Castle Rock

by Carolyn Hart

  When she reached the office, Serena didn’t sit at her desk. Instead, she stood by the window that opened out onto the patio. It was raised about six inches. It must have been open like that the night before Uncle Dan died, and she clearly heard his raised voice on the patio.

  Will denied having talked to Uncle Dan.

  Uncle Dan’s companion could have been Will. It could as well have been anybody at Castle Rock. But why would one of the men on the ranch, either the family or one of the dudes or Jed, talk to Uncle Dan about something important during the party? Didn’t it make more sense to guess that the other man spoke then because that was his only chance to see Uncle Dan? In other words, the other man must have been a guest.

  Serena whirled around, walked determinedly to her desk. She called Luis Montoya at Crazy Horse Ranch first. He was friendly and polite but said he had only visited casually with Dan McIntire that night. Serena received the same response from Sam Berry at Dutchman’s Creek. Then she called Bob Mackenzie at Burnt Hill. She had her question down to an easy patter now.

  “Bob, I’m sorry to bother you but I’m trying to get things in order here at Castle Rock since Uncle Dan died. I wondered if you happened to be the man who talked to him in his office the night before he died?”

  Bob Mackenzie didn’t say a word.

  Serena heard faint static and cracklings, the usual background to ranch calls. She pictured Bob in her mind, tall, rangy, with thinning red hair and tired green eyes. He never looked like he felt very good, but he still rodeod, and he was almost fifty.

  “Bob?”

  “I’m here, Serena. I’m thinking.”

  She felt a quiver of excitement. She was close. So close. “So it was you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Will you tell me what you said that upset him?”

  “Look, Serena, I’m not looking for any trouble.”

  “Neither am I. But I think I have some.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bob, something odd is going on at Castle Rock. I don’t know what it is. But I’m going to find out. I think your talk with Uncle Dan could be part of it.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed slowly. “It could be. It sure could be. ’Cause it’s damned strange.”

  Then he told her. One of his hands, Luke Short, had been chasing some Burnt Hill cattle that had crossed over into Castle Rock land. He lost the steer, an old and canny one, in a thicket of pines. On his way back to Burnt Hill land, Luke passed Castle Rock. “Luke was ambling along, in no hurry, and he said you could have knocked him over with a feather when he saw a plane taking off from that flat stretch of land like it was La Guardia or something.”

  Lots of ranches fly their own small planes. “It wasn’t Castle Rock’s plane?”

  “Not unless you folks have started flying World War II cargo planes. Luke said it was a C-9.”

  “My God.”

  “Yeah. Nobody’s out for a Sunday hop in that kind of plane.”

  “No.” She hesitated, then asked, “I don’t suppose Luke could have been mistaken?”

  “Or drunk or crazy?” Bob Mackenzie asked dryly. “No. Luke’s solid. No bull from him. If he said he saw a cargo plane, he saw a cargo plane.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Luke’s not stupid either. He told me he slid away from there like a doe in game season.”

  Because it might not be a healthy thing to see a cargo plane take off from a desert. Serena understood that.

  “When did this happen?”

  “About a month ago. Luke didn’t tell me until last week. He thinks things over. I thought about it and decided to tell Dan.”

  “He was angry.”

  “Yeah. It made him wild to think that kind of thing might be going on at Castle Rock.”

  Serena didn’t have to ask him what kind of thing he meant. Planes usually landed at out-of-the-way places in Arizona and New Mexico for one reason only, smuggling.

  “He said he sure as hell wasn’t going to have anybody running dope on his ranch,” Mackenzie continued.

  No, Uncle Dan would have put a stop to it, no matter who was involved.

  “Bob, I appreciate your telling me.”

  “Sure, Serena.” He cleared his throat then, unhappily. “Hell, now I’m sorry I told Dan, messed up his last night. He always enjoyed the parties so much. If I’d had any idea . . . but nobody can know when an accident’s going to happen.”

