Long Time Gone

by Mary Connealy

  Rosita went nearly mad tempting Cole with the best sickroom food she could find. Mulled eggs and mashed fruit. Warm milk, rich with sugar and cinnamon, poured over bread. Angie watched and learned from her. It was clear Rosita loved Cole like her own child, as she did all the Bodens, and she seemed determined to hold him on this side of the Pearly Gates with the weapons of gentleness, good food, and relentless prayer. She worked day and night to lure him into sufficient wakefulness that he could swallow.

  The doctor pretty much lived at the Cimarron Ranch. His steady presence had two very separate effects. Justin was glad the man was there and caring for Cole, but his constant vigilance seemed to announce to the world just how desperately ill Cole was. Doc Garner was summoned away for other patients a few times and had to go, but otherwise he was like a new member of the family. Angie was there all the time, helping the doctor when he was there and following the orders he left when he couldn’t be. Sadie and Heath were on hand too, so Cole was never alone, day or night.

  Justin slept in short patches, haunted by dreams of his brother’s death that jerked him awake. He never sank into deep, restful sleep. His mind was too filled with how badly this could end.

  6

  He rose in the dark on the fifth day of Cole’s struggle. The silence in the house nearly rang in Justin’s ears. More so than usual. The night was pitch black. As he did multiple times each night, Justin threw back the covers, pulled on pants and a shirt over his woolen underwear, and hurried down to check on his brother.

  As Justin padded down the stairs, he thought of plenty to worry about. Cole wasn’t drinking enough water, wasn’t eating enough food. He rarely woke, and when he did, he was out of his head, raving and tossing around until they all hoped he’d slump back into unconsciousness to avoid hurting himself.

  Today the fever raged higher than ever. Cole had lost weight, and his cheeks were hollow. Deep shadows made his eyes seem sunken and bruised until he looked like he’d lost a fistfight.

  Every time Justin went into that room he expected the worst.

  Now he watched his hands shake as he reached for the doorknob, but he couldn’t stand to wait until he gathered his nerve. He shoved the door open, half expecting to see his brother had died.

  Angie slept, sitting in a chair, her head cradled in her folded arms, resting on the mattress. Cole’s hand rested in her madly curling hair. His eyes open, studying Angie as if she were his own personal guardian angel.

  Then Cole’s gaze shifted. He focused on Justin and smiled. Really fully smiled.

  “Cole!”

  Angie’s head shot up, terror etched on her face as if she feared the worst, too. And then all the terror melted away and she smiled, the biggest smile Justin had seen since she moved to Skull Gulch a few weeks back. Her life before, back in Omaha, had been a grim business, or so it seemed.

  “The fever broke.” Cole sounded weak, yet he was making sense and his eyes were bright with his usual intelligence. His hair was soaking wet, lines of sweat trickling down his face. He’d been flushed from the fever for days. Now the hectic color had returned to a much more normal shade.

  Angie stood. “It happened a while ago. Cole got some water down. We talked a bit and I—I guess I fell asleep. Drink some more water, please.”

  She had a cup and pitcher close to hand. Cole was lying flat, so Justin came up, slid one arm under Cole’s shoulders, and raised his head. He drank the full cup and asked for more.

  With a delighted smile, Angie poured. Cole finished about half of it.

  “I’m going to stir the coals in the kitchen stove and heat a bowl of broth for you. While it warms I can start breakfast. We need to rebuild your strength.” Angie rushed around the bed, past Justin and out toward the kitchen.

  Justin lowered Cole to the bed. “You’ve given us a long worrisome week, big brother. It’s about time you left off being sickly.”

  Cole flinched as he settled back onto the bed. He reached for the bandage at his waist. “If you call this getting better, I’m glad I slept through a week of it.”

  Justin wanted to do something to make Cole more comfortable. He wanted it so bad that it stopped him. If he was too nice, Cole would know just how sick he’d been.

  “Tell me what I’ve missed.” Cole trying to take charge, even from a sickbed while he was flat on his back.

