LoversFeud

by Ann Jacobs

  “Yeah. I wanted a father. Do you know my mother kept telling me until she knew the old man’s wife was dying that my father had died before I was born and left her enough money so she didn’t have to work. By the time I was grown, I’d pretty well figured out that she was being kept by a rich, married guy. I just didn’t have a clue the bastard who was keeping her was my father.”

  “Didn’t you know Byron Caden, if he came to visit your mother all the time?”

  Jack shook his head. “Mother sent me to boarding school when I was seven years old, so I wasn’t around to meet him. I don’t remember him coming around before that.”

  That must have made Jack feel terrible, but Karen knew the revelation after Mae Caden’s funeral had affected Bye and Deidre as much if not more. She looked up on the wall at Jack’s Harvard Law degree in its elaborate frame, figuring Four had paid for the Ivy League schooling that didn’t come cheap. “At least he supported you. That ought to count for something.”

  “Not for enough. He dumped my mother after she finally got tired of us living a lie and told everyone the truth. The son of a bitch didn’t even have the balls to face her in person. Yesterday she got an overnight FedEx letter from the old man. It contained the deed to the house that he’d bought for her, the title to the car he’d given her for her last birthday—and trust fund paperwork. The irrevocable trust should provide her a decent monthly income, but she can’t touch the principal, which will pass to me on her death.” Jack scowled. “Establishing that trust didn’t put a dent in the assets Byron Caden owns—not even counting the Bar C, which he assured Mother in a letter will go in its entirety to his legitimate son.”

  Sympathetic to Jack’s feelings, Karen shook her head. “That may not seem fair, but face it. Four could have dumped your mother and left you both with nothing.”

  “I know. I won’t be satisfied, though, until I get one up on him. I intend to take a piece of the property my mother says he wants so badly.”

  “What property?” Surely Jack didn’t mean his father wanted the Rocking O.

  He hesitated then handed her a legal pad. “A place called the Laughing Wolfe Ranch. Do you know who owns it?”

  “Mavis Wolfe and her daughter Liz. Mrs. Wolfe has been widowed ever since I can remember. Liz and I went to school together. She was in Bye’s class—two years ahead of me. The Laughing Wolfe is pretty near as big as the Bar C. They raise wheat and cattle, but I’m pretty sure there’s oil on the property as well. There is on most of the ranches around here.”

  “How old is Mrs. Wolfe?” Jack asked, his curiosity apparently engaged.

  “Pretty near old enough to be your mother, I imagine. She’s very religious and very straitlaced.” Surely Jack wasn’t thinking of going after her. “I doubt either she or Liz would take to your BDSM lifestyle. Liz is a quiet, timid sort of girl, or at least she used to be when we were kids.”

  Jack steepled his fingers in front of him. “We’ll see. I bet you my dear daddy will be sniffing after the old girl. Maybe I’ll give him a run for his money by going after her daughter. Sometimes the quiet ones surprise you.”

  “Good luck.” Karen hated to hear Jack so bitter, but she guessed he was entitled. She couldn’t believe he’d actually go after a woman simply to spite Four—it had to be his hurt coming to the surface. “Why don’t you go find Bye and have a couple beers together? Believe it or not, I think he’s wrestling with some of the same feelings you seem to have toward your father. You know, you’re both good men. You’ve each gained brothers, not just friends.”

  When the phone rang, Karen answered it. With her ten o’clock appointment canceled, she picked up the papers Jack had given her and put them in her briefcase. “My only client for today just begged off, so I’m going to leave you to your scheming. I truly don’t think Liz Wolfe would go for the type of play you enjoy, but feel free to discover that for yourself. By the way, I really think you ought to make peace with Bye. You have no beef with him. He even kept you from ending up in the hospital when Deidre’s two bodyguards decided to tear you apart.”

  “Yeah. I guess I should be grateful for that, but I don’t believe his coming to my defense meant he wants us to be pals. He probably just didn’t want to watch old Roy have a stroke trying to break up the fight.” Jack shrugged. “Maybe someday we can be friends again, but I’m not counting on it.”

