Too Far Down

by Mary Connealy

  It coaxed a smile out of him. “You don’t seem all that upset with me, wife. I think I’ve been growling around for so long that you don’t even pay attention anymore.”

  “Oh, I pay attention, husband. I just don’t let it upset me overly.” Her smile faded. “Did you see Finn when I asked about his ma?”

  Finn was a little shy around Chance. But Chance lurked. He was always worried. Someone had attacked them before and it could happen again. “Yep. What do you think? Is he living on the streets? I’ve heard of such things.”

  “Sit down and get off that leg.” Veronica guided him. He rolled his eyes but let her prop up his healing leg on a footstool. “I can’t find out if he’s got a ma or not.” She looked up at her husband. “You know I want to take him home, don’t you?”

  He smiled and nodded, and Veronica knew she’d get no trouble from him.

  “We’ll take him if he wants to come. I’d be glad to do it. But Ronnie,” he added, his shoulders sagging, “I know I’m better than nothing, but I’ve made a fair mess out of being a father.”

  Veronica gasped and tugged a chair around to face him. “What in the world do you mean by that? Your love for our children is as fine as any father on earth.”

  Chance waved his hand. “I love them. I’ve loved those children with everything I’ve got. But I’ve gone wrong. I shouldn’t have changed my will. Yet all I could see was that I’d failed. Somehow I raised them not to love their home, not to understand the roots we’ve put down.”

  “I was in agreement when you made those changes.” Veronica considered it. “I wanted them home just like you did, especially Sadie.”

  “Especially Cole.” Chance spoke right on top of Veronica. They smiled at each other.

  Veronica leaned forward and took Chance’s callused hands in hers. “Maybe it was wrong to trap them at home. But, well, if you did a poor job as a father, then I’m just as bad of a mother.”

  He scowled. “I’ll not let you say such a thing.”

  “I have prayed for our children with all my strength. I started praying for Cole from the day you walked through the door with him.”

  With a faint smile, Chance asked, “Did you pray for me, too, Ronnie? Just a little?”

  She had to laugh at that. “I did, though I admit at first I mainly prayed you’d let Cole stay in the house with me while you went to work. I fell so in love with that little boy.” Reaching up, she rested her palm against his cheek. “You were just that single step behind. I fell in love with you soon enough.”

  Nodding, Chance said, “I know the kind of father God is. I can’t be that perfect, but I wanted that as my goal, that example to try and reach. I’ve fallen far short. If I hadn’t, our children would want to be home with us. I wouldn’t need threats.”

  “Then I think as soon as we get home, we need to rewrite the will.”

  “Just like God lets us choose whether to believe or not, we have to let our children choose whether to embrace the CR or not. With Sadie married, I’m hoping she’ll settle down at home. John’s last letter said she and Heath are living in the ramrod’s cabin. But Cole . . . we’re going to lose him.”

  “Or if we keep him with our threats to give the ranch away, we’ll lose him anyway, because he’ll resent us.” Veronica vowed to pray harder, more faithfully. She wanted first and foremost for her children to be believers in God. She knew that was most important. But after that, she wanted them near her. She wanted them to love being at her side.

  “It has to be his choice, I reckon.” Chance looked down and closed his eyes.

  “We should rewrite the will now and send it home. Not keep them dangling like they are,” Ronnie said, the defeat nearly bringing her to tears, because they were going to lose Cole. He didn’t want to be in New Mexico Territory.

  With a resigned shrug, Chance said, “We’ll be home soon enough. I say we wait and fix things when we get there. Keep them together a few days or weeks more and hope our three stubborn children learn to be a family.”

  Chance sighed. She knew how he longed for home.

  She did too, but she wanted him well and that meant following doctor’s orders. Two of her children had gotten married, and she’d missed the weddings. That left an ache in her heart, especially since she’d known Heath, but not well, and she’d never even met Angie.

  “You know, Chance, my pa as good as blackmailed us into marrying, and that’s worked out fine.”

  Chance lifted his head and gave her a fond smile. “So you’re saying a little bit of parental meddling can work out all right?”

