Branded

by Vivian Vaughan

  But she got the job done. She held the family together, while seeking a new trial for Hunter. When Marielena first suggested moving in with her elderly aunt, Jacy had not understood what that would mean. She knew only that they had no other choice.

  Quickly she discovered that Tía Bella, gracious to take them in, actually needed them as much as the Kimbles needed her. They took the roof she offered, and Jacy soon found herself running not only the household, but the postal service. Their existence was meager, with just enough food, adequate shelter, and nothing extra.

  “We’ll appreciate luxuries more next time around,” she said so often it should be engraved on her tombstone. Their sacrifices were for Hunter, she told the family, and they all agreed that no sacrifice was too great, if they could save Hunter from the Yuma gallows.

  The decision to allow Trevor to talk with Drummond had been one of the hardest Jacy had ever made. She worried that seeing Trevor might completely destroy Drummond’s mind. That, fortunately, had not happened, but his obtuseness, his vulgarity, his contemptuous refusal to listen to Trevor, left her so angry that right now she didn’t care whether he lost his mind or not.

  Strangely, the opposite had happened. His mental state seemed marginally improved by the encounter. For the first time in five years he had showed emotion—anger, frustration, even disgust.

  And all with her. His crude attack hurt her deeply—and bewildered her. How dare he be more interested in condemning her for an imagined relationship with Trevor than in helping save Hunter’s life!

  His outburst left her so hurt and angry, she was tempted to leave him in the park waving his walking stick like a madman. But she didn’t. He was her father. Her responsibility.

  Curious crowds—men on their way to work, mostly—clustered on all four corners of the park. Fortunately, the saloons across from two of the corners had not opened, so she didn’t have to contend with drunks, too.

  Nor did Constable Selman appear. Only well-dressed businessmen, who stared at the senile old man and distraught woman as though they were the dregs of humanity, as though they were the sorry, worthless scum Drummond accused Trevor of being. The tables had definitely turned.

  The snubs no longer embarrassed her; they reinforced her vow to return to Arizona and spit in the eye of those who had brought the Kimbles to this miserable state.

  Heading her list of dignitaries for five long years had been Trevor Fallon. Trevor, the man who caused it all.

  Trevor—she prayed long and hard he would hang from the Yuma gallows. Trevor, who had returned to her life with the repercussion of an earthquake.

  Thinking of him, of his response to Drummond’s vulgarity, soothed her as nothing had in years. When he threatened her father for speaking so crudely to her, her heart had stopped, and only partially from fear of what he would do to Drummond.

  Trevor stood up for her. Not in five years had anyone stood up for her. Not in five years had anyone showed they cared. It was so simple, really. The sort of thing anyone would have done. Trevor would have reacted the same if Drummond insulted Mari.

  But it hadn’t been Mari, and Jacy’s heart swelled with the attention. From it she derived the strength to summon dignity and take Drummond home.

  But today was different. Today she wasn’t caring for her father out of love; today it was simply an obligation. An obligation that weighed like a stone inside her.

  Drummond didn’t speak until they were away from the park. “So, you’ve taken up with that sorry bastard again?”

  Jacy had been trying to decide what to do next, since Drummond offered no help in solving Hunter’s problem. His searing condemnation triggered her simmering anger. “No, Papa. I haven’t. I’m shocked at your vulgar remarks.”

  “I’ve always believed in calling the kettle black, Sis. You know that. I should have known Fallon would jump in your bed the minute he got a chance.”

  It was the last straw. What was left of her patience evaporated like soap bubbles bursting in the dry desert air.

  “Trevor isn’t in my bed, Papa,” she snapped. “There isn’t room.” Before Drummond could recover from her outburst, she added, “You claimed I was all you had left. Well, let’s see how you like it with nothing.” That said, Jacy stormed off toward home, leaving Drