Return To Big Sky

by Jade Cary

  “Uh huh.”

  “Listen, honey, make sure Collin or Jed, or one of the hands is around. That horse isn’t quite ready yet, and…”

  “Oh, but he is. He said so.”

  Oddly enough, I understood this and took it as gospel. “Nevertheless, please don’t be in that corral alone. Your mom sees you and…”

  “Oh, she already did. Jed said…Jed said he had the same trouble with you when you were a kid. Is that true, Chandler?”

  “I’m sure if Jed says so, it’s true. Did he catch you or did your mom?”

  “He did. Lucky.”

  “I’ll say. Is Jed round?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I’ll call later. Tell him I called, will you?”

  “Sure. Hurry home. When again?”

  “Monday, honey. I sent you the itinerary so you can get it on your calendar.”

  “Okay. See you. Sunday or Monday?”

  “Monday.”

  “Monday, right.”

  “Bye, honey.”

  “Bye, honey,” he said.

  “Oh, lord,” I breathed into the room. The horse told him he was ready. Oh, dear God. I laughed at the pure joy of this kid. I was ready to move home. I’d do it in layers—moving essentials right away, then putting the apartment up for sale. I’d look for something smaller for my quick trips into town. Or something. I hadn’t gotten that far yet.

  I booted up the computer and searched the Asher Ranch. I wanted all the information that was available to me. I wanted to know my legacy, my family’s past, my past. I was getting to know me, for the first time in my life. At thirty, I felt like I was ahead of the game. Many never got this far.

  I skipped pages of information I’d already seen, and it was around page ten in the search that something new came up. It was Charles’s name I saw first, followed by the word murder. It was a short article about Madison Valley landowner history. Charles got one sentence, which read in part, “…largest contiguous land owner in the state, acquitted of murder…” The dates coincided with my first two years in Atlanta.

  Acquitted of murder?

  My heart slammed into my chest. This wasn’t about Charles Asher, my Charles Asher. It couldn’t be. Charles was a lot of things, but he’d never hurt another human being.

  Never.

  They left the ranch a year or so after you went to Atlanta, then Ramon passed a short time later, Jed had said.

  Ramon quit the ranch, insisted I go with him, Maria had said.

  Carlos had a stroke, mija.

  Accident.

  Let’s get the will stuff settled…there’s a lot to go over, Jed said.

  An accident.

  It was Ramon who ran me off the road. Daddy was out of his mind…of course.

  Of course.

  Asher arrested…murder…Ramon Villanueva, ranch foreman…represented by attorney Jed Brooks…

  My chest split in two.

  Jed.

  He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

  I clicked on another article.

  Asher involved with Juarez’ wife…murder a crime of passion…trial begins…

  Crime of passion?

  A trial? One article said Charles was acquitted; another talked about a trial.

  When I calmed down and was able to focus, I sat back and read every word.

  Crime of Passion

  “Morning, baby.” It was early Saturday, the day’s forecast calling for rain. I pictured Jed sitting at the table in the main house, coffee in front of him, maybe the paper; Maria, padding around the house; Charlie outside or maybe gulping cereal in front of the TV.

  Me? I hadn’t slept all night. Yes, I had coffee, too. I found no pleasure in it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what, babe?”

  “About my father? About Ramon?”

  He was quiet, perhaps contemplating the same questions. “Chandler.”

  Maybe not. “He killed Ramon?”

  “No, Chan…”

  “No? There was a trial! You represented him, for fucks sake!”

  “Hey…”

  “He made you an offer you couldn’t refuse, right? Fucking Vito Corleone, you are.”

  “Settle down, Chan.”

  “I will not. This is something I needed to know.”

  “I agree.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I should have told you. I’m sorry. I wanted to get you through the funeral first, through getting to know your brother first, before we discussed Charles and Ramon. Frankly, with all that’s been going on, I didn’t think of it.”

  “You didn’t think of it? My father murders a man who’d worked for him forever, and it slipped your mind?”

  “Chan, he didn’t kill Ramon.”

  “You are handling me again.”

  “You’re right, and you’re also not listening,” he said, the calm voice of reason. “I should have told you. Come home and we’ll talk about it.”

  How to diffuse a pissed off woman in sixty seconds, an advanced course taught by Jed Brooks. I felt the fury start to slip away, and I didn’t want to let it go just yet. He deserved more, and by God I had more to give.

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Did you really think that putting me off about Ramon would make it all go away? That getting agitated with me about asking questions would make it disappear?”

  “What do you want to know, Chandler?”

  “Why you lied to me? You defended him.”

  “I never got a chance to defend him, honey. The case never went to trial.”

  “What happened, Jed?”

  “Can we talk about this Monday when you land? I’ll pick you up, we’ll go somewhere and talk.”

  “I’m not coming home.”

  “Oh, Christ, Chandler.”

  “I can’t. I need to think.”

  “Think here. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “I’m not coming, Jed.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You want to talk about this over the phone, we’ll talk over the phone. I’d rather see you face to face.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “I did not lie. I forgot about the whole thing. It was fifteen years ago. Get home and let’s talk.”

