by Sandra Brown
“Why’d she do that to herself?”
“Probably to rile old farts like us.”
Delray looked at Jack, then came as close to laughing as he ever had. “You’re probably right.”
For the next few minutes they enjoyed their slushy frozen lemonades. Delray finished his drink first and pushed aside his cup. Staring out the window at a bed of dusty sunflowers, he made no attempt at conversation. Jack wondered if he was choosing the words he was going to use to fire him. Rather than sweat it out, he decided to seize the bull by the horns. “So what did he say?”
Delray didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. His gaze switched from the sunflowers to Jack. “Poison.”
Jack’s heart sank. He had hoped that the cows died from some rare bovine virus, or by some other means that in no way implicated him. This was as bad as it could get. “What does this mean for the rest of the herd?”
“I found two more dead this morning. The poison was on the salt lick. Of course it might be days before we know how many more got to it before it was removed.” He snorted with contempt. “Wasn’t a very smart son of a bitch. He could’ve hurt me a lot worse if he’d dumped poison in the pond.”
“Maybe it was a warning shot.”
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“But that’s what you think.”
Delray’s face turned redder, and Jack thought the man should be commended for holding his temper so well, especially if he believed Jack had tried to ruin his livelihood. Leaning across the table, Jack asked, “Why would I do it?”
“Why would you drop out of the blue and ask for a job?”
“I needed the work.”
“Bullshit. I called that last guy you worked for. In Corpus. He gave you a glowing reference. Hated to lose you, he said. Wished he had a hundred like you. You had a good job but you walked off to come to work for me for half the money.” Shaking his head, he scoffed. “Doesn’t make sense. Never has.”
“It makes sense to me. I wanted a change.”
“A change.” Delray simmered for a moment, then pointed his blunt index finger at Jack. “I don’t trust you.”
“Then why did you hire me?”
“So I could keep an eye on you till I figured out your angle.”
“Have you?”
“I think so.”
Jack spread his hands wide, inviting Delray to share his conclusions.
“You’re working for that Houston outfit. That EastPark.”
Jack stared at him for several seconds, then laughed out loud. “Me? A corporate saboteur?”
“Okay, you don’t look the type. But that makes you the perfect man for the job.”
“In another lifetime, maybe,” Jack said, still chuckling with incredulity. “I told you my opinion of those greedy bastards.”
“Because you knew that’s what I wanted to hear. You were blowing smoke.”
Jack stared at him for several moments, shaking his head. “Okay, say I am connected, how do you explain the job in Corpus?”
“You were doing the same thing there. EastPark is just a slice of a big pie. Those guys are into everything. Oil and gas, real estate, computers. They even have a government contract with NASA. All that’s in the propaganda Emory Lomax gave me. That’s another thing that should have tipped me off. He started pressuring me just when you showed up. You work the inside track. They send you where they need you, when they need you. And you dress the part,” he added, glancing up at Jack’s straw cowboy hat.
Sighing, Jack eased away until he was settled against the back of the booth. He raised his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. “You’re wrong, Delray. Dead wrong.”
“I don’t think so.”
“If I’m a corporate whiz kid, don’t you think I’d be more subtle than to poison your herd just a few days after I got here? And let me tell you this: If I were out to destroy you in the hope of acquiring your ranch, I wouldn’t have fucked around like this bozo did. I would have done it right. I would have poisoned the water supply.”
Delray studied him for a long time, taking his measure, weighing his words, searching his eyes for deception. Jack held his stare. That’s why neither of them noticed the other man’s approach until he spoke.
“Hey, Delray.”
Taken unaware, Delray turned his head quickly. “Oh, hey, Sheriff Hardge. Didn’t see you come in.”
“How are you?”
“Can’t complain. You?”
“All right, I guess. Not sheriff anymore, though.”
“Right, right,” Delray said absently. “How’s retirement?”
“Can’t get used to having all this free time.” He frowned down at the gooey banana split he had ordered. “Keep this up, I’m likely to get fat.” He gave Delray a wry smile, then glanced curiously at Jack.
Delray gestured across the table. “I decided to hire on some help. He’s my new hand.”
“Jack,” he said, extending his right hand.
“Ezzy.”
“Pleasure.”
“Same.”
The hand Jack was shaking felt as rough as tree bark. The man was tall and rangy, with wide shoulders that curved inward toward a chest that had once been broad but had gone slightly concave with age. Gray hair curled from beneath a hat similar to his own. Both had seen equal amounts of wear and tear. Hardge’s face was as long as that of a basset hound, his expression as bleak.
Courtesies dispensed with, the retired sheriff turned back to Delray. “You heard anything out of Arkansas?”
“Nothing. I don’t expect to.”
“No, I don’t reckon you will. That boy has got more sense than to come this way.”
Delray clasped his hands on the tabletop. “All that happened a long time ago, Ezzy.”
“Way long. Lots of water under the bridge since then.” After a short but awkward silence, Hardge changed the subject. “Awful hot weather we’re having.”
Delray unclasped his hands and some of the tension eased from his shoulders. “We could stand some rain, all right.”
