by Kaki Warner
Jack’s too young. Jack’s head is too far in the clouds. You’re stronger, more responsible. You do it.
And Brady had done it because he was oldest and that was the way it was. And also, whether he’d let on or not, because he’d liked being the one Pa had depended on or turned to when he’d needed help. Brady had gotten a taste of running things in ’48 when Pa had gone off to fight the Mexicans, leaving him to watch over his brothers and Ma and baby Sam. Brady had barely been twelve at the time, but he’d liked being the man in charge. He was good at it. And still was.
But managing Jack was like shoveling manure—a thankless, never-ending chore that brought more aggravation than reward. And being charged with that task throughout their growing years had left Brady with a well of resentment. Mostly because he had never been fooled by Jack’s antics. He knew his brother wasn’t the dimwit he pretended to be because he’d seen him come up with some astoundingly creative ideas, especially when a woman or a prank was involved. Like the time he’d danced a jig on the courthouse steps wearing nothing but a red bandana and wooly chaps, just to impress the judge’s wife. Or when he’d dusted the personal papers in the outhouse with ground chili peppers.
Crazy maybe, but not stupid. Brady knew that beneath the charm and big grins was a good brain, but like Hank’s, it just didn’t work the way everybody else’s did.
After Pa had died and the huge task of running the ranch and watching over his brothers had fallen on Brady’s shoulders, Jack had become his biggest burden, his chief aggravation and tormentor, and certainly his greatest worry. Yet throughout the years, no matter how much he had silently railed at the unfairness of having to do his job and Jack’s too, or how much he had resented the way his brother charmed his way out of chores or accountability, or how often he had wanted to knock some sense into that seemingly empty head, Brady couldn’t help but love the little bastard. There was something about Jack that made you forgive him, and laugh and shake your head, and let him go on chasing his rainbows and talking his dreams, simply because he was ... well, Jack.
In other words, he was everything Brady wasn’t allowed to be when he was a kid, and a lot of what he wished he could be as a man.
And Brady couldn’t imagine a world without him.
That sense of impending doom that had dogged him ever since he’d awakened in a cold sweat that morning now hardened into a grim determination. He would find Jack. He would find him and bring him home. Then he would probably have to watch him leave again, but at least he would know his little brother was out in the world someplace ... alive.
When Brady reached the base of the falls, the roar of water cascading fifty feet down onto the rocks drowned out all other sound. A fine mist collected in his eyelashes and mustache and dampened his shirt until it stuck to his back. The air smelled cool and wet, like the inside of a dank cave.
Stopping at the edge of the rushing water, he let the saddlebags slide to the ground and flexed his shoulders. He stood a moment, scanning both sides of the creek, but saw only piles of limbs and debris lining the banks, indicating last night’s high water mark.
“Jack,” he yelled, but his voice was lost in the thick mist and didn’t even bounce back at him off the rocky walls. He didn’t see Jack, or any evidence that he had gotten this far.
Brady told himself that was a good thing. At least he hadn’t been swept over the cliff.
Picking up the saddlebags again, he started the hard climb over tumbled boulders crowded against the sheer walls rising up to the top of the falls. It was hard going, loaded down as he was, and the leather soles of his boots kept slipping on the damp rocks. He was sweating like a muleskinner when he stopped to catch his breath about a dozen feet below a tangled logjam that hung out over the top of the falls, stretching from the far bank almost halfway across to his side of the canyon.
Pushing back his hat, he studied the pile of timbers, recognizing remnants of the bridge in the snarl of ropes and broken planks. He wondered if it would be stable enough to hold him if he tried to cross on it—assuming he could get over to the logjam without being sucked under it or washed over the falls.
It would be dangerous, but with guide ropes stretching across for him to hang on to, he could do it. There was no other place to cross unless he went at least a mile upstream past the steep walls to where the bank flattened out a bit. But even then, with the water running this high, there was no guarantee that crossing there would be any less treacherous than crossing here.
