by Sylvia Nobel
Great timing, O’Dell. No, make that perfect timing—to spoil the vacation with Tally. And it was all my own doing. My dad had opined, following one of my legendary tantrums at age five, that I had been born with an extra bone in my body. A stubborn bone. Wasn’t it because of my pigheaded decision to flaunt my independence that I’d exposed myself to Lupe’s illness and placed my promise to Tally in jeopardy?
But, maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I was just tired. I set my jaw, determined to fight it off. “Mind over matter,” I muttered to myself. Perhaps some soup and a couple of aspirin would do the trick, I thought, parking near the front door of the café.
The place was only about half full, but I’m pretty sure I recognized some of the same fossils that had breakfasted here yesterday. Raked over by their inquisitive stares, I snagged a table in the furthest corner and settled down with a cup of hot tea to wait for Payton. I actually looked forward to talking with him, but had to admit that my intentions were threefold. I certainly owed him big time for his act of kindness, but, because of his longstanding ties with this community, I felt sure he’d be a valuable resource, especially when it came to filling in more background on Jason Beaumont. No doubt he’d know plenty about the young man’s past, but I had to admit that the main focus of my curiosity was Bethany. Being the obvious target of her ill will was a continued source of puzzlement to me. It made sense to think the eavesdropper was Jason, but it could just as easily have been her. But, why would either of them care about my telephone conversations?
Everyone stopped in mid-chew and looked up as the door swung open and Payton stepped inside, tamping down his windblown hair. I waved and when he returned it and weaved among the mismatched tables and chairs towards me, a series of quizzical gray eyebrows hiked up. Oh, boy. Something new to gossip about.
“Hi, sorry I’m a little late.” He slid into the chair across from me. “I was on the trail of a wily rattler and time got away from me.”
“Did you catch it?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, a ring of assurance in his voice. “It takes a lot of patience this time of year, because their hibernation period has begun, but it’s worth the effort. An ounce of venom can save a life somewhere.”
Admiration swelled inside me. What a guy. I pushed the menu to him. “I really wanted to buy you a big, thick steak, but I’m afraid the patty melt is the closest thing to a gourmet dish offered here.”
Payton laughed. “That’s fine. You don’t owe me anything, Kendall. I was happy to help out.”
“Hi, Payton,” said the buxom waitress, showing him a generous portion of cleavage as she set down silverware, napkins and water. “You gonna stay around and finish your food today or will you be running off to rescue more stray pussy cats?”
Chuckling, he winked at me. “No secrets in this town, huh?” I think to please me he decided on the patty melt with fries and coffee. I ordered soup, even though I wasn’t the least bit hungry. In fact, I felt a little lightheaded and figured I’d best eat something since I had a long drive ahead of me. After she left he folded his arms together in front of him and leaned in, assuming a serious look. “Listen, I wanted to apologize to you about last evening.”
I drew back, surprised. “Apologize for what?”
“Leaving you so abruptly. It’s just that…well, Bethany can be so…so….”
“Exasperating? Believe me, I hear you.” I lowered my voice. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but since you brought it up….”
He put up a hand. “I know. I know. How on earth did I ever get hooked up with someone like her?”
“Bingo.”
His attention turned inward for a few seconds before he relinquished a soft sigh. “I think I fell in love with her the first time I saw her riding her Palomino at the rodeo. We were both five years old at the time.”
His dreamy-eyed expression prompted me to follow my earlier hunch. “Dean’s place. That wasn’t by any chance your ranch at one time?”
One reddish brow inched above his glasses. “So you’ve been asking about me?”
“No. I just added together a couple of the things you said yesterday and sprinkled in a little reporter’s intuition.”
“I see. Guess I’m pretty transparent.”
He paused while the waitress delivered my pea soup and his coffee before saying, “Yes, that was our place until it was…acquired by the Sundog a few years ago. But, that’s a long, sad story I’m sure you have no interest in.” The undertone of careless resentment in his tone piqued my curiosity even further.
“Quite the contrary, if you don’t mind answering a couple of questions.”
He studied my face intensely for a few seconds. “If I answer yours, you have to answer mine.”
“If I can.”
He leaned even closer, saying in a soft voice, “So is it you or your friend who’s having an abduction problem?”
Caught off guard, my pulse rocketed skyward and soup sloshed off the spoon. “Whaa…what are you talking about?” I asked, trying to appear cool while my mind spun off in a hundred directions. How could he possibly know anything about Lupe’s missing relatives?
A sly grin. “Mazzie La Casse. I’ve been dying to know why you and your friend were having breakfast with her yesterday. I thought you said you were here doing a story on our border issues?”
I’d forgotten he’d overheard Lupe’s remark at the scene of the accident. I swallowed a few spoonfuls of soup, regaining my composure. “Oh, that.” I told him about the UFO stories Walter had been writing before he’d come to work for us, concluding with, “They sounded fascinating, so I thought it might be interesting to follow up on them. She was recommended as a good source of information on that subject.”
“Was she helpful to you?”
