by Janet Dailey
“I can manage.” Breathing in the broth’s rich beefy aroma, he felt the first rumblings of hunger. With slow care, he levered himself into a sitting position. Once he was sitting upright, Hattie slipped a pair of pillows behind him for a backrest. “Thanks. The soup smells good.”
“It’s homemade.” She set the tray on his lap. “Is there anything else you need?”
“My clothes.”
“Sorry, Duke, but I’m afraid they are pretty well ruined. I have your shirt soaking, trying to get the blood out of it. Maybe a professional cleaner can get the stains out of your suit, but—”
“Why did you call me that?” He stared at her curiously.
“What?” She gave him a blank look.
“Just now you called me Duke.”
“I did?” She seemed almost embarrassed, then shrugged it off. “I guess it’s because you remind me of him.”
“Who?” he persisted, determined to know who it was he resembled, aware it might mean nothing—or everything.
She looked him square in the eyes. “John Wayne. The Duke. You do know who he is?”
“The movie actor.” He dipped the spoon into the soup.
“That’s right.”
“And you think I look like him.” It started him wondering about the face that would look back at him from a mirror.
“It’s not so much that you look like him, but you remind me of him,” she replied, then explained: “You’re both big-shouldered and broad-chested with craggy features. A take-charge type who isn’t afraid of rough-and-tumble.” She cocked her head to one side. “Does that help?”
“Not really,” he answered, more annoyed than disappointed.
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” She studied him thoughtfully. “Amnesia caused by a head trauma is usually temporary. Most of the time, memory comes back in bits and snatches, but in rare instances, it can return full-blown.”
He caught the professional phrases she used. “You sound like you know something about it.”
“Before I switched careers to become a lady rancher, I was a registered nurse.”
“So that’s why Laredo brought me here last night.” It made sense now.
Hattie smiled in a dismissive way. “He knows I have a weakness for taking in wounded animals and strays.”
“Where is Laredo?”
“He went to town to get some clothes for you.”
“I got the impression that he might have had some trouble with the law. Has he?”
Her mouth curved in a smile that didn’t match the cool, measuring look of her eyes. “Laredo said you asked a lot more questions than you answered.” She was taking her time, sizing him up. He had the feeling this was one woman who made few mistakes in judgment. “If”—she stressed the word—“Laredo has ever had any trouble with the law, it happened on the other side of the border. One of those cases of being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people, I suppose. If he wants you to know more than that, he can tell you himself. But I think you have already discovered that he’s the kind of man you want at your side when there’s trouble.”
“We both know I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for him.” He stated it as a fact, without any show of emotion.
“I hope you remember that.” She started to turn away then swung back. “As soon as Laredo gets back with a set of clothes for you, I’ll bring them in. They probably won’t be the quality you are used to wearing. Just jeans, shirts, and some underclothes—”
“They will be fine,” he cut across her words, a little irritated that she seemed to think he believed he was above wearing ordinary work clothes. “I’ll pay you back as soon—” He broke off the sentence, recalling that Laredo had told him he didn’t have a cent to his name. It grated to think he was dependent on someone else.
“Don’t worry about the money right now. Just eat your soup.” Hattie pointed to the bowl in an admonishing gesture. “And don’t try to get up by yourself. With all the blood you’ve lost, you’re likely to be as wobbly as a newborn calf. I’ll come back later to pick up the tray.”
The first few spoons of soup took the edge off his hunger, but he ate every bit of it, determined to regain his strength. Yet the effort tired him. Eyes closed, he relaxed against the supporting pillows.
All the unanswered questions came swirling back. It took some effort, but he managed to ignore them and concentrated instead on the few facts he knew about himself, searching for something that felt familiar and right.
A pickup rattled into the ranch yard. He listened to the creak of its door opening and closing, followed by the sound of footsteps approaching the house. Already they had a familiar sound to them, and he guessed they belonged to Laredo.
Within minutes the cowboy walked into the bedroom, toting a big sack. Laredo’s eyes were quick to notice the empty soup bowl.
“Good to the last drop, I see,” Laredo observed.
“It filled the empty places,” he replied and glanced at the sack. “Hattie said you were going to pick up some clothes for me. Do you have some pants in there?”
“Sure do.” Laredo tossed the sack on the bed and lifted off the food tray. “I’ll get this out of the way first.”
He knew better than to make any sudden movements that might start his head spinning again, and pushed himself off the pillows with care. The paper sack rustled as Laredo dug into it and pulled out a pair of Levi’s. He swung his bare legs out of the bed and reached for the jeans.
“I’ll give you a hand getting into these,” Laredo said. “I don’t want you taking a nosedive onto the floor. In case you don’t know it, Duke, you’re a load to pick up.”
“That’s what Hattie called me,” he remembered.
“Until you can remember your own name, Duke is as good as any.” Laredo worked the pants legs over his feet and kept a steadying hand on him when he stood to pull them the rest of the way up. “And you didn’t take it too kindly when I called you an old man.”
