Everyone on Bruins’ Peak shook their heads and clucked their tongues. They buried Beauty in state. Whispered rumors predicted Rex wouldn’t stay alive long himself, but he did. He quit the ranch and instead worked overtime, night and day. He drank himself into a stupor and gambled away his money so fast he put the ranch in danger.
That’s when his teenage son Azer stepped in—Azer and Lyric. Lyric could sit a horse and rope a steer as well as any man. Everyone on Bruins’ Peak knew it. She and Azer made up their minds they wouldn’t let their father rob them of their rightful inheritance. When Rex ran off to the bars and the casinos, Azer and Lyric ran the ranch without him. They kept the profits rolling in until they could bring Riskin Dodd on to work full time.
To look at him now, no one would guess Rex was ever anything but a waste of skin. He barely covered the couch with his bony shoulders and his reeking clothes. Mattox went down on one knee next to the couch and shoved his arms under the emaciated body.
He lifted Rex up and cradled him in his arms. He carried him to the bedroom under the stairs. Mattox never wouldn’t venture into the bedroom Rex shared with Beauty all those years ago unless this was a matter of life and death.
Mattox kept his eyes down so he wouldn’t see any detail of the room. He stumbled to the bed and laid Rex on it before he stood back in relief. Now he could leave. He started to turn away when a sudden indrawing of air called his attention back to the bed.
Rex gave a jolt. The next minute, terrible shudders passed up and down his frail body. He spasmed and convulsed out of control. Mattox dashed back to the bed. He got there just in time to stop Rex from rolling sideways onto the floor.
He caught Rex’s shoulder and held him back. Rex’s middle folded in half and twitched across the bed. Mattox wrestled him away from the edge of the bed. He did his best to arrange Rex back on the pillow, but the convulsions wouldn’t stop. At last, Rex heaved over with a stomach-turning wretch.
Mattox swept the room with wild eyes. His gaze came to rest on an old-fashioned jug and washbasin decorating a nearby dresser. He grabbed the basin and got it under Rex’s head just as the technicolor spew erupted from the old man’s mouth.
Mattox clamped his eyes shut and turned his head away, but he couldn’t escape that foul smell. He held Rex’s shoulder with one hand and kept the basin in position with the other until the crisis passed. He set the basin aside and took a deep breath.
He eased Rex back on the pillow. This beat all. A slather of avocado-green slime stained the man’s face. Every fiber told Mattox to scream and run, to get the ever-lovin’ crap out of that room. He couldn’t leave this man alone, though. Lyric and Melody never came into this room. They had no reason to believe their father was in the house. If Mattox walked out that door right now, Rex could lie here for days, weeks, even months before anybody found out he was here.
Everything depended on Mattox. Lyric’s sad eyes came back to him one more time. He couldn’t let her see her father like this. She knew better than anybody how far Rex descended into the subhuman realms of destruction and squalor. Mattox would do just about anything to spare her from coming face to face with this brutal reality.
He rinsed the puke down the toilet in the bathroom. He brought the basin back half-full of clear cold water. He wet a towel in it and set to work washing up Rex’s face and hair. He spent half an hour rubbing the grime off Rex’s jaws. What would Riskin say if he knew Mattox spent the work day in the house, cleaning up Rex and making him presentable? He spent the next half hour tugging at those filthy clothes and trying to change Rex into a pair of pajamas.
At last, he succeeded in getting the man cleaned up, changed, and tucked under the quilt. He would take Rex’s old clothes outside and burn them behind the pig pen before he told Lyric her father was in his room. He patted the folded-over sheet into place and got ready to make his escape when Rex shot bolt upright in bed. His scrawny fingers clamped down on Mattox’s wrist in a death grip.
Mattox fought that grip with all his strength, but he couldn’t break free. He did his best to push Rex back down on the pillow. “It’s all right. You’re safe at home now. Lie still and try to get some sleep.”
Rex foamed at the mouth, and his eyes rolled in their sockets. He fixed his bleary gaze on Mattox. He croaked out the broken words. “You’re the one. You’re the next Alpha. It’s your destiny.”
