Only You (25 page)

Eve knew she should be sleeping, for the ride to Canyon City would be long and tiring. Yet sleep eluded her. Whenever her eyes closed, she would hear rocks grinding and breaking over Reno in a long, brutal wave.

From the direction of the barn came the low rumble of male voices. Eve cocked her head, looked at the angle of the moon, and decided that Pig Iron was making his nightly rounds a bit early.

She flexed her fingers absently, picked up the cards that had escaped, and stared at them. The more she worked her hands, the more supple they became, but she had nothing like her normal dexterity.

A cool breeze came from the front of the cabin
just as Eve was trying very hard to shuffle cards without losing one of them. Startled, she looked up.

Reno was standing in the open door, looking at Eve as he had in the Gold Dust Saloon, taking in the red dress, the steady golden eyes, and the mouth that trembled.

Drawn from the long trip, his face still cut and bruised, he was even more handsome than she had remembered; and his eyes were a hungry green fire.

When Reno walked toward Eve, cards shivered and overflowed from her hands in an untidy burst. Blindly she began gathering them up once more, but her hands were shaking too much. She balled them into fists and hid them in her lap.

Reno pulled out the other chair at the table and sat down. With a sweep of his arm, he cleared the table. Cards fluttered like autumn leaves to the floor. He unbuttoned his jacket and pulled a fresh pack of cards from his shirt pocket.

“Five-card draw,” he said huskily, “two-card limit, table stakes, five-dollar ante, my deal.”

The words were familiar to Eve. They were the exact words she had spoken to Reno a lifetime ago, when he had pulled out a chair, sat between two outlaws, and taken cards at her table in the Gold Dust Saloon.

Eve tried to push back from the table, but could not. Her arms refused to respond. She looked at the patterns of shadows rather than at Reno. She couldn’t bear looking at him and knowing what he saw when he looked at her.

Saloon girl. Card cheat. Something bought off a train.

“I don’t have any money on the table,” Eve said.

Her voice was thin, flat, a stranger’s.

“Neither do I,” Reno said. “Guess we’ll have to
bet ourselves to stay in the game.”

Eve watched in disbelief as Reno dealt cards. When five cards lay before her, she reached for them automatically. Just as automatically she threw away the card that didn’t fit with the rest. One more card appeared in front of her. She picked it up and looked.

The queen of hearts looked back at her.

For a heartbeat Eve couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Slowly all the cards slid from her fingers one by one.

Reno reached out and turned over the cards that had fallen facedown in front of Eve. Within moments a ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of hearts gleamed in the lantern light.

“Beats anything I have, now or ever,” Reno said, throwing in his hand without looking at it. “I’m yours, sugar girl, for as long as you want me, any way you want me.”

He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out the emerald ring.

“But I’d rather be your husband than your fancy man,” Reno said in a low voice.

He held the ring out to Eve on his palm, silently asking that she take it. Tears gathered in Eve’s eyes. She put her hands in her lap to reduce the temptation to take the ring and the man.

“Why?” she whispered painfully. “You d-don’t trust me.”

“I didn’t trust myself,” Reno said tightly. “I’d been such a fool over Savannah Marie that I vowed never to give a woman that kind of hold over me again. Then I saw you.”

“I’m a card cheat and a saloon girl.”

Reno gestured to the pat hand he had dealt to Eve.

“I’m a card cheat and a gunfighter,” he said.
“Sounds like a good match to me.”

When Eve’s hands remained in her lap and she said nothing, Reno closed his eyes on a wave of pain. Slowly he got up and sat on his heels beside her, putting one hand over her cold fingers.

She looked at the table rather than meet his eyes.

“Can’t you even look at me?” Reno whispered. “Did I kill every bit of what you felt for me?”

Eve took a deep, shaking breath. “I showed you stone ships and a dry rain…but I’ll never find a light that casts no shadow. Some things are just impossible.”

Reno stood with the stiff motions of an old man. Once his hand moved as though to touch Eve’s hair, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached toward the heart flush he had dealt her.

As the gold ring dropped soundlessly onto the cards, lantern light revealed the fine trembling of his fingers. Reno looked at his hand as though he had never seen it before. Then he looked at the girl whose loss would haunt him for the rest of his life.

