by Janet Dailey
“ ‘Blue Boy’ ?” Luke frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
“Blue Boy was the pet name my grandmother gave to her husband,” Angie explained, a new softness gathering in her eyes as she gazed at the old man. “The watch truly does belong to him. This is my grandfather.”
“This old geezer?” Fargo stood to one side, his voice riddled with skepticism. “I thought your grandpa was dead.”
“So did I.” A faint, surprised laugh slid from her throat with the realization of how very wrong she’d been. After a second’s hesitation, Angie pressed the watch into his palm. Saddlebags immediately jerked his hand away, rejecting her touch. “This is why God wanted me to come here,” Angie murmured. “It was to find you. Not the gold.”
“I ain’t yore grandpa,” Saddlebags snarled. “Never was an’ never will be.”
Angie just smiled. “You can deny it all you want, but you can’t change the truth.”
“I tell ya’ I ain’t yore grandpa!”
But Angie didn’t believe him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ultimately, her grandfather’s story came out in bits and pieces. In the beginning, Angie did most of the talking, catching him up on information about the family and telling him about his wife Hannah, the life she’d made for herself, the home she’d had, the love she’d given and the love she’d never lost for her missing husband.
The thrust of Angie’s words was always positive, never with a hint of reproach for his absence, knowing it was the way her grandmother would have wanted it.
When she finished, Saddlebags sat for a long time staring into space. “I al’ays figgered she’d marry again,” he said at last, indirectly confirming his identity for the first time.
“I don’t think the thought ever crossed her mind,” Angie told him. “You were her husband. She never wanted any other.”
He nodded without looking up or making a comment.
“One thing puzzles me,” Fargo spoke when the silence began to stretch. “Who was that guy we found with your teeth?”
“Yeah, who was he?” Tobe chimed in, his chores finished some time ago, and the gold bars all neatly stacked near the fire circle.
Angie had a feeling she knew the answer to that, but waited to see if her grandfather would tell them. He sat on the bedroll, his back propped against a log.
In a grassy area under the trees, a horse snorted and stamped at a deerfly. There was a scuttle of leaves as a squirrel leaped to another tree branch. Then all was quiet again.
“Amos Aloysius Smith is who he was.” Saddlebags confirmed her suspicion. “Met up with him in the rail yard at Laramie. I’d decided I wasn’t never gonna find that gold, an’ I knew our first baby was gonna be born soon. I wanted t’ be home for it. By then, I didn’t have a dime t’ my name. I figgered I’d ride the rails back t’ Iowa. Everybody was doin’ it then, not jus’ no-good tramps.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tobe protested. “If you met up with him in Laramie, how’d his body end up on the Ten Bar?”
“When I got t’ the yard an’ found out I’d missed the eastbound by an hour, I was feelin’ purty down—knowin’ there wouldn’t be another one ’til the next day. Amos he had a bottle an’ he offered me a drink. Afore I knowed it, I’d told him about the gold, showed him the letter, explained about the code an’ all—an’ how it hadn’t led me nowhere. Turned out he was a preacher’s boy jus’ like my grandpa Ike. He got all excited, said he knew where the gold was an’ if I’d give him half, he’d show me. I wanted that gold. Givin’ up half didn’t sound like so much. So, back we come. Once I showed him the rock pillars in the valley, he figgered he didn’t need me no more.”
“There was a fight,” Luke guessed.
Saddlebags pushed away from the log, eyes blazing with pain and the left-over fury. “He tried t’ bash m’ head in. I had t’ fight back. We went at it purty good, too. Then he had me on the ground, tryin’ t’ choke me. I hit him. It didn’t seem no harder than other times, but he went down an’ didn’t get up.”
He paused, remembering, the anger dissolving. “I let ’im lay there a while whilst I saw t’ myself. My nose was broke, an’ my jaw, pro’ly some ribs, too. My face was swoll up so bad I couldn’t har’ly see.”
Unconsciously he ran his fingers over the bridge of his nose and onto his cheekbone, as if feeling the old injuries.
