Angie was in the middle, a beautiful woman, but so thin she looked fragile. She’d had to teach them all she wasn’t, which she’d done when she escaped from three men who’d kidnapped her, getting to the Bodens’ in time to warn them that her kidnappers were lying in wait to dry-gulch them.
His little sister, Sadie. Sassy, pretty, and as tough as a girl could be who’d had two bossy big brothers ordering her around all her life. She was the image of ma with her yellow hair and brown eyes shot through with flecks of green.
Looking at them in a row like this was a fine sight. And not one part of that sight was as fine as Mel Blake.
“Do you think, Heath,” Sadie said, giving her husband an overly friendly smile, “we could take a picnic to the top of Skull Mesa sometime? Just sit up there and spend some time together?”
Heath nodded. “I’d like that. But we need to pick a time we’re sure no one would be shooting at us.”
“Or bringing an avalanche down on our heads,” Justin added. He shoved his hands in his back pockets in a way that made it seem as though he wanted to reach for his wife.
Cole looked up at the mesa. “Or blowing us up.”
“Let’s head back.” Heath reached for Sadie’s hand and pulled her along. She said something to him Cole couldn’t hear that made him glance back at the mesa.
“Really?” He spoke too loud, then went back to talking quietly.
It had turned to dusk with a few stars shining overhead.
Justin pulled Angie’s arm through his elbow and followed after Heath, whispering something that made Angie giggle and lean against him.
Watching them go gave Cole’s heart a pang. He glanced at Mel. They could pair off just as easy. There was an awkward moment, and it would’ve been the most natural thing in the world for him to reach for her so they could walk arm in arm.
But he didn’t.
Mel set off, and Cole fell in beside her. They spent the whole walk back to the house talking about the weather.
The boy was right about not living far away. They pulled up in front of a crumbling wreck of a building, half gone from a fire. Chance knew with one look that no one rented rooms in the building. They lived here without permission.
“Stay with the cart, Ronnie.” He leaned close so that Finn couldn’t hear. “You’ve got your gun loaded and at hand, right?”
He didn’t want to give her his gun, as he might need it in this seedy place. He had no idea that he and Ronnie had rented a house so close to a derelict neighborhood.
“Go.” She nodded and pulled back the corner of her coat to show a gun holstered around her waist. “And hurry. Our driver looks like he’s tempted to make a run for it.”
As he followed Finn up a rickety flight of stairs, Chance grew increasingly worried about the building collapsing on their heads. Several rooms were without doors, and Chance saw a few men sleeping on the floor.
One man, leaning dejectedly against a wall, lifted his head and narrowed his eyes until he reminded Chance of a wolf.
Chance ignored the ache in his leg and moved faster. They climbed to the third floor. Finn led him to a room with a door, the first closed door he saw in the place. Finn produced a key. The locked door made this the fanciest apartment so far.
A creaking floorboard from below made Chance glance behind him. “Hurry, Finn. I think there might be trouble brewing.”
Finn turned the key fast and rushed into a room as bare as the others Chance had seen. Finn rushed to his ma, rolled up in a blanket on the floor. Chance didn’t spend time assessing her condition. He was no doctor, and his skill ran to the injuries a man got from being bucked off a horse or kicked by a cow. Any help he gave her might make things worse. He picked her up, shocked at how light she was. A soft moan escaped her lips, but that was the only sign of life.
“Ma’s name is Bridget Finn. I’m Sean, by the way, but I like going by my last name.” Finn looked at his ma with eyes full of love and fear.
“Let’s go, son.” Chance turned to leave, determined to get all of them out of there just as soon as he could. He headed down three flights as fast as he could go, considering the stairs were in such terrible shape and it was putting pressure on his leg he hadn’t felt since the cast came off. They’d made it down only one flight when a man holding a knife stepped right into their path.