  Justin talked about the letter Heath had found on Dantalion. “Someone paid him.”

  “There’s a conspiracy against us, and they don’t seem to care who they kill, so they must be gunning for all of us. Is the man you hauled to jail saying anything?”

  “Nope. He must’ve given us a phony name too because we can’t figure out who he is. Sheriff Dunn is looking through wanted posters. Heath got him to as good as confess, though. So that’s enough to hold him, just not enough to find out who hired him.”

  They discussed the troubles until the food came. Justin couldn’t believe how nice it was to talk to his brother again. He’d talked things over with Heath and Sadie, and they’d come up with few answers. Cole wasn’t much help, at least not right now. Even so, it felt good.

  Justin decided then and there he was going to stop threatening to punch Cole every time he got irritated. The two of them had been squabbling since they were boys. Justin thought it might be time to set that aside.

  But needling Cole was one of his favorite things. Maybe he should cut back slowly instead of just stopping all at once.

  The night sky was being pushed back to the cold light of dawn. It was bright enough they’d doused the lantern when Heath came in. He took one look at Cole and smiled.

  “Good to see you awake, Cole.” Heath came close, his blue eyes flashed until Justin could swear lightning struck from behind them. Justin, Cole, and Heath discussed their troubles some more.

  It was fully dawn when Sadie came in, saw Cole awake and talking, and burst into tears.

  That was Justin’s chance to break up their talk. He squared his shoulders and blew out a breath. With his brother on the mend now, finally Justin could think about something besides hanging on to Cole’s life for all he was worth. “I’ve never questioned Ramone like I should. And Miss Maria is there with him and Alonzo, though he’s been working as much as he can.”

  Alonzo was the ranch ramrod, second in charge only to John Hightree, the foreman. But Alonzo’s pa, Ramone, was in great need.

  “You want company?” Heath pulled Sadie into his arms. She mopped her eyes and held on tight for a few seconds, but soon enough she went to fussing over Cole again.

  “I do,” Justin said, “but I’m wondering if you’re the one for the job. I think he might relax more if I brought one of the women instead.”

  “I’ll go.” Sadie looked back at Cole as if she were scared to leave, scared to do anything that might put Cole back to sleep.

  “That’d be fine, but let me ask Rosita first. She speaks Mexican real well. I want someone there to catch anything that passes between the family—anything, I mean, that’s meant to leave me out. And she remembers things from the old days. I’d like her to hear what Ramone has to say.”

  “Rosita is in the kitchen.” Angie came in with a bowl of broth. “Sadie, if you don’t mind feeding Cole, I’ll see to breakfast so Rosita can go along with Justin.”

  Justin walked with Angie back to the kitchen. She had a mysterious upward tilt to her lips, and Justin couldn’t help but ask, “What’s making you smile?”

  “I’m just so relieved and happy that Cole’s getting better.” She smiled again. “I am so tired—we all are. But none of that mattered when his fever was so high. Now I feel like I could melt into a heap on the floor and just sleep for days.”

  “I feel it, too. Even when I slept I was tormented with nightmares, mainly about planning my brother’s funeral.” Justin shook his head. “I should’ve known Cole was too ornery to die. I should have trusted him.”

  They shared another smile, one of the most harmonious moments since they’d me
t. Then they reached the kitchen to find Rosita sliding a large beef roast into the oven. She was singing a hymn quietly to herself, just as happy as the rest of them.

  “Rosita, I need some help.”

  She turned, looking about ten years younger than she had last night. “Whatever you need.”

  He couldn’t resist walking right up to her and hugging her long and hard. “There, I needed a hug. Now I can go back to being a pest like always.”

  Rosita gave him a teasing slap on his arm.

  “I want to go talk to Ramone.”

  The smile faded, but she kept the sparkle in her eyes. “And you want me to . . . make him a tray of food?”

  Justin shook his head. “You’re not getting off that easily. I want you to come with me. Ramone, Alonzo, and Maria are all staying in Alonzo’s cabin. I want to ask them more about everything, and I want a woman with me, hoping that will soften my questioning some. And you speak their language well enough they can’t discuss answers right in front of me before they give me an answer that might not be the full truth.”