  “Don’t feel that way. Not for a minute. You did the right thing to tell him.”

  After she hung up the receiver, Serena sat very still. If she had overheard Uncle Dan that night, someone else could have, too.

  The next morning he rode to his death.

  But, as Bob Mackenzie had said, no one can know when an accident is going to happen.

  If it’s an accident.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Julie arched an eyebrow.

  “Do I?” Serena crossed to the bar and plopped ice into a glass.

  Julie persisted. “No kidding. You’re white as a sheet.”

  Serena poured gin into the glass then the Collins mix. As she stirred, she made a decision. “While I was in the office, I called some of the people who were at our party last week.”

  Julie took a handful of peanuts. “Why did you do that? Or may I ask? I know you are in charge but I suppose I can still ask questions.”

  “You may ask any question you wish at any time,” Serena said carefully. “I don’t consider myself in charge. I’m going to try and run the ranch the way Uncle Dan would have wanted it run, until Danny is old enough to take over. That’s why I was calling. I wanted to find out why Uncle Dan was furious the night before he died and whether it had anything to do with the ranch.” She said the last sentence loudly and clearly.

  For an instant, it was absolutely quiet in the room.

  Julie, of course, took it up. “Furious? He was no such thing! He had a wonderful time at the party.”

  “He was furious,” Serena said steadily. “I told Will that I overheard Uncle Dan and that he was angry.”

  “There was nothing to it,” Will said loudly.

  Serena faced his dark look. “There was something to it, Will. Now I know what it was.” She told them of the ranch-hand and what he saw.

  In the silence that followed, Serena tried to look at all of them. Will didn’t meet her gaze. Peter looked indifferent, the two professors curious, the Minters bored, Julie excited. But it was Jed’s face that made her chest ache. Jed glared at her, then, abruptly, his face was impassive.

  Finally, Julie shrugged. “Even if a plane landed, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Or why it should throw Uncle Dan into a fit.”

  “Don’t you, Julie?” Serena asked quietly. She looked at Howard Minter. “What do you think, Mr. Minter?”

  “About what?” he asked truculently.

  “About a big plane landing at an isolated spot on a ranch.”

  “I don’t think a damn thing about it,” Minter replied coldly.

  John Morris’s curious green eyes darted from face to face. “It has obvious possibilities.”

  No one else spoke.

  Morris continued a little uncomfortably, “It’s the kind of thing you read about; smugglers landing out in empty country, unloading their stuff and taking off again. Is that what you’re afraid of, Serena?”

  Serena didn’t have a chance to answer.

  “Smugglers,” Julie said excitedly. “My God, I leave this dust trap and the only interesting thing in years happens.” Then her lovely face fell. “But it’s all over with. I mean, here you are, Serena, all upset, but if it happened a month ago, it’s all over. What’s the point in worrying about it?” She turned away and picked up a tape. “Listen, let’s all dance. Make some excitement of our own.”

  The music blared.

  Serena turned to walk to the door.

  Jed caught up with her, grabbed her hand and almost yanked her onto the dance floor.

  �
�That was pretty damn dumb,” he whispered savagely.

  She looked up at his taut face. “Was it?” she asked defiantly.

  They danced for a moment in angry silence, their bodies tense.

  “Look, Serena, if . . . Godalmighty, if any of that’s true, you’ve kicked a hornet’s nest.”

  “That’s all right. Maybe if they had any more flights in mind, they will cancel them.”

  “Jesus,” he said quietly, “you are a dumb lady. Those kind of people don’t get scared off by someone shaking a finger and saying, ‘Naughty, naughty.’”

  Now she was mad. So she was dumb, was she? “That isn’t all I intend to do.”

  “What else? Write a letter to the editor?”

  “I’m going to—” She broke off. Whatever she planned to do, she couldn’t share that plan with Jed. Who had been here a month ago? Who was a mysterious stranger come to the ranch with a ready smile and an unlikely story to explain his arrival?