  * * * * *

  “Karen’s client canceled her appointment, so she’s on the way here now. If you don’t need me here this afternoon, I think I’ll take her over to the old homestead. There may be something there—an old diary or something—that may give us a better picture about this feud.”

  “Go ahead, son. There’s nothing we can do right now to help your sister. Doc Baines says she’ll sleep the day away from the shot he gave her. Your mother, God rest her soul, sheltered Deidre way too much. She ought to have taught our girl not to be so damn trusting—but then I guess I tried to wrap them both in my protection, so I’m just as much to blame as Mae.”

  Bye had never heard Four admit to blame for anything before, so he hardly knew what to say. “Don’t blame yourself, Dad. Deidre knew better than to run off with one of the hired hands. She never gave us the idea she needed to be watched 24/7.”

  “Well, we’re watching her now.” Four got up from his desk, walked over to the wall safe and fiddled with the combination. “I may have something in here that will help you and Karen. A few years ago, the last assistant foreman to live in that house brought over what looks like a very old diary or notebook. He said his wife had found it under a loose floorboard in the loft bedroom where their kids used to sleep.” Four reached around in the safe, behind Mom’s jewelry, and came out with a padded diary or journal that had a tiny lock. “It definitely looks old enough to have belonged to one of the original Cadens. A wife or daughter, probably.”

  Bye took the fragile-looking book from his dad. “Yeah. I can’t imagine a man keeping a diary, especially in a journal with faded yellow roses on the cover. You don’t have any really old documents in that safe that might have some useful information on them, do you?”

  “No. While Mae was sick, I went through all the legal papers that have been handed down over the years and catalogued them consecutively. There’s nothing in them except land descriptions, deeds, easements granted, leases and so on. Where you might find some information, at least about events that may have caught the attention of the law around here, is in the county courthouse. I can fill you in on incidents that have happened in my lifetime, but I can’t be much help when it comes to things that happened before that. I hope you and Karen manage to put the thing together. It makes sense that the mysteries about how this feud started and kept on getting fueled need to be unraveled so we all can put it in the past and get on with our lives. Slade’s psychologist probably hit on something important when she talked with Karen yesterday.”

  “I hope so. As bad as I want Karen, I don’t want to be with her and have her father coming after me or her with a gun. Or you, for that matter.” Theoretically, Slade wouldn’t be released from the rehabilitation facility unless he was not only dried out but cleared psychologically—but Bye wasn’t at all sure the man wouldn’t find a way to escape. “I hope you don’t mind if I break the lock on this diary.”

  Four handed over a heavy stainless-steel letter opener. “Go ahead. This ought to work. The hasp on the lock is rusty—it shouldn’t take much pressure to pop it open.”

  The hasp split apart with very gentle pressure. Bye carefully opened the tattered, padded cover and looked at the first page. “This belonged to somebody named Bertha Caden.”

  “I think she may have been the first Byron’s wife. Why don’t you wait for Karen and you two can read it together? I need to go upstairs and talk with Doc Baines about Deidre. She may need a shrink or something. I’m worried about her.”

  “Yeah, me too. I think I’ll go outside in Mom’s flower garden and wait for Karen. When she gets here we’ll go on
over to the old homestead and look around.” Or the line shack. Somehow that seemed an appropriate place for them to tie the past to the present, and hopefully to their future.

  * * * * *

  “Oh, Bye. Bertha’s diary starts out in December 1882. Did you realize she was married to Luke first? She apparently started this diary the day after they got married.” Karen turned a brittle page very carefully and strained to read the fine, spidery script. “Here’s what she says about him, the day he died.”

  He bent over her shoulder and strained to make out words written in faded brown ink.

