Since they'd only recently finished getting dressed in their fineries for the upcoming dinner, neither had on their gun belt. But, out of habit, the weapons were close at hand. They unleathered their respective Colts almost in unison. Because he was closest to the door, J.D. stepped to answer it. Kate edged off to one side of the room.
Holding the Colt down at his side, J.D. stood off-center of the door and said, "Who is it?"
A deep, slightly muffled voice said from the other side, "Name's Ruckner. Sam Ruckner. I work out at the Braedon ranch."
"You bring the carriage?" J.D. asked.
"No. I got nothing to do with no carriage. But I got an important message...from Mrs. Braedon."
"Mrs. Braedon?"
"That's right. There's been some trouble out at the ranch. Bad trouble. Mrs. Braedon gave me a note, said to ride hard as I could and get it to you."
J.D. glanced over at Kate. Her expression was unreadable except for maybe a slight pinch of concern.
"The door's unlocked," J.D. said to the man who'd called himself Ruckner. "Come ahead on in...Easy."
The door opened and Ruckner entered. He was a wiry, weathered looking gent of average height. Well north of fifty. Beard stubble, bushy walrus mustache, and clothes showing a good deal of wear and tear typical for ranch work. He held a battered, high-crowned hat in his hands and the mud-colored hair on the back of his head stood up in a cowlick from the hat's removal. His eyes made a sweep around the room, lingered for a moment on the vision of Kate, who held her pistol down so it was hidden behind the folds of her skirt, then finished their sweep and came to rest on J.D.
"Always wondered what it was like inside this place. Really something, ain't it?"
"That it is," allowed J.D., continuing to hold his own gun down at his side. "You mentioned a note?"
From his breast pocket, Ruckner withdrew a folded piece of paper and held it out. There was a rust-colored streak on the paper.
"That stain is blood—the blood of Oliver Braedon," Ruckner said in a voice lower and huskier than it had been a moment earlier.
J.D.'s eyes jumped to the man's face. Kate moved forward in hurried steps.
"What happened?" J.D. wanted to know.
"Mr. Braedon got shot."
"How seriously?" said Kate.
Ruckner's brow furled and his eyes turned watery. "Bad. Real bad. Two rifle rounds. I-I'm afraid he ain't gonna make it. But that ain't for me to say...I met the doctor heading out as I was coming into town."
Kate said, "Read what the note says, J.D."
Her husband shook open the paper. Words ran across it in a woman's flowery scrawl.
J.D. –
Please come at once.
I know I haven't any right to ask,
but there's no one else I can trust.
Oliver has been shot. I fear he may be dead
by the time you read this.
If it comes to that, I have reason
to also fear for myself.
— Belle
Chapter 5
The main house at the Braedon ranch was a long, low, sprawling affair constructed of timber and stone, set slightly off-center amidst numerous outbuildings, cattle pens, and corrals. The outlying structures were mostly just murky shapes in the starlit night, but the house itself was awash in soft yellow illumination pouring out of its many windows and from lanterns hanging on the posts of the canopied front porch.
J.D. and Kate followed Ruckner out from the town and rode with him to the hitch rails directly in front of the big house. There was a half dozen or so people milling on the grass and on the porch near what appeared to be the main entrance. One of the persons on the porch was a woman in a long, plain dress. She was holding a handkerchief near her face. Standing close to her was a younger girl, about twelve or so, in a short-skirted dress and with her hair in pigtails. The rest were all men clad in standard range clothes.
The three new arrivals dismounted, tied their horses, and walked toward the front door. J.D. and Kate had traded their dinner garb for more customary outfits—trousers and a boiled collarless shirt for J.D., split riding skirt and blouse for Kate. Both had their guns strapped on and in prominent display. As they passed through the men on the grass, J.D. could feel the weight of their eyes and it hardly felt like a welcoming pat on the back. When they climbed the steps to the front porch, the woman standing there turned and looked away.