Mattox got his other hand around Rex’s fingers to pry those iron straps off his wrist, but to no avail. “Take it easy, Rex. You’re exhausted, and you’ve got the DTs. Go to sleep. I’ll get one of the girls to bring you something to eat later.”
Not only did Rex not lie down or let go, his eyes blazed with a spooky light. He locked his eyes on Mattox’s face. Could Rex possibly recognize him. No one could misunderstand those words. He formed every sound with distinct, precise clarity. “You’re the one. You’re the next Alpha. You’ll take over the ranch and lead Mackenzie tribe after me. You’re the only one who can do it.”
A shiver ran down Mattox’s spine. Rex couldn’t mean him. Mattox could never be Mackenzie Alpha. Rex must think he was talking to his own son, Azer. “It’s all right, Rex. I’m not a Mackenzie. I’m Mattox Farrell. I’m just helping out here on the ranch. I’ll get your son, Azer, for you. He’s the one who’ll be Alpha after you, and he’s been running the ranch since you…since you left.”
Rex’s other hand rocketed out faster than Mattox could see. He grabbed Mattox around the back of the neck and pulled him in hard. He brought Mattox’s face within inches of his eyes blazing with eerie fire. His gaze drilled into Mattox’s soul and left no doubt Rex knew exactly what he was saying and to whom. “Listen to me, Mattox Farrell. Do you think my son Azer could challenge me the way you just did in the barn? Do you think he could challenge me and win?”
Mattox fought that commanding hand. “Cool it, Rex….”
“Azer has never dared challenge me—not him or that pussy-foot boyfriend of his, Riskin Dodd. Neither of them has the strength or the backbone to challenge me—me, a drunken wraith! They can only sneak around behind my back and hope I don’t find out what they’re up to. You’re the only one who has ever dared challenge me, and you won. You fought me down and subdued me. I’m Alpha of my tribe, and you know what that means.”
Mattox stared into those milky eyes. A bolt of lightning struck Mattox between the eyes. His blood ran cold when he remembered what he’d done in the barn. Rex attacked him as a bear. Mattox shifted to defend himself. He knocked Rex over and suffocated him into submission.
He’d challenged an Alpha and won. That made him….He couldn’t form the words. He couldn’t even think them.
Rex spoke the words for him, “You’re Alpha, Mattox. You’re Alpha of Mackenzie tribe. You’ll take over the ranch and run this tribe. It’s your destiny. The ranch will fall into your hands, and Azer and Riskin will serve you. That’s the way it’s got to be.”
The last words trailed off in a soft out-rushing breath, and Rex collapsed back on the pillow. His withered hands slackened. Mattox slipped free, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from that wrinkled face. The grey hair slicked back from the lined forehead where Mattox combed it straight.
This was Mackenzie Alpha, the old Alpha. This Alpha just laid his mantle on his chosen successor. No one could contradict him. Every Bruin knew that. Mattox met Rex, bear to bear, in the barn. He stood his ground and won. He beat this Alpha in a fair fight. That made him Alpha in Rex’s place.
Mattox shivered, but even now, a change came over him. Deep calm infused his soul, and dozens of questions that used to keep him awake at night no longer bothered him.
He could trounce Azer and Riskin with one hand tied behind his back. He’d known that six months ago, when he first set foot on Mackenzie Homestead. He could squash them like bugs whenever he chose.
That’s why he had to keep control of himself at all times. He couldn’t accept any challenge from them when he could d
estroy them with one flick of his little finger. He forced himself to be excruciatingly polite and conciliatory to them so he would never threaten their hold on this tribe.
He never wanted to challenge Rex. He never considered for two seconds getting mixed up in this tribe and its ranching operation. Now, he’d gone and done it without meaning to. He fought their Alpha and beat him, and he couldn’t back out.
A sneaking suspicion crept into his heart. He had to admit the truth to himself, even if he never spoke the words out loud to another living soul. He didn’t want to back out. He won. He deserved this. He claimed the right to take over this ranch. He didn’t have to stand around taking Azer and Riskin’s static anymore.
