by Janet Dailey
The breath Angie had unconsciously been holding came out with an explosive little rush of astonishment. “You told me, but I never expected it would spread that quickly.” Coming from a small town herself, she probably should have.
“If there are any secrets around here, I can guarantee they won’t be secret for long.”
“I believe you,” Angie murmured, suddenly conscious of the number of looks being directed her way.
The waitress sailed back to their table with Luke’s drink and a full pot of coffee. She poured some in Angie’s mug; dropped off two sets of silverware wrapped in a napkin; and moved off to make the rounds of the other tables, refilling cups.
“What do you do back in Iowa?” Luke asked after she had gone.
“I teach.” Angie took a tasting sip of the coffee, then reached for the sugar canister on the table to sweeten it some more.
“Which grade?” Luke had an instant image of her surrounded by a group of kindergartners with their faces lifted in rapt attention while she read to them from a storybook, bringing the words to life with animated expressions.
“Actually grades would be more accurate,” Angie corrected. “I teach American history and government at the local high school.”
He frowned in surprise. “To teenagers?!”
Amused by his reaction, Angie smiled. “At times it’s a real challenge, but I enjoy it.” However, the last thing she wanted to talk about was herself. “Have you always lived around here?”
“All my life.”
“And, all of it on the Ten Bar Ranch?”
“All of it,” he confirmed.
“I guess the ranch has been in your family for a while, then.”
“A while.”
Frustrated by his failure to elaborate, Angie sighed and shook her head in mock disapproval. “You must have gotten low marks in class participation when you were in school. A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer doesn’t tell a teacher how much you know.”
He had the good humor to smile. “I don’t suppose it does. If you spend much time around Ima Jane, it becomes a kind of self-defense to keep too many answers from being pried out of you.”
“You clearly value your privacy.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” he countered, again avoiding a direct response.
“To a degree, yes.” But with Luke McCallister, Angie had the feeling it bordered on an obsession. She couldn’t help wondering why.
For a tick of seconds, neither spoke. Then Luke filled the void. “Anybody around here can tell you that a McCallister has owned the Ten Bar since it came into existence back in the eighteen-eighties. At one time it was one of the largest spreads in the state. But over the years, sections of it have been sold off to cover financial losses or taxes. Now, there’s roughly three hundred fifty thousand acres within its boundary fences.”
“That’s still a lot of land by Iowa standards. Back home, a farm is considered big if it has more than four hundred acres.”
“Different area, different agriculture. In rough country like this, it takes about two hundred fifty acres just to support one cow and her calf.”
“You raise cattle, then.”
He nodded. “Most years we carry about five hundred head through the winter.”
Over in a booth along the wall, Fargo Young shoved the platter back from the edge of the tabletop. All that remained of the large slab of ribs were the bones, slicked clean of meat and sauce. Pushing his full stomach out, he gave it a satisfied pat and sighed his contentment.
“That Griff knows how to fix ribs,” he declared and dug in his shirt pocket for a toothpick. “I think I got me enough room left for a big wedge of apple pie. How about you? Are you gonna have anything for dessert?” He looked across the table at Tobe.
Dulcie sat quietly beside him, nibbling indifferently at her hamburger and swinging her legs back and forth, imitating the rhythm of a cantering horse.
Tobe shook his head. “I’ll just have another beer.” He drained the brown glass bottle in front of him, then shot another look at Luke’s table. “What do you suppose Luke is talking to that girl about?”
Idly picking at the scraps of meat caught between his yellowing teeth, Fargo briefly studied the pair. “Looks to me like Luke’s doing more listenin’ than talkin’.” But the sight of them prompted another thought. “What was the name of that girl’s grandpa again?”
“Wilson,” Tobe replied. “I think Liz said his first name was Henry.”
“Wilson, Wilson, Wilson,” Fargo repeated, with a troubled scowl. “That name rings a bell somewhere, but I’ll be danged if I can think why.”
“I know,” Dulcie inserted.