“You should have left me in the mine,” he whispered.

Eve tried to speak, but tears closed her throat.

He turned away swiftly, heading toward the door, unable to bear anymore.

“No!” Eve cried.

Suddenly she was on her feet, running to him.

Reno caught Eve up in his arms and buried his face against her neck, holding her as though he expected her to be torn from him. When she felt the scalding caress of his tears against her skin, her breath stopped, then came out in a ragged sound that was his name.

“Don’t leave,” Eve said in a shaking voice. “Stay with me. I know you don’t believe in love, but I love you. I love you!”

Reno’s arms tightened even more. When he could speak, he lifted his head and searched Eve’s eyes.

“You showed me ships made of stone and a dry rain,” Reno whispered, kissing her gently, taking her tears, “and then you showed me the light that casts no shadow.”

Eve trembled and then went very still, looking at him with a silent question in her eyes.

“Love is the light that casts no shadow,” Reno said simply. “I love you, Eve.”

B
EFORE
the last aspens were transformed into topaz sentinels burning against the autumn sky, Reno and Eve were wed. When they stood before their friends and vowed to share their lives with each other, Eve was wearing Reno’s gift to her: a gleaming rope of pearls, an ancient Spanish ring of emerald and pure gold, and a radiance that made Reno’s throat ache until he could barely speak.

They stayed with Caleb and Willow through the cold brilliance of winter, laughing and working together while they shared Ethan and sang Christmas carols in a harmony that tempted angels into envy.

When spring came, Reno and Eve rode west for a day, to the place where a shaggy green mesa and snowy mountains stood guard over a long, rich valley. On the banks of a rushing river, the two of them built a home that was shelter against winter, haven against summer heat, and scented with the
lilac brushes that were Reno’s gift to Eve on the birth of their first child.

The children of Reno and Eve knew what it was to walk free upon a wild land. They felt the untamed sun of the stone maze and stared in wonder at signs hammered into rock by a culture and a people long dead. Two of the children became ranchers. Another learned to hunt mustangs with Wolfe Lonetree. A fourth lived among the Utes, writing down their language and legends before they, too, passed from the land.

A fifth stood with an ancient journal in one hand, a broken cinch ring in the other, and all around him the elegant, enigmatic stone ruins left by a civilization so old that no one remembered its true name. His sister stood beside him, her eyes filled with wonder. In her hands was a sketchpad filled with the mythic landscapes of the stone maze whose deepest mysteries only God knew.

In time, each in his own way, the children of Eve and Reno Moran took the measure of dreams made and dreams lost, pain endured and pleasure remembered. But above all, each child discovered the truth of stone ships and dry rain, and the name of transcendent light that casts no shadow.

And the name was love.

My life’s work has been
popular fiction. Writing alone and with Evan, I have published more than sixty books. They range from general fiction to historical and contemporary romances, from science fiction to mystery, from nonfiction to highly fictional thrillers.

Through the years, I’ve discovered that most publishers talk highly of literary fiction and make money on popular fiction; yet asking them to describe the difference between literary and popular fiction is like asking when white becomes gray becomes black.

Some people maintain that, by definition, literary fiction cannot be popular, because literary equals difficult and inaccessible. Rather like avant-garde art: if you can identify what it is, it ain’t art. Rather than argue such slippery issues as taste and fashion, I’ll simply say that there are exceptions to every rule; that’s how you recognize both the rule and the exceptions. As a rule, accessibility is one of the hallmarks of popular fiction.

In literary fiction, the author is often judged by critics on his or her grasp of the scope and nuance of the English language, and on the lack of predictability of the narrative itself. The amount of effort readers put into this fiction can be almost on a par with that of the authors themselves. In order for an author to be successful in literary fiction,
positive reviews from important critics are absolutely vital. Indeed, in a very real sense, the critics are the only audience that matters, which explains why literary fiction often pays badly: critics get their books for free.

In popular fiction, the only critics who really matter are the readers who pay money to buy books of their own choice. Reviews are irrelevant to sales. Readers of popular fiction judge an author by his or her ability to make the common language u

ncommonly meaningful, and to make an often-told tale freshly exciting. The amount of effort a reader puts into this fiction is minimal. That, after all, is the whole point: to entertain readers rather than to exercise them.