He resumed his climb. At the top, crawling over boulders and loose stones, he worked his way farther upstream and past the logjam so he could get a better view of the other side of the canyon.
Stopping to catch his breath, he looked around. All he saw were rocky walls hemming in a small, muddy stretch of bank with a blowdown at the bottom of a steep slope. No sign of Jack. He was about to turn away when movement caught his eye.
He stopped and squinted through the early-morning gloom.
There. Behind the blowdown.
A big black bear, clawing at the logs, trying to pull them apart. It was so intent on its task it hadn’t even noticed Brady.
But no sign of Jack.
Discouraged, Brady turned and studied the rocky walls stretching upstream, wondering if he should continue along the boulder-strewn bank, or climb back on top where he could move faster and get a wider view. Then a strange noise barely heard over the rush of water drew his attention back to the bear working the blowdown.
It was an old bear, by the looks of it. And half-starved. Even from sixty feet away, Brady could see the white on the bear’s muzzle and ruff, and the hang and sway of loose flesh at its belly.
Then Brady noticed something else—something odd about the blowdown.
Dropping the saddlebags, he stepped to the edge of the churning water, his heart thudding.
It wasn’t just a tangle of downed trees. There were also planks like those from the bridge, and they were tied over the gaps in the logs with the same thick rope that he’d seen tangled in the logjam. There was no way those boards and ropes had gotten there by chance.
Christ. It was Jack under there! The bear was trying to get at Jack!
Brady yelled and waved his arms, the sound of his voice almost lost in the roar of the falls.
The bear stopped digging and looked up. Rising on its back legs, it lifted its snout to test the air.
Brady prayed it would catch his scent, even though he was downwind of the animal. Most bears avoided humans. If they saw them in time and weren’t on a blood trail, or weren’t so old they could no longer hunt and were forced to eat whatever they could find, they usually ran off.
But this bear was old. And looked to be starving.
Brady yelled again, jumped up and down, and waved his arms.
But the bear, being poor of eyesight, as most bears were, took no notice of him. After a last look around, it dropped back onto all fours and returned its attention to the blowdown.
Cursing himself for not bringing his rifle, Brady drew the Colt. A pistol, even with a perfect shot, wouldn’t take down a bear at this distance. In fact, it might just make it angry and more determined. But maybe the sound of it would scare it off.
Lifting the revolver, Brady aimed at the bank behind the animal’s head, hoping the bear could hear the sound of the bullet passing close. What bears lacked in vision, they more than made up for in the ability to hear and smell.
Brady squeezed the trigger.
The bear shook its head and swatted at its ear with a front paw as if to chase off an annoying insect.
Teeth clenched in frustration, Brady fired off two more rounds, loosening a cascade of small rocks on the slope behind the blowdown.
This time, the bear jerked fully upright. It looked around, nose sniffing the air. Then, maybe because it had finally caught Brady’s scent or perhaps because the sharp smell of spent powder had alerted it, the bear roared in challenge and began to run.
Jesus, Brady tho
ught, scrambling back as the bear charged toward him. He’d forgotten that bears were hellishly good swimmers, too.
Nineteen
IT HAD BEEN ANOTHER ROUGH NIGHT FOR THE WOMEN awaiting news, and the morning had been little better. Now lunch was over, the dishes washed and put away, and the kitchen tidied. The younger children were upstairs napping, and the three older ones—Penny, Charlie, and Ben—were off somewhere with Dougal practicing with the boomerang.
With nothing left to do, the four women sat at the kitchen table and waited.
There was no conversation, no idle chatter to lighten the somber mood, just the silent, patient suffering of women who, like their sisters throughout history, sat and waited for their men to come back to them.
It was a unique kind of suffering that only females had the strength to endure. The ability to wait—for the last breath, for the fever to break, for the summons to come or the news to arrive. Such patience in the face of crisis was unbearable to men, who were ever driven to action. But females tolerated it well, Molly had found, especially when there were other women with whom to share the endless hours. It was a silent bonding wherein each was the glue that kept the others from falling apart. Alone, a woman might crumble. But together, women could withstand anything.
