Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  "So where did the grandfather get it? Surely he wouldn't have been old enough to know Father?" Patrick turned to look at him.

  "No, but Vargas said his great grandfather was a cowboy named Amos."

  Patrick's eyes widened. "Amos Striker."

  "It fits. Striker worked the Wason ranch before he came here. That makes him a cowboy. And now that I think about it, there's a likeness between Vargas and Striker. That's why Vargas seemed so familiar."

  The two of them stood silently for a moment, each lost in his own thoughts, silhouetted in the deepening gloom. Patrick was the first to break the silence. "There's no way to prove he has father's watch."

  "We know. That's all that really matters. The thing to figure out is why he killed him."

  "So we're back where we started." Patrick sighed.

  "The locket." Michael hit his head with the heel of his hand. "Hell, I forgot about the locket. Father left a message. In Cara's locket. Vargas took it before I could get a good look at it. And then we lost it in the cave-in."

  "But Loralee's locket," Patrick smiled triumphantly, "is the same as Cara's."

  "Exactly." He grabbed his brother's arm impatiently. "What do you say we find out what's inside that locket?"

  "Michael says you're an artist." Loralee shot a look at Cara from under her lashes as she measured coffee into the coffee pot.

  "A painter," Cara said, nodding shyly.

  "I ain't never met an artist before. But I saw an exhibit once when I was in St. Louis. They were French paintings. The prettiest things I ever did see. You paint like that?"

  "Well, I'm not sure what you saw. But I love to paint. Maybe I can paint you someday."

  Loralee felt herself blush. "Don't know why you'd want to go and do that. Ain't nothing worth painting about me."

  "Sure there is. You're beautiful, Loralee." Cara was eyeing her through narrowed eyes, her head tilted. "Besides, you're family."

  "Your great-grandmother." Loralee tried to say it calmly, but her voice trembled with what? Fear? Elation? Awe? There really weren't words for a situation like this. "I reckon its going to take a little getting used to."

  Still, it explained a lot of things. Like why Cara was the spitting image of Mary, and why she felt such a strong bond for the girl. Girl. Heavens, she was already thinking like a granny. Great-granny. And here she was younger than her own grandchild. The thought was sobering.

  Loralee thought about her own granny, the only bright spot in an otherwise nightmarish childhood. Granny Shaw had been from Ireland. An imp of a woman with dark hair and laughing eyes. She'd always said there were things in this world a body simply couldn't believe with the eyes alone. 'Listen with yer heart, girl, that's where ye'll be finding the real answers.'

  Loralee closed her eyes and concentrated on her feelings, shutting out her doubts and confusion. As quickly as it had come, her confusion vanished like so much smoke in the wind, and she knew, in her heart, that the things Cara was saying were true.

  For the first time in long time, Loralee didn't feel alone. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she opened them. Cara was watching her, her sea-green eyes reflecting her own fears. Without a word, Loralee raised her arms and the two women embraced. This might not be a normal family reunion, but it felt mighty good all the same.

  "I can't read the first letter. Something W, then T3. " Patrick held the scrap of paper up to the candlelight.

  The locket lay open on the table, all concentration centered on the note. Cara still couldn't believe she hadn't thought about the note when she first saw Loralee's locket. Too much to process no doubt. And it didn't really matter, Michael had remembered.

  Patrick blew out a frustrated breath. "I can't tell for sure. See what you think." He passed the paper to Michael, who also held it up to the light.

  Cara leaned forward, staring at the paper, willing it to yield answers. "Maybe it's directions of some kind."

  Michael frowned. "Could be. That would mean the missing letter is either an S or an N."

  "Right." Patrick reached for the note. "But what in hell is T3?"

  "Tunnel number." Michael looked up, exchanging a look with his brother.

  "So this is directions to a mining tunnel?" Cara asked, not certain exactly what the information meant.