Chance’s first inclination was to knock the varmint’s teeth out. He couldn’t imagine anything lower than pulling a knife on a man carrying an unconscious woman with a child at his side. Lucky for this polecat, Chance didn’t have time to beat some manners into him. Instead he shifted Bridget so he could draw his gun. The arm that was hooked under her knees now brandished a pistol.
“Drop the knife or I’ll shoot. I’m not going to give you even one second to think about it. Chance cocked the gun with a sharp click.
The man tossed the knife off to the side.
“Now clear a path. Right now!”
The man spun around and ran off into one of the doorless rooms.
Suppressing a sigh of relief, because Chance sure as certain didn’t want to shoot anyone, they hurried on downstairs. When they got outside, Chance saw Ronnie standing up in the cart, facing the alley on the other side of the street, her gun drawn and aimed at a pair of men who’d emerged from the alley.
He rushed forward, his own gun still drawn, and roared, “Now there are two guns on you! Do you want a fight?”
The men vanished into the alley like rats.
Ronnie saw Chance and smiled. He felt as if the sun had just come out and the day warmed to summer temperatures. With a smirk, she sat down, brushed off her skirts as if there’d never been any trouble. Chance was as relieved as a man could be—while holding such an ailing woman.
A furrow appeared on Ronnie’s smooth forehead when she saw the unconscious woman in Chance’s arms.
He said, “Meet Bridget Finn and her son Sean.”
Ronnie gave Finn a quick glance.
“Can you take her? She weighs next to nothing. Hold her in your lap so I can keep my gun drawn and an eye out until we’re well away from here.”
Ronnie sat on a small box seat right behind the driver. Chance handed Finn’s mother to her, and Ronnie studied the woman, pushing back the blanket she was wrapped in to see her face. She was frighteningly thin, her eyes closed even with all the commotion. No fever. No sign at all of what exactly she was sick from. Ronnie gave a frown at the hectic red curls to match Finn’s.
Finn jumped into the cart and squeezed in beside Ronnie on a seat barely big enough for one. Chance took up what little was left of the cart’s bed, sharing the space with their trunk and satchels.
He stayed on his knees so he could look in all directions. The cart, drawn by the now-overworked pony, was set into motion. No one pestered them as they drove through the run-down neighborhood, maybe because Chance was so alert.
Chance spoke quietly to the driver without consulting Ronnie. “Take us back to where you picked us up.”
The driver didn’t hesitate for a second.
They quickly returned to the rented house. Chance holstered his gun.
“We can’t take her on the train, can we?” Ronnie met his eyes. She wasn’t really asking. She knew as well as he that the fragile woman wouldn’t survive without a doctor’s care, and soon.
He jumped down from the cart, striking the ground hard enough to wrench his newly healed leg. “We’ll miss the train today, but we can take another train and go back home as soon as we’re sure she’s properly cared for.” He reached up for poor, ailing Bridget Finn.
With a nod, Ronnie went to help Finn down, but he’d already scrambled over the edge of the cart bed.
“Go for the doctor, Finn. Go straight for him this time. Don’t worry about meeting him somewhere or taking notes back and forth. Just bring him here fast for your ma. Don’t worry about paying him, either. The doctor will come regardless.”
“Thanks, Mr. Boden.” Finn nodded so hard his hat fl
ew off his head. He grabbed it and ran.
Chance had little doubt the boy had been wanting the doctor to see to his ma for days, maybe weeks, but money had stopped him. Pride would have stopped him now, as the little redheaded urchin had more than his share of it. But that was for himself. For his mother, he’d let them help.
Once Finn was gone, Chance, holding Bridget, asked the driver to help with the trunk. Ronnie rushed ahead and held the door open for him.
As he passed her, he said, “What you just did . . . I agree with it, but if someone’s watching that doctor trying to find us, this’ll do it. We have to get home.”
Ronnie looked down at the sick woman and back up at Chance, the desperation clear in her expression. She wanted to be back at the CR. Her children had been at risk from the first, but she’d pushed Chance to stay in Denver and completely heal. Now her control had snapped. She needed to get her hands on that other note they had. That could be her excuse. In truth, she was just plumb out of patience and wanted desperately to be home, where she could fight at her children’s side.