  “It did once. For now, let’s leave things as they are until we get home.”

  “You know what would settle that boy down?” Chance said.

  Cole, that stubborn boy—yes, he was thirty, but he’d always been her boy. “What?”

  “Well, two of our children are properly wedded. Maybe we need to make it a project to go home and take over Cole’s life and see him properly married like his brother and sister.”

  “But to who?”

  12

  Cole watched Mel stride down the trail right for him—with her gunslinging uncle beside her. She’d tossed her Stetson aside and had coal smudged on the golden tan of her face. He stood side by side with Justin and wondered if the Blakes had had enough of digging for gold already and were heading home.

  Mel drew close and lifted something in her right hand. He couldn’t tell exactly what, but she was waving it around. She nodded and said, “Howdy.” Her eyes went to him and stayed a bit too long. “We found this almost hidden in some scrub by our mine entrance.” She handed the scrap of cloth to Cole.

  “A kerchief?”

  “If that’s what it is. It was in a strange place—I doubt the wind blew it there—and there was no good reason a man would be standing behind the tree line right outside my mine. We wondered if someone was watching the place, or if someone, maybe the man who set the explosives, might have dropped it.”

  “It’s a mighty distinctive color and pattern,” Walt added. “Any of you seen it before?”

  Before anyone could answer, Heath came back down the trail; he’d gotten a bit ahead. “I reckon if I’d ever seen it before, I’d remember. Not a normal mix of colors for a kerchief.” Before Cole could study it closer, Heath said, “Walt, you strike me as a knowing man. Have you done any tracking?”

  Cole’s head whipped around to face Heath. Cole suspected Walt could do most anything.

  “Have I done any tracking?” Walt’s eyes narrowed as if Heath had called him a city slicker. “I can track a rattlesnake across solid rock. I can track a duck across water an hour after the duck flew away. I can track—”

  Heath laughed, and Walt fell silent but with a twinkle in his eye.

  “I see you can track. Good to know. There are plenty better than me, but the Bodens ain’t among ’em.”

  Justin snorted.

  Cole rolled his eyes. “You’ve gotten mighty cocky, Kincaid.”

  “Not so cocky I can’t step aside for a better man. Walt, whoever set those explosions stepped on this trail. I made out three sets of tracks I could follow for a while, but it’s a well-worn path in places. Near as I can tell, no tracks have left the path—not up to where I’ve been studying. They have to get off it sometime, and when they do, that’s my chance to pick up the trail again. You have time to take a look?”

  “I got time to do anything that keeps me above ground. Let’s go back to where we found that kerchief and see if there are prints. Then show me what you found and why you think it’s the varmints with the dynamite. We’ll find boot prints and get to it.” Walt turned to Mel. “You stay close to one of these Boden boys until I’m back.”

  Cole’s trust in Walt’s judgment sank as the man walked away. Walt oughta be able to figure out that leaving Mel alone with two men was as improper as all get-out. Especially when one of them was Cole. Of course, Justin was an old married man now. Maybe that made him a proper chaperone. Cole had b
een forced to sit still for Grandmother’s lectures about all these rules back east, but he hadn’t always paid attention.

  He realized he was staring right into those eyes with no idea how long he’d been doing it. “Ahem . . . can . . . can I see that kerchief?”

  Mel jumped a bit, like he’d startled her. She had definitely been staring back.

  “I’m going to look at the cabin Mel moved into.” Old married Justin slapped Cole on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward. Cole had forgotten his little brother was even here.

  “I’ll make sure you’ve got everything you need, Mel.” Justin walked off before Cole could tell him to stay. Not that he had any interest in telling him to stay.

  “I don’t need a thing,” Mel muttered, not loud enough for Justin to hear—almost as if she had no interest in telling him to stay. She held out the kerchief, and Cole got a close look at it for the first time.

  He forgot about everything else. “I’ve seen this before.”

  “Where?”

  “Shh.” Cole was thinking. “I don’t think it was a kerchief. Was it one of my men’s shirts?” He shook his head slowly, digging for the memory. “It’s such a bright red plaid, I can’t believe I’d forget any of the miners wearing it, so I don’t think that’s it.” He examined it more closely. “This might have been cut out of something bigger.”