“It got t’ botherin’ me the way he jus’ lay there not movin’. Somethin’ tole me he was gonna die if he didn’t get help.” Lifting his head, Saddlebags looked straight at Luke, but his thoughts were still in the past. “The Ten Bar was the closest place I knew t’ get help for ’im. I got ’im as far as I could, but all the jostlin’ of totin’ ’im—” He sank back against the log, his head bowed in guilt. “He was dead, an’ I as good as killed him.”
“But he tried to kill you first,” Tobe protested, voicing Angie’s own thought.
Fargo snorted in agreement. “Sounds like a plain ole case of self-defense to me.”
“But there weren’t no way for me t’ prove it.” His brows knitted together in a way that told Angie her grandfather was still haunted by the choices he’d made all those years ago. Injured and scared himself, he’d obviously panicked.
“What if some judge sent me t’ prison? I couldn’t have the shame o’ that fallin’ on Hannah, not with a baby comin’.” Saddlebags hung his head again.
“So you decided to bury the body and conceal Smith’s death.” Rising, Luke crossed to the fire and refilled his coffee cup from the never-empty pot.
“It wasn’t hard. Good thing ’cause I wasn’t in no shape t’ do much diggin’. It’d rained a couple days a’-fore an’ softened the ground up. I saw this big hollow under a cutbank an’ dragged ’im there, then caved the bank in t’ cover ’im up.”
“Wait a minute. What about the ring and your teeth?” Angie remembered. “Why did you want people to think you were buried there?”
He shot her a startled look. To him the answer was obvious. “’Cause I figgered if the body was found, it was better fer Hannah t’ think I was dead than t’ know I’d killed a man. Course, I got worried some about his teeth. I knew Hannah would figger out quick it weren’t me when she found out about ’em. Pullin’ his weren’t hard. He didn’t have no chewin’ teeth an’ most o’ the rest of ’em got knocked loose in the fight. My own mouth was cut up so bad inside I couldn’t stand havin’ m’ teeth in anyways. Afterwards”—he dragged in a long breath and let it out in a heavy sigh—“afterwards I hightailed it outta there. I didn’t want nobody aroun’ here seein’ me beat-up like I was. They’d a known right off I was in a fight an’ start wonderin’ about the other guy. I went t’ Casper. Nobody knowed me there. Right off I got throwed in jail fer bein’ a vagrant,” he recalled with a scornful, snorting breath.
“Told ’em I was Amos Aloysius Smith an’ showed ’em his wallet to prove it. Later they got a doctor in t’ patch me up some. But nothin’ healed right.” He rubbed a finger over his crooked nose. “Didn’t look like m’self no more. An’ with a beard, not even Hannah woulda guessed it was me.”
Privately Angie disagreed, convinced her grandmother would have recognized him, even with a beard and badly broken nose. But second-guessing his decisions was pointless.
“What happened after you were released from jail?” she asked instead.
His thin shoulders lifted in a vague shrug. “Bummed around fer a while, got work when I could, an’ watched the papers fir any mention of a body bein’ found here. Kept thinkin’ about that gold, tho, an’ finally figgered out what Smith’d seen in the letter. But I was leery a comin’ back to look fer it. People mighta got suspicious—two people comin’ to look fer that outlaw gold, one right behind the other—specially if that body’d been found. I waited better’n two years ’fore I figgered it was safe. Then I was careful to fight shy of any that’d knowed me ’fore. Figgered it was safest t’ keep t’ m’self.” He stared into the middle dis
tance, seeing into the past. “Found this canyon straight off. An’ the eagle on the rock, too. But no gold. Dug down six feet without findin’ it.”
“But you kept looking for it—all this time. Why?” That was what Angie didn’t understand.
“’Cause I knowed it was out there somewhere laughin’ at me, that’s why,” he flared with sudden impatience, but it quickly subsided into a vague grumble. “’Sides, I kept thinkin’ that if’n I had that gold, somehow I could make things right. So I kept on lookin’. Then it got too late t’ make things right,” he acknowledged. “An’ I was too old. What else was I gonna do? Where else was I gonna go?”
Angie wondered if he saw the irony. All those years ago, he had feared being convicted of killing Amos Aloysius Smith and sent to prison. In the end, he had sentenced himself; this canyonland had become his prison and the gold, his warden. It was sad. Too sad to discuss.
