Wilma’s eyes took on the light of pained remembrance. “As God is my witness, I hope I never hear another human cry with the anguish your father showed that night. For everything Langston Lockwood ever did as a grown man, I could never think ill of him after I watched him sob that night. His heart was completely broken.”
“And George?” Kate asked.
“He went white as a sheet and asked me if there was anything else he needed to know,” Wilma said.
“Like about Alice’s pregnancy and that his part of the secret was out?” Jenny asked tersely.
“I know you’re angry, Jenny,” Elizabeth said, “but try to understand what this all meant in the context of the time. George was worried about his own future and what he would face from his parents. They were very much cut from the same bolt of cloth as my own.”
Jenny shook her head. “Dear God. And Harold Insall went along with all this? Just because you could prove he was sleeping around? That would have been too much of a scandal as well?”
“Well,” Clara said, “it was a little more than that. Back in those days, Harold liked his women and he wasn’t too squeamish about whether they were alive or dead. He sure as hell didn’t want Bill Simmons finding out about . . .”
Kate held up her hand. “Never mind; we get the picture.”
“Clara,” Jenny said, “I don’t understand how you got involved in all this.”
“Well, that was my doing,” Mae Ella said. “When Mr. Browning died and Dora got it in her head to bring Alice . . . Elizabeth . . . back here, she needed somebody to help her. She was getting old and I was Alice’s best friend. Dora knew I’d do anything to protect her. After I got over the shock of finding out Alice was still alive, I said, yes, but that I wanted to tell my sister, Clara, in case I needed help. Clara’s the one with the brains.”
“Horsefeathers,” Clara snorted. “You just knew Dora Browning didn’t impress me one goddamn bit.”
As County Clerk, Mae Ella found a house that was up for auction for back taxes. Mrs. Browning bought the property under the name Elizabeth Jones and quietly had it remodeled using out-of-town contractors. There had, indeed, been local gossip about the place, but together, Mae Ella and Clara, put out a story about a reclusive widow moving to town to live in seclusion. They found and hired Hortencia, who had been with Elizabeth ever since.
“And how did our mother become part of all this?” Jenny asked.
“As I told you, dear,” Elizabeth said, “I moved back here for good in 1970. George was back East. He worked in your grandfather’s law firm in Boston, which is how he met Irene. George made his bid for the U.S. Senate in 1976. He established Texas residency and campaigned with your mother on his arm. Of course, you know that is when Langston came out of his own seclusion and set out to ruin George by taking your mother away.”
“Did you have any idea the shape our father was in during those years?” Kate asked.
“I knew only that he stayed on the Rocking L and rarely came to town,” Elizabeth answered. “So far as anyone could tell, he had simply become like his father. Milton was a very harsh man who preferred to be by himself. Your grandmother moved to town, so Langston was alone at the ranch. Everyone assumed he was exhibiting known family traits. I didn’t know about the cave yet.”
“That’s where I come in,” Clara said. “Katie, I imagine Jenny has told you how I made friends with your Mama and helped her create a place for herself in this town. Everyone was just livid about what Langston did to George’s political career, but it wasn’t Irene’s fault. He fooled her hook, line, and sinker. He was a miserable bastard of a husband, and Irene needed a friend. She’s the one who found out what he was doing up in Baxter’s Draw, and it broke her mind.”
“We know all of that,” Jenny said, “but are you the one who told Mama about Elizabeth?”
“Yes,” Clara said, “I am.”
“Why in the world would you do that?”
“Because your Mama came to me crying after Dr. Kitterell told her about the cancer,” Clara said. “She went to see specialists in San Antonio, but the damned stuff was in her pancreas. They said she wouldn’t live a year. God love her, she made it two. She was beside herself with worry about what would happen to you girls left with a crazy father. He was already talking about leaving the Rocking L to the state. Got himself all obsessed with those damn herons down at the river. Her family tossed her out without a penny. She didn’t want that happening to you all, but she needed something on Langston, a way to ensure he left the Rocking L to you gals. She needed an ace in the hole and I gave her one.”
Jenny looked at Elizabeth, “You were that ace in the hole?”
“Not exactly, dear,” Elizabeth said, “although I certainly rounded out the hand, so to speak. The real ace in the hole was Mandy’s father, Phillip.”
“I don’t understand,” Kate said. “I thought he was just someone Mother met at the mental hospital in Austin.”
“Oh, he was,” Elizabeth said, “but she didn’t realize the significance of his identity until I explained it to her.”
Jenny looked at Clara accusingly. “You told me you didn’t know who Phillip was.”
“Well,” Clara said, fiddling with her oxygen line, “I kinda bent the truth on that one.”
“Okay, enough,” Kate said. “Who is Mandy’s father?”
“His name was Phillip Baxter,” Elizabeth said.
“Baxter?” Kate said, her face registering both surprise and comprehension. “As in Baxter’s Draw?”
“As in Josh Baxter, the man I’m living with?” Jenny said, equally shocked.
“Phillip Baxter was your young man’s uncle,” Elizabeth said.
“So Mandy is a Baxter?” Kate said.
