by Janet Dailey
“Later, I want to run into Blue Moon and take a look at the pickup,” Chase said. “According to the highway patrol, it was totaled.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ty said, then something—some movement, some whisper of sound, pulled his glance to the side hall that ultimately led to the rear of the house.
A lanky, dark-eyed man with metal-gray hair stood in the hall’s shadows two steps back from the arched opening to the living room. Culley O’Rourke had a coyote’s stealth, always somewhere around but rarely showing himself. And when he did, he was always silent, like now.
“Hello, Culley.” Although the man was his mother’s brother, Ty had never felt comfortable enough with Culley to address him as his uncle. He still remembered when Culley’s hatred toward the Calders had been all-consuming. Even now, after twenty years, it made him wary of trusting Culley too much.
“I heard the plane.” Culley fingered the brim of the battered hat in his hands, his sharp gaze darting between the two men. “Where is Cat? Didn’t she come home with you?”
“Yes. She’s upstairs in her room.” Whatever personal doubts he had about Culley O’Rourke, Ty never doubted that he adored Cat as much as he had once adored Ty’s mother.
“I’d like to see her.” He looked directly at Chase.
“I don’t know if you heard that Repp was—”
Culley cut in before the sentence was finished. “I heard about the boy dying. I’d like to see Cat,” he repeated.
“Go ahead.” Chase granted the request.
Without another word, Culley crossed the room on silent feet, skirting the area where they sat and heading straight for the oak staircase. No one had to tell him the location of Cat’s room, even though he’d been in the house no more than a dozen times in his life.
He had long ago figured out which of the bedrooms belonged to Cat, and spent many a night watching for a light to shine from its window. He didn’t take lightly the vow he had made at the foot of Maggie’s grave to look after her daughter and keep her safe from harm.
Unerringly he stopped outside her bedroom, hesitated, then rapped lightly on it and waited. But no sound came from inside. Concern for the girl who was his sister’s image overrode any further hesitation. He gave the doorknob a turn, found it wasn’t locked and opened it far enough to slip inside.
The bedroom was bright and young-girl feminine with floral-patterned wallpaper in tones of mauve, pink, and green. But Culley didn’t notice it or the wide ruffles that ringed its old-fashioned vanity table. His gaze went straight to the dark-haired woman standing at the window. She was motionless, her arms hugging her elbows and her face in profile, her gaze fixed in a sightless stare at the world outside.
He studied her for a long minute, seeing again the strong resemblance to his sister and recalling the time their father had been killed. Maggie’s face had been just as deathly pale as Cat’s was now, and her green eyes had burned with the same bottomless pain that no amount of tears could ease.
Culley had thought she was unaware of his presence. Then Cat spoke. “Repp is dead. Did they tell you?” she asked in a voice completely devoid of emotion.
“I knew.” Culley walked over to her. He longed to hold her and ease some of her suffering. But he had lived too many years without that kind of contact. Made self-conscious by the sudden wish to offer it now, he kept his hands at his side. “You’re hurtin’ bad, but in time, it’ll get better. I swear it will, Cat.”
Time. Cat almost laughed at him, but she didn’t. There would have been too much bitterness in the sound, and she knew her uncle had offered the empty platitude out of a sincere desire to console her. She nodded and kept silent.
“I wish there was something I could do,” he said after a moment.
She caught the note of anguish in his voice. “Thank you, but there is nothing anyone can do.”
As she continued to gaze out the window, she noticed a movement below. Focusing on it, she saw her father and Ty walking to the ranch pickup. They climbed into the cab, with Ty sliding behind the wheel. A moment later, the vehicle reversed away from the house. Cat half expected to see the truck head either toward the barns or toward the Taylor house. Instead it swung onto the road that led to the cast gate.
“I wonder where they’re going.” She frowned.
“Who?” Culley stepped closer to the window.
“Dad and Ty.”