I eyed him with interest. “Yes. Why do I get the impression that you know her?”
“Everyone in town knows about Mazzie. When she found out that I spend a lot of time tramping around in the desert in the wee dark hours of the morning, she cornered me here one day to ask if I’d ever witnessed strange lights in the sky. Apparently some other people had reported seeing what they believed were UFOs around that time.”
“And?”
A guarded look crept into his eyes. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
My heart beat a little faster. Oh, Lordy! Another promise. “Cross my heart.”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “I have to admit I’ve seen a few things out there I can’t explain.”
“Really? Like what?”
Lips pressed in a sly smile, he said, “I don’t think I want you quoting me in your newspaper. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Appearing edgy, his gaze roamed the room before returning to me. “On several occasions, I’ve seen odd, pulsating lights in the sky and then poof, they were gone in an instant.”
Taken aback, I tried not to stare. Of all the people I’d met, he seemed the most levelheaded. “Was this near a place called Morita?”
Puzzlement shimmered in his eyes. “Why do you say that?”
“Remember the story I told you Walter was working on? You know, the one about the Mexican immigrant the Border Patrol found hiding there.”
“Oh, right, of course. No, these were further east, closer to Ruby. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming to have seen the mother ship landing or anything like that. More likely, the military is testing a new type of plane. We’re not that far from the Barry Goldwater Air Force Range.”
“Well, a UFO sighting would make for more interesting copy, but frankly it’s a real stretch for me to believe that extraterrestrials are cruising around snatching people away.” I grinned. “However, I’m willing to keep an open mind.”
His features relaxed into a smile. “Whew. It’s a relief to know you don’t think I’m two bricks shy of a full load.”
His story was downright tame compared to Javier’s. “Not at all.” Could th
e immigrant and Javier have mistaken the lights for an airplane? But, what about the description of the alien beings with the big eyes? Where did that fit in?
He took several sips of coffee and settled back into the chair. “So, what did you want to ask me?”
Heads craned in our direction, and a couple of senior citizens shuffled by our table at a snail’s pace. I waited until they were out of earshot. “On Saturday, your friend, Joe, said Jason’s folks had gotten him off the hook before. What kind of trouble has he been in?”
Payton contemplated the lint on his trousers a few seconds before answering. “Vandalism, drunk driving, disorderly conduct, to name a few. Fortunately, Champ has always been able to get him off with jail time served, or by paying off the injured party to drop the charges.”
“Do you know if he’s involved with any of these White power groups?”
He looked at me sharply. “What makes you ask?”
“I happened to pass the door to his room last evening and he’s got some pretty inflammatory stuff plastered on his walls.”
The frown lines on his forehead became more pronounced. “He was implicated in a pretty serious incident that happened here a couple of years ago.”
I stared at him. “You mean the church burning?”
His initial look of surprise turned to one of perception. “Ah,” he said, tapping his temple for emphasis, “Your friend Walter again?”
“Actually he filled me in on that before I got here.”
“The charges against Jason were dismissed for lack of evidence, but the head honcho of the group and several others weren’t so fortunate.”
“Do you think he was involved?”
He hesitated, waiting until after the waitress served his sandwich. “Everybody knows Jason’s got a short fuse. He’s young and cocky and I don’t care for some of the people he associates with, but…I don’t want to rock the boat. It’s…kind of important for me to stay on his good side.”
“Why? He’s a loose cannon, at best.”
He shook his head impatiently. “He’s my eyes and ears at the ranch when I’m away. I like to keep tabs on what Bethany is up to regarding Brett’s welfare.” He chewed pensively a moment before adding, “In fact, Brett said something the other day that really blew me away.”
“What was that?”
“He asked me if it was possible to have two daddies.”
Apparently Jason had not mentioned Bethany’s involvement with Sloan, the hunky cowstud. It was on the tip of my tongue to reveal it, but I kept silent. It was none of my business. I’d be gone in a few hours and most likely I’d never see these people again in my life. I glanced at the wall clock and pushed away the remainder of my soup. “Payton, why did you sell your ranch?”
He pounded ketchup onto his plate. “Couldn’t afford to pay the taxes. It really sucked at the time, but I guess everything happens for a reason. At least I don’t have to put up with all the bullshit the other ranching families are wrestling with nowadays. I’m on neutral ground. I live in Tucson, but I still get to enjoy my old stomping grounds when I come down to visit Brett, and of course I pick up a few extra bucks doing my snake thing.”
“Where do you stay when you’re here? I didn’t see a motel around anywhere.”
“I rent a bedroom from an old friend of mine or I sleep overnight in the camper if I don’t feel like driving back into town.” He popped a French fry into his mouth. “Any more questions?”
Smiling, I rested my elbows on the table. “Just one, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to answer, but I’m dying to know why Bethany calls you Jack.”
His eyes twinkled with humor. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“I try not to.”
He took a big bite of the patty melt, chewed and then wiped his mouth with the napkin before saying, “You know the old saying, Jack of all trades, master of none?”
“Sure.”