  March 10, 1883

  Luke is dead, may the devil take him. If he hadn’t been so greedy and wanted my papa’s ranch, he would have married poor Tessa Oakley, even if all the Oakleys own is the Rocking O her daddy won in a card game. Maybe she and their baby wouldn’t have died if Luke had done the right thing, and he might still be alive. If Luke hadn’t thought so highly of his skill with his pearl-handled Colt revolver, he might not have drawn on Tessa’s father and ended up shot dead. That’s what my husband deserved for going up against a professional gunfighter.

  March 13, 1883

  Big doings in town today. The marshal had Cassius Oakley strung up ready for a hanging, but he slipped the noose and got away. They say he’s headed for the Badlands. Everyone wonders if Slade Oakley will be able to handle the Rocking O all by himself and with no money to speak of. The place is only five thousand acres or so, but the boy can’t be much more than fifteen years old.

  “Jesus.” Bye didn’t think he’d have liked Luke Caden any more than his widow apparently had. He’d never heard before that Luke had provoked the gunfight that had resulted in his death. “This doesn’t make me very proud of my ancestor. It’s amazing that such a youngster managed somehow to hold on to what his father left him.”

  Karen wiped at her eyes. “This sort of helps me understand why the Rocking O has never amounted to much.”

  “Yeah. It’s a wonder the boy was able to hold on to it and keep the place intact so he could leave it to your father. Turn the page. I want to find out what else Bertha had to say.”

  “All right.” Gingerly, she lifted the brittle, yellowed paper. “There’s about a month’s gap before the next entry.”

  April 10, 1883

  It may be wicked, but it wasn’t as though Luke and I were really married. Yes, we slept together as husband and wife, but there was no love between us. He could barely stand to touch me. Byron has asked me to marry him, and I’ve said I will as soon as common decency allows. He tells me he has feelings for me. I want to believe he’s not doing this to please his papa and make sure my land stays a part of the Bar C.

  There was more writing on that page, but it was too faded for them to read. Another time lapse came between pages, almost as though Bertha hadn’t had anything worth recording. Maybe, Bye thought, she’d been too busy. Ranching back then had to have been backbreaking work.

  “Bye, this must have been about Bertha’s wedding to Byron. She wrote it exactly one year after Luke was killed.”

  March 10, 1884

  It was a beautiful day. Byron and I said our vows at the little Methodist church in Caden. It’s becoming a nice little town with a post office, general store and tavern where the cowhands go on Saturday nights. My papa gave me away. I wore Mama’s wedding dress again, but this time it felt right. I must hurry now. My bridegroom will be coming, and I am anxious to lie with him. He is a fine man, steady and steadfast, nothing like his older brother. God willing, I will give him strong sons and pretty daughters.

  “The next few pages are so damaged we won’t be able to make out what she said,” Karen said, disappointment evident in her expression. “Here. I can only make out a few words, but I think she’s talking about losing a baby.”

  Bye strained his eyes, caught the year 1890, and something about Bertha having failed her husband. “It looks like you may be right. Look, I think this word may be ‘twins’?”

  “I think you’re right,” Karen said. “You know what, I bet we can find babies’ graves in the old cemetery. The poor woman may have mentioned other lost children on those pages that we couldn’t read. I wonder if she might have ruined the writing with her tears.”

  “Could be.” Because he felt Karen needed a hug, he gave her one. “We can go over and look at all the grave markers, after we finish learning whatever we can from this diary. Let’s see what else we can find out.” He turned past several illegible pages to one that seemed practically new compared with the others.

  July 4, 1895

  Praise the Lord. Yesterday I bore Byron a son. He is Byron, also, because this time I am certain our baby will live.

  August 31, 1895

  Byron Junior was baptized today. I was able to stand with my husband, though I still am weary from my confinement.

  December 25, 1895

  We celebrated Christ’s birth with a family dinner. Byron took our son up on his favorite horse and rode him around the paddock before we took him inside and gave him the wooden rocking horse we ordered all the way from Fort Worth.

  “Look, Karen, the next entry was written by somebody else.” Bye strained to read the strong, masculine scrawl that seemed to have been watered down, maybe with tears.