“I know something, too,” Tobe flashed in irritation. “I know you’d better quit dawdling around and get that hamburger eaten. I never saw anybody as slow as you are.”
Guiltily she ducked her head and took another bite, chewing at it desultorily. Fargo took pity on her. “You just hush up there, Tobe, and let her talk.”
“She doesn’t know anybody named Wilson,” Tobe scoffed.
“Don’t pay any attention to your brother, Dulcie,” Fargo told her. “You just say whatever it is you were gonna say.”
She glanced out of the side of her eyes at Tobe, then made a project of swallowing the food in her mouth. Her response, when it came, was small and uncertain.
“I was just going to say that was the outlaw’s name, too.”
“What outlaw?” Tobe’s challenge was full of pure scorn.
Fargo yanked the toothpick from his mouth, his entire face brightening. “Wilson. Ike Wilson. That was the name of one of those train robbers. You don’t suppose—” But he didn’t finish the thought, breaking off the sentence as he scooted from the booth. “I gotta find out. If Liz comes back, order me some pie,” he said, then gave Dulcie a pat on the head. “Good thinkin’, girl.”
When the steaks were delivered, Angie wasted no time slicing into hers. Luke went through the motions of taking a last sip of his drink while he studied her bent head with its mass of gleaming auburn curls, conscious of the contradictions she presented. The casual disarray of her hairstyle suggested a personality that was carefree and breezy, someone quick to embrace life. The readiness and ease of her smile echoed that.
All of which was, no doubt, true about her. But beneath it all she was also intelligent, with a keen, analytical mind. He’d only had glimpses of it, but enough to know that all her innocent-sounding questions were leading somewhere. There was more she wanted from him. And he had yet to decide if he wanted to give it.
“You’re right. The steak is delicious.” She sliced off another bite. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I started eating.”
“Traveling has a way of whetting the appetite.” He picked up his own knife.
“How true.” She popped the bite of steak in her mouth.
“I have to admit I’m a little surprised you came all this way to claim the body of someone you never knew, relative or not.” He watched her reaction, catching only the slightest hint of unease.
“My grandmother would have wanted me to.”
“I take it she’s no longer living?” he guessed.
“No. She passed away . . . almost eleven years ago.” Her thoughts turned inward, a shadow of grief passing over her expression, an emotion that Luke was quick to recognize. Then she was all bright-eyed warmth again, alive to the moment. “We were always very close. You could say she raised me. She moved in with us after my father died and my mom took over running the farm. So Grandma was the one waiting for me when I got off the school bus. She was the one who made sure I had my homework finished, listened to all my woes, and kissed away my hurts, real or imagined. Mom was always in the fields, or up to her elbows in grease, repairing some piece of equipment.”
His glance skimmed her in reassessment, but the conclusion didn’t change. “I never would have guessed you were raised on a farm,” he admitted. “You look more like a town girl.”
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��You won’t think so after I’ve been in the sun a few hours and the freckles start popping out,” Angie replied, with a definite twinkle. “Grandma called them sun kisses and said they were evidence of how much God loved me. When I was younger, I used to wish He didn’t love me so much. And with this hair”—her fingers flicked the ends of a darkly red curl—“I never tan no matter how long I’m in the sun. The freckles just run together, giving me the look of one.”
He smiled at her little joke while he turned over the information she had given. “What about your mother? Is she still living?”
She nodded. “And still farming. No matter what I say, I can’t seem to convince her that she’s getting too old to be bouncing around on a tractor from dawn ’til dusk. But she won’t consider selling the place—or leasing the fields to any of our neighbors.”
“It’s odd that she didn’t come with you. After all, it was her father’s remains that were found.”
“This is the wrong time of the year for a farmer to be taking long trips, so I came in her place.” She picked up a crispy french fry and trailed it through the ketchup she had squirted onto her plate. “That’s one of the main advantages of being a teacher—you have the summers off.”
