Open Country

by Warner, Kaki

  It did little good to remind him that the babies weren’t due for another month.

  Hank tried to be patient. He was beginning to understand the depth of the bond between Brady and Jessica, because he felt the same about Molly. He’d never known caring about someone could be so worrisome. Life had been a lot easier when he’d held himself apart and kept his emotions under control. But not nearly as much fun.

  Thinking to shield the children from the growing tension, and also hoping to curtail the imp’s morning visits, Hank helped Molly move Penny and Charlie up to the children’s nursery on the top floor. To ease the transition, Charlie was allowed to let Buddy sleep on the rug by his bed, and Penny was allowed to sleep with her new doll. Both took to their new quarters with great enthusiasm, which was a relief to Hank, although in weaker moments he missed waking up to Penny’s sticky little face.

  Everyone tried to stay busy. Everyone tried to remain cheerful. But it became harder as the days passed. Almost two weeks into the new year, Brady came into Hank’s office with the frantic look of a man who sees disaster looming and his only defense against it is a hopeful smile.

  “She bathed Buddy again today,” he said, plopping into the chair across from Hank’s desk. “Poor dog’s scared to death of her.”

  Hank didn’t look up from the clockwork toy he was making for Penny. A cat made out of rabbit fur, with a movable head and a tail that wagged. Not as good as the real thing, but hopefully it wouldn’t make her sneeze. He held up the half-finished toy. “What do you think?”

  Brady didn’t even glance at it. “Damned dog’s starting to smell like a flower garden. It’s no wonder he rolls in manure every chance he gets.”

  Hank studied the cat from all angles. “I think she’ll like it.” “And yesterday I caught her trying to throw out my lucky cutting shirt. Can you imagine?”

  “You mean that stinking rag you wear when you’re castrating?” Hank picked up a tiny screwdriver and tightened the set screw on the cat’s neck. “Woman’s out of control.”

  “Laugh if you will, but I haven’t been kicked or cut since I started wearing it.”

  Hank didn’t bother to respond to a statement so lacking in logic.

  “Then this morning,” Brady went on, “I found her throwing out half my socks. What am I going to do?”

  “Buy more socks.” Hank wound the key, then thumbed the spring release lever to test the motion of the cat’s head. It tilted to the left, then to the right, then fell off. “Sonofabitch.”

  Leaning forward, Brady dropped his voice to a whisper. “What if she comes in here next? You know how she’s always threatening to tidy up our offices.”

  Hank looked up in alarm. “Not mine?” His office might look a mess, especially as he sorted through the keg of parts Molly had given him, but in fact, it was a carefully thought-out arrangement of all the nuts and bolts and screws and springs and parts he would ever need. His own personal candy store. The thought of Jessica rooting around in it gave him the shivers.

  Brady sat back with a sigh. “We’re none of us safe with a pregnant woman on the prowl.”

  Reminding himself to remember to put a lock on the door, Hank picked up the cat head and started unscrewing the springs. “She’s nesting.”

  “I know that,” Brady snapped impatiently. “I’ve been through this twice before, you know.”

  “Then talk to Molly.” Hank was losing patience. He had other things to think about besides his brother’s worries. Like Scarface showing up any day, and getting this goddamn cat to work.

  “I did. She said to quit worrying.” Brady dismissed that foolish notion with a wave of his hand. “The point is it’s too soon. She’s still got three weeks to go.”

  The spring popped out of Hank’s fingers and hit somewhere in the bookcases. “Damn.”

  Brady chewed on his thumbnail. “Maybe I should send for Doc.”

  “And keep him here for the next three weeks?” Hank dug through the parts strewn across the desktop until he found another spring. “We don’t have enough whiskey. Besides you’ve got Molly.”

  “Two minds are better than one, they say.”

  “Not if one of them is pickled.”

  “To hell with you. I’m sending for Doc.”

  Twenty

  IN LATE AFTERNOON SEVERAL DAYS LATER, SHERIFF RIKker rode out from Val Rosa, bringing with him Angus Foley, the deputy United States marshal for the area, and another man he introduced as Mr. Jones, from Washington City in the District of Columbia.

