by Janet Dailey
It took Laredo a full second to remember where he had heard the name before. “Cat’s uncle, the shy one in the trees?”
“I forgot to mention he can also be nosy.”
“Come on.” Laredo scooped up his hat and rolled to his feet in a low crouch. “We better warn Chase that we are about to have company.”
They hurried back to the cabin. Laredo paused with one hand on the screen door and pinned his gaze on her. “O’Rourke—will he ride right up to the cabin or circle around it?”
“I don’t know,” Jessy admitted. “But he’ll definitely come close enough to see where my truck is.”
“Then go out by your truck and wait for him. Don’t let him slip behind the cabin. And before he starts wondering what you are doing up here, make sure he knows you hired me to fix the place.”
“But what reason would I have to do that?”
“Make up one,” Laredo told her and went inside.
The scrape of hooves digging for purchase warned Jessy that Culley had started the climb. She moved quickly to the truck to watch for him. A few faint noises came from the cabin. Jessy could only guess at the source of them, but she suspected Laredo was spiriting Chase out of the cabin through one of the rear windows. All the while her mind raced to come up with a plausible story, but there simply wasn’t a logical reason to repair the old line shack. Her only choice was to come up with a completely illogical story.
A half minute later, Jessy spotted the dusty top of Culley’s hat. Within seconds more of it bobbed into view. The instant she could make out the brim, Jessy went through the motions of pretending to put something in the back of the truck, then made a natural swing around to make it appear that she’d caught sight of him at almost the same second that Culley saw her.
“Hi, Culley. I didn’t expect to see you out this way.” Her heart was hammering like that of a cornered rabbit, but she managed to sound unconcerned when she called to him, fully aware that her raised voice would alert Laredo. Culley immediately pulled up, and Jessy motioned him forward. “Come see the way we’ve been able to fix up this old line shack.”
The instant the invitation was issued, Jessy set out for the cabin, confident that her offhand manner coupled with Culley’s curiosity would impel him to follow her. The ploy worked as Culley rode his horse the rest of the way up the slope.
By then Laredo had already emerged from the cabin, communicating to Jessy with a small reassuring nod that Chase had made it safely out of the cabin. A second later, Laredo showed Culley a sunny smile and a fresh-faced innocence that was wholly deceptive.
Jessy threw a quick glance at Culley and saw the suspicious way he looked at Laredo. “Oh, Culley, I almost forgot—this is Laredo Smith. I hired him to do the repairs here. Laredo, this is Culley O’Rourke, the twins’ great-uncle.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. O’Rourke,” Laredo drawled.
Culley stared back at him, unfazed by the big grin. “Saw you at the funeral.”
“Oh, you mean Chase’s. I was there sure enough, but I can’t say I remember seeing you.”
“You talk like you’re from Texas.” Culley’s statement bordered on an accusation.
“It shows, don’t it,” Laredo replied easily.
Hattie picked that moment to step outside, drawing Culley’s attention. “I thought I heard you talking to someone,” she said, her smile pleasant but curious.
That’s when Jessy realized that she still didn’t know the exact relationship between Laredo and Hattie. She had no choice but to make up her own.
“This is Laredo’s mother, Hattie. Culley O’Rourke.”
“How do you do, Mr. O’Rourke? I’m sorry you didn’t arrive sooner. You could have joined us for lunch. But the coffee is still hot if you would like a cup.”
“No, thanks.” Culley continued to sit on his horse, both hands resting on the saddle horn while he openly studied the woman. She was tall and firmly muscled, making her a little on the thick side. His glance kept going back to the cowboy boots she wore while he tried to figure out if they were big enough to have made the prints he saw at the cemetery. It seemed possible that they might have, even though it hadn’t entered into his calculations that the second person there could have been a woman.
“Ty would really be pleased if he saw this place now,” Jessy murmured, drawing Culley’s glance to her. “We used to talk about someday fixing up the old Boar’s Nest so we could have a place where we could get away by ourselves, without phones or interruptions.”