Angie deliberately didn’t mention that her mother considered the entire trip more than just unnecessary and impractical. In her opinion, it was sheer foolishness. And she hadn’t minced words about it when she learned of Angie’s intentions.
Angie’s argument had been simple: if she didn’t go, she would always wish that she had. And she didn’t want to live the rest of her life with that regret.
Mentally shaking off the thought, Angie popped the ketchup-tipped french fry into her mouth and crunched it while directing a considering glance at her table companion. “I imagine this is a busy time of year for you, too.”
“Some days more than others,” he acknowledged.
After the smallest hesitation, she charged forward with her plan. “How does tomorrow afternoon stack up for you?” Angie didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I was hoping, since it’s Sunday, that I could stop out and you could—”
“Scuse me, miss.” A cowboy with a short and grizzled excuse for a beard and his left shirtsleeve pinned back to conceal the stub of his forearm dragged out an empty chair from their table, angled it to face Angie, and promptly lowered his aging bones into it. “I heard it was your granddad’s bones that were found.”
Pulling her glance from the shirtsleeve, Angie stared at his leathery face, all seamed with wrinkles, and managed to keep the startled stammer out of her answer. “That’s right.” She darted a quick look at Luke, not sure what to make of the interruption—or the one-armed cowboy.
But his attention was on the cowboy, amusement gleaming in his eyes. “Why don’t you pull up a chair and sit down, Fargo?”
The remark sailed right over the old cowboy’s head as he turned a puzzled glare on Luke. “Have you gone blind or somethin’, Luke? I’m already sittin’ down.”
“I know,” Luke responded dryly, then switched his attention back to Angie while using his knife to gesture at the cowboy. “This ill-mannered old coot is Fargo Young. I’m sad to say, he works for me. I sorta inherited him from my father along with the ranch.”
“And a lucky day it was for you,” the one-armed cowboy fired right back.
Luke just grinned and finished the introductions. “Angie Sommers from Iowa.”
After hurriedly brushing the french fry salt from her fingers, Angie extended a hand in greeting. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Young.”
He started to reach for her hand, then stopped. “Sommers. Your name’s Sommers?” A surprised frown deepened the furrows in his face. “I thought it was Wilson.”
“Wilson was my grandfather’s name,” she explained.
He nodded, understanding registering in his expression. “I hadn’t thought of that. For a minute there, I’d about decided Liz had got the name wrong.” Belatedly he took her hand and gave it a vigorous pump, then released it to squint one eye at her as he sharply probed, “Your granddad—he wouldn’t happen to be any kin to that train robber Ike Wilson, would he?”
The robbery had happened so many years ago that Angie hadn’t expected anyone would make the connection—at least not so soon. Suddenly tense and self-conscious, she opened her mouth to answer, but it was a full second before she could force it out.
“As a matter of fact, he was Ike Wilson’s grandson.” Even to her own ears, the delivery sounded much too casual and falsely offhand.
But Luke McCallister seemed to be the only one who noticed it as Fargo Young slapped his thigh. “I knew it! I knew it was gonna be somethin’ like that.” Turning and craning his withered neck, he raked his gaze over the crowd until he located the object of his search. Pursing lips and teeth, he emitted a short, shrill whistle, then yelled, “Hey, Joe! Joe Gibbs, c’mere a minute!”
Several heads turned at the shouted call, but it was a short, heavyset man at the bar whom Fargo motioned to with a summoning gesture. Like every other male in the place, Joe Gibbs wore a cowboy hat, boots, and jeans. At the throat of his western-cut white shirt, he wore a bolo tie ornamented with the silver head of a longhorn. Snug-fitting Levi’s swooped low, as if straining to hold up the underside of his rounded belly. As he straightened from the bar and ambled toward them, there was something about the way he carried himself that marked him as a rancher rather than an ordinary hand.
Drink in hand, he stopped at their table, his glance flicking to Angie with undisguised interest even as he addressed his words to the one-armed cowboy. “What do you need, Fargo?”