“Which means Josh and Mandy are first cousins?” Jenny asked. She looked at Clara and said, “You can hand me that bottle of whiskey now.”
“Thought you might change your mind,” Clara said, passing her the fifth.
“Mandy is legally a Lockwood,” Elizabeth explained. “Her birth certificate says so, and Irene forced Langston to adopt her formally.”
“Damnation,” Kate said suddenly.
“Atta girl,” Clara smiled approvingly. “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”
“This whole damn thing is about the land,” Kate said. “It’s been about keeping the Rocking L.”
“It’s Texas,” Clara said. “Everything comes down to land.”
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“Okay,” Jenny said. “I am seriously confused.”
“When Irene came back from the hospital and got away with having Mandy without Langston asking any questions, everything was better for awhile,” Clara said, shifting her oxygen line. “Then she found out about the cancer. When the doctor gave her the long face and said he couldn’t do much more than keep her comfortable, Irene came to me. She asked me if there was anything about Langston’s past she could use to force him to draw up an ironclad will, leaving the ranch to you girls instead of giving it to the state. I told her I didn’t, but that I knew somebody who might.”
Jenny turned back to Elizabeth. “And you agreed to meet with our mother?” she asked. “Weren’t you taking a terrible chance of being found out?”
Elizabeth shook her head, “By that time, I’m not sure I would have cared. I knew how Langston was treating all of you and I was appalled. The boy I knew would never have acted in such a way. I think I was a little guilty that it was all my fault. I wanted to help in any way I could.”
Irene Lockwood sat back heavily in her chair and stared at Clara Wyler and Elizabeth Jones. “I’m speechless,” she said. “You are Alice Browning?”
“I am,” Elizabeth said. “And given what you’re living with, I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”
“Why would I hate you?” Irene asked. “You were just a young girl. You’ve more than paid for any mistakes you ever made.”
“Clara has told me about your cancer,” Elizabeth said, “and your co
ncern for your girls’ future after you are gone. She tells me that the man you were seeing was named Phillip. Will you tell me his last name?”
Irene frowned. “Why do you need to know that?”
“Please humor me,” Elizabeth said. “I think I have information that can help you get the better of Langston.”
“Baxter,” Irene said. “His name is Phillip Baxter.”
“And that didn’t seem significant to you?”
“I know that his brother lives on the land adjacent to the Rocking L,” Irene said, “and that their father lost Baxter’s Draw to Langston’s father in a poker game. Phillip told me he’s been estranged from his family for quite some time, but that legally he does own half of the family ranch. He said he wasn’t raised here and doesn’t know any of the Lockwoods. Is there something I’m missing?”
Elizabeth smiled. “My dear, with landed Texas families, there is always something to be missed. Milton Lockwood didn’t win Baxter’s Draw in a poker game.”
“Then how did he acquire the land?”
“The poker game is only a cover story for what really happened,” Elizabeth said. “Milton blackmailed Houston Baxter to get that land. It was, in fact, the final step in a series of land grabs by Milton and his father and grandfather before him.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because I, too, am from a landed Texas family,” Elizabeth said. “Most of what constitutes the Rocking L today, by rights, belongs to the Baxters, going all the way back to the Fisher-Miller Land Grant in 1842.”
Irene smiled. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain this to me in greater detail. In the north, we do not have the same preoccupation with the land.”
“Simply put, in the hands of good lawyers, if all of the details were brought to light, Langston could well lose most, if not all, of the Rocking L,” Elizabeth said. “However, if he were to formally adopt Mandy as a Lockwood and then leave the land to all three girls equally . . .”
“A Baxter would rightfully own the land again and that would mitigate any chances of the ownership being challenged,” Irene said.
“Precisely,” Alice said. “There are no remaining Lockwood sons to inherit the Rocking L, but Langston would not want his family’s reputation to be sullied. Such things matter a great deal, you see.”
“How did you know that my Phillip was Phillip Baxter?” Irene asked curiously.
“After my accident, I spent a great deal of time in a rehabilitation facility in San Antonio,” Alice said. “I became close with one of the nurses there. She now works at the hospital in Austin where you recuperated from your breakdown. It is perhaps not politic of her, but she often writes to me of the people she meets there. She, of course, has no idea who I really am. She told me about a sweet young man named Phillip Baxter, a veteran of the Vietnam War, who had a romance with another patient. She said it was that love, much more than any treatment he received from the doctors, that allowed him to take up the threads of his life.”
“Did you know this?” Irene asked Clara.
“No,” Clara said. “I just came to Elizabeth and told her what you were going through and what you found in Baxter’s Draw. Her family has been in the county as long as the Lockwoods. I figured she might be able to help us dig up some dirt. When I said the name Phillip, and that you were in the hospital in Austin, she put it all together.”
Irene turned back to Elizabeth. “Then you know what Langston is doing up there in that cave. That he’s living some kind of fantasy life with you in his mind?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Is he insane?” Irene asked. “Am I living with a mad man?”
“I won’t lie to you,” Alice said. “There is a streak of instability among the Lockwoods. It’s been talked about in this county for years, but I have known Langston since we were children. He will do the greatest damage to himself.
Jenny stopped Elizabeth’s narrative. “May I show you something?” she asked.