He spotted the pickup traveling down the east road. “Probably headed for town. They were talking about seeing how bad the truck was wrecked.”
Culley had already seen it. Knowing that Cat was coming home, he had slipped into town early that morning to pick up some chocolate doughnuts and brownies to have on hand in case she came to see him. He had just pulled up to Fedderson’s convenience store when the tow truck arrived with the wrecked pickup. His sharp eyes had instantly spotted the Triple C brand stenciled on the vehicle’s passenger door. One look at the rest of the smashed and mangled cab told him no one could have survived the crash.
For a fleeting moment, he had thought Chase Calder might finally be dead. Although he was no longer gripped by hatred for the man, Culley would have felt no regret at his passing, only sorrow for the grief it would have caused Cat. But he had quickly learned Repp Taylor had been behind the wheel, the man Cat loved—something Culley had never quite understood, believing as he did that she deserved better.
“The pickup was totaled,” he told Cat. “Ain’t nothin’ left of the cab but a bunch of twisted steel and crumpled metal.” A low, horrible moan came from her as she wheeled from the window, eyes tightly closed against the grisly image. Culley realized what he’d done and hurried to rectify it. “It had to have killed him outright, Cat, without ever feeling nothing, without even knowing what hit him. You’ve got to think of it that way.”
“I wish I couldn’t think at all.” Her voice was little more than a thready whisper.
He lifted a hand to comfort her, then let it fall back to his side, uncertain what to do or what to say. He turned and looked out the window at the dust plume left in the wake of the departing ranch pickup.
TWO
The small town of Blue Moon hugged the edge of the two-lane highway that raced past it. To the rare passing motorist, it was an oasis of buildings plunked in the middle of nowhere, proof that civilization had reached into the heart of this grass desert. That it existed at all was due to the simple fact that Blue Moon was the only town for miles in any direction. In recent years, its population had tripled after Texas-based Dy-Corp began strip-mining coal on the old Stockman place not far from town. Progress had definitely come to Blue Moon. Some thought it was a good thing; some didn’t.
But for the first time in half a century, the Triple C Ranch was no longer Blue Moon’s biggest customer. That position now belonged to Dy-Corp, with all its employees and their families. Yet a Calder was still regarded with considerable respect by the town’s longtime residents.
When the Triple C vehicle pulled up to the combination grocery store and gas station, Emmett Fedderson spotted Chase Calder right away. He broke off his conversation with the former sheriff and went to greet him, out of politeness and respect.
“Chase. Ty.” He nodded to the two of them when they climbed out of the truck. “I’ve been expecting someone from the ranch to come by, but I never figured on it being you. How you been?”
“Fine, Emmett. Just fine.” Chase switched his cane to the other side to shake hands with the man. “We thought we’d take a look at the truck.”
“It’s totaled, I’m afraid. I had Beeker unload both trucks around back so the place wouldn’t start looking like a junkyard,” he said. “I guess your insurance man will be coming around to check the damage for himself.”
“The agent indicated that the adjuster probably wouldn’t get out here until sometime next week,” Chase told him.
“Figures. They drag their heels about paying off a claim, but you better not be late with a premium. That’s the way of it,
I guess,” Emmett Fedderson declared wearily. “I feel sorry for the Taylors, losing their only boy like that. It sure was one hell of an accident. I was just telling Sheriff Potter about it.” He waved a hand in the direction of the old man sitting on the planked bench in front of the store.
At the mention of his name, Potter spoke up. “I told Emmett he ought to park both wrecks out front, right by the highway. Might slow down some of these drivers going hell-for-leather by here.”
“It might.” Chase looked at the man who had been sheriff since before he was born. No one knew Potter’s exact age, but all agreed he had to be nudging ninety if he wasn’t there already. Age had shrunk his narrow shoulders and turned his wide hips into bony projections. He looked like a doddering old man, except for his eyes; they were as keen and quick as ever, like his mind. “How you been doing, Sheriff?”