Crossing to the fire, she picked up the speckled enamel pot and walked over to him. “Would you like some coffee, Grandpa?”
His glance darted to her face, wary and uncertain. “Makes me feel funny t’ hear ya call me that,” he admitted, then thoughtfully studied the deep red color of her hair, his expression losing some of its stony hardness. “Ya got Hannah’s hair. An’ her freckles, too.”
“The sun brings them out,” she acknowledged and poured coffee into his cup, keeping a finger on the pot’s lid.
“Did with Hannah, too,” he recalled, falling silent with the memory.
After refilling her own cup and setting the pot near the fire again, Angie returned to her seat on the log near him. Dulcie stole up behind her and whispered close to her ear, “Is he really your grandpa?”
“He really is.” Angie nodded.
Dulcie snuck another look at the bearded and grimy old man, then whispered doubtfully, “Are you glad about that?”
“Very glad. I’ve missed not having a grandfather. Now I have one.” Automatically Angie reached over and laid a hand on his shoulder.
Through the cloth of his coat sleeve, Angie felt the tensing of his body in instinctive resistance and withdrew her hand, aware that it would take time for her grandfather to become comfortable with physical contact. He’d lived too much of his life without it.
“He scares me.” Dulcie shrank back to avoid looking at the old man.
“I know.” Smiling gently, Angie smoothed the flyaway wisps of Dulcie’s pale hair, tucking them into her ponytail band.
Saddlebags, nee Hank Wilson, caught their exchange. “I wouldn’t a hurt her.”
“You sure acted like you would,” Tobe retorted, some of the anger returning to his voice.
“I had t’. It was the only way t’ git that gold. All these years alookin’, I couldn’t let it git away from me,” he insisted with a ghost of that previously fierce need to possess it. Then he paused and added, “But I wouldn’t a hurt the child.”
“I believe you,” Angie said, even though she had been convinced otherwise at the time.
“It’s the truth.” His glance strayed to the muted gleam of the cross-stacked bullion by the campfire. “I guess it’s kinda fittin’ that you was the one t’ figger out where it was hidden. Kinda keeps it in the family.”
“I guess it does,” she agreed idly.
“Funny,” he murmured. “I always thought I’d be happy once I got my hands on that gold. Figgered I’d be a-jumpin’ in the air, hootin’ an’ a-hollerin’. Now . . . I don’t seem t’ care. It don’t make sense.”
“I think it does. After all, it’s just gold,” Angie said. “It can only buy you things that will make you laugh or keep you warm. It can’t love you or hold you or make you feel good inside.”
“Guess I throwed all that away,” he murmured and glanced around, looking lost. “What’ll I do now?”
“I’d like it if you went home to Iowa with me,” Angie told him. “Wouldn’t you like to finally meet your daughter?”
He shook his head. “She ain’t gonna’ care about a father she never saw afore.”
“Maybe not at first,” Angie agreed, knowing her mother. “But she’ll come around in time. You’ll see.”
“Maybe.” Doubt lingered in his voice.
“Believe me,” Angie promised gently, “she may not welcome her prodigal father with open arms the way she should. But you will hurt her much more if you don’t come back.”
He mulled that over, then nodded. “Not goin’ would be wrong, I ’xpect. Sure ain’t nothin’ to hold me here no more.”
“One thing’s fer sure, Saddlebags,” Fargo declared. “All this gold means you can get yourself some fancy duds an’ go home in style. Do any of you know how much money’s sittin’ there?” he challenged. “Why, it must total up to three or four million.”
A low whistle of surprise came from Tobe. “That much?” he murmured in awe.
“Easy,” Fargo stated emphatically.
Griff shook his head in amazement. “Out of my share, I’d have enough to buy three or four restaurants . . . if I wanted them.”
“I don’t think so, Griff,” Angie said.
“Are you kidding? Twenty percent of four million—”
She cut in, “It won’t be four million. Or even three.”
“What are you talkin’ about?” Fargo demanded with a frown. “Why not?”
“Because it isn’t ours. This bullion is the property of the United States Government,” she explained. “It has to be returned.”
Luke’s soft chuckle was wry with amusement. “I should have known,” he murmured, smiling at her with admiration and approval.