  "Not just any mining tunnel. One in the Promise. The main shaft goes laterally into the mountain with other tunnels branching off to either side—"

  "The north and south sides." Patrick interrupted his brother. "The slant is then either to the west or east."

  Cara nodded with understanding. "So the directions are for the third tunnel on either the south or north sides with a westward slant."

  Michael shot her a quick smile. "Exactly. With this, we can narrow it down to two tunnels."

  "But what good does it do us to know where, if we don't know what, and more importantly, why?" Loralee asked.

  "Patrick and I think it must have something to do with Father's ramblings."

  "About the silver?" Loralee leaned forward, elbows propped on the table, her eyes on the paper in Patrick's hand.

  "Right."

  Cara frowned as something nagged at her brain. She tried to focus on it, but whatever it was it remained just on the edge of her subconscious. Reluctantly, she let it go and focused again on the conversation.

  "That and the fact that Vargas may have been related to Striker."

  "The great grandfather." Cara thought back to Nick's confession. "His name was Amos."

  "Exactly." Patrick smiled. "So somehow it's all related."

  "And what's more important is that Striker knows how." Michael's face hardened in the glow of the candles.

  "And killed our Father because of it." Patrick's face tightened, too.

  Cara was grateful suddenly that they were on her side. These were not men to be trifled with. "So you think that Amos is on his way to the Promise now?"

  "Maybe. If there's really something up there, then he'd want to get it before everything blows sky high."

  Patrick grimaced. "And Striker doesn't hit me as the type to abandon something he obviously believes is worth killing for."

  "True enough, and Duncan was awful excited about the silver." Loralee put in.

  Suddenly, the little thought pushed its way into the forefront. Cara sucked in a breath. "He said the silver, not silver."

  "What?" Three heads turned to focus on her.

  "When you all talk about it. You say silver. As though it's not specific. But whenever Loralee talks about what your father said, she always refers to the silver. Specific silver." She groaned with frustration as three pairs of eyes looked equally blank. "Don't you see? Nick had books about the lost silver. That's what he was looking for. The silver."

  She watched as the impact of her words sank in, satisfied to see comprehension dawning. Michael was the first to see it. "You think Amos found the silver from the Promise?"

  "I think it's possible."

  "So then what? My father found it, too?"

  "It would make sense. That would explain his excitement."

  Michael ran a hand through his hair. "But if he found it, he would have told Owen." He looked over at his brother.

  Patrick frowned. "He tried. Or at least that's what Sam said. But Owen was out, so Father got drunk instead."

  "And came to see me," Loralee added.

  "That must be when he put the note in the locket," Cara said, her mind trying to put it all together.

  "It's possible." Loralee scrunched up her forehead in thought. "In fact, it makes sense. Duncan had my locket with him. I'd broken the chain and he said he'd fix it for me. Never let anyone have it before. But I trusted him." She looked up to meet Patrick's gaze.

  "Our father was a wily old goat, Loralee. I wouldn't put it past him to slip the coordinates into the locket. Especially if he thought there might be trouble."

  "Look, this is crazy." Michael held up a hand. "Father couldn't have found the silver. We're ignoring th
e fact that my mother ran off with it. She and that son of a bitch muleskinner." He spit out the word as if it tasted vile.

  "His name was Zachariah Bowen and he didn't run off with anyone." Loralee's voice was tight with anger. "My Zach never ran off with anybody."

  "Your Zach?" There was a note of incredulity in Michael's voice.

  Loralee squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "Zach Bowen was my husband."

  26

  There was complete silence around the table. Cara studied each of the faces. Loralee looked angry enough to spit nails. Michael looked equally angry, but his anger was tinged with amazement. Patrick simply looked sick at his stomach. She had no way of knowing the depth of the emotions around the table, but she was astute enough to know that with one sentence Loralee had managed to change everything.

  "Did my father know?" Patrick's words were almost a whisper.

  Loralee nodded. "That's how we come to be friends."

  "I see." His mouth tightened into a thin line, hurt radiating from his eyes.