Inside, in a spacious parlor beyond a rather cramped foyer, more people milled. In the center of the room, a semi circle of five men stood with their backs to the foyer, focusing intently on something directly in front of them that their shoulder-to-shoulder positioning obscured. Sitting on a high-backed armchair just off to the left of the men, was an ashen-faced Belle Braedon.
At the sight of Ruckner and the Blazes entering, Belle rose to her feet. This reaction from her, along with the sound of the entrants' muffled footfalls on the rich carpeting, caused the lineup of men to shift and some of them to turn part way around. Through this separation of bodies, J.D. could then see the form of Oliver Braedon lying motionless on a couch. The front of his shirt was yanked open and there were smears of bright crimson on both clothing and flesh. A small, frail-looking, gray-haired man was perched on a footstool directly at his side, leaning intently over the prone man. An open medical bag rested on the floor next to him. Next to the bag sat a pan of bloody water.
As Belle started forward, a tall, stocky man stepped away from the others and made an obvious move to get in front of her, effectively blocking her advance.
"Who are these people?" the stocky man said.
"They're friends of mine, Clay," Belle answered. "I asked Ruckner to bring them here."
J.D. immediately noted the lack of force in her tone. Not at all like the Belle he knew.
Clay fixed Ruckner with a disapproving look. He was a ruddy-faced individual, what some might consider handsome in a rugged kind of way. But, in concert with fleshy jowls starting to form under the hinges of his jaw and the beginning bulge of a pot gut that pushed out below the dangling tails of a bright green string tie, he also had the look of a man on the brink of going to seed from soft living and maybe too much alcohol. J.D. decided he looked like a younger, softer version of Oliver Braedon and the similar pale yellow coloring of his thick sideburns and a headful of wavy hair pretty much solidified the hunch.
"You bring strangers here, at a time like this, without bothering to mention it to me?" Clay demanded of Ruckner.
Ruckner held his ground, not backing up from the bigger man's glare. "Like Mrs. Braedon said, she asked me. I didn't figure there needed to be any more to it."
"Well, you figured wrong. You work for me, not her."
Ruckner's eyes narrowed. "I ride for the Braedon brand. The Bar OB. You might give me day-to-day orders, Clay, but your dad is still he-goose of the operation, and when his wife asks me to do something then I reckon that's about as far up the order chain as I need to go."
Clay Braedon's glare turned threatening. His already ruddy face reddened more deeply and his fists balled. He looked almost ready to take a swing at Ruckner.
But the doctor spoke up, stopping him. "Clay," he said, his voice surprisingly deep and strong in contrast to his slight build. "If there ever was an appropriate time for your customary belligerence, it's certainly not now."
The medico stood up and turned to face those gathered about him. His gaze skimmed each in turn and then settled on Belle and Clay. "I'm sorry...I did everything I could...But he's gone."
A stunned, dumbfounded look seemed to grip every face in the room.
Clay Braedon muttered something under his breath, something so hushed that J.D. couldn't hear it well enough to understand from less than three feet away.
Belle, who had remained partially behind Clay ever since he blocked her way, now went very rigid and motionless in her stance. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. After a moment, a single tear leaked out and ran down her cheek.
The
eyes of the men who remained standing by the couch where now only the corpse of Oliver Braedon lay, had shifted to focus on Clay. None of them bothered to even glance in the direction of the dead man's widow.
Somewhat surprisingly, it was Kate who went to her. Taking Belle gently by the arm, she turned her to one side and said, "Come on, honey, let's step into another room for a minute." Over her shoulder, she said to the collection of distracted men, "Somebody get me a glass of water for her, maybe even some brandy."
The doctor responded, saying, "Yes. That's an excellent idea." He pointed to a set of double doors against one wall and said to Kate, "There's a study through there. Take her in and have her sit down, my dear. I'll be in shortly."
"You go ahead with them," Ruckner said to J.D. "I'll bring some water and brandy."
J.D. did as the helpful wrangler suggested. He held the door for Kate and Belle and the three of them entered into what the doctor had called a study. It was a room about half the size of the one they'd just quit, furnished to masculine tastes, all dark wood and leather.
