopefully to his wife and father-in-law. Who simply stared at him.

"John," Victoria said softly, laying her hand gently on his arm, "There is no contract." She looked like someone trying to explain something to a small child; in this case, a very large, small child.

"Victoria," and now, John's voice was flat and firm. "There is, and that is final." John's expression matched his voice. It was an expression Victoria had learned meant he was at his most obstinate; an immovable object even to her irresistible force.

Victoria took a deep breath. "Please. I need a moment to think." John offered her a chair but shook her head and stepped outside the study. As soon as the door closed behind her she bolted from the house and ran toward one of the corrals where her father's vaqueros were saddling up for the days work. She ran directly to Carlos, her father's young foreman.

"Carlos! I need you to ride after Manolito and tell him to come back here immediately!"

"Si, señora. But what shall I tell him?"

"Tell him my husband has gone crazy. Totalmente loco!"

Victoria ran back up the stairs to the bedroom. The bedroom she had as a child and that she now shared with her husband when they came to Rancho Montoya. Her head was in a whirl and her heart was chasing her head. She forced herself to take some more deep breaths. That helped, but only a little. She tried to think; reviewing the events of the last several days. And she couldn't help but wince when she came to the part where John, in all innocence, had said he would sign…would sign anything… to ease her pain. She should have never listened to Mano…should have told John immediately about the don's trickery, but no! She and her brother and her father all had to play their little games no matter who else was caught in the crossfire.

And leave High Chaparral? Would he? Would they?

She sat down on the bed with a thump. She knew her husband. He could be persuaded and even embarrassed into things he initially rejected; charmed and flirted into others. But when he dug in his heels, when he had the look he had worn today, no force on earth, including her, would move him.

She wondered how long it would be before Manolito returned. He couldn't have gotten very far, especially with Anita traveling in a carriage. But even if he returned soon, what could he do? After all, he was as guilty as she and her father of setting John on this course.

She lay back on the bed and wished she had a cool towel for her head and wondered how long she could hide in the bedroom.

Meanwhile, John and Don Sebastion's game of 'its not a contract/yes it is' continued for several more rounds before the don threw up his hands and left John by himself in the study. John sat and waited. In a while a servant came and offered him some coffee….real coffee…which he gratefully accepted. After that he was left alone so he simply sat or browsed through the don's extensive library.

As he set Macadoo at a brisk pace back toward the rancho, Mano couldn't imagine what his sister had meant sending Carlos with his extraordinary message. John Cannon was the least loco person Mano could imagine. After he and Victoria had caught their father in a web of lies of his own spinning and turned the tables on him thoroughly, everything should have gone back to normal.

Oh, it had been trying on them all…when they thought the old fox had been dying; well, when he actually HAD been dying… and he had laid out his impossible last requests; marriage to Anita for him and John to cede his property to the Montoyas…yes, yes, the game had been painful at times. Very painful. The thought of his father actually dying, an event he had hitherto considered an impossibility, had shaken him to his core. And he knew Victoria had been at least as affected. All of which, in Mano's opinion, made extending the game of his father's deceit, only to pull the rug out even harder, that much more satisfying.

John…loco or otherwise …shouldn't have come into it at all. The so-called contract was worth less than the paper it was written on.

Still, though he thought his sister was sometimes overly emotional she would not invoke her husband's name without due cause. He touched his heels to Macdoo and urged him faster.

Entering the house, Mano heard his father's and John voices and followed them to his father's study. Then he heard his sister's voice as well,

"But…but...leave High Chaparral? What about Buck and Blue and Mano?!"

"Well, of course, I very much hope that Buck and Blue will want to come with us. But they are grown men, and that's for them to decide. As for Mano, I am sure your father will want him here to run Chaparral."

"Mano! Run High Chaparral!? Ridiculous." The don interjected. "The only thing Mano can run is a card table."

"Gracias, Papa." Said Mano as he joined the others. "What's going on?"

"Mano! Please… talk to him!" His sister implored.

"Talk to who? About what?" Mano found himself increasingly confused.

"John says that the contract he signed with Papa is binding and we are leaving Chaparral and going…well, I don't know where we are going…"

"Going!?" Mano and his father spoke in unison.

"John…amigo…what is all this about? That contract is meaningless. Papa have you not yet ripped it up?" Mano looked accusingly at his father.

"Yes! Madre Dios! I keep telling everyone that."

"Then I don't understand."

The don sighed…"He says that the contract is just paper but he gave his word, paper or no paper." The don shook his head. "Who thinks like that?" he demanded of no one in particular

"But it makes no sense." Mano said to John

"I keep telling everyone that too. It does no good." Don Sebastion looked in need of a drink.

"But, the High Chaparral! All you have built. You would give that up over a trick? A game?" Mano was growing anxious and ever more baffled.

"It wasn't a game to me. I don't play games. I gave my word."

Mano looked desperately at his sister. Who just shook her head back at him.

"But, you would have to start over, John," Mano pointed out. "Start with almost nothing."

"Well, it won't be the first time."

"Where will we go?" Asked Victoria softly.