But she had Finn’s ma, who was gravely ill and couldn’t be left on her own, not right now.
She followed Chance to the bedroom. “We can’t just abandon her and Finn.”
And that was the plain truth of it.
Chance could almost hear Ronnie’s heart pounding with urgency to go. “We’ll arrange for someone else to care for her as quickly as possible, maybe hire a nurse. The doctor will have some ideas, too. For now, do your best to explain in a letter what’s going on so the children have some warning. We’ll get home as soon as we can.”
17
Sadie spoke first. “Cole, we know you loved your grandparents.”
Cole was glad she was doing the talking. Justin didn’t know how to say a single word that didn’t make things worse. For the most part, Cole appreciated Justin’s straight talk, but his grandparents were always a sore subject.
“We wouldn’t make something up. You believe that, right?”
“I know there’s something going on here that involves them, yet I can’t be sure you won’t put the worst possible face on anything you learn. I know you didn’t like them and I understand why. They were never nice to any of you, and they were overly nice to me. But although I understand, I also knew them better than you. I knew the best of them.”
Justin gave a nod and said, “And what you said about your grandparents maybe having bad intentions but not this bad—I think you’re on to something there.”
“What are you talking about?” Sadie had never liked being left out.
Now there was no point excluding her even if it did keep her safer. Since Heath had fallen for her, he told her every word they spoke. The varmint probably tossed in a few things he’d made up on his own.
So Sadie got to hear everything now.
Cole told her their theory about the Bradfords trying to force Ma and Pa off the ranch while Cole was gone.
Sadie kept her voice calm but her eyes flashed with temper. “So you can see them using their money to influence people to drive us off our land? Pa and Ma consider this land a family legacy to be cherished, fought for, even to die for, so that’s no small bit of treachery.”
“I can.” Cole was determined to be honest and not jump into defending his grandparents. He’d done it so often it was a habit hard to break. “And it makes me furious. But I really did know the Bradfords. I understand how they liked to wield power. They had a ruthless side. They’d be up to supporting a governor’s campaign and finding ways for money to be shifted to him, ways that’d make him their pawn once he said yes to the first small bribe. There was a lot of that kind of buying influence in Boston, and it’s all perfectly legal. I can imagine them doing it here.”
He paused and looked each of them in the eye. “But trying to overturn a land grant is a long way from hiring a killer. Besides, even if they did do such a horrible thing, it would have been to get their hands on me. All they ever wanted was to bind their only grandchild to them. They wanted to cut me off from my family. But I got shot, remember? My name is in that book right along with all of you. My grandparents never gave anyone money with instructions to do such a thing. So I’m saying whoever’s doing this might have started off with my grandparents’ money aimed at influencing some politician, but since their deaths it’s gotten out of control.”
Mel asked quietly, “What about your grandpa Chastain? Was their money involved in his killing?”
A deep silence fell over the room.
Justin broke it. “I don’t see how. I got a real strong feeling that it took them years to find Cole. Remember when the first letters started coming? It was around the time Sadie was born. I wasn’t that old, but I remember how upset Ma and Pa were.”
“I remember it. I could read, and Pa let me read it myself.” Cole still had the letters, though they were at his house in town. He thought of his grandmother’s flowing, beautiful handwriting and took comfort in that tiny proof she hadn’t mailed out instructions on how to wipe out the Boden family.
“You know what I’m wondering?” Heath asked.
“What?” Sadie always paid a lot of attention to her husband. Cole was almost used to the idea of Sadie being married. He liked and respected Heath well enough. Even so, she was too young, and Heath wasn’t good enough for her. Cole had the feeling he’d’ve thought the same about any man she married.
“I’m wondering what Don de Val’s wife’s handwriting looks like.” Heath arched a brow at Cole. “Her name is in those notes too, right along with your grandparents.”
At that, Cole looked around the table, his eyes pausing now and then.