“That’s her not-very-subtle way of reminding me of the number of jobs I’ve held over the years.” He paused while the waitress refilled his coffee then hurried off. “My parents took over running the very successful Kleinwort ranching properties when my grandpa died, and even though he worked hard, Dad could never seem to make a go of it. Of course I didn’t know that then. I just knew that it was an awesome place for a kid to live. Once I finished my chores, me and a couple of buddies from neighboring ranches would ride off on our horses and be gone all day exploring.” He exhaled a nostalgic sigh. “We traveled every square inch of the surrounding desert and mountains, and I know it like the back of my hand.”
“Were you an only child?”
His eyes shifted away, then back as a look of supreme melancholy clouded his features. “No,” he said at length, “I had a beautiful little sister named Laura. She died three years ago.”
I frowned, remembering Bethany’s shrine comment. “I’m sorry. What happened to her?”
“Laura was born with an enlarged heart. She never really got a chance to run and play like normal kids, but she was a real trooper. Of course the medical bills were staggering. Little by little, my dad had to sell off pieces to the Beaumonts and a couple of other ranchers until we were down to fifteen thousand acres out of the original twenty-five.” He sugared his coffee and took a sip before continuing with, “But, even so, I think we’d have been okay if…if it hadn’t been for my father’s sudden death. My mom…well, she went to pieces afterwards. I remember the night she packed up my sister and me and drove us over to my uncle’s place near Benson. She told us she needed to get away by herself for a little while and that she’d be back to get us in a few days…but that was the last time we ever saw her.”
A surge of sympathy rocked my heart. “Payton, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried….”
He waved away my concern. “Hey, it’s old news. Everyone in this county knows about the Kleinwort tragedies so don’t feel bad. Anyway,” he added with a wry smile, “it gets worse.”
And it did. In between bites of his sandwich and fries he relayed how he and Laura had lived with his Uncle Alvin, his new wife, Myra, and older cousin, Gordon, for the next seven years until his uncle had been laid off by the railroad. When Payton’s mother had been declared legally dead, his uncle sold his house and they’d all moved back to the Kleinwort ranch. “He thought he was going to resurrect the place to its former glory, but he was no better at operating it than my dad was. So, in order to get enough money to send Gordon to medical school, he systematically sold off more acreage.”
“Wait a minute, he was selling off your inheritance so your cousin could go to medical school? What about you and your sister’s rights?”
“What rights? He was our legal guardian and I was only fifteen. Actually, I didn’t even know what they were up to until a couple of years later when it came time for me to go to college. They never let us forget for a minute what a burden we’d been to them and claimed the money had mostly been spent on Laura, but I know that wasn’t true.” He drew little circles in the sugar that had spilled on the table as he explained how he’d become reacquainted with the Beaumonts again. “Even though I only saw Bethany at school, I daydreamed about her all the time. I didn’t think she ever noticed me, but about a year later she suddenly started coming around a lot. At first I thought she was befriending Laura, and then I fooled myself into thinking she was as nuts about me as I was about her…but it was really Gordon she was interested in. He was the good-looking one. He was the smart one, but she couldn’t seem to get him to notice her.”
My chin sagged. “How is that possible? Is he blind?”
Chuckling, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. “She didn’t look quite the same then as she does now.” He proffered a photo and I stared in amazement at a plumpish teenager with limp blonde hair and rather unspectacular features before raising questioning eyes to meet his. “That’s quite a transformation.”
His smile soured. “With a little help from cosmetic surgery.”
“I’d wager a lot of surgery, paid for by daddy, no doubt.”
“No,” he said dryly, “mostly paid for by me.”
“You?”
“Her therapist convinced her that she needed it to create a more positive self-image. I worked seven days a week at three jobs to support her and Brett. Plus, I had to care for Laura while she waited for her heart transplant.” His voice grew somber. “The fact that my sister and I were so close was always a sore spot with my beloved ex.”
“Why?”
“She was always whining that I loved Laura more than her, even though I know now that Bethany never really gave a crap about me.”
“Okay, I’m totally confused now.”
“Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I guess, being a writer, you might want to title the rest of this sordid tale love is blind,” he said stringing imaginary letters in the air between us. “Or maybe, men are the biggest saps on the planet, or something to that effect. Anyway, when I was eighteen, Gordon suddenly eloped with one of his professors, ten years his senior. Bethany was devastated, a total basket case, and who do you think was there to comfort her?”
“You.”
“Yeah, stupid me. I figured with Gordon out of the picture maybe I finally had a chance, but she was just using me to stay close to him. We were out partying one night a couple of months later. She had a lot to drink and when she threw herself at me, well, I didn’t turn her down and well….”
“She got pregnant?” I filled in wryly.
Flushing, he admitted, “You guessed it. We discussed abortion, but she said her folks would have a fit if they found out, so we drove to Las Vegas and got married. About that time my uncle died, Myra left, and I hired a foreman to run what was left of the ranch so I could keep working the other jobs.”
“Did you work for your Uncle Dean?”