  Yet, she hungered for his touch, welcomed even this casual, almost hostile embrace on the dance floor. How could she feel this way, how could she?

  “Serena.” His voice, soft now, caressed her.

  Unwillingly, she looked up at him. His face wasn’t hard and grim now. Instead, he looked weary. “Serena, I’m sorry. It’s not any of my business. I’m sorry.”

  That’s all he said, little enough, but she ignored the fears in her mind, shut them away, and relaxed against him. With a quiver of excitement, she felt his arms tighten around her.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said in a soft whisper against her ear, his breath a gentle warmth. “God knows that’s the last thing I want to do. It’s only that it seems to me it’s better not to say that kind of thing out loud. Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

  “What, Jed?” But she asked dreamily, not really caring, lost in the pleasure of his nearness.

  “You’ve set yourself up as a threat to this smuggler—if there is one.”

  If.

  “I think there is one,” she replied slowly, the happiness draining out of her voice.

  Jed made no answer.

  She pulled back a little to look into his eyes. “Don’t you think there is a smuggler?”

  She couldn’t read his face now, but she didn’t miss the odd tone in his voice. “I would think,” he said slowly, “that the odds are very good.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “If I were you,” he said emphatically, “I wouldn’t do a damn thing.”

  “Jed!” She couldn’t hide the shock in her voice.

  “Shh,” he said quickly.

  Serena looked around, but no one was paying any particular attention to them, except, perhaps, for Julie, whose vivid violet eyes slid by Serena’s blankly. Too blankly.

  Serena spoke more softly. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it’s too damn dangerous. The kind of people who pilot cargo planes loaded with Colombian pot and Turkish cocaine are not going to roll over and play dead because you warn them off.”

  “In other words,” she said levelly and her heart ached, “you want me to drop it, to look the other way, to let them use Castle Rock as a way station—and get away with it?”

  “Yes.” He grimaced. “Serena, do you know how much a pound of coke is worth on the street?”

  She shook her head.

  “About $34,000. A plane can easily carry $16 million worth.” He said it slowly, lingering on each word. He asked grimly, “Do you know what some people will do for that kind of money?”

  “Yes.”

  They danced without speaking, and Serena thought of Dan McIntire riding Senator out to Castle Rock—and not coming home again.

  Was that what Jed was trying to tell her? That someone might try to kill her if she interrupted the smuggling? Was he warning her off? It certainly looked that way.

  “Leave it alone, Serena.”

  “Is that what you want me to do?”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. There wasn’t any way she could turn her back on that stealthy landing or Uncle Dan’s death, pretend none of it had happened. She owed that to Uncle Dan. So she looked up at Jed and tried to smile. “Let’s not talk about it now. Do you mind?”

  “No,” he said quickly, “I don’t mind. There are a lot more interesting things I’d rather talk to you about.”

  “Such as?”

  “You. And me. The incredible luck that led me here to meet you.”

  “Luck?” She heard the catch in her voice.

  “Luck. Fate. Whatever you call it. Because there’s only one of you, Serena. Only one. If I hadn’t come to Castle Rock, I’d never have known you—and my life would always have been incomplete and I’d never have known why.”

  Lovely words, magical words, words to thrill her heart, bringing a glow and glory to the night. But, and the small still voice within couldn’t be denied, were they words calculated to draw her away from the hard truth that his presence at Castle Rock wasn’t a matter of luck at all?

  She wanted to believe in Jed. If not forever, at least for this moment, so she moved closer to him and said softly, “Tell me about yourself, Jed. All about you.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment, but, when he did, his voice was amused, relaxed. “Autobiography hour? All right. My life’s been painfully dull until now.”

  The music was ending. They stopped near the French windows.

  “Let’s go outside, Serena.”

  On the patio, they walked arm-in-arm and that closeness seemed natural and right.