  “They’ve come about Fletcher, the man you were asking about,” Rikker said, settling into one of the stuffed leather chairs beside the fireplace in the main room. “Seems you were right to be concerned.” Reaching into his vest pocket, he pulled out the makings and began to roll a smoke.

  “Not inside,” Brady warned. “Makes my wife sick.” He motioned to one of the French doors that led onto the porch. “Step out there if you want to smoke.”

  Mumbling under his breath, the sheriff went outside.

  By the time Hank retrieved five tumblers and a bottle from Brady’s office, the other two men were seated and the sheriff was back in his chair. After pouring an inch of whiskey into each glass, Hank passed them around, then took a seat on one of the couches.

  Mr. Jones did the talking. A well-spoken man of middle years with the sound of education in his voice, he had sharp hazel eyes, a banker’s smile, and a haircut that left most of his ears exposed. Hank noted that the one on the left had a chunk missing from the top edge that was the exact shape and size as a bullet hole.

  The deputy marshal was more the watchful type, with quiet hands, sideburns that came around to join his bushy mustache, and dark unblinking eyes that took in everything but gave nothing back. Hank didn’t know him but had heard of him—a hard-line lawman with a stone for a heart.

  Sheriff Rikker was an old acquaintance, having been the lawman in Val Rosa since the time of the feud between the Wilkins family and Sancho Ramirez. He was another loner who held his thoughts close. Brady called him a “quiet seeker,” but right now the old man sat slumped in his chair, eyes closed, seeking nothing more than a nap.

  “We’ve been watching Fletcher for some time now,” Jones began. “He and his associates have been working with a man out of Baltimore who specializes in weaponry.”

  “What kind of weapons?” Hank had a keen interest in such things ever since reading about R. J. Gatling’s Battery Gun. He’d even tried a few innovations of his own, but they hadn’t ended well.

  “Artillery.”

  “Why would that concern the government?” Brady asked, rolling his tumbler between his palms. “He’s not breaking the law, is he?”

  Like most Westerners, Brady had a natural distrust of government, preferring to handle legal matters in his own way. Most of the time he was honorable about it. Unless his family was involved.

  “Not yet,” Jones said. At Brady’s questioning look, he explained. “You’ve heard of the pockets of unrest that have arisen throughout the South since the war. Despite the terrible toll the Rebellion took on this country, there are those who would see it begin again.” Jones emptied his glass and set it on a side table, waving away Brady’s offer of a refill.

  His voice took on a sour note. “Confederates have always felt more aligned with England and France than they have with the North, and the economic pressures of the Reconstruction have only strengthened those sentiments.”

  Hank thought of the men in tattered gray uniforms he had occasionally seen wandering through Val Rosa, and Redemption, and El Paso. Some had looked broken and lost, others had stared back at him through a zealot’s eyes, but most seemed true believers that, if given the money, the guns, or whatever, the South could rise again. “There’s no real chance the war could resume, is there?”

  “With the right motivation, it might.” Jones propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and studied them over his steepled fingers. “Despite what you might have read, gentle
men, the outcome of the war was a near thing. The North was better fed, better clothed, better armed, and with Northern factories continuing to manufacture the equipage of war, it should have been an easy victory. Instead it took five long years. Why? Because of emotion. The Confederates believed in the fight. And they still do.”

  “And Fletcher is one of these believers?” Hank asked. He wondered if that was what Molly’s sister had been trying to warn her about.

  Jones nodded. “He and his associates are known Confederate sympathizers, led by a man named Edward Rustin, although they’re driven more by profit than ideology. They have strong ties to foreign manufacturing, and if they can devise a weapon powerful enough to force a Southern secession and establish tariff-free trade with Europe, they stand to make huge profits.”

  Brady rose, added more wood to the fire, then stood with his back to the hearth, arms crossed over his chest, feet braced. Hank recognized the belligerent stance. “And how does this affect us?”

  Jones nodded toward the deputy marshal. “I’ll have Foley explain.”