  “Can I—?”

  “Shh!”

  A strange sound came from Mel. Not unlike the low-throated sound a wolf makes right before it pounces on a fleeing jackrabbit and bites its head off.

  Cole looked up. It was coming from Mel. “What’s the matter?”

  Something was definitely the matter. He could tell by the cold glare and the bared teeth.

  “Stop shushing me like I’m a noisy child.”

  “Uh, I-I’m sorry?” He shouldn’t have made that a question.

  Cole thought back to how many years it’d been since he’d given a woman much thought. He’d always known he was coming home to New Mexico Territory, and the women he met in Boston were citified to the bone. He didn’t involve himself with any of them. Although if he’d found a woman with an adventurous spirit, he might’ve given her a chance.

  Adventurous women weren’t the type his grandparents had paraded in front of him. He knew they were trying to bind him to their world on the East Coast. So his skill with women might be more than a little rusty. In fact, if he was a hinge, somebody would be running for the oilcan right now.

  So he wasn’t quite sure what he’d done wrong, but it didn’t take a genius to look at her face and know he’d sure as certain done something.

  “You’re sorry?”

  Cole liked to speak straight, and he’d’ve thought Mel did, too. So he quit worrying about the rust on him. “When I have a puzzle like this cloth, it helps me to find a quiet place and let my mind drift. I dig out memories when I do that. I wasn’t thinking of your feelings when I said ‘shh.’” He saw her open her mouth, most likely with an observation about his manners, or the lack thereof, so he rushed to add, “As you’ve no doubt noticed.” Thinking about his no-account skills with women had led to thoughts of his grandparents, which made him ask, “You met my grandmother the two times she came out here, didn’t you?”

  Mel’s head jerked back a little. “What makes you ask about your grandmother? You think she had a dress like this?”

  That near to made him laugh. His grandmother in plaid cotton? That’d sure never happen. “No. I-I just remembered you met her, and I wondered if she struck you as the kind of woman who would . . .” He didn’t know if he could ask. It was unthinkable.

  “Who would what, Cole?”

  He cleared his throat. “No one’s going to deny Priscilla was an arrogant woman who got her way. She had her whole life set up to make sure things always went exactly as she wished, and as soon as she wished it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking, but I remember her well. I met her when she first came to visit. I was probably seven at the time, and Ma brought me over to play once when you were kept in from work to spend time with your grandmother. My ma would stay for coffee and cake with your ma. But your grandmother was so intent on you that you didn’t get to play with us and she never had coffee. I remember my ma whispering to me that we needed to come over mighty often while your grandmother was visiting because your ma was having trouble being sociable with her.”

  Cole smiled. “My ma, the friendliest woman who ever lived. The most welcoming, generous woman I can imagine, couldn’t ever make Grandmother happy. I remember the constant barbs about the house and the food, about where we lived and how there was no decent clothing or conveyance.”

  “Conveyance?”

  “It’s a fancy word for something to ride. In this case she meant she was disappointed in the train. She and Grandfather owned their own train car.”

  With a tiny gasp, Mel said, “They owned it? A person can own one of those cars?”

  “Yep, and make it mighty comfortable and not share it with anyone. The Bradfords, my grandparents, had one with two bedrooms, and I often traveled with them down to New York City and other places. But tracks hadn’t been laid anywhere near Skull Gulch back then. She’d had to leave the train car behind back in St. Louis and come on the last stretch in a stagecoach. Then she’d expected to be met by a comfortable, enclosed carriage for her ride to the CR. Well, Ma and Pa didn’t have one of those. Grandmother had to ride in a buckboard. From the fuss she made, you’d think Pa had plunked her backside down on a bed of nails.”

  “I remember she brought you presents. You were twelve, but she brought toys that seemed like they were for a much younger child. And clothes. Crates of clothes in all sizes. She wanted them to grow along with you, as if she was worried you’d run out and be reduced back to western duds. There was a velvet suit . . .”