Even though Potter had stepped down several years ago, the title had stuck. He had been called Sheriff Potter for so long, Chase could no longer remember the man’s given name.
“How I been doin’? As little as possible—like always.” Potter grinned, showing a full set of yellowed teeth, all his own.
Lazy was a word that had been used more than once to describe Potter while he was in office. He had never denied it, simply replying that a lot could be learned by simply watching and listening. Chase doubted there were any dark secrets that Potter didn’t know, including Chase’s own.
On a more somber note, Potter added, “I don’t reckon I’ll make it to the funeral. I’d appreciate it if you’d carry my condolences to the Taylors, Chase, and to that pretty little green-eyed daughter of yours, too. I know she had her cap set to marry that Taylor boy,” he said, proving again that very little escaped his notice, despite his age.
“Yes, I’ll tell them.” But the mention of Repp’s death brought him back to the reason they had come to town. He glanced at Ty. “Let’s go look at the pickup.”
As they headed around back, accompanied by Emmett Fedderson, a navy blue sedan turned off the highway and stopped next to the self-serve gas pumps. Not recognizing the vehicle, Potter checked the license plates and saw the tags of a rental car.
The driver stepped out, a tall man in a dress black Stetson, partially zipped windbreaker, Levi’s, and black eelskin boots. His outfit said cowboy—maybe even rancher—but there was something in the stranger’s manner that made Potter hesitate to label him as such. His curiosity aroused for no clear reason, he studied the man a little closer, watching as he flipped open the cover to the car’s gasoline tank, loosened its cap, then reached for the hose and inserted the nozzle in the tank.
The stranger was as lean as a winter wolf, and he had a way about him that made Potter suspect he could be just as dangerous as one, under the right circumstances. His eyes were busy, looking, seeing, noting everything around him. Not in a furtive way, but alert and cautious as though from long habit.
There was a time when nearly every western man had that way about them, especially the old-timers. Now it was a look Potter generally saw in only two kinds of men. It made him curious which one this stranger was. Not that it was any of his business anymore. Still, he wished he could get a look at the man’s face.
The thought led to action. “Nice afternoon,” Potter remarked, seeking to strike up a conversation.
The stranger obliged him by strolling over to the slab-seated bench. His hair was dark, neatly clipped. The high cheekbones and slashing jawline made Potter think the stranger might have some Indian blood. But it was his eyes that caught and held Potter’s attention. They were an unusual smoke gray, with thick, sooty lashes. He knew at once he had never seen this man’s face before.
“You couldn’t have ordered a better day than this.” An easy smile touched the stranger’s mouth, deepening the grooves that flanked it.
The smile did something to the man’s rugged good looks, changed them in a way women would like. Potter judged the stranger as somewhere around thirty, which by his measure was young.
“Yeah, it’s the kind a day that makes you forget what a long, tough winter it was,” Potter said.
“I noticed the range looks in good condition.”
The observation was one a cowman would make. Maybe he had that in his background, but Potter still didn’t peg him as a rancher.
“It looks almost gentle, don’t it?” Potter remarked, watching as the man’s gaze traveled over the grass prairie to the west where it rolled into forever. He barely glanced at the immense blue sky that awed most men seeing it for the first time. “But it’s a hard land, full of extremes. It can be brutally cold in the winter, and blazing hot in the summer. Why, I’ve seen it so bone-dry that a body could stand ankle-deep in dust. Then you got the storms that rain lightning and turn the ground into a quagmire that’ll suck your boots off. Yep, this land breeds toughness into a man, or it breaks him.”
The man nodded as though he understood. “It’s a big country, wide open and empty. A man could lose himself out here with no one the wiser.”
“I don’t know about that. A stranger would get spotted right off,” Potter told him. “We don’t get that many out here.”
“I don’t suppose you do.” The stranger glanced inside the building, then back to Potter. “Is this your place?”