He moved Rex’s head on the pillow and smoothed the quilt over his chest one more time. He ran his hand over Rex’s gnarled knuckles and patted his hand in farewell when the door flew open and Melody burst into the room.
Her mouth fell open when she saw Mattox. “What are you doing in here? I heard voices and…” Her eye fell on her father lying in bed, and she screamed out loud. She launched herself across the room and went down on her knees by her father’s bedside. “Papa! Papa!”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She knocked Mattox out of the way in a mad rush for the door. “Lyric! Lyric! Papa’s home! Come quick!”
Lyric flew into the room. Both girls tore around the room in a flurry of activity. Mattox backed into a corner. They charged here and hurried there in their haste to do everything at once. There wasn’t much to do, as Mattox did most of it already. Neither of them noticed when he balled up the soiled clothes and dirty towels and disappeared.
Chapter 7
Lyric sank into a chair and stared down at her limp hands in her lap. She let out a shaky breath. Melody laid a hand on her arm. “You can rest for the night. He’s safe now.”
Lyric’s head shot up. “I just don’t get it. How long has he been sleeping in the barn? From what Riskin said, he could have been there for weeks.”
Riskin spoke up from across the dinner table. “That explains why he never spent any money. He was too passed out and malnourished to move.”
Lyric glared at him. “That’s my father you’re talking about.”
Riskin stabbed his fork into another ear of corn and shrugged . “I’m just saying.”
“At least we don’t have to worry about him drowning in a ditch or something horrible like that,” Melody added.
Lyric shut her eyes and moaned. “Melody, please. Can’t we stop talking about it?”
“What else is there to talk about instead? We’ve been in that room all day. He’s gonna need constant care until he regains his strength. He might not regain his strength at all. He might fade away.”
Lyric wrung her hands and looked around the table at the circle of faces. “How can you talk like that? He can’t die. He can’t!”
Azer tossed a bare lamb chop bone onto his plate. “I hope he dies. I hope he dies real soon.”
Melody gasped. “Azer!”
“Well, I do,” Azer retorted, “but you know what? He won’t die. He can’t die. He’s made a pact with the devil to annoy me for the rest of my life. He can drink all he likes. He can starve himself until he looks like a scarecrow. He’ll never die. That would be doing me too much of a favor.”
Both girls gasped, and Lyric’s hand flew to her mouth, but Riskin let out a loud bray of laughter. “You said it, man.”
Lyric rounded on him with her teeth bared. “How dare you! How dare you talk about my father like that?”
Riskin shrugged. “He’s right, you know. Rex is a drag on all our lives. He’s a dead weight on the ranch. He’s nothing but negative energy around this place. We always wind up talking about him and planning our lives around him. We would all be better off if we didn’t have to think about him and worry about him anymore.”
“He’ll never die,” Azer repeated. “He’s gone out drinking and carousing for months before. He’s come back a lot worse off than he is now, and he always recovers. He’ll recover now, and he’ll live to spoil another several years of my life.”
“How can you talk about your own father like that?” Lyric asked. “How can you be so cruel?”
“He’s the one being cruel. He’s the one who’s done everything possible to destroy our lives. You know that as well as I do. I just can’t figure out why you’re worshiping him now.”
“I’m not worshiping him. He’s a dying old man. He needs our help, and you want to throw him out in the cold. You haven’t even gone in that room to see him since he got back.”
“I haven’t seen him, and I won’t go see him—not now, not ever.”
“He’s your father.”
“All the more reason I won’t go see him. He ought to be shot in the head as a service to all Bruin kind.”
Melody interrupted, “Don’t say that, Azer.”
“I’ll say it,” Azer’s voice rose to a yell. “I’ll shout it from the rooftops. I only wish someone had the balls to come in here and blow his brains out. I would hire someone to do it if I thought I could get away with it.”