  Loralee placed a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Patrick. I tried, that night on the porch, but somehow I just couldn't." She stared at her hand, looking miserable.

  "Zach never mentioned the fact that he was married." Michael's words were clipped, almost harsh.

  Loralee's chin went up again. "That was because of me. I didn't want him telling folks."

  "Why the hell not?" Michael barked. Loralee cringed and Cara put a gentle hand on Michael's knee. He glanced over at her and some of the frustration in his face faded away. "I mean it seems odd that you wouldn't want anyone to know," he continued in a more gentle tone.

  "It was for him, not me. I didn't think folks would cotton to him being married to a…"

  "Working girl?" Patrick finished for her.

  "A whore, yes." Somehow, coming from Loralee's mouth, the term sounded almost dignified. "I didn't want folks looking down on him. I'd already quit working, but you know how gossip travels from camp to camp. He was going to send for me and Mary when he had enough money. Then we were going to try to start over, someplace far from here." Tears welled in her soft brown eyes. "We were going to make a go of it."

  "But he decided to run off with my mother instead."

  She glared at Michael. "He didn't run off with your mother. I don't know what happened, but there's no way he would have done something like that."

  Michael's voice softened. "I understand the way you feel. In fact, I admire your loyalty. But face it, Loralee, you aren't the first wife to be jilted by her husband."

  "You don't understand." She scrubbed at her eyes, wiping away the tears. "When I found out I was pregnant with Mary I knew it was his. I hadn't been working. Just being with him." She sucked in a deep breath. "But I still wanted to get rid of the baby. There's ways to do that, you know. There's always some gal around who has a potion or a doctor willing to take care of things for a price. Anyway, I was certain it was the right thing to do. I cared about Zach, but there wasn't any future in it. I wasn't proper and besides, he didn't seem like the marrying kind."

  Patrick's eyes were now filled only with concern. "But you did marry him."

  "It was like I told you the other night, Zach wouldn't have it any other way."

  "You knew about this?" Michael shot Patrick an accusing look.

  "Only that she'd been married."

  Cara reached out to pat Loralee. "Go on."

  She responded with a watery smile. "Well, Zach was tickled pink about the baby. More than any man I've ever seen." She smiled to herself, lost in her thoughts. "He used to lie with his head on my stomach and talk to the baby. Silly stories and dreams. About what our life would be like, the places we'd go, the things we'd do. Oh, he had grand plans for us all."

  "I still—" Michael started, but Cara waved him silent.

  Loralee sighed. "He was pretty persuasive, Zach Bowen. Finally, I was so worn down I said yes." She hugged her middle rocking back and forth. "And for a while we was real happy. But the money ran out and he headed here to try and make more. He wrote every week."

  Patrick's look had changed to thoughtful. "You told me the last letter you had from him was about the silver."

  "Right, he said he'd struck it rich and that he'd be wiring the money for me and Mary to come and join him."

  "And you never heard from him again?"

  She lowered her head, staring at her hands on the table. "No."

  "Further support for the theory that he ran away with the silver and our mother." Michael rubbed a weary hand across his face.

  "Look, Michael, I can't give you any proof. But I know for certain, in here," she pointed to her heart, "that my Zach never run off with your ma."

  "I'm not trying to hurt you, Loralee, but I don't think you're facing facts."

  "Michael, you don't have children," she said, quietly, her face softening at the thought. "If you did, you'd know that even if Zach had decided to leave me for your ma, he could never have left Mary. I'm telling you, if my husband were alive, he'd have contacted me. If not because he loved me—and he did—then because he loved our Mary."

  "Our mother left us." The pain in Michael's face made Cara ache with the need to comfort him.

  "Maybe she didn't." Patrick met his brother's gaze with a steely-eyed certainty.

  Michael ran a hand through his hair. "This is insane. Now you want me to believe that my mother and the mule—Loralee's husband—are dead?"

  "It's not impossible, Michael." Cara spoke tentatively, unsure of his reaction.