  Other than murmured greetings when Rikker introduced them, Foley had remained silent throughout. Now as he spoke, Hank heard the gravelly voice of a tobacco user, even though there were no stains on the marshal’s fingers and no telltale bulge in his cheek. Or maybe Foley was just unaccustomed to speaking, and that accounted for the rusty quality. Whatever the cause, the sound of it grated on Hank’s nerves and made him want to clear his throat. “We know Fletcher’s been looking for his sister-in-law, Molly McFarlane.” Foley’s dark gaze fastened on Hank. “The woman you recently married.”

  Hank returned the stare and tried to ignore the slow tightening in his gut.

  “Apparently he’s tracked her here.”

  “Here?” Brady glanced out the window then back at Hank. “At the ranch?”

  “Val Rosa,” Foley amended. “He’s been at the hotel for the last week.”

  The clench in Hank’s gut moved into his chest. Motion caught his eye, and he looked up to see Charlie standing at the railing that overlooked the great room. He was clutching the railing with both hands, his face pale. Concerned that the boy would overhear things he shouldn’t, Hank made a shooing motion with his hand.

  Charlie continued to stand there.

  Rising, Hank excused himself and left the room. As he started up the stairs, Molly came out of the kitchen. He pulled her close and spoke in a low voice. “Charlie’s upstairs at the railing listening to things he shouldn’t. Would you take him to the nursery and keep him there?”

  She glanced past him at the men gathered before the fireplace. “What’s happening? Who are those men?”

  “I’ll explain it all to you later, Molly. I promise. But for now I need you to take Charlie out of here. Will you do that?”

  She studied him for a moment, a worried crease between her brows. Then with a nod, she turned and climbed the stairs. By the time Hank returned to the couch, she was steering Charlie toward the third-floor staircase above the kitchen.

  The men sat in silence until the footfalls overhead faded, then Foley turned to Hank and resumed speaking. “I was asking your brother why Fletcher would be seeking your wife, but he didn’t know. Do you?”

  Hank hesitated, not sure how much he wanted to reveal to this stranger.

  Foley seemed to expect a quick response. When Hank didn’t offer one, a look of impatience crossed his face. “She has no legal claim to his stepchildren, yet she took them from his care. Do you think that’s why?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The children stay here.”

  Foley’s impatience flared into irritation, but before he could vent it, Jones cut in. “We haven’t come about the children, Mr. Wilkins. We think your wife has something of Fletcher’s, maybe something she’s not even aware that she has, and he wants it back badly enough to send trackers after her.”

  Hank thought of Scarface, and the bitter taste of rage rose in his throat. He glanced at Brady, wondering how much he should reveal.

  Brady read his unspoken question and gave a half-shrug.

  “There’s a man,” Hank said hesitantly, hoping he was doing the right thing. “A man with a burn scar on his face.”

  “Hennessey.” Foley sat forward in his chair, his predator eyes taking on a feral gleam. “Gordon Hennessey. He’s been known to work for Rustin. If he’s after your wife, she’s in grave danger.”

  Not sure if he’d grabbed the snake by the head rather than the tail, Hank reluctantly told Foley what he knew. “He staged a cave-in at our mine to lure us—and Molly—from the ranch. He cornered her in the livery and demanded she return a book she supposedly took from Fletcher. When she said she didn’t have anything of Fletcher’s, he dislocated her thumbs and told her she had a month to find it or he would start killing off everyone around her.”

  “Christ,” Jones muttered.

  Foley’s gaze never wavered. “Has she found it?”

  “No.”

  “And she has no idea what’s in it?”

  “No,” a voice answered from the direction of the entry.

  Hank looked back to see Molly walking toward them with Charlie by her side, a battered wooden box in his hands.

  “But Charlie does.”

  IT WAS ONE OF THOSE FLEETING INSTANTS IN TIME THAT SOlidified into a startling instant of clarity, like that moment when Hank realized all those lingering doubts about his marriage and his memory had substance, and he suddenly knew what had eluded him all along. This moment was the same.

  Charlie was the key. And the answer lay in the box he gripped so tightly.