Hearing Jessy spout such foolishness took her down another notch in Culley’s estimation. One thing Culley knew for sure, if Chase were still alive he wouldn’t have thrown good money away on repairs to this old shack. He wondered if Jessy knew that and whether that was part of the reason she had hired an outsider to do the work.
All of which raised the question of how Jessy had become acquainted with the Texan. But it wasn’t part of Culley’s nature to come right out and ask. His approach was more roundabout.
“Guess you’ll be goin’ back t’ Texas now that you’re done,” he said to Laredo.
“Not for a while,” he answered.
“Laredo just agreed to come to work for the Triple C,” Jessy explained. “I’m making a deal to lease the old feedlot to Monte Markham, and he’ll pay the ranch to feed the cattle, which means I’ll need some extra hands.”
Her announcement was another surprise to Culley. He couldn’t help thinking that Chase hadn’t been in his grave a month yet and already the face of the Triple C was changing. And not for the better.
“Guess you ain’t got nothin’ to draw ya back to Texas,” Culley remarked, trying to figure out how much this Laredo fellow might have influenced Jessy’s decisions.
“Not anymore,” Jessy answered for him. “They recently sold the ranch they had down there. That’s how they knew Chase.”
“Good friend, was he?” Culley said in a voice thick with skepticism.
“Obviously we never saw him all that often,” Hattie admitted smoothly, “but we counted him as a friend.”
Culley decided at once that Hattie had probably set her cap for Chase. She certainly wouldn’t have been the first woman who did. His own opinion of Chase Calder had never been all that high, but Culley had never been able to fault him when it came to the love he had shown for Maggie.
Satisfied that he had learned as much as he would, Culley ran a last glance over the three of them standing in a loose bunch and reined his horse away. It never crossed his mind to tell them he was going. He just went.
“Come back any time, Mr. O’Rourke,” Hattie called after him, but received no response.
“How about some of that coffee, Mom?” Laredo asked, putting laughing emphasis on her new title.
“I’ll bring it right out. You’ll stay long enough to have a cup with us, won’t you, Jessy?” Hattie asked over her shoulder as she moved toward the cabin door.
“Of course she will,” Laredo answered for her as he glanced at the departing rider. His lips barely moved at all as he murmured to Jessy, “What do you think?”
“I think I’ve lied more in the last few days than I have in my whole life,” she replied in an equally low voice. “Sooner or later, I will get caught in one.”
“You can worry about that when and if it happens. Right now he’s the one that has me worried,” he said with a faint nod in Culley’s direction. “Will he leave or hang around?”
“It all depends on whether he believed anything we said. My guess is he will leave. But you probably should play it safe and get Chase back inside the cabin. Culley has been known to stake out a place and keep watch for hours at a time.”
Laredo thought about that a moment, then nodded in abrupt decision. “I’ll go find Chase. There’s a brush-choked draw south of here that he mentioned he was going to head for. Meanwhile, go mess around your truck and keep an eye on O’Rourke. If it looks like he’s going to circle around, honk the horn once—accidental-like.”
>
The two split up, with Jessy crossing to her pickup and Laredo heading into the cabin. He made sure the screen door made a loud bang when it swung shut behind him.
“Forget the coffee, Hattie. I’m going after Chase,” Laredo said and climbed out the back window.
Using as much cover as he could, Laredo worked his way around the rough slope and descended into the twisting draw. Silence was difficult to achieve as stones rolled under his feet and his shoulders brushed against branches.
The minute he rounded a corner, he saw Chase on his knees right in the middle of an open stretch. He seemed to be looking at something on the ground, but Laredo couldn’t see anything there.
“Chase,” he called to him in a hushed voice, but there was no response at all. Laredo moved swiftly to the man’s side and laid a hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing out here in plain sight? Don’t you—” He broke off the demand the instant he saw the ashen color of Chase’s skin and the sightless stare of his eyes. “Snap out of it, Chase.” He gave his shoulder a hard shake. When that failed to have the desired effect, Laredo crouched in front of him and caught hold of Chase’s jaw to force the man to focus on him. He was stunned by the clammy feel of his skin. “What the hell is wrong, Chase?”