  "The hell it's—"

  "Hear me out." She covered his hand with hers. "What if there were an accident? You said yourself the roads are bad. And you said yourself how dangerous a muleskinner's job could be. A single flick of the whip often controlled the fate of the wagon, right?"

  Patrick nodded enthusiastically. "Hell yeah, I've seen them practically make a curve on two wheels and still wind up with cargo and driver in one piece."

  Cara met Michael's gaze. "The point is, maybe Zach and Rose didn't make it down the mountain. Maybe Amos Striker found them and the silver."

  A faint glimmer of hope dawned in Michael's eyes.

  "Maybe they had a little help meeting their maker." Patrick's voice was sharp.

  "Amos Striker." Loralee said the name as if it were poison.

  "But what about the stagecoach? The station master told us they'd boarded the stage at Antelope Springs." Michael looked at his brother.

  "Maybe it was a set up." The two men turned to look at Cara. "Well, it's possible. Say Amos did find them and…"

  "And killed them." Patrick finished for her.

  "Right. Well, it would follow that if anyone found them, there would be questions about the silver. So he could have arranged for it to look like they ran away. It wouldn't have taken much."

  Loralee leaned forward caught up in the idea. "And then he would have hidden the silver. There's no way it could have turned up around here all at once."

  Cara nodded. "So all he had to do was stash the silver somewhere."

  "But he wouldn't have hidden it in the Promise. We were still living up there."

  Cara met Michael's skeptical gaze. "Maybe he moved it there later. I mean you have to admit there's a certain touch of brilliance to hiding it right under your noses."

  Patrick nodded in agreement.

  Michael wasn't so easy to convince. "And what about the bodies."

  "Hell, Michael, you know as well as I do that a body doesn't last long out here. Between the wild animals and the weather there usually isn't much left." Patrick waved his hands, emphasizing his words.

  Loralee winced and Cara laid a soothing hand on her arm.

  Michael drew in a long breath. "So what you're all trying to say is that Amos Striker either intentionally or accidentally came across the silver, disposed of Zach and our mother, and eventually hid the silver in a tunnel at the Promise."

  Cara nodded taking up the story. "And your fa
ther found the stash, but before he could tell either of you, Amos figured out and murdered him."

  "Mistaking you for Father and almost killing you in the process," Patrick added.

  "And then somehow, Amos managed to lose the treasure." Cara concluded.

  "Which is where this tale starts to get fanciful." Michael's tone conveyed his skepticism.

  "Not necessarily." Cara chewed on her lower lip, thinking about the twenty-first century part of the story. "We know the silver was lost. Nick confirmed it. That's what he was looking for. It all fits."

  "So what, my father moved it?"

  "It seems possible." Their gazes collided and he sighed.

  "The only man with all the answers is Amos Striker. We find him, we'll find the truth. I'll set out first thing in the morning."

  Patrick opened his mouth to argue, but Michael stopped him with an I'm-older-than you-look. "You need to head for Silverthread. Someone's got to talk to Owen. If the silver is up there, part of it belongs to him. He deserves to know what's going on."

  Patrick reluctantly nodded his agreement. "All right. But as soon as I talk to him, I'm coming up there."

  "I'm counting on it."

  "I'm coming with you." Cara met Michael's gaze, lifting her chin defiantly.

  "No. I want you to stay here where it's safe." Michael held her gaze, the message there perfectly clear.

  "In the middle of nowhere, a hundred years before I was born?" Cara ground her teeth together, feeling anger surge through her veins. "I said I was in this to the end, and I meant it. Have you forgotten who it was that shot Joe Ingersoll?"

  Michael glared at her, but she knew she'd won. "Fine."

  "I'll ride into town with Patrick," Loralee said. "Pete needs to see the doctor."

  Michael pushed away from the table. "Then it's a plan. We leave at first light."

  "I need to talk to you." Michael stood in the doorway, his hand resting against the doorframe, his stance deceptively casual.