“Known what?” Tobe looked at him in confusion.
“Angie told me she had plans for the gold when she found it,” Luke replied. “I should have guessed she intended to make restitution.”
“It’s what my great-great-grandfather, Ike Wilson, ultimately wanted—for it to be returned to its rightful owner. It’s taken longer than he thought,” she admitted. “But it’s finally being accomplished.”
“You mean—we aren’t gonna get anything?” Tobe stared at her, stunned and deflated.
Angie shrugged and smiled. “With any luck, the offer of a reward still stands. It probably won’t be enough to buy you a ranch, but you might be able to lease some land and buy a few cows to at least get you started.”
“What about my house?” Dulcie asked, all sad-eyed. “Won’t I get it?”
“I—” Angie began hesitantly.
Luke broke in, “You’ll get your house, Dulcie. As soon as I get my own place built, you and Tobe can have the trailer to yourselves.”
Fargo’s mouth dropped open. When he closed it, he nearly choked on the wad of tobacco. “You’re gonna build?”
“It’s high time, don’t you think?” Luke countered easily, but each was careful to avoid any direct reference to the fire-charred rubble of the Ten Bar’s former ranch house or the deaths of Luke’s wife and son.
“High time,” Fargo masked his astonishment with matter-of-factness.
“What are you gonna do with your share, Angie?” Now that she was assured of a home of her own, Dulcie was eager to know that others would realize their dreams as well.
“Probably save it,” Angie replied.
“Save it. Why?” That didn’t sound at all exciting to Dulcie.
“So I can come back to visit sometime.”
“More than once, I hope,” Luke stated.
“More than once,” Angie agreed, meeting his glance and finding an unspoken promise in it.
Did you enjoy this Janet Dailey book?
Then try her Calder Family series . . .
CALDER STORM
With his rugged-cowboy looks, Trey Calder could have his pick of women. But he’s been holding out for someone special, and the minute he lays eyes on photographer Sloan Davis, he knows he’s found her, and within weeks the two are married. It’s a dream come true for the orphaned Sloan . . . until Trey makes a startling discovery about just who Sloan is
and what she’s really after.
Passion turns into suspicion and a dangerous game is set in motion, putting everything the Calders have worked for over the generations on the line. A formidable enemy has been lying in wait. Someone who will use whatever means necessary to control their land, their lives, and their legacy forever. Trey Calder has been trained to take over his family’s ranch, to protect what is theirs. Now the time has come for a Calder son to make a stand and hope that his way is the right way.
LONE CALDER STAR
Quint Echohawk is a lawman, not a rancher, but he’s a Calder through and through. And when someone sets out to undermine the Calders’ Texas outfit, it’s time for him to step in and investigate.
From the moment Quint’s boots touch Texas dirt, it’s clear that everyone in town is running scared from Max Rutledge, the ruthless owner of a competing ranch. Posing as a cowboy looking for work, Quint has no one to trust but “Empty” Garner and his granddaughter, Dallas. In Empty, Quint finds a steadfast ally; in Dallas, Quint finds something more—the promise of a future.
In a town where betrayal lies around every corner, where every unlocked door, thrown punch, or suspicious fire is just a hint of deadlier things to come, the Calders will be tested as never before. And this time, it could cost them more than their land . . . it could cost them everything.
CALDER PROMISE
All Laura Calder Wants Is Everything . . .
Young and beautiful, Laura Calder isn’t content to live on a Montana ranch. Touring Europe with her “Aunt” Tara brings her into contact with the sophisticated world she’s craved . . . and with the two men—and ultimate rivals—who will lay claim to her heart. Boone Rutledge is the son of a Texas billionaire and used to getting what he wants. He wants Laura . . . and so does Sebastian Dunshill, Earl of Crawford, a handsome, sexy Londoner with a few secrets he can’t share.
Caught up in a whirlwind courtship with both men that will take her from the nightclubs of Rome to the manor houses of England, across the dusty flats of Texas and finally home to the Triple C Ranch, Laura is determined to make her choice on her own terms. But Calder pride will lead Laura into a danger for which her sheltered background has never prepared her . . . and to a man who is a threat to the family she loves more than she knows . . .