The tall man looked down into the melting confection in the little plastic boat. “Well, gotta get this thing eaten before it becomes ice cream soup. Y’all take care.”
With interest Jack watched the old man leave the restaurant and climb into a decade-old Lincoln. “He looks like a sheriff.” Then his eyes moved back to Delray. “You think I poisoned your cows. Why didn’t you turn me in?”
“He’s not sheriff any longer.”
“That’s no answer.”
Delray scooted to the end of the booth and stood up. “I’m going to take some ice cream home to David and Anna.”
He walked over to the counter and placed another order. Jack waited for him at the door. Together they got back into the truck and headed toward the ranch.
Was that it? Jack thought. Did he stand accused but not yet convicted? Or had he argued his case so well that Delray dropped the charge?
Jack glanced at Delray’s stern profile. He drove with his hands positioned at ten and two o’clock, eyes straight ahead, keeping well within the speed limit. A man as strictly disciplined as Delray Corbett wouldn’t change his mind so easily. Jack figured the jury was still out.
For the time being he was still here. He would do well to leave well enough alone. But they needed to clear the air on another matter, too. “I was talking to Anna last night,” he remarked casually.
“The two of you made conversation?”
“Of a fashion. Mostly I asked questions and she signed yes or no. She wrote some things down on a notepad.”
Delray’s fingers flexed once before closing around the steering wheel again. “So what’d you talk about?”
“Her deafness. She told me she’d been deaf since birth.”
“That’s my understanding. It was a genetic defect.”
“Awful tough on a kid and her parents.”
“I didn’t know h
er folks. Didn’t meet Anna till Dean brought her home.”
Jack assumed a listening posture. Delray glanced at him but he didn’t start speaking again until his eyes were back on the road. “I can’t say I was too happy about it. My boy came home all excited about this deaf girl he’d met at the junior college. Sure, I admired her for attending school. College isn’t easy on kids who aren’t handicapped. Must be a real struggle for someone like Anna. She had an interpreter, but it’s gotta take guts.”
Jack stretched one arm along the back of the seat. “Kids who have to work harder at it probably appreciate it more, and might even do better because of it.”
“I know Anna did. She worked hard and got good grades. But admiring somebody for what they’ve accomplished and inviting them into your family are two different things. I admit that I was against Dean and her being together. At first. But then I got to know her and saw how crazy Dean was about her, and—”
“And if Dean was the man he should have been—and I figure he was—your opinion wasn’t going to matter.”
Delray turned his head, looking ready to challenge Jack’s comment. Then his features softened and he shook his head with chagrin. “My opinion didn’t matter. They got married and for a while were as happy as any two people I’ve ever seen. Then he decided to join the army.”
Jack let Delray tell him the rest of the story, even though he’d already heard it from Anna.
“While Dean was overseas, Anna continued her schooling. Her parents had left her enough of a legacy to pay for her education. After she finished at the junior college, she drove forty miles one way to take her upper-division courses. She was studying photography.
“But when Dean came home and got sick, she gave up school to take care of him. After he died and David came along, there wasn’t much point in her continuing her studies, I guess.”
Jack disagreed, but it wasn’t his place to say so.
“That’s when she stopped talking, too.”
Jack had been mentally arguing all the reasons why Anna should have completed her education and earned her degree. It took several seconds for him to process Delray’s last statement. When he did, he lowered his arm from the back of the seat. “Come again? Did you say that Anna used to speak?”
“She was shy about it, especially around strangers, but Dean had encouraged her to keep up her speech classes.”
Jack was still struggling with his disbelief. “She could speak?”
“Not like you and me, but pretty good. You could understand her. Actually it’s amazing when you think about it. That she could say out loud sounds she had never heard.”
This revelation left Jack shell-shocked. Whenever Anna signed, she mouthed the words. Her moving lips were an intrinsic part of her very expressive face. But she had never put her voice behind the words. “Why’d she stop? Why doesn’t she speak now?”
Delray’s shrug looked defensive. He shifted in his seat like it had suddenly become prickly. “She doesn’t need to. Fact is, some deaf people don’t want to speak and resent those who think they should learn. They rely strictly on sign language.”
“But don’t others—like Anna did—combine them?”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
“They sign, read lips, and speak, right?”
“I’m not an expert on deaf education.”
Jack persisted. “It must have taken years for her to develop those skills. Why did she stop using them?”
“I don’t know.” Delray’s tone was testy and his volume bordered on a shout. “Why don’t you ask Anna? Next time you two get together for a chat.”
Jack had been right. Delray was angry about what he had spied from his bedroom window the night before. Jack had seen him standing there, outlined against a faint interior light.
Darkness and distance prevented their eyes from connecting, but Jack had known beyond a doubt that Delray was looking directly at him. He also got the impression that Delray had been standing there a long time and had seen Anna leaving the barn.
Neither had moved for several seconds. Finally Delray had turned into his room and disappeared from the window.