  Rosita reached for the ties in back of her apron.

  “I’ll take over in the kitchen, Rosita,” Angie offered. “Sadie and Heath are watching over Cole. I’ll get breakfast to them.”

  “Umm . . . a simple breakfast.” Rosita stopped untying and gave Justin a nervous glance.

  He wasn’t sure why.

  “Yes, very simple. And I’ll cook it slow so nothing burns.”

  “Thank you, little señorita.” Rosita lay a strong, callused hand on Angie’s cheek. Angie had made food earlier, but it was only broth.

  Angie smiled back with genuine gratitude. Justin saw how she soaked up kindness like it was water and she’d been living in a desert for years.

  Justin ran upstairs to dress proper and get his winter coat. He came back down to find Rosita in a heavy shawl, a woolen bonnet on her head, ready to head out. She had a plate in hand with a cloth covering something.

  “Biscuits. Let’s begin in a sociable way. You can always change tactics.”

  “Sounds wise. Let’s try to keep this friendly.” As soon as they walked a few feet from the house, Justin glanced behind him and said, “What was that about cooking slow?”

  Rosita gave him a knowing smile. “Our pretty Angie isn’t an experienced cook. She says Sister Margaret is working with her. And now I am, but the ways of a cast-iron stove are strange to her. She seems to have done only simple cooking in her life and has no real training.”

  “A woman who can’t cook? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that before.” Justin glanced back again, more in fear this time than worry he’d be overheard.

  Before he could think of another question to ask, they reached the ramrod’s cabin. Justin knocked on the door. He was struck by how much time had passed since the attack—a full week. And with Cole so sick, Justin barely thought about what all needed to be done to ensure their safety.

  Now it slapped at him like whipping oak branches.

  Alonzo opened the door, saw them, and a wary look crossed his face. Justin wondered what it meant and immediately found himself on edge.

  “Come on in, boss.”

  7

  “Ramone, you got that scar on your face the day Grandfather Chastain was killed, didn’t you?”

  Justin sat in a chair at Alonzo’s small table, across from Ramone. He did his best not to stare at Ramone’s ravaged face. Not because of how it looked. This was the West so he’d seen battered men before, and it didn’t bother him overly. It was a hard life. Scars were often a sign of a man who’d survived rugged times. He took many scars to be marks of courage and strength. But this was different. This scar was a reminder of how Justin’s grandfather had died.

  It was a brutal scar. It started at the hairline, cut down through Ramone’s left eye, his face, his chin. The skin was puckered and thickened along the slash. Ramone had a scraggly beard, yet the scar was deep enough that it was visible through the facial hair.

  Ramone had a white socket where his eye should be, and it’d been left to heal without any stitches or any medical care at all. It was a horrible thing.

  Rosita was talking quietly with Maria, who worked at the stove. The aroma from the room was spicy. Justin smelled the hot peppers so well liked by the Mexican folks. He could eat a few of them, but Alonzo always wanted his food loaded with the bits of crunchy fire. That must be how Maria was preparing breakfast, as the air was so thick with the peppers that Justin’s eyes burned.

  Alonzo sat at the head of the table with the men. He was a young spitting image of his pa, except unscarred and unbattered by life.

  “Sí, your grandpapa . . .” Ramone’s voice, low and unsteady, faltered. It was heavily accented too, no surprise for a man who’d spent the last thirty years in a land where folks spoke another language. But Ramone had been born in Skull Gulch and spoke English well for the first twenty years of his life. He might falter some, but he got by well enough.

  His one seeing eye flashed with fear, but he cleared his throat and continued, “. . . your grandpapa fought off two of the three hombres who came at us with their guns already drawn, and the third, Dantalion, their leader, killed Señor Chastain.”