“Of course,” Elizabeth said.
Jenny reached into her bag and took out a folder. She handed it to Elizabeth who opened it, gazing for a long while at what she found inside. Finally she looked up and said, “Where did you find this drawing?”
“It was taped to the back of a painting Daddy did of the bridge where the wreck occurred,” Jenny answered. “It was hanging over his bed in the cave in Baxter’s Draw.”
“What is it, Mama?” Lenore asked.
Elizabeth took out the yellowed piece of paper and held it up for the others to see.
“Dear God,” Clara said. “Is that blood?”
“I would imagine it’s my blood,” Elizabeth said. “Langston had just shown me this sketch that night in the car before the argument erupted. He must have retrieved it from the wreckage of the car and kept it.”
“He was using it as the basis for an oil portrait of you that he was painting just before he died,” Jenny said. “The canvas is unfinished, but it’s magnificent. But this is the unusual thing. Every sketch he did of you is in profile from the left. Do you have any idea why?”
“I can only guess,” Elizabeth said, “but I would imagine he could not bear to remember my injuries from that night. He and George must have both seen me in the aftermath of the accident.”
“As much as I hate to admit it,” Clara said, “I went down and looked at the car when they towed it to the motor company. There was blood all over the front seat and on the window where your head hit the glass.”
“Do you think he purposefully tortured himself with that memory?” Jenny asked.
Elizabeth sighed. “Langston was not one to let old hurts go,” she said. “It would have been very like him to relive that night over and over again. I know I have.”
“So how did Mama make it all happen?” Kate asked. “How did she get Daddy over a barrel?”
Langston Lockwood stood beside his wife’s bed, twisting his hat in his hands. “Clara said you wanted to talk to me,” he said gruffly. “Do you need the doctor or something?”
“Sit down, Langston,” she said weakly.
“I’ll just go in the kitchen,” Clara said from the door.
“No,” Irene said. “I want a witness. Please stay.”
“What the hell do you need a witness for?” Langston asked. “Witness for what?”
“For an agreement you and I are going to forge before I die,” Irene said. “Sit down. Please.”
Langston drew a chair up beside the bed and sat down warily. “Alright, talk.”
“You are not Mandy’s father,” she said.
His head snapped up and anger flooded his eyes. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “I knew you were a cheating whore.”
“Langston Lockwood,” Clara snapped, “you keep a civil tongue in your head or the undertaker will have two bodies to pick up from this house.”
Irene ignored the exchange and continued. “Her father is Phillip Baxter.”
Langston remained silent, but all the color drained from his face.
“Ah,” Irene said, giving him an exhausted but triumphant smile, “I see you understand the significance of that. I have asked George Fisk to draw up some papers for me. He was quite happy to do so under the circumstances. You are going to sign those papers, which Clara will witness.”
“What am I agreeing to do?” Langston asked in a tight voice.
“You are agreeing to adopt Mandy legally and to leave this ranch in equal parts to all three girls,” Irene said. “No Will you draw up in the future may leave the land to anyone else, or all of the information regarding your family’s land acquisitions, starting in 1842, will be forwarded to the proper authorities and your sacred Lockwood legacy will be destroyed for all time. Your people will be exposed for the thieves they are.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Now, Langston, you won’t do that, will you? Can you really face the idea of life without your little secret sanctuary in Baxter’s Draw? Without your precious fantasy of Alice Brow
ning?”
Langston’s face turned beet red. “Where are the papers?”
“On the desk.”
Without comment he walked across the room and angrily scratched his name on the documents. Clara joined him, signing her own name with a serene smile. “Now, that didn’t hurt a bit, did it, Langston?” she said pleasantly.
“You go to hell,” he said, turning to stomp out of the room. He stopped at the door and looked back, “And you can burn in hell, too, Irene Northrup.”
Jenny swallowed against the lump in her throat and tried twice to speak before she could get the words out. “Were those the last words he ever said to her?” she said finally.
“Yes, honey,” Clara said. “She died an hour later, but she went in peace knowing that you girls had a secure future.”
Kate, who had been silently listening to the story, said, “So Mama didn’t know that he was hiding a treasure cave?”
“None of us knew about that,” Elizabeth said. “We thought he was motivated by the fear of losing the land and the Lockwood reputation. We had no idea what was really up there in the Draw or that he was a millionaire because of it.”
“Have you told us everything?” Kate asked. “Is there more we need to know?”
Elizabeth looked at the other women. “Is there anything we’ve forgotten to tell them?”
Before the older women could answer, Jenny said, “There’s just one thing. How in the world are we ever going to break this to Mandy?”
From the doorway a voice said, “You don’t have to, Jenny. I already know.”
Kate and Jenny turned as their little sister came in from the hallway. They stood to embrace her, and Kate whispered, “Baby Sister, you’ve been here this whole time?”
“Yes, Katie,” Mandy said, pulling back and smiling up at her. “I figured out who Elizabeth was months ago. Did you really think we were talking about bridesmaids dresses all this time?”
Kate laughed. “With you, Baby Sister, that is a distinct possibility.”
“But why didn’t you say anything, Mandy?” Jenny asked. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
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