At last Chase seemed to register his presence. Raw pain flickered in his expression. “So much blood.” He closed his eyes as if trying to shut out some image.
Laredo guessed at once that he had remembered something. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” He hooked an arm around Chase and pulled him to his feet.
For much of the way back to the cabin, Laredo had to help him. Chase offered no further hints about what he had remembered, but it was obvious it had shaken him. By the time they reached the cabin, the memory seemed to have lost its grip on him. He no longer had that dazed look and his color was back. Just the same, Laredo opted not to have him crawl back through the window.
“Wait here.” He left him by the side of the cabin and ducked around to the front, immediately locating Jessy. “Where’s O’Rourke?”
“He just left the fire road and turned east. Did you find Chase?”
“He’s right here,” Laredo answered and went back for him.
Laredo’s watchful attitude toward Chase when he walked alongside him to the cabin door alerted Jessy that something was wrong. She forgot all about Culley and hurried into the cabin after them.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“He remembered something.” Laredo’s glance stayed on Chase, watching as he sat down at the table.
“What?”
Laredo shook his head. “He mumbled something about so much blood, and that was all he said. I found him kneeling in the middle of the draw, right out in the open.”
“Ty,” Jessy murmured in realization and moved to the table, lowering herself into a chair facing Chase. “You saw Ty lying there, didn’t you?”
“I saw a man. There was blood all over the front of him, and on the ground, too. God, I can still smell it,” Chase muttered through clenched teeth, the image obviously still there on the edges of his mind.
“You were the one who found Ty’s body after he was killed,” Jessy explained in a pained voice. “It was in a coulee over in the Three Fingers area. He’d been stabbed.”
“And Ty was my son,” Chase recalled. “That must be why I felt such a sick, awful fear.” He dug his fingers into his palms, balling his hands into fists of unconscious anger.
Conscious of the sudden sting of tears in her eyes, Jessy stood up. “I’d better be going,” she mumbled and moved away from the table.
Laredo’s hand gripped her shoulder, stopping her before she reached the door and turning her back to face him. “This is the first time he described what he found to you, isn’t it?” His blue eyes made a close examination of her face.
Jessy nodded and swallowed away the knot in her throat. “After Ty’s horse was found with blood all over the saddle, Chase ordered me back to camp.”
“I wish Chase had remembered something that was less painful to you,” Laredo said, the tightness of regret in his voice. “Some memories shouldn’t be shared. It’s better to remember the way he lived than the way he died.”
Just for an instant the image that Chase had impressed on her mind was replaced by one of Ty hoisting Trey into the air and laughing at his happily gurgling son.
A small smile touched the corners of her wide lips. “I do.” And the shine of love in her eyes had Laredo wishing it was meant for him.
Chapter Nine
Sitting high in the vast sweep of Montana sky, an indifferent sun blazed down on the confused young steers milling together in the feedlot. The idling rumble of the semi’s diesel engine could barely be heard above the bewildered lowing of cattle and the clatter of cloven hooves on the chute’s wooden ramp. Shouts and curses from the cowboys added to the noise as they kept the young stock moving out of the trailer and into the feedlot. Another semi loaded with cattle waited to take the place of the first.
Jessy watched the proceedings from the top rail. Trey straddled the fence next to her, totally absorbed by the action before him. When a big crossbred calf burst out of the chute and plowed into the milling mass, sending them scattering in all directions, Trey gave her a sage look.
“He’s a wild one,” he observed soberly.
“He was probably tired of being cooped up in that trailer.”
“If I had my rope, I’d catch ’im.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that. He isn’t going anywhere.” Her glance strayed to the rider working with quiet calm to drift the newly unloaded stock away from the chute gate.