  July 10, 1896

  Bertha Caden, beloved wife and mother, is dead. I buried her today with our stillborn daughter.

  “Oh, no.”

  Bye felt Karen’s distress. “He must have loved her a lot, just as I love you.”

  There were no more entries until June 1920, when Byron II must have married Alyssa. Her handwriting was easier to read, probably, Bye thought, because the quality of ink had apparently improved over the years.

  June 15, 1920

  My name is Alyssa Caden, and Byron insists that I continue this diary his mother started years ago. Today was my wedding day, which was spoiled only by the rude intrusion of a dirty, boorish man named Slade Oakley. He wanted to use our telephone to call a doctor for his wife. Of course Byron allowed it, though I don’t know why because Mr. Oakley cursed him the entire time he was in the house. I shall forbid my husband from letting such odious men in my house in the future.

  December 10, 1922

  Mr. Oakley came here again, wanting to use our telephone again. Since Byron was away, I had to deal with him. I fail to understand why the man has still not had his own telephone service installed, so I refused him. When he began cursing and making wild accusations, I had two of our cowhands escort him off the Bar C. I will send my husband to inform the man he is never to come and trouble us again.

  “I don’t think I’d have cared much for my great-grandmother. She sounds like a very unpleasant woman.” Bye flipped through several pages of entries, until he saw one that might be pertinent.

  “Here’s the entry where Byron Three was born, in 1925. Alyssa only made a couple more entries before the diary ends. The more I read, the more I’m sure I wouldn’t have liked the woman.”

  Karen laughed. “She does sound pretty obnoxious. Why do you think she left a lot of pages at the end blank?”

  “I don’t know.” How about we go over to the old cemetery and check out when everybody was born and died? Four told me they used it until Byron Three built a new ranch house and family cemetery, not far from where we live now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to build it so he wouldn’t have to live around his mother.”

  Karen shook her head then fished a manila folder out of her laptop case. “First we need to look through these old court documents. They may help fill in some of the gaps in this diary. Jack copied them when he was looking for damning information about your family. When I told him I’d like to borrow them, he handed them over. He said there was nothing in them that he could use.”

  “Use for what?” Bye didn’t like the idea of his half brother snooping through the family history.

  “Leverage, I imagine.”

  Leverage my ass. “Blackmail, you mean.”
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br />   “That’s an awfully harsh indictment. According to Jack, your father cut himself off from Jack’s mother a day or so after your mother’s funeral. From what Jack told me, Four dumped her via a FedEx overnight package, not in person, which must have hurt them both. He apparently gave Ms. Duval the deed to the house he’d bought for her, title to a car and the monthly income from a trust fund he established in Jack’s name. The body of the trust is set up to pass to Jack on his mother’s death.” Karen paused as though she was considering whether she should say more. “Jack told me he started looking through old court records after finding out Four had cut ties with his mother—and by extension, with him. Don’t you think Jack had good reason to want to get back at your dad?”

  “Probably. I have to admit, sending bad news by courier is pretty cold, but it sounds like something Four would do. I know for a fact he was livid when Marianne Duval spilled her secret. Caden men aren’t known for their kindness, or for tact, especially when they feel they’ve been fucked over. Let’s go through these documents that Jack didn’t think would suit his purposes.”

  While Bye agreed there was nothing blackmail-worthy in the old records, he and Karen were able to fill in a good many holes in the timeline they’d worked up from the old diary. “Tell Jack I appreciate that he shared his research. Let’s go on over to the old cemetery now. As far as I know, every Caden up until my grandfather was buried there. I wouldn’t be surprised if Byron Three built the new family cemetery because he didn’t want to spend time with his mother, even in death.”

  Between the diary, cemetery markers and the old legal documents from the courthouse, they managed to develop a pretty good chronology of the events that fired the Caden-Oakley feud. There had been incidents during each generation—sometimes more than one—that had kept the feud alive.