  Everything pointed to it—his fears, the night terrors, the furtive way the boy had tried to hide the box when Hank had gone into his room. All this time Molly had been frantically searching for whatever it was Fletcher thought she had—and it had been right there in Charlie’s wooden box the whole time.

  Relief thundered in his ears. She was safe. They were all safe. They could end this.

  He glanced at Molly, saw the same giddy release in her eyes, and realized how frightened they both had been, and how thoroughly they had kept it from each other.

  “I’m s-sorry, Papa-Hank,” Charlie said, cutting through Hank’s thoughts. “I d-didn’t know what to do. I was s-so scared and—”

  “It’s all right, son.” Sliding to the edge of the seat, Hank beckoned Molly and Charlie closer. As Molly sank onto the couch beside him, Hank pulled the boy around and sat him on the footstool with his back to the strangers listening in.

  Charlie held himself stiffly, his eyes round and wet, the box in his lap.

  “No one’s mad at you, Charlie. Everything will be fine. I promise. Take a deep breath.” The room remained silent while the boy struggled to regain control. When he had stopped crying, Hank gave him an encouraging smile. “Now tell me what you know.”

  It was an ugly story, made uglier because it was told in a child’s voice and seen through a child’s eyes.

  “I wasn’t supposed to go into the office,” Charlie began in a faltering voice. “Usually my stepfather kept it locked, but that day it wasn’t. My real father used to keep hard candy in a jar on the bookcase, and I just wanted to see if it was still there.” He lifted a hand from the box and dragged his sleeve over his runny nose.

  “What did you see, Charlie?”

  “Pictures. But not like those.” He nodded toward a small cameo painting of Jessica’s sister on the side table. “Drawings mostly.”

  “Of what?”

  “Airships, I think. And hot air balloons. And something that looked like a rocket. There was a whole book of them with lots of writing on the edges.”

  Across the room, Foley and Jones exchanged glances. Brady stood unmoving. Rikker made a snorting sound then settled back into his droning snore.

  “Then what happened, Charlie?”

  That panicky look came back into the boy’s eyes. “I heard him coming and I got scared and ran out the side door into the garden. I didn’
t mean to take it, Papa-Hank. I didn’t even know it was still in my hand. When I saw I still had it, I didn’t know what to do. My stepfather is really scary when he’s mad, and I was afraid to go back.” The boy’s voice ended in a wobble. Swallowing hard, he stared at his shoes.

  Hank waited for his stepson to regain control.

  Beside him, Molly’s breathing sounded fast and shallow, which told Hank she was fighting tears too. The other men in the room sat without moving, as if fearing any motion or sound would frighten the boy into silence. Even Brady curbed his natural restlessness and remained planted before the hearth, a scowl drawing his dark brows into a ridge over his nose.

  Once the boy had calmed, Hank said, “Do you still have the book?”

  Charlie nodded and lifted the wooden box toward Hank. “In here.”

  As Hank took the box from him, Charlie’s courage deserted him. “I wasn’t going to keep it, Papa-Hank. I promise. I was going to take it back but—”

  Fearing the boy would start crying again, Hank set the box on the footstool and pulled Charlie forward, tucking the small head between his neck and shoulder. “It’s all right, son,” he said, patting the small back. “You did nothing wrong. No one’s mad at you.” When the trembling stopped, Hank made a space for him on the couch between him and Molly. Once Charlie was settled, he nodded to the box resting on the footstool. “Can I look inside, Charlie?”

  Charlie nodded and tucked himself tighter against Hank’s back.

  Hank lifted the lid.

  Inside were a boy’s treasures—arrowheads, a bullet casing, two buttons from a Confederate uniform, a glossy eagle feather, a ball of string, a tattered tintype of a woman who looked a lot like Molly. And at the bottom, a leather-bound journal the size of a primer. Hank lifted it out. After moving the box to the floor, he placed the book on the footstool and opened it.

  Brady came away from the hearth. Foley and Jones shifted to the edges of their chairs, tilting their heads to look at the pages as Hank slowly flipped through them. Rikker continued to snore.