Critics are human. They don’t like being irrelevant. They dismiss popular fiction as “formulaic escapism” that has nothing to do with reality. From this, I’m forced to conclude that critics view life (and literary fiction) as a kind of nonlinear prison.

This would certainly explain why the underlying philosophy in much literary fiction is pessimistic: Marx, Freud, and Sartre are the Muses of modernism. Life is seen as fundamentally absurd. No matter how an individual strives, nothing significant will change. Or, in more accessible language, you can’t win for losing.

The underlying philosophy of much popular fiction is more optimistic: the human condition might indeed be deplorable, but individuals can make a positive difference in their own and others’ lives. The Muses of popular fiction are Zoroaster and Jung, the philosophy more classical than modern. Popular fiction is a continuation of and an embroidery upon ancient myths and archetypes; popular fiction is good against evil, Prometheus against the uncaring gods, Persephone emerging from hell with the seeds of spring in her hands, Adam discovering Eve.

In a word, popular fiction is heroic and transcendent at a time when heroism and transcendence are out of intellectual favor. Publishers, whose job is to make money by predicting the size of the market for a piece of fiction, are constantly trying guess where a manuscript falls on the scale of white to gray to black. Publishers want to understand why readers read the books they do. Marketers give tests, conduct surveys, consult oracles, etc., and constantly rediscover a simple fact: people read fiction that reinforces their often inarticulate beliefs about society, life, and fate.

People who believe that life’s problems can be solved through intelligence and effort are often attracted to crime fiction, which centers around the logical solution of various problems. People who believe along with Shakespeare that there are more things on heaven and earth than we dream, are attracted to science fiction of various kinds.

People who believe that a good relationship between a man and a woman can be the core of life are attracted to romances.

People who believe that absolute evil lurks just beneath the surface of the ordinary are attracted to horror. And so on.

Think about that the next time you hear someone dismiss what they (or usually other folks!) read as “escapism.” Existentialists escape into their fictional world. We escape into ours. The fact that our world feels good and theirs feels bad doesn’t mean theirs is always more valuable, much less more intelligent: I have known many intelligent people who need to be reminded of the possibility of joy; I have known no intelligent people who need to be reminded of the reality of despair.

Some things are worth escaping from. Despair is definitely one of them.

So much for escapism. What about the charge that popular fiction is formulaic?

The concept of formula has an interesting history as first a literary device and then a literary putdown. The Greeks divided literature into tragedy and comedy. A tragedy had a political, masculine theme and ended in death. A comedy had a social, often feminine theme and
ended in marriage, the union of male and female from which all life comes. We have kept the scope of tragedy, of death and despair, but we have reduced the concept of comedy to a potty-mouthed nightclub act. Perhaps that is why critics of popular fiction reserve their most priapic scorn for the stories called romances. Romances follow the ancient Greek formula for comedy: they celebrate life rather than anticipate death. In addition to being almost exclusively female in their audience and authorship, romances address timeless female concerns of union and regeneration. The demand for romances is feminine, deep, and apparently universal. Harlequin/Silhouette has an enormously profitable romance publishing empire in which the majority of the money is earned outside of the American market, in more countries and languages than I can name.

Even worse than their roots in ancient feminine concerns, romances irritate critics because they often have a subtext of mythic archetypes rather than modernist, smaller-than-life characters.

I have heard mystery authors complain that they don’t get any respect from critics. As a mystery author, I agree. I have heard science fiction authors complain that they don’t get any respect. As a science fiction author, I agree. But as a romance author, I have experienced amazing intellectual bigotry.

For example, mysteries, like romances, were once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. Then, about seventy years ago, the idea of class warfare came into intellectual vogue. Mysteries, particularly American mysteries, came to be viewed as politically correct (and therefore) well-written metaphors of class warfare: the down-and-out detective bringing justice to the little guy in a society that cares only for privilege and wealth.

That’s a pretty heavy load to lay on Lew Archer’s modernist shoulders, but I suspect the male academic types were tired of getting their
thrills reading by flashlight in a closet. The fact that mysteries at the time were written by men for men did not hurt the genre’s status at all.