"I've been thinking about that." And here, John looked happy for the first time all day. Enthusiastic even. "At first, I was thinking California. But, I don't know, I think much of the good has already been wrung out of California. And then I was considering the Montana or Wyoming territories. Supposed to be amazing cattle country up in the high plains. But of course, the winters are terrible there, or that's what everyone who has ever been there says. Snow drifts higher than a horse and rider!"

Victoria turned a little pale.

"But then," he continued, "I thought, Oregon! Can't decide which side of the Cascades, but apparently there is an almost endless supply of green grass on both sides. And," he concluded cheerfully, "snows wouldn't be as bad as in the northern plains."

"Oregon!" The don exploded. "You would take my daughter to Oregon!? It is 1,500 miles away! I would never see her again! I forbid it!"

"I don't think it is yours to forbid," John said quietly looking directly at his wife.

Still pale, Victoria looked as directly back. "I am your wife. I go where you go. Always."

"Mano is right," John said gently, "It would be starting over. With even less than I had when I bought Chaparral."

Victoria stepped toward him and placed her hands in his. "An adventure," she said, with the smallest of smiles. "I can't wait." Her voice wavered as she spoke but she set her jaw in determination.

Don Sebastion's eyes traveled frantically between the 3 other people in the room, finally settling on John. "You would not be so cruel to deprive and old man of his only daughter?" He pleaded.

"Well, it is a very long way, I grant you, but you will still have Mano. If, of course, he wants to stay."

"Mano?" The Don's voice was barely above a whisper.

"Papa, I…" Mano began but Don Sebastion cut him off.

"What do you want?" He demanded of John. Who didn't respond.

"Even if it IS a contract, a contract can be renegotiated if both parties agree. What do you want?"

"Well," John said, "I hadn't thought of that." He took a stroll around the room. And then looked directly at Don Sebastion. "Reflejo del lago…The Mirror."

Everyone in the room…except John…actually gasped in unison.

The Mirror was a lake of deep, cool water, fed from an underground spring, that never went dry no matter how severe the drought. It lay on the very northern edge of Montoya land, tantalizingly close to the High Chaparral. Every time John needed to water his cattle there, he had to negotiate and renegotiate with Don Sebastion for the privilege. And the Don's asking price for access to the water was never less than steep.

Don Sebastion stared at his son-in-law. "You must be mad. Is this some kind of insane game!?"

John shrugged again. "As I said, I don't play games. Except for one game - chess. I do play chess. And its you move, Don Sebastion." He gazed cooly at the old lion.

"Oh, Papa," Mano said under his breath. "Checkmate."

Don Sebastion sat down heavily behind his desk. "Yes, yes…Reflejo…draw up the papers and I will sign." He turned in his chair away from the room, "I am suddenly very tired." he said with s sigh.

Silence held sway for a few moments. Victoria went to stand beside John, who abruptly broke the silence. "No."

Don Sebastion swung back around in his chair to face John. "No? It is not enough!? You want more! Never!"

"Its not enough." John replied. "But I don't want more. I don't even want The Mirror. Well, of course I do, but not this way."

"You ARE loco." The don said helplessly. "I don't understand…En nombre de Dios, what do you WANT?"

John stepped around the desk so he loomed over the by now distraught don. "An apology." He said simply. Then shook his head again. "No, more than an apology. I want you all to see what if feels like to have what and who you love put in jeopardy based on a lie." And here he turned to face Mano and then Victoria. "A lie endorsed by those very people." John no longer looked stern. In fact, his expression as he gazed at his wife was almost pleading that she understand. Fully understand.

Tears welling, Victoria implored her husband, "Oh, John, I AM sorry. Truly. And I do understand what we…I…put your through. Please forgive me. As soon as I found out what Papa was doing, I should…"

Mano interrupted. "It was my fault, John. I told her not to tell you. So we could spin our game…" and here Mano gave the word 'game' a decidedly unpleasant sound…"and make Papa suffer longer for what he had done. A thoughtless and childish game for which I am very sorry."

"And for starting the whole deception going, I apologize as well…John." The don almost stumbled using John's first name, but continued. "Sometimes the temptations of trickery blind one…blind a vain old man…to the pain that it can cause."

Victoria now picked up the thread. "It was stupid and cruel and wrong…of all of us…to use you that way. It is also exhausting," she admitted, sitting suddenly.

John took a deep breath. He picked up the few remaining pieces of the contract the don had torn up and let them float gently to the floor. "All right," he said simply. He reached his hand for Victoria's "Let's go home."

As John helped Victoria into the buckboard for the trip back to the ranch, she looked at him almost shyly. "Please. What can I do to start to make this up to you?"

"Oh," John said, suppressing a smile, "I am sure I can think of something."

Standing behind his sister in the buckboard, Mano smirked at her.

"Ha!" She told him, "I am sure what he has in mind for you will not be nearly so…pleasant!"

As he took up the reins of the buckboard, John called loudly, without looking around, "She's right Mano."

The horses stepped off, and with a lurch, Mano was dumped unceremoniously on the floor of the buckboard. "Ay, caramba…"

Later, lying in their own bed back at High Chaparral, Victoria ran he fingers down her husband's arm.

"Would you have really gone to Oregon?"

John thought for a moment. "Yes. Would you have come with me?"

She raised her head from his chest. "Do you really have to ask that?"

He smiled at her. "No, but I like to hear you say it."

"Anywhere. Always."