Lyric surged out of her chair. “You rotten, ungrateful piece of monkeyshine! You don’t care about your own father.” Her hand shot out, and she aimed an accusing finger across the table. “Look over there, you worthless sack of dog vomit. Take a good long look right over there at Mattox Farrell. You think Mattox is a weakling and a simpleton, but even he has the balls to help a helpless old man when he needs it. He could have turned his back and left Papa passed out in the barn, but he didn’t. He brought him in here and took care of him and cleaned him up. Are you gonna sit there and tell me you care less about your own father than a total stranger does?”
Azer squared his shoulders. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Do you think I’m grateful to Mattox Farrell for saving my poor benighted father? I hate him as much as I hate Papa. They’re in the same sinking boat, as far as I’m concerned. What has Papa ever done for me, that I should care if he lives or dies? He’s done nothing but destroy my life ever since Mama died. I only wish he had the nerve to kill himself back then. He would have saved all of us a heap of trouble and money.”
“That’s all you care about, your precious money and your precious ranch.”
Azer jabbed his steak knife at her. “This ranch is all we’ve got between the three of us. It’s the only thing putting food on this table. You better remember that when you go defending him.”
“You’ll be sorry if Papa dies and you haven’t even visited him. How will you feel then?”
“I won’t visit him. If he dies and I never have to see his ugly mug again, I’ll be relieved.”
Lyric turned on Riskin. “How can you sit there stuffing your face with corn on the cob while I’m fighting for our family here? Why don’t you say something? Why don’t you do something to convince him to at least visit Papa on his deathbed?”
Riskin set down one cob and picked up another. “What do you want me to say? I agree with Azer. Your father is our enemy and he always has been. We’ve fought tooth and nail for years to save this ranch from him. You’ve fought with us, too. You’ve complained about him and wished him dead more times than I can count. I don’t understand why you’re sticking up for him now.”
Lyric rounded on him with her hackles raised. “You low-life scum. We’re supposed to be getting married in a few weeks, and you side with Azer against me?”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t get married.”
“You prick. You’ve never been a part of this family. You’re working to tear this family apart just like he is.”
Riskin put out a buttery hand to her. “Come on, darling. Don’t let this come between us.”
Lyric slapped his hand away. In an instant, she was on her feet. “You’re the one coming between us. You’re turning Azer against his own father. I’ll never forgive you for this as long as I live.” She kicked her chair over in her haste to get away from the table. She whirled away an
d stormed out of the house.
Mattox sat silent through the whole fight. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He kept his eyes fixed on his plate, but he heard so many layers of meaning behind everything everybody said. He heard far more than they said.
The front door slammed behind Lyric. Melody sniffed and went back to her father’s bedside. She didn’t say anything to her brother. She wouldn’t even look at him.
After Melody left, Azer wiped his mouth and crossed his knife and fork on his plate. He scooted his chair back and climbed to his feet with exquisite care. He leaned over and propped his fists on the table. He glared across the table at Mattox and growled under his breath. “This is all your fault. The next time you decide to save the world, do it somewhere else. Don’t go near my father or my sisters again if you know what’s good for you.”
He pushed himself up, and Mattox heard his footsteps thumping up the stairs. Azer’s bedroom door slammed, and silence fell over the house.
Riskin kept munching corn on the cob. With no one else left behind to compete with him, he took possession of the field, with all the food still steaming on the dinner table. He pitched his third empty cob onto the platter and helped himself to another. He snorted and winked at Mattox. “Way to go, Mother Theresa. You really stuck your foot in it this time.”
Mattox said nothing. He got up and left the house. Golden lights from the upstairs bedroom windows illuminated half the yard. Beyond that, stars scattered across the night sky. Mattox strolled through the dark and found his way to the barn by smell. That smell comforted him. Nothing could go wrong in a barn—at least, it seemed that way sometimes.
A lot could go wrong in this barn right now, though. He listened to all the arguments back and forth about Rex, but Mattox couldn’t get the old man’s words out of his head. How could he, Mattox Farrell, a stranger and an outcast from his own tribe, waltz in here and take over somebody else’s tribe? How could he become Alpha, when he bore no connection to this place or its people. It was impossible, plain and simple.
Bruins' Peak Bears Box Set (Volume I) Page 59