  Hearing of it brought back the exploding guns as someone had shot Cole from cover and did his best to kill more. Justin had been blaming Arizona Watts, and he was most likely guilty. It sounded like Dantalion had hired him. On the other hand, Dantalion could have just as well done it himself.

  Ramone went on, “When Dantalion shot Señor Chastain and slashed me, he knelt on my chest with his knife at my throat and said I’d be blamed for my boss’s death, and because he was a powerful man, people would believe him. I’d hang for murder. He said if I ran, I’d live. I was lying there on the ground, in terrible pain, blood everywhere, and I knew he was right. It would have been the honorable thing to stay and face the charges and speak the truth, only that wasn’t a choice he gave me. He’d kill me right there where I lay if I didn’t agree to leave the country. If I came back and accused him, I’d hang. It was like speaking to el Diablo himself.” Ramone shuddered visibly. “I ran and did not stop until I reached Mexico City.”

  As he spoke, Justin studied him. The scar reached his lip on the left side of his face and curled his lip in what looked like a sneer. Or maybe it was a sneer, but there was no courage or arrogance behind it, only cowardice and a trace of viciousness, reminding him of a cornered rat.

  Yes, Justin understood Ramone’s reaction to run. Dantalion seemed like the kind who’d destroy a man without a second thought. But Ramone had other choices. He could have written a letter to tell the truth to the Bodens. He could have left, then circled back and faced up to what he’d witnessed, and trusted Ma and Pa to listen. The ugly wound on his face would have been a powerful piece of evidence in Ramone’s favor.

  Instead, he’d turned coward and ran and made no effort for thirty years to set things right, all the while knowing Dantalion, a killer, was on the loose.

  “I spent my life with my father, Don Bautista de Val, until he died.”

  The old Spanish Don had been a partner to Justin’s grandfather for years. The two of them were given a vast Spanish land grant. Then the United States of America gained the whole area from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to end the Mexican-American War. To retain ownership of the grant, de Val had to become an America citizen, something that didn’t suit him. So he left it all behind and moved to Mexico City to live out his remaining years. His wife and children went with him, of course, while he abandoned his mistress in Skull Gulch, including Maria and Ramone, the two children he’d had with her.

  “Then after my padre’s death, his wife, who’d borne him children at the same time as my mother, cast me out.” Ramone’s face twisted in a way that made his scar all the more ugly, the sneer all the more pronounced.

  “Don de Val was not discreet with his unfaithfulness, and his señora always despised me, and who could blame he
r?” Anger seethed behind Ramone’s calm words. It appeared that Ramone could blame her, and did.

  “I came back to mi padre’s ranch and holed up in the old hacienda, or what was left of it. I was defeated. Cast out. I had nothing. An ugly man with nothing left to live for. I came home to die.”

  “No, Padre.” Alonzo reached across the corner of the table and rested his strong hand on his father’s trembling arm. “You have family who love you.”

  “You love a man who’s lived his life in fear. I have shamed our family and failed all of you.”

  Alonzo’s hand tightened and he looked determined to convince his father there was a future still.

  Before he could speak, Justin went on. He had to find out more about his grandfather’s shooting. “Do you know anything about Dantalion?”

  Shaking his head, Ramone said, “No, nada. I had never seen him or heard of him before he attacked us, nor since.”

  “What about Grandfather? He was worrying about his daughter, my ma, needing an American husband to hold on to the land grant. He talked about the governor. Do you think Dantalion worked for the governor?”

  “It may be possible. I don’t think your grandpapa believed that. Rather, Dantalion was using his connections, without the governor’s knowledge, to gain wealth. Señor Chastain believed the governor was a decent man but not vigilant to his duties. Dantalion was working for others, doing bad deeds in the governor’s name.”

  Justin couldn’t stand the thought of getting nothing from Ramone. He had to know more. Then he thought of that warning note they’d found on top of the canyon wall, where someone had set off the avalanche that nearly killed Pa. The note had matched word for word one left with Grandfather after he was shot. It read, This is a warning. Clear out of this land you stole from Mexico.

  “What about the note they found in Grandfather’s pocket?”