  “I’m not coming.”

  “Oh, stop it, Chandler. This is childish.”

  How to Re-piss Off an Almost Placated Woman in Five Seconds, course audited by Jed Brooks.

  “Childish. Really.”

  “You want to be mad at me, have at it. Fine. You have every right.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “What you don’t have the right to do, and what I won’t allow you to do, is disappoint Carlos for another second. He expected you home over a week ago, and he hasn’t stopped talking and skipping and jumping and making every single human—and most of the animals—on this ranch insane since he got your flight information. I’m assuming you sent it before you found all this out. No matter: you’re coming. You want to shine me on, go ahead. You don’t do that to him.”

  “My father murdered someone.”

  “I know that’s what you read, but it’s not that simple.”

  “Crime of passion, the article said.”

  “I know. Words like that get attention and sell papers, babe. Come home. We’ll talk.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Yes you do. I had his back, Chan. You know that.”

  “And he got off, didn’t he? You did your job, Jed.”

  “It wasn’t that tough a call. You’ll see that in time.”

  “God, you act…you sound like this is nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing,” he said. “Ramon died and it was unfortunate, but your father didn’t kill him.”

  “He was my father!” My voice broke.

  “I know, baby,” he said, his voice gentle, soothing. Damn him. “And you had no idea who he was. Is that what you’re thinking? Y
ou didn’t know him, and you don’t know me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Maybe you don’t know yourself.”

  “This isn’t about me!”

  “It won’t be unless you shut down and stay in New York, where you don’t have to face anything.” The edge was back. “That was your act for fifteen years, and it’s done nothing for you.”

  “He sent me away.”

  “Aw, Christ. This is an old fight and I’m not having it. I’ll see you on Monday.”

  “The hell you will.”

  “You be on that plane Monday, or I will get on the next one to New York and I will come get you. And you won’t like what happens once I get hold of you.”

  “You’re threatening me now?”

  “Yes, I am, and just to be clear, when I find you—and I don’t give a damn where it is—I will turn you over my knee and I will spank you…”

  “Ohhh, don’t you dare even think…!”

  “…with your pants down,” he shouted over me, “And the blistering lecture I give you while I’m doing it will be all the explanation any witnesses will need as to why you’re getting it!” I wondered who was in earshot of that little tirade, and then prayed I’d never find out. Had we been the last two people on earth, those words would have been no less humiliating. “I’m done talking,” he barked. “See you Monday.”

  And the bastard hung up.

  The Hollow O

  The Hollow O Ranch, in Holt, was one of the larger ranches in the state, and Ted Holland and my father had been friends since they were boys. I’d lost touch with everyone in Cameron until the funeral. When one of their own dies, they come out of the woodwork like ants on the first day of summer. Ted had passed a year ago. Charles must have been devastated.

  Ted married into a large ranch family the same year Charles married my mother, and their combined assets put them at the top of a narrow pile as far as big landowners went. Ted and Marian had two kids: a daughter, Tabitha, who was my age and one of my best friends growing up, and Dane, who was three years older.

  Dane Holland was Prince of the City. Everyone loved him, and when I wasn’t pining after Jed, I cast eyes on Dane. Nothing ever came of it. I was a silly ranch girl who loved horses and kicking it up with the guys, and Dane seemed to prefer the delicate Bozeman debs with visions of the white wedding and no calluses on their hands. Dane was captain and QB1 of the football team, class president, and all-around overachiever. He graduated high school at the top of his class. His ticket to anyplace was assured. He chose the Navy. After years spent impressing all the high-ranking squids out of their dress blues, he found himself part of DEVGRU, also known as SEAL Team Six—the group responsible for the capture and assassination of Osama bin Laden. I learned that Dane was home now, settling his father’s affairs. He’d been home the day my father showed up looking for Ramon, fifteen years ago.

  As far as Jed and Charlie were concerned, I’d be home Monday. Flying in on Sunday and paying a visit to the Hollow O would give me some perspective. Jed making a trip to the airport tomorrow and not finding me there would serve him right.

  After directions from a few hands working the ranch, I found Dane a half-mile from the main house. He sat tall on a large chocolate paint, herding a group of Herefords and their calves into a paddock. In the next few weeks those calves would be separated from their mamas and sold. Then the females would be sent out to breed again. We were in the middle of the same at The Asher Ranch.

  The red SUV caught Dane’s attention, and he turned the paint toward the dirt road that bisected two large pastures.

  “Remember me?” I said as I hopped out of the vehicle. He squinted down at me as I stood on the narrow dirt road, surrounded by cow pies and a mile of pasture fence between us.

  “Holy shit…Asher?”

  Dane Holland was a striking man. Light blue eyes glowed under a well-worn fawn colored hat, dark hair brushed the tops of his shoulders, and a full beard dusted with a bit of gray covered his face.