He saw the mischievous glint in the cowboy’s blue eyes and took no offense. “No man likes to be called old. You’ll find that out . . .” He paused and swept an assessing glance over Laredo. It was difficult to pinpoint the cowboy’s age, but he thought he was on the long side of thirty. “And it won’t be too many more years before you do.”
“I’m afraid you’re right about that,” Laredo conceded with a rueful grin.
The movement had started his head pounding in earnest again. Gritting his teeth against it, he looked around. “Is there a bathroom close by?”
“Just down the hall. I’d better walk with you, though. The house is old and the floor is uneven,” Laredo warned.
Unsteady on his legs, he had to rely on Laredo’s support more than he liked as they crossed the bedroom and entered the short, narrow hall. When Laredo pushed open a door on the left, he waved off any further assistance and entered the bathroom alone.
After relieving himself, he shifted to the sink and inspected the face in the tall mirror above it. It was rugged and rawboned with age lines carved deep around the mouth and eyes. Layers of gauze were wrapped around his head like a turban. The dark brown hair below it showed a heavy salting of gray. He studied every detail, but the brown eyes looking back at him belonged to a stranger.
“Old man,” Laredo had called him. The gray hair and age lines seemed to bear that out, but there was plenty of muscle tone in his broad chest and shoulders, indicating he still had ample strength and vitality. He examined the variety of scars on his torso. Most of them were old and faded, with a straightness to them that suggested surgical incisions. But one, along the side of his ribs, had a fresh look to it that suggested it wasn’t much more than a year old.
But he had no memory of how he had gotten any of them.
His own mind bombarded him with questions that had no answers. Who was he? Where did he live? What did he do? Did he have a wife? A family? Was anyone looking for him?
There was a light rap on the door. �
��Are you all right, Duke?”
He turned away from the mirror and kept a steadying hand on the wall as he moved to the door. “I’m fine.”
Laredo ran a sharp eye over him when he opened the door. “What took you so long?”
“I was trying to get used to that face in the mirror.”
“It must be hell not being able to remember who you are,” Laredo said, more as a statement of fact than an expression of sympathy. “I’ll give you a hand back to bed.”
“I’m going to sit up for a while.”
“Are you sure?” There was skepticism in the side glance Laredo sent him. “You’re still pretty weak.”
“I won’t get any stronger lying in that bed.”
“That’s true enough.”
“If Hattie has any coffee made, I could use a cup.”
“I’ll check.” Once Laredo had him settled in the corner rocking chair, he went to see about the coffee. He returned with two mugs, handed one to the man he called Duke and lifted the other. “I thought I’d join you, if that’s okay.”
“Have a seat.” He motioned toward the bed. Laredo sat sideways on the mattress, his body angled toward the corner.
“So what are your plans?” Laredo raised the mug and took a cautious sip of the steaming coffee.
“Does it matter? You’ll be leaving soon.”
“You are definitely good at dodging questions. Maybe you are a politician,” Laredo said with a grin.
“Why be one when you can buy one?” The words were barely out of his mouth when he knew he was echoing a sentiment he had heard before. He could almost hear the man’s voice.
“That has the ring of experience talking,” Laredo observed. “And judging from that suit you were wearing, you probably have the bucks to buy a half dozen politicians.”
“If that’s the case, then somebody should be wondering where I am. They may already be trying to track me down.”
“You mean someone other than the guy who tried to kill you,” Laredo inserted dryly.
“Yes, he’s the wild card in the deck,” he murmured thoughtfully.
“Something tells me he’s doing a little sweating about now, wondering whether you are dead or alive. It’s bound to be driving him crazy that you haven’t turned up anywhere yet.”
“He could have cut and run.”
“It’s possible, but not likely.”
It was the certainty in Laredo’s voice that prompted him to challenge him. “Why not?”
“Because he isn’t sure yet how scared he should run. He knows you were hit, and so far you haven’t surfaced, which has to make him think you died. If I were him, I would hang around just long enough to find out.”
“It takes a man with cool nerve to do that.” And, he reflected, it said a lot about Laredo that he thought that way.
“I think he already established the coolness of his nerve when he laid in wait for you. It was pure luck on your part that he didn’t succeed.” Laredo idly swirled the coffee in his mug. “It strikes me that you have two options. You can either stick close to the ranch and wait for your memory to come back—”
“That could take days, weeks—even months,” he broke in, his voice sharp with impatience.
“I had a feeling that’s the way you would react.” A small smile edged the corners of Laredo’s mouth. “At the same time, if you show up around the old Stockyards, asking questions and trying to find somebody who might recognize you, you would be tipping your hand—maybe even giving him another chance at you.”
“I know,” he acknowledged grimly, aware he was between that proverbial rock and a hard place.
“There’s another alternative,” Laredo said.
“What’s that?” He studied the cowboy with a watchful eye.
“I could do the asking.”
“I thought you were supposed to be leaving soon. That’s what you said.”
Laredo moved his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “If I’m a few days late crossing the border, my friends won’t worry about me.”
“I see.” Common sense told him that Laredo’s suggestion was a sound one, yet it grated on him that he would have no active part in it.