  Cole blushed. “I tried to burn that, but Ma took it and used it to make doll clothes for Sadie.”

  “And then your grandmother Bradford came back one more time when you were seventeen.” Mel looked grim. Not a good memory for her.

  “After the war, and she talked me into going back east to live with her and go to college.”

  “We didn’t see you for ten years. You couldn’t even make it home for a visit.” Mel paused, let out a sigh. “But what made you think of her?”

  “I know you didn’t like her.”

  “She was horrified by me because I wore pants.”

  “Well, knowing her just that little bit, do you think she’s the kind of woman who could hire a gunman? Pay someone to kill a man? Her or my grandfather? He never came out here, so you never met him, but they were alike in many ways. Could they . . . ?” Cole’s voice trailed off.

  Mel inhaled sharply. “What in heaven’s name made you think of that?”

  Suddenly Cole liked the idea of having someone outside the family to talk with about this. His family had always been on the opposite side of his when the Bradfords came up.

  “We have two notes, one we found on Dantalion—the man who shot me.” She flinched, then reached out a hand to rest on his arm. “Heath searched him before he died trying to escape. And we have another note in the same cramped handwriting, found on a man who tried to kill Ma and Pa in Denver.”

  “Someone attacked them up there? And it’s related to the trouble you’ve had here?”

  “We think so, and a big reason why is the handwriting that we’re finding almost impossible to read. From letters and wires back and forth with my folks, we’ve decided just because of the oddness of the handwriting, it was written by the same person. That means there’s a connection.”

  “Is your grandmother’s or grandfather’s handwriting like that?”

  “No, I’ve already considered that. It’s nothing like their hand. But Ma found the names Davidson and Priscilla Bradford in her note. They found the name Don Bautista de Val too, and his wife’s. We’ve known all along that there was money behind the attempts to kill the
Bodens, and both the Bradfords and the de Vals had plenty of money.”

  Cole shook his head then, his mind made up just from speaking out loud. “No, I won’t believe it. I won’t ever believe the Bradfords would hire someone to harm my family. Steal me away from them maybe. In fact, the year Sadie was born, Grandmother sent me a letter for the first time. She’d been searching for me for years, she said. Pa had already told me I was born to his first wife and she’d died. But to me, Ma, I mean Veronica, was the only mother I knew. I loved her as much as if she were my mother by blood. I had vague memories of my life back east, but I didn’t really know if the memories were true or if they came from things Pa told me. But I realized later that from the first letter I received from my grandmother Pa kept a guard near me if he couldn’t be with me himself. I never was allowed out alone. At the time, Pa said it was just good sense not to ride alone or take walks by myself in a country with outlaws and varmints big enough to carry off a man. Later I realized Pa was worried about me being kidnapped by my grandparents.”

  Cole crushed the scrap of cloth and stared right through it. “But could they have done just such a thing only with more deadly results? Hired someone to try and . . . and cost Pa the land grant?”

  “You think they were powerful enough to steal land from your pa from half a country away?”

  “The land grant wasn’t always solidly in our hands. A few things have to work together to endanger the grant. Usually a weak governor who lets others do things in his name will open us to a threat to the CR. Justin knows the governor and says he’s a decent man, but maybe not watchful enough of the men who advise him. Maybe when I was back east my grandparents could have hatched a plan to run Pa and Ma off the CR so I wouldn’t have a ranch to go home to.”

  Nodding, he knew some of it didn’t fit and he had no proof of any of it. Even so . . . “It makes a certain amount of sense. Grandfather Bradford used his money to get what he wanted. He knew the governor of Massachusetts well and was a personal friend to the Boston mayor. Both were at our home for dinner many times. Grandfather could have found the right man to back as the governor of New Mexico Territory. He could have thought to strip the CR from my family. Maybe they were working quietly, but when Grandfather died, his plan turned to something ugly, something deadly, funded with my grandparents’ money and maybe the money of the de Val family, too.” Cole’s eyes came up and locked on Mel’s. “I need to talk to Justin and Heath about this. See if they think it’s nonsense.”