Yet many authors continued to write mysteries in which brains, bravery and brawn mattered more than political commentary; these books were roundly disdained by critics…and avidly bought by readers. The division between mythic and politically correct mysteries still exists. You can usually tell which is which by the tone of the review.

Science fiction, like romance, was once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. Then, in the nineteen fifties, there was a rash of After-the-Bomb science fiction books. Either directly or indirectly, these books criticized the course of modern civilization. Their stories predicted disaster for the human race. Endlessly.

Voila. The genre of science fiction became politically and intellectually correct, a well-written body of literature with a proper appreciation of man’s raging greed, stupidity, and futility. Gone were the garish covers of little green men hauling busty blondes off to far corners of the galaxy for an eternity of slap and tickle. Gone were the heroic rescuers of said blondes. In their place were caring and despairing antiheroes who tried and tried and tried to make things right, only to finally fail, going down the tubes with a suitable Existential whimper.

The critics loved it.

The fact that science fiction at that time was largely written by men for men did not hurt the genre’s status one bit. The retrograde authors who continued to write rousing galactic adventures in which bravery, brains and brawn saved the day were roundly disdained by critics…and avidly purchased by readers. Again, the tone of the reviews told you which was which.

Westerns were once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. Westerns are still often viewed that way, despite valiant efforts on the part of a few academics to push
politically correct westerns (antiheroes, disease, cruelty, bigotry, degradation, despair and death). The readers were not fooled. They avoided these academic Westerns in droves. The heart of the Western’s appeal is larger-than-life; it is heroism; it is people who transcend their own problems and limitations and make a positive difference in their own time and life. That is what made Louis L’Amour one of the bestselling authors in the English language—or any other language, for that matter. That is what readers pay to read.

That is what critics disdain: Heroism. Transcendence.

Romances were once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. They still are. I suspect they always will be. Their appeal is to the transcendent, not to the political. Their characters, through love, transcend the ordinary and partake of the extraordinary.

That, not bulging muscles or magic weapons, is the essence of heroic myth: humans touching transcendence. It is an important point that is often misunderstood. The essence of myth is that it is a bridge from the ordinary to the extraordinary. As Joseph Campbell said many times, through myth we all touch, if only for a few moments, something larger than ourselves, something transcendent.

Unfortunately, transcendence has been out of intellectual favor for several generations. Thus the war between optimism and pessimism rages on, and popular culture is its battlefield. Universities and newspapers are heavily stocked with people who believe that pessimism is the only intelligent philosophy of life; therefore, optimists are dumb as rocks.

How many times have you read a review that disdains a book because it has a constructive resolution of the central conflict—also known as a happy ending? The same reviewer will then praise another book for its relentless portrayal of the bleakness of everyday life.

This is propaganda, not criticism. What the critics are actually talking about is their own intellectual bias, their own chosen myth: pessimism. They aren’t offering an intelligent analysis of an author’s ability to construct and execute a novel.

Contrary to what the critics tell us, popular fiction is not a swamp of barely literate escapism; popular fiction is composed of ancient myths newly reborn, telling and retelling a simple truth: ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Jack can plant a beanstalk that will provide endless food; a Tom Clancy character can successfully unravel a conspiracy that threatens the lives of millions. A knight can slay a dragon; a Stephen King character can defeat the massed forces of evil. Cinderella can attract the prince through her own innate decency rather than through family connections; a Nora Roberts heroine can, through her own strength, rise above a savagely unhappy past and bring happiness to herself and others.

The next time you hear a work of popular fiction being scorned as foolish, formulaic, or badly written, ask yourself if it is truly badly written, foolish, and formulaic, or is it simply speaking to a transcendent tradition that emphasizes ancient hope rather than modernist despair?

In our society, popular fiction is story after story told around urban campfires, stories which point out that life is not a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. There is more to life than defeat and despair. Life is full of possibilities. Victory is one of them. Joy is another.

And that’s why people read popular fiction. To be reminded that life is worth the pain.

—Elizabeth Lowell

(This essay was originally published at www.elizabethlowell.com, a partner of www.writerspace.com.)