Kate directed Belle to a massive chair covered in cowhide.
J.D. closed the door behind them and stood for a minute regarding the two women. He'd known all along that Kate's sharp-tongued remarks about Belle back at the lodge, after he had filled her in on his past with the attractive redhead, had come strictly from blind jealousy, not anything personal. That was one of the few areas where his lovely wife tended to let her harsher emotions override her otherwise cool reasoning.
When Ruckner showed up with the news that Oliver Braedon had been shot, the more level-headed, compassionate Kate had promptly come to the fore. When pressed by J.D. as to why she was so willing for them to respond to Belle's request for help, the terse response had been, "Don't be ridiculous. We didn't go to all the trouble of saving her and her husband's backsides this afternoon only to stand by and allow them to end up getting shot anyway!"
And so it was. The care and attention Kate was showing to Belle now was Kate continuing to be compassionate and protective. Which wasn't to say that later, when whatever the Blaze team was about to become involved in had reached some kind of conclusion and it was just the two of them alone at some point, the love of J.D.'s life might very well remember to be jealous all over again and pepper him with a new flurry of uncharitable remarks about his conquests prior to meeting her.
In the meantime, there was the grim business at hand to deal with.
J.D. walked over and put hand on Belle's shoulder. "Do you feel up to talking about it?" he asked.
"Of course. I must," Belle said, wiping the wetness from her cheek with the back of one hand.
"Just take your time," encouraged Kate.
Belle began to speak, soft and steady, her voice basically a flat monotone. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, seeing something beyond the walls of the room. "It was late in the afternoon. The sun was just beginning to set. Oliver had bathed and shaved but, before getting dressed for our dinner, he went out to the carriage shed to check with the young man he had slated to drive into town and pick you two up.
"The lad's name is Jorge, you see, and he's the son of the lady who has cooked and cleaned house here for years. Her husband, Jorge's father, used to be a wrangler for Oliver but was killed in a horse fall. So the boy grew up viewing Oliver as a sort of surrogate father. I'm afraid it's made him feel a little privileged and causes him to think he can get away with being lazy some of the time. He's an excellent teamster, but can be lax about other chores. That's why Oliver went to check on him, to make sure he'd given the carriage a good cleaning and adequately groomed the horses." Belle paused and the corners of her mouth lifted ever so faintly, remembering, before she added, "Oliver was quite taken with you two. He wanted to make a good impression."
"He'd already accomplished that," J.D. assured her. Even Kate, before her jealous rant picked up a full head of steam, had remarked how genuine and easily likable Oliver Braedon had seemed.
"On his way back to the house," Belle continued, "was when someone used a rifle to shoot Oliver from concealment. They fired twice, rapidly, and hit him both times high in the chest. Just above his heart. It's a dreadful shame that Jorge had to be the first one to reach him, even though several others heard the shots. The boy is devastated. Still, he had the presence of mind to notice a haze of gunsmoke over on the back side of the small corral just to the north of our house, near where Oliver had been walking. Sheriff Walburton determined that the angle the bullets went in matched with someone firing from that spot."
"So the sheriff has already done some investigating into this?" J.D. asked.
Belle nodded. "That's right. He came right away when word reached town. He got here a little while ahead of Doc Beedle."
"Then he's one of the men out in the other room?"
"Yes. Him and his chief deputy, young Walt Early."
"We already got introduced, in a manner of speaking, to your charming stepson Clay," said Kate. "Who was the other young man standing by the couch when we came in?"
"That's Curtis. Oliver's youngest son. He still lives here at home, as does Nora, Oliver's daughter."
"There was a woman and a girl of about twelve or so on the front porch when we got here. Was one of them Nora?"
Belle shook her head. "No. That was Clay's wife, Marjorie, and their daughter Roslyn. They have their own place, just across the way. Nora and Chuck, the middle son, have been gone most of the day helping a neighbor round up and brand some cattle. They've been sent for, of course." She gave another shake of her head. "I'm surprised they aren't here yet...though I can't say I'm looking forward to their presence when they do arrive."