There was nothing about the way Laredo went about the task with which she could find fault. Jessy smiled to herself, realizing he had been right—he could pass for a feedlot cowboy. Officially this was his third day on the payroll, listed on the books as Samuel Smith. Despite the Social Security card he presented, Jessy still had doubts that it was really his name.
The last animal in the load trotted out of the chute and headed straight for its traveling companions. The semi’s diesel engine growled to life, spurting dark smoke from its exhaust stack. As the semi rumbled away from the chute to make room for the next truck, Laredo swung his horse toward Jessy and walked it to the fence.
“Morning, Trey, Jessy.” He nodded in greeting then let his glance stay on the boy, observing, “I see you left your rope at home.”
“Mom said I should.” The glumness in his expression revealed his disagreement with her decision.
“Your mom was right,” Laredo told him. His glance shifted from them, making a brief and idle sweep of the parked vehicles. “I thought Markham would be here.”
“He’s probably on his way. Somebody from the bank was flying in, and Monte had to pick him up.” Jessy was quick to notice the sudden sharpening of his gaze as he focused on something beyond her. “What is it?” She looked back.
“Isn’t that O’Rourke just beyond that semi?”
“Looks like it,” Jessy confirmed when she spotted the stoop-shouldered rider. Culley had one leg hooked over the saddle horn, a sure indication that he had no intention of leaving any time soon. “Sometimes he watches from a distance and sometimes he takes a closer look.” She was soon distracted by an approaching vehicle that she quickly identified as Monte’s Range Rover. “Here comes Monte now.” She swung off the fence and reached up for Trey. “Come on, let’s go meet Monte and the banker.”
But Trey drew back from her outstretched arms and emphatically shook his head. “’Redo’s gonna give me a ride on his horse.”
“Laredo is working.”
“No, he’s not. He’s just sittin’ there.”
Laredo spoke. “It’ll take the driver a couple minutes to get his rig backed up to the chute. Time enough to take him on a short ride around the lot,” he said as a smile spread across his face. “Besides, any boy who figures out at such an early age that bankers are boring deserves
a ride.”
Amused by his droll observation, Jessy relented. “All right, you can go for a short ride,” she said.
Jessy lingered long enough to see Laredo lift Trey onto the saddle in front of him. To her son’s utter joy, Laredo let him handle the reins. The sudden realization that this was only Trey’s second meeting with Laredo gave Jessy a moment of pause. Although exuberant and outgoing by nature, her young son had always been leery of people he didn’t know. She had never known Trey to actually back away from someone new, but she had always had the impression that he tolerated rather than trusted new aquaintances. That was definitely the attitude Trey took toward Monte. Yet he appeared to be completely comfortable with Laredo. Recalling how much his grandfather trusted Laredo, Jessy couldn’t help wondering if Trey somehow sensed that.
Jessy turned to meet the new arrivals. Despite the black cowboy hat and boots, pearl-snap white shirt and boot-cut pants, Adam Weatherford of Denver looked exactly like what he was—a banker. Jessy wondered if it was the wire-rimmed glasses that gave him away.
“Welcome to the Triple C, Mr. Weatherford.” She shook his hand with a man’s firm grip. This was one part of her new position that she didn’t like, but, then, she had never cared much for social niceties.
“It’s good to be here, Mrs. Calder. I had the pleasure of meeting your late father-in-law a few years back. Such a tragic loss that was,” he added in a brief aside. “I always hoped I would have an occasion to visit your famed ranch. Then Monte was good enough to provide me with one.”
“I do believe the truth is out,” Monte declared with light amusement. “He made the loan so he would have an excuse to visit the Triple C at the bank’s expense. Would you like to take a look at the cattle your money bought, Adam?” With a grand sweep of his arm, he gestured to the feedlot.
“Since I’m expected to confirm we do have collateral on the hoof, that would be a good idea.” Weatherford spoke the literal truth but in a jesting manner that made light of it. “And it’s always best to get business out of the way first.”