It was Rosita who asked, “How would we get a sample of her handwriting?”
They all sat thinking on that when Angie said, “Maybe Ramone has seen it.”
Justin smiled with pride at his bride’s quick thinking.
“Maybe,” Sadie added, “Ramone has even seen Señora de Val’s handwriting enough that he could read it.”
Cole felt his spirits lifting.
Justin smiled. “And Ramone said she was terrible to him. So he’d have no loyalty toward his father’s wife.”
“By all accounts,” Cole said, his eyes meeting Justin’s where he saw the same excitement shining there that he knew was coursing through him, “he thought she was a nasty old bat.”
Ramone lived in Skull Gulch now. He was the son born on the wrong side of the blankets to his mother and Don de Val while the old Don was married to Señora Lauressa. Ramone had a sister too, Maria, who’d died at the orphanage when someone involved in the treachery had tried to kill Justin.
Years ago, back in Grandfather Chastain’s day, Ramone had been a cowpoke on the Cimarron Ranch. Ramone had run off the day old Frank Chastain was murdered, and those looking for someone to blame settled on Ramone because he’d run.
Now, all these years later, Ramone had returned, and the truth about Grandfather’s murderer had come out. All those years ago, Ramone had witnessed the murder and nearly been killed himself. Ramone was brutally injured with a slashed-open face that left him scarred and blind in one eye by the killer, a man by the name of Dantalion.
Dantalion promised to blame the murder on Ramone. Rather than fight, or get word to the Bodens about who’d done the killing, Ramone disappeared and spent most of his life in Mexico City.
For years, Ramone had lived and worked for his father. And he’d been coldly tolerated by Señora Lauressa, the Don’s wife, only because her husband had insisted. She cast him out as soon as her cheating husband died.
“All this most recent trouble,” Cole said, “started mighty soon after Don de Val died, didn’t it? Maybe the one who changed the plans was Señora de Val. Once her husband was gone, maybe she could do things he wouldn’t allow.”
“The timing is almost perfect.” Justin’s eyes narrowed as he rubbed his chin.
“I feel maybe for the first time,” Cole said, his sharp-thinking busin
essman’s brain adding things up, “we’re headed in the right direction. Maybe this is the clue we need to finally get to the bottom of this mess.”
“It is too late tonight to ride to Skull Gulch and question Ramone,” Rosita proclaimed as if she were the head of the household. And since Cole’s folks had been gone, she mostly was. “Save it for tomorrow morning. I will go with Justin to talk with Ramone.”
“I don’t think I’d better do that, Rosita. I think I’ve pushed Ramone about as far as I dare.” Justin turned to Cole. “You go with Rosita instead and see if you can get any information out of him.”
“I don’t want to take a day away from the mines. That’s more important right now.”
Mel thought of the attacks on the Bodens. The avalanche that injured Chance. The gunshot that nearly killed Cole. Heath shot. Angie kidnapped. A mine explosion . . .
The secret to all of it seemed to be hidden in some notes Heath had taken from Dantalion before he died. They’d never shown the note to Ramone. Now it was possible he might help in ways none of them had considered yet.
“No, Cole,” Mel said into the tense silence. “I don’t think there is anything more important to do than this.”
A hush fell over the room. All of them remembering.
Cole set his napkin on the table and stood. “Rosita, be ready to leave at first light.”
“It feels odd sleeping at your house.” Mel came into Chance Boden’s office to continue discussing their suspicions with the family.
She stopped so fast she might’ve left skid marks on the oak floor.
“Where’s everybody else?” Only Cole was there, settled in behind his pa’s desk, working over a ledger of some kind.
She’d cleaned up the kitchen with Rosita, Sadie, and Angie. The men had offered to lend a hand but the kitchen was already too full, so the women shooed them away and made short work of the dishes.
Mel had helped stow away the last dishes, and as she thanked Rosita again for the delicious meal and gave her a warm hug good-night, she straightened to realize Sadie and Angie had left ahead of her.
Too Far Down Page 13