"Why's that?" Kate wanted to know.
"They take too closely after their big brother Clay. Passionate, I guess some would call it. Simply hot-headed is more the way I'd put it. You saw just a small example...Curtis is the only one of the children who's not so volatile." Belle's shoulders lifted and fell in a fatalistic shrug. "At any rate, they'll all take turns at being devastated by their father's passing. And sincerely so, don't get me wrong...But then, inevitably, their focus will shift to me."
J.D. frowned. "You said in your note that, if Oliver died, you feared for yourself. From them—his three children—did you mean?"
"They surely do not like me. They've made that crystal clear," Belle stated. "But that's only part—"
She was cut short by the arrival of Ruckner. He gave a cursory tap on the door and then came on in without waiting. In one hand he held a glass of water, in the crook of an elbow he clenched a decanter of amber liquid with a second glass turned upside down over the snout. He heeled the door shut behind him.
Marching over to Belle, he said, "Here you go, Mrs. Braedon. Name your poison—the water or the brandy."
Belle reached for the water. Ruckner placed the brandy on a lamp stand next to her chair.
"Actually," Belle said after taking a sip, "I wasn't thinking clearly when the doctor suggested we come in here. In that cabinet"—she pointed—"Oliver already has a modest stock of liquor. Some brandy and whiskey, I know, probably some wine. I'm sure there are glasses, too. Please help yourselves if you wish."
J.D. and Kate declined. Ruckner poised uncertainly, his gaze shifting back and forth between Belle and the liquor cabinet.
"That includes you, too, Sam," Belle told him.
The old wrangler hesitated no longer. He went to the cabinet, poured himself a generous slug of whiskey and threw it down with a practiced flourish. Passing the back of one hand across his mouth, he said, "Oh yeah, prime stuff. Obliged, ma'am. I'll go on back out in the other room now, so you folks can talk. But I'll be right outside the door if you need me."
"Thank you, Sam. Let me know when Nora and Chuck arrive, please."
"I'll do that." Then, muttering under his breath as he made his way out the door, Ruckner added, "Don't hardly expect there'll be any way to miss it."
When he was gone and had closed the door behind
him once more, Belle said, "Apart from Oliver, of course, Sam and young Curtis are about the only two people I've grown to feel comfortable around since coming here."
"How long has that been?" Kate asked.
"Ten months. Sam and I married in San Francisco, honeymooned on a sailing cruise up and down the coast, then he brought me home to meet the family." A corner of Belle's mouth lifted wryly. "To say I came as something of a shock to them would be an understatement for the ages."
"So they've been against you from the start?"
Belle frowned thoughtfully. "I don't know if 'against me' is the right term, at least not right away. More like they weren't in favor of me, not as a wife for their father. I think that would have been true for any woman he chose to marry. Dorothy—Oliver's first wife, and mother to all of the children—has been dead for nearly four years now. But no one seemed prepared to consider that Oliver, even going on sixty, was still a healthy, virile man who could have needs."
"Do they know about your, er, past?" asked J.D.
"No. Oliver and I decided, before we ever wed, that should the truth ever come out—such as encountering someone like you, J.D., who recognized me from those days—we would neither hide from nor try to deny it. But, by the same token, we would be understandably discreet and not broadcast it, either, if we didn't have to...God, that's all I'd need is for my past to come out now."
J.D. said, "It goes without saying, I trust, that you have no concern in that regard from Kate or me."
"Of course. I know that."
"A moment ago," Kate said, "you resisted saying Oliver's children were against you, but then added 'at least not right away'. Did something subsequent happen to make you think their feelings toward you have grown more aggressive?"
Belle took another sip of her water, and when she lowered the glass her mouth twisted as if the taste had been bitter. "Yes. The damn will. What had been a tense but manageable situation turned really mean and ugly after Oliver let it be known he had modified his will."
Blaze! Western Series: Six Adult Western Novels Page 21