Nonetheless, judging by the puffy eyes and weary faces, it had been a long night and morning. Molly, having attended more bedside vigils than she wanted to recount, was more accustomed to it. But she could see the toll the waiting was taking on the others. Elena seemed lost in prayers, her fingers working the rosary beads. Jessica stayed busy pouring more coffee or refilling the teapot. But Daisy seemed to deflate a little more with each passing hour. Molly wished she could do or say something to reassure her, but she was beginning to lose hope herself.
Jessica had risen for the tenth time to check the teapot when the back door slammed open, making the women jump in their chairs.
“Mama, Mama! Somebody’s coming!” Ben yelled, racing into the room.
“It’s Jack! Or maybe Brady sent word!” Jessica rushed into the entry, Molly and the other two women close behind. Crowding at the window with Ben, they all craned their necks to watch a black buggy splashing through the puddles in the lane that led to the house.
An unfamiliar buggy, carrying two people—men. Neither was Jack.
With a discouraged sigh, Daisy stepped back. “It’s not him.”
“Hellfire,” Ben muttered, echoing her disappointment.
“Adrian Benjamin!” Reaching around the other women, Jessica gave her son’s ear a tweak. “I told you no cursing.”
“Hellfire’s not cussin’. Papa said—ow!”
“Why aren’t they back yet?” Daisy said, ignoring the ruckus behind her. “Shouldn’t they be back?”
Molly patted her shoulder but had no words of comfort to offer. Hank had left over seven hours ago. If Brady had found Jack in the canyon where he thought his brother might be, it seemed they should have sent word or been back by now.
Unless Jack wasn’t there. Or they’d had problems. Or any one of a hundred other things that might have gone wrong had gone wrong.
“Goods heavens!” Jessica leaned closer to the window to stare at the two men in the buggy talking to the ranch hand who had come out of the barn to meet them. “Do you see who that is?” she asked Elena, a frown of confusion puckering her brow. “What would he be doing here?”
Elena peered out then drew back with an expression of distaste. “Serpiente.”
Daisy recognized one of the men too. “Blake,” she muttered in a tone of equal disgust.
Jessica looked at her in surprise. “Blake? Franklin Blake? You’re sure?”
Daisy nodded and stepped away from the window. “The same polecat who brought me and Kate to the ranch and almost tipped over our buggy when he tried to run through the quarantine. He’s insane. I wouldn’t let him in.”
Jessica turned back to the window. “I wonder why they’re here?”
“Probably about the loan. Come along, Ben.” Daisy headed back toward the kitchen with Ben in tow. “We’ll be in the garden if you need us. Ben promised to watch for snakes while I thin the seedlings.”
“I will join you.” Elena limped after them. “I dislike snakes also. Human ones, especialmente. Y zorrillos, también.” She wrinkled her nose. “Polecats.”
As they walked away, Jessica turned to Molly. “What loan?”
Molly shrugged. “The one on the smelter?” She was as much in the dark as Jessica seemed to be. Neither Hank nor Brady was very forthcoming about ranch business. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” She studied the two men climbing down from the buggy. “Which one is Blake?”
“The bigger one. I’ve never met him, but I certainly know that other man. Stanley Ashford. He was on the stage when—my word! What has happened to his face?” Pulling back from the window as the men started up the steps, Jessica frowned in consternation, then shrugged and brushed a palm over her hair in a futile attempt to smooth the springy wisps that had escaped her topknot to curl around her face. “I must look a fright.”
Molly had always thought Jessica’s curls charming and wished her own unremarkable brownish hair was as lively, but Jessica seemed to think her flyaway tresses a monumental bother.
“Thank heavens Brady isn’t here,” Jessica muttered. “They despised each other. No, don’t go,” she said, grabbing Molly’s wrist before she could retreat to the kitchen. “If this is about some ranch loan, then it concerns you too. And if it’s something of a more personal nature—God forbid—then I definitely don’t want to face the man alone.”