“I know you hate the idea of sitting here and waiting, but it’s the most practical solution. By now others will have noticed you are missing and started asking questions. It wouldn’t arouse anybody’s suspicions if I nosed around, too.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” he agreed. “But I can’t help wondering why you want to involve yourself in my problem.”
“Curiosity, pure and simple,” Laredo replied. “I can’t help wondering who you are. Besides,” he added in jest, “I saved your life. The way I figure it that makes me responsible for you.”
Hattie walked into the bedroom, saw Laredo sitting on the bed, and made a sharp pivot toward Duke. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“Drinking coffee.”
“You can finish that in bed.” She plucked the mug from his hand and set it on the dresser top before he could raise an objection.
“I’ve laid in it long enough,” he protested.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Hattie informed him. “And I say this afternoon you rest. Tonight you can have supper at the table with us.”
“Not me, Hattie,” Laredo inserted. “I won’t be here for supper.”
“You’re leaving, then?” Her expression became shuttered to conceal her disappointment at the news.
“Not permanently,” Laredo replied. “I’m going into Fort Worth and see if I can find anybody who remembers Duke.”
“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she asked in all seriousness.
“I always am.” He matched her tone and look.
Chapter Two
Lightning raced in jagged streaks from the black clouds. On the heels of it, thunder boomed and rolled across the plains of eastern Montana as the rain fell in sheets, driven by a whipping wind.
The patrol car’s windshield wipers worked at high speed, their rapid rhythm adding to the tension. Acting Sheriff Logan Echohawk gripped the steering wheel with both hands as the headlight beams struggled to penetrate the curtain of rain and the premature darkness beyond it. The high, hard slash of his cheekbones and the pitch-black color of his hair spoke to his Sioux ancestry, but it was the gray of his eyes and the expression in them that always drew a second look, usually a wary one.
Just in time he spotted the intersecting side road and slowed the patrol car to make the turn into the east entrance of the Calder ranch. A brilliant flash of lightning briefly illuminated the sign that hung over the road. Logan had only a glimpse of the letters that spelled out the name CALDER CATTLE COMPANY before he passed under it. It was an unprepossessing entrance for a ranch that encompassed nearly six hundred square miles within its boundaries, making it roughly the size of Rhode Island. From the east-gate entrance, it was a forty-mile drive to the ranch headquarters.
And Logan knew the drive would never seem longer than tonight. He wasn’t eager to get there, not with the news he had to bring them. It was a close-knit group that inhabited the Triple C Ranch, as it was better known. Most of the hands were descendants of cowboys who had worked for the ranch’s founder, Chase Benteen Calder, who had staked a claim to the land well over a hundred years ago.
The history of the ranch was long and legendary. Although relatively new to the area, Logan knew much of it. Over three years ago he had married Cat Calder, daughter to Chase Calder, a grandson and namesake of the ranch’s founder.
This last year had been a rough one for everyone on the ranch, but especially the family, who were still mourning the loss of the son and heir, Ty Calder. His death had been tragic and violent, and the motive for it was one that still made no sense to Logan. But the twisted logic of a killer rarely stood up to scrutiny.
Ty’s death had been a crushing blow to Chase; no man ever expected to outlive his children. But the heavier burden had fallen to Ty’s widow, Jessy. Not only did she have the difficult
task of raising their three-year-old twins, Trey and Laura, by herself, but also the responsibility of running the Triple C would ultimately pass to her. No one doubted, however, that Jessy had the makings of an able leader. Born and raised on the Triple C, she could ride and rope with the best of them. Under Chase’s tutelage, she was rapidly learning to handle men as easily as she did cattle.
Lightning forked from the clouds in blinding tongues of light, briefly illuminating the vast expanse of treeless plains. A crash of thunder shook the air. Logan kept his eyes on the dirt road ahead of him. As violent as the storm was, he knew it was nothing like the one that was about to break over the Triple C. The news he was bringing was likely to shake the ranch to its very foundation.
At the Triple C headquarters, light blazed from the windows of the barns, sheds, commissary, and cottages that housed the hired help. More light pooled around the towering yard lights, its brightness dimmed by the slanted sheets of rain. In the darkness of the storm, the gleam from the multitude of ranch buildings gave the headquarters the appearance of a small town.
Dominating it all was The Homestead, an imposing two-story house, fronted by towering columns, that stood on a high knoll. Built on the site of the ranch’s original homestead, resulting in its name, the Calder family home had long been the heart of the ranch. From it, the ranch business was conducted just as it had been for over one hundred years.
Guests were few and far between in this empty corner of Montana where the nearest city was hundreds of miles away. But those who did drop by were always welcomed. Tonight was no exception.
Another booming clap of thunder rattled the windows in the den. Steeped in the ranch’s storied history, the room had become the traditional place to entertain guests.
John Montgomery Markham, brother to the Earl of Stanfield, stood at a front window, watching the jagged lightning bolts that streaked out of the dark clouds. Idly he took a sip of the iceless bourbon and water in his glass. Tall and athletically trim, he turned from the window with an easy grace.