“I want to test your memory a minute, see if you recall that story folks used to tell about a kin to one of those outlaws coming here to look for the gold they buried.” Fargo studied him with sly, watchful eyes.
“I remember something of the sort. Why?” His glance remained on Angie.
“This young lady here is Angie Sommers. It was her granddaddy’s bones we found out at the Ten Bar,” Fargo announced.
“Yes, I heard.” Turning to Angie, the rancher nodded gravely. “You have my condolences, Miss Sommers.”
“That’s very kind. Thank you,” she murmured, conscious that more than one set of ears was listening to this conversation.
“It turns out, Joe”—Fargo leaned back in his chair, smugly pleased with himself—“he was the grandson of the outlaw Ike Wilson.”
“You don’t say.” The rancher showed his surprise, then grunted, “I guess no one has to wonder anymore whether he found it.”
“Wait a minute,” an old woman at the next table spoke up. “I remember my dad telling me about him. He let him stay in that old line cabin out in Booker’s Canyon, the one they built back when all of that land was Ten Bar range. That guy packed up and left. My dad said so.”
“He sure didn’t go very far,” someone else said, drawing a round of subdued laughter.
The woman took exception to the comment, turning huffy. “It’s true. I remember my dad telling me how this guy showed up at the ranch one day after being there five or six months. My dad said he’d never seen anybody look so downcast and dejected. He told my dad that he was giving up and going home.”
“That was always the story I heard.” Fargo nodded in emphatic agreement.
“I’ll tell you one thing for a fact,” the woman threw out in challenge. “My dad went out to the line cabin a couple weeks later. He said he never saw that old shack look so clean. There wasn’t a thing out of place—and nothing had been left behind.”
“I see what you’re getting at, Marge,” another customer inserted thoughtfully. “If he packed all his stuff, where is it now? They dug all around where the body was found and didn’t find a thing. Not even so much as a comb or a razor.”
Suddenly comments began coming from all directions as everyone joined in the discussion.
“Wasn’t he supposed to have a map that would take him right to the gold?” someone a
sked, then added quickly, “that was always the story I heard.”
“If he had a map, my dad never saw it,” Marge replied. “But he did say that the guy was real confident about finding the gold when he first arrived. Dad was always sure he knew something nobody else did.”
“You’re right, Marge,” the rancher Joe Gibbs agreed. “I remember now there was talk of how he would go around describing certain landmarks and asking people if they remembered anything like that around here.”
“Yeah, wasn’t there something about a tall rock that looked like a pillar?” someone else recalled.
“I always heard it was a rock shaped like an eagle’s head,” someone in the back offered.
Angie could feel the excitement spreading and growing, touching everyone. Except Luke McCallister. If anything, it aroused only amusement in him.
Chapter Five
Fargo scooted his chair closer to Angie, the wooden legs scraping across the planked floor. Resting his stubby forearm on the table, he leaned toward her, his gaze fastening on her with burrowing intensity.
“What do you know about all this talk of a map?” he challenged. “Did your granddad really have one?”
“If he did, it’s news to me.” Which was the truth—as far as it went. “Certainly no one in my family has ever said anything about a map.”
Her response failed to satisfy Fargo. “If your granddad didn’t have a map, how come he seemed so sure he knew where the stolen gold was hidden? And why’d he go around describin’ landmarks to folks and askin’ if they’d seen anything like that around here?”
“I really couldn’t say,” Angie hedged the truth, nervously aware of her audience. Her hand was halfway to the purse lying on her lap before she managed to check the movement and reach instead for her knife. Desperate to divert more questions, she asked, “Are there any landmarks like the pillar of rock someone mentioned?”
Old and half crippled with arthritis Fargo might be, but there was nothing wrong with his vision or his hearing. His eyes had observed that abortive gesture of her hand toward her purse, and his ears had picked up the nervous edge to her voice. Suspicion and curiosity merged in his mind, leaving him convinced that she was hiding something, and wondering what it was.