“No. It belongs to Emmett Fedderson.” He pointed to the small sign above the door that listed Emmett as the proprietor. “He’s around back with the Calders. There was a nasty head-on collision last night on the highway. It killed one of the Triple C ranch hands outright, but the Anderson boy walked away from it with little more than a scratch. Naturally, he was drunker than a hoot owl.”
The stranger’s expression never changed, yet Potter felt his interest lift. “Oh? Which one of the Anderson boys was that?” he asked, as if he knew the family.
Which Potter was ready to bet a whole month’s pension check that he didn’t. Potter gave him a sly look and ran his thumbs under his galluses. “show me just who’s asking?”
The gray eyes turned cool for a half a second. Then the stranger reached inside his windbreaker, pulled out a wallet-sized leather case, flipped it open and held it out.
Potter looked at it. “Logan Echohawk. Treasury Department.” He thought about that for a moment. He’d never had much dealings with the federal boys, though he’d always heard those FBI men were arrogant bastards. The Treasury Department, that was another matter. Just about everybody Potter knew—on both sides of the law—considered Treasury agents incorruptible.
He chortled in satisfaction. “I figured you for one side of the law or the other. You see, I was sheriff here for more years than some men live. Folks always thought I sat around too much doing nothing. But you can learn an awful lot from just looking and watching. You get to know who’s just plain rowdy and who’s gonna be trouble. Usually you can even figure what’s gonna set it off.” He realized he was rattling on, something he had done a lot more these last few years. Not many people listened to him, though. But the stranger did. He was listening closely, sifting through the bits and pieces just like Potter himself had done. “It was Neil Anderson’s youngest boy Rollie that caused last night’s wreck. Which boy are you after?”
“Latham Ray Anderson.” He returned the identification to his pocket.
“Lath, huh.” Potter tugged on his galluses. If he had been in his favorite chair, he would have rocked back to think about that. “I can’t say I’ve heard his name mentioned in years. That boy had a belly full of anger, though,” he recalled. “He hated the farm, and the way his pa made him work like a dog on it. He hated having nothing and naturally hated anyone who did have anything. It didn’t surprise me when he joined the Army straight out of school. In fact, I was kinda relieved. Lath had a streak of mean in him that always worried me. Every now and then you run across ones that just seem born with an instinct for violence. Some of the bad ones grow out of it. I was hopin’ the Army might knock it out of Lath. I guess they didn’t. What did he do?”
/> “We just want to ask him some questions,” the stranger replied. Potter could tell the man wasn’t about to divulge any more information than that, ex-sheriff or not.
“He hasn’t shown his face around here in years—not since his brother Leroy’s funeral about six years back. If he had come around, there’s enough people who still remember him that the news would have spread faster than a grass fire.” Potter paused and looked up at the man, suddenly tracking his thinking and taking it a step farther. “Course, Lath always did hate the hard life his ma had. I remember the time Lew Michels caught him slipping a bottle of perfume in his pocket. Lath said it was a present for his ma. Lew made him sweep floors to pay for it. About a week later his storefront window got broke. It always seemed an unlikely coincidence to me. But you’re right if you’re thinking that. With his ma gettin’ on in years, Lath might keep in touch with her.”
The man smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, a mixture of amusement and respect in their gray depths. “Not much gets by you, does it?”
“Looking, listening, and thinking has been a habit too long,” Potter declared, liking this stranger more and more. “Don’t know how much information you’ll get out of them. The Andersons have always been a closemouthed clan. None of them thinks much of the government, or any other kind of authority. It’s an attitude you see a lot in folks as poor and proud as they are. It’s a combination that can make a body bitter and resentful.”
“It can do that.” The gasoline pump clicked off. The Treasury agent walked back to the rental car, topped off the tank, and put the nozzle back, then went inside to pay. Within minutes he was back. Again, he paused, his glance running to Potter. “Which way to the sheriff’s office?”
“Turn right just past Sally’s Place, then straight ahead two blocks. You can’t miss it,” Potter told him.