  “The saga of a cowboy,” he began in a teasing voice. “Actually, I grew up on a truck farm outside of Austin, Texas. I did have a pony, and I worked part-time after school and on weekends, and I bought a horse when I was fourteen. I always wanted to be able to live on a ranch like this—but I never thought I would.”

  Despite herself, Serena began to figure how many pounds of cocaine it would take to buy a ranch like Castle Rock. She pushed the thought away.

  “You seem to know a lot about ranches,” she said quickly.

  “I’ve worked on a bunch, especially summers while I was in college.”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  Did he hesitate? Or did she imagine it?

  “University of Texas. I majored in business. Accounting. My dad insisted. I hated it.”

  “You’re not an accountant,” she observed mildly.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “Nope. I’m not. I’ve never even tried it. I guess I really would have been a pretty good old-time cowboy, you know, signing up for a round-up, then moving on when the cows were in. I was in the Air Force for a couple of years. That’s when I learned how to fly. I worked for a charter air service in . . . oh, all over South America, mostly for oil or mining companies.”

  He had almost named a country. Would it have been Colombia?

  “What brought you back to the states?”

  There was a distinct pause. A long moment of silence. When he spoke, the happiness was gone from his voice. “I came back because my brother was killed. I thought I ought to come home for awhile.” He paused again, said very quickly, “I decided not to go back down south. I was tired of it. I felt something was missing in my life.” His voice dropped and he pulled Serena close to him, “Now I know what it was. Serena, you are so beautiful.”

  Happiness poured over Serena like sunlight flooding a plain. It was not until later, as she walked slowly upstairs, the warmth of Jed’s embrace a memory, that the cold niggling hateful thought came that Jed certainly had managed to distract her from asking any more about him. But she did have a fragment of fact, something concrete to trace. He had said he received a degree in accounting from the University of Texas. That should be easy enough to check.

  The next morning, when she was sure no one was near the office, she placed the call to Austin. She was transferred several times before she hooked up with the right office.

  “Y
es, I’m trying to fill out some records on a new employee and I need to know the year he received his degree. The name is Jed Shelton, and he probably graduated four or five years ago. He was from Austin and received a degree in accounting.”

  She waited patiently, idly doodling on a legal pad. The girl came back twice, checking to be sure she had the correct spelling and hometown, then finally said, “I’m sorry, I can’t seem to find it. No one named Jed Shelton from Austin graduated within the past ten years.”

  Serena had trouble thanking the girl because it was suddenly hard to breathe. After she hung up, Serena stared miserably at the legal pad and the row of plump-bellied planes she had drawn while waiting.

  Jed was not what he seemed.

  That simple sentence said it all. Broke her heart and said it all. Because, no matter how she felt about Jed, wanted to feel about him, she owed her loyalty to Danny and to Castle Rock.

  Grimly, Serena ripped off the top page of the legal pad and began to write. In a few minutes, she studied her plan of attack. Then she got up and set out to tackle the first job.

  She found Joe Walkingstick at the training corral, working in soft sand with a new horse.

  Serena climbed up and sat on the top rail. Joe worked gently with the trembling horse, getting him used to the bridle. In a few minutes, he nodded in satisfaction then turned and walked over to Serena.

  “Are we still going to have the Fourth of July rodeo, Serena?”

  She looked startled. “Golly, Joe, I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “We’ve done it for a lot of years.”

  Serena knew that was true. She couldn’t, in fact, remember a Fourth when there hadn’t been a Castle Rock Rodeo. It wasn’t, of course, a big public rodeo. It was for family and friends with men from nearby ranches competing in bronco riding and bulldogging, the prizes mostly tack donated by Uncle Dan. It brought lots of guests with campers and tents. On the night of the Fourth, Castle Rock put on a huge barbecue and fireworks show.

  “Can we get everything ready by then?”

  “We have two weeks. I think we can do it. I went ahead and ordered the lumber to build the temporary grandstand by the main corral.”