“Who is he?” Molly asked, surprised by Jessica’s addled reaction. She was usually so unflappable. Unless her temper was up, of course.
“Just someone I knew several years ago. He was on my stagecoach when it crashed. Didn’t I tell you about that? Brady saved his life, although the little ingrate would never admit such a thing. Keep an eye on him. He bears watching.”
A knock sounded on the door.
Jessica shot Molly a brace-yourself look, then took a deep breath and hiked her chin. And instantly she ceased being a flustered mother and ranch wife and became prim and proper “Her Ladyship.”
An amazing transformation, Molly thought, filled with admiration.
Jessica opened the door.
The smaller man, who stood to the fore, doffed his bowler hat and made a mocking half-bow. “Jessica, old friend, how pleased I am to see you again.”
Slim and well dressed, with thinning blond hair and a narrow, precisely trimmed mustache, Ashford might have been handsome at one time, Molly realized, but now his face was marred by bitter eyes, a down-turned mouth, and deeply cratered scars.
“Why, Stanley Ashford,” Her Ladyship said with such a gracious smile and haughty British accent that Molly almost laughed out loud. “What a surprise. Do come in.”
As they stepped inside and Mr. Ashford introduced Mr. Blake, Molly studied both men.
After only a few moments, it was apparent Mr. Blake was the subordinate of the two, despite the barely veiled looks of contempt he sent Mr. Ashford. Molly had seen his ilk before—surly, mean-spirited, and judging by his dismissive attitude toward Jessica and herself, not particularly respectful toward women. Or anyone other than himself, Molly suspected.
Ashford, however, was much more complex. It was apparent he had suffered a severe case of smallpox. The scarring was immense. Perhaps that was the reason for the anger Molly sensed was simmering just below the surface. And even though he sounded educated and cultured, the smooth smiles and honeyed words didn’t hide the menace behind his brown eyes when he looked at Jessica. Jessica might think they had been friends at one time, but Molly suspected Ashford was not her friend now. She wondered if Jessica sensed that, too, and hoped she would keep up her guard.
Leading the guests to the big room, Jessica invited them to take seats on the couch facing the cold fireplace. As Molly took a chair beside the hearth, Jessica
moved to stand with her back to the fireplace, hands clasped lightly at her waist—taking the dominant position, as well as indicating she did not expect the visit to be of long duration.
“And how may I help you, gentlemen?” she asked.
Stanley Ashford crossed one leg over the other, straightened the crease of his trousers, then looked up with a smile that was as cold as his eyes. “On the contrary, dear Jessica. It is I who came to help you.”
Jessica’s rust-colored brows rose in twin arcs. “How so?”
Instead of answering, Ashford made a show of looking around. “Is your husband available?”
“He is not.”
An elaborate sigh. “Just as well. As I recall, he was a bit volatile. Perhaps it’s best if we handle this just between us old friends.”
“Handle what, may I ask?”
Ashford, who seemed to have an inordinate interest in neatness, dusted his cuff and said, “It’s about a loan I hold. Full payment is due in a few days and I was just checking to see how things were progressing.”
If Molly hadn’t known Jessica so well, she would have missed the tightening of her lips, the slight flare in her nostrils as she drew in a sharp breath. All signs of a temper on the rise. Hoping to avoid a messy scene, Molly stepped in with a guess. “I assume you’re referring to the loan on the smelter?”
Ashford shot her a look of disapproval for interrupting. “Yes.”
“I thought the bank held the loan,” Molly persisted. Ignoring her, Ashford directed his answer to Jessica. “Lockley, at People’s Bank, sold it to me.”
“Indeed.” Jessica’s expression showed polite interest, although Molly could see fury behind her brown eyes. “I wonder why?”
“I can be very convincing.”
“You misunderstand.” Jessica gave a condescending smile. “I was wondering why you would have such a deep interest in the business of Wilkins Cattle and Mining that you felt the need to buy our loan?”