  “Hey, Holland,” I said, suddenly shy. I did not know if it was because he sat atop a horse that stood fifteen hands high, or if it was just him, but I felt overwhelmed. His eyes were piercing, his mouth slightly turned up on one side. A steel blue waffle-weave Henley was tucked into a pair of faded jeans, fitted tight around thighs that easily controlled the powerful horse he held between them. I could not picture him in the little white sailors hat aboard a ship. No, sir, I could not. He was a Montana man in every sense of the word, a man’s man, at home here on the land, as if he’d grown out of the ground like a great oak. He had. I knew this family; I knew how Dane Holland came up, how this life formed him and his sister, Tabby. Standing before him, I could not see the scars, could not see the film that ran in a constant loop through his mind of what he’d seen in the last fifteen years, yet I would have known him anywhere. We were cut from the same cloth, Dane Holland and me. He’d worn his a bit differently, for a time. Now he was back; he was home.

  “You didn’t turn out too terrible, Asher,” he said. “In fact, you’re on the upside of plain.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said.

  “I worried about you back in high school.”

  “Did you, now?”

  “Yeah. I saw you ending up an old maid, living above the tackle shop in town,” he teased. “With a score of cats and some decent baking skills.”

  “Huh.”

  “You married?”

  “No. You?”

  He laughed, a deep throaty laugh that made me smile. “God, no. Last thing I need.”

  “You gay?”

  He held the smile. “I’m gonna come down off this horse and kick your ass, girl.”

  “Bring it on, Squid.”

  His face softened. “I was wondering when you’d make it over here. You wanna talk?”

  I lowered my eyes and turned around as if there was something to see. I did not want him to see me tear up now. “If you have the time,” I murmured.

  “I’ll see you up at the house.” He turned the horse and trotted away, and I followed.

  “Sorry about your pops, kid,” he said, handing me a cup of coffee. “And I’m sorry I didn’t come to the funeral.”

  We sat in the big living room of the Holland house, a place I’d spent quite a bit of my time as a child. Ted Holland was like my father in so many ways—devoted to the land, to his family, to the legacy he was building—that at times their images blended into one man. I wondered if Dane and Tabby uncovered any skeletons when he died.

  I shrugged.

  “I didn’t make it to my own father’s, either. A thing with me.”

  “No judgment here,” I said.

  Dane sat on a leather chair opposite me. He bent over and held his coffee cup between large, capable hands. He brought his head up, met my eyes, and waited.

  “Tell me a story, Dane-o.”

  “Does it have to be true?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, searching the ceiling for a tale. “One upon a time there was a king. He was a reluctant king, a king who was really a stable boy deep down. He hated being a king so much, hated the worship of his subjects so much, that he ran off to war in another kingdom far away. He heard tell of a dragon, an evil dragon that breathed a fire that destroyed whole cities. He got together with other kings, kings so much stronger and smarter than this king. They decided to slay the dragon, so they went into the dragon’s lair. They fought other dragons along the way—some young, some old. And when they finally confronted the worst of the worst, deep in his lair, hiding behind smaller, weaker dragons, thinking the kings were too soft to harm smaller and weaker, the king who stood closest raised his sword and struck the first blow. Other kings took their turn and finally the dragon gasped his last breath.

  “There were other dragons before him, and others have appeared since—like rats; you kill one, and a hundred more appear. The kings went home and promised not to tell anyone about their adventures. The king found th
at all his subjects were gone, and he became the ruler of one.” Dane smiled at me. “Once in a while an old friend stops by and the king wonders what his life would have been like had he not decided to slay someone else’s dragons. He sees every day that there’s enough to slay right here at home.”

  I sat back against the soft cushions of the couch and smiled. “The end?”

  “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  “You’re a hero, Dane.”

  He shook his head. “No, Asher. I was a number in a group.”

  “Nice, and certainly politically correct of you, but it was you, wasn’t it? You were the one. You killed him, didn’t you?”

  Dane’s smile faded and his eyes darkened. An uncomfortable amount of time passed before he spoke again. “You wanted to talk to me about something, and it wasn’t dragons. Spit it out, Asher.”

  “You were here the day my father came looking for Ramon Villanueva.”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  He took his time, then said, “Brooks know you’re here?” When I didn’t answer, one side of his mouth turned up again in what was amounting to quite an arrogant smirk. “You have a…thing with him, no?”

  “What do you know about it?” I said, a bit on the defensive. Jeebus, was nothing sacred in this fucking town? Ranchers were like curler setters at the beauty parlor. Don’t believe everything that comes out of their yaps, and for God’s sake, don’t put anything you don’t want repeated in their ears.

  “I hear things,” he said.

  “Uh huh.”

  “So, why aren’t you bending his ear about this?”

  I told him of my anger at not being told about this sooner, ending the harangue by confessing what I’d done to Jed regarding coming to Montana a day early.

  “Still feisty, girl,” he laughed with a wink. “I like that.”

  “Oh, swell,” I sniffed, annoyed that Dane was showing zero sympathy toward me and my plight. He pulled out his cell and held it out to me.

  “Call him.”

  “No.” I brushed him off with a wave of my hand.

  “Chandler.” He said it as a warning, with the end of my name on an upswing in his tone, as if he lectured grown women all day long, for a living. “He goes to that airport tomorrow and you don’t show…”