Now he was hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it tightly, staring at the road ahead as though it were the enemy and he had resolved to conquer it. His jaw looked set in concrete. If Jack were to guess, he would say the man was angry and in emotional pain.
Quietly he asked, “How long have you loved her, Delray?”
Chapter Sixteen
Naturally the Mexicans had demanded to be paid immediately.
Emory Lomax was out fifty bucks, but if it had cost him twice that to sabotage Delray Corbett’s livelihood, it would have been well worth it. Jesse Garcia and his ever-changing band of assorted kin had rumbled down Main Street just when Emory needed them. If he hadn’t happened to be looking out his office window at the same time Garcia’s pickup truck rolled past, he still would be trying to formulate a plan to ensure acquisition of the Corbett ranch.
Fortune had smiled on him in the form of Jesse Garcia.
He was known around town as a fix-it man. Screen doors, sprinkler systems, septic tanks. And situations. You needed a storm-door lock replaced, Garcia was your man. Your trees needed the deadwood trimmed, Garcia and his cousins could take care of it in an afternoon and haul off the brush. You wanted to see your asshole of a neighbor run into some real bad luck with his brand-new van, fifty bucks in Garcia’s hand, and you had the pleasure of watching the man next door have a hissy fit in his driveway.
When it came to payback, Garcia was a good man to know. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, literally and figuratively. All those things people said they would like to do to their enemy, Garcia did for them. He drew the line at maiming or killing, but he had a creative imagination. If you didn’t have an idea for a befitting revenge, he had a menu of selections.
He didn’t discriminate. He would work for anybody willing to pay his fee. You might be his client one night, his victim the next. But that was Garcia’s system. Nobody argued with it because nobody wanted him as their enemy, and it is an established fact that all Mexicans carry knives.
He had told Garcia to create a little havoc with the Corbett herd. “Nothing too catastrophic. Do you comprende catastrophic, Jesse?”
He had comprended, and the following day it was all over town that Corbett had lost several head of cattle under mysterious circumstances, the scourge of every cattleman. Bad for business. Stigmatizing. That kind of scare would have any rancher shivering in his shoes. Look what mad cow disease had done to beef sales in England.
Emory’s step had been jaunty with confidence as he left the bank for his scheduled appointment with Corbett, believing that he would be in a bargaining mood. But Emory had an unpleasant surprise waiting on him when he arrived at the ranch. Incredibly, Corbett was no more ready to entertain his offer than before.
“Did you look through the material?” he asked out of frustration after half an hour of seesawing.
“I did.”
“Wouldn’t you say their track record is impressive?”
“I suppose.”
How could the old coot not be dazzled by that glossy brochure and the information it contained? Or was he just being stubborn in the hope of jacking up the asking price? “They’re making a mighty generous offer on your place, Mr. Corbett. Mighty generous.”
Not nearly as complacent as he pretended, Emory sat back in the easy chair and propped one ankle on his opposite knee. “EastPark Development wants this property in the worst way. Their offer is much higher than the appraised value. But it’s their money, right?” He glanced across the living room at Anna and winked.
She had politely served him a glass of iced tea when he arrived, but she had looked at him like he had tracked in dog shit. Where did she get off being so hoity-toity?
He had been charming and mannerly, making eye contact with her so she wouldn’t feel excluded from the discussion, even though Delray had been signing t
heir conversation for her benefit. He never failed to go out of his way to be nice to her when she came into the bank, but she wasn’t what he would call friendly in return.
Right now an ice cube wouldn’t melt on her ass. But he would still like to get his hands on it. He bet he could readjust her attitude easily enough.
Delray closed the syllabus and tossed it onto the coffee table. “Let me understand this, Lomax. They want me to part with a square mile of land that I already own, and settle for a little chunk of it?”
Emory smiled expansively. “That’s oversimplifying, of course, but yes, as an incentive for you to accept the deal, they’re willing to let you have first choice of the lots, plus they would waive all homeowner fees and give you a lifetime club membership.”
“A lifetime club membership.”
“That’s right,” Emory replied in a spider-to-the-fly tone. “How’s that sound?”
“No deal.”
Corbett stood. Lomax shot to his feet. “Mr. Corbett, we put the proposal in layman’s terms for you, but I think you’re still failing to grasp—”
“I can read, Mr. Lomax.”
“I didn’t mean to imply… Please don’t think that…” He was sunk if Corbett thought he thought he was stupid. He must tread lightly. “It’s just that unless you conduct this kind of transaction on a regular basis, the complexities are liable to escape you.”
“That may be. But there’s no complexity to my answer. I’m not interested.”
His voice going shrill, Emory said, “They’re willing to pay you more than the property is worth.”
“Then they’re a bunch of damn fools, aren’t they?”
Emory lowered his voice to a more reasonable tone. “You would have a great deal of money. You could build any kind of house you wanted on your lot.”
“I like this house and this lot.”
Emory was hanging on by a thread and he could feel it unraveling in his fist. His pager beeped. Impatiently he turned it off and desperately tried another tack with Corbett. “It shouldn’t be your decision alone. What about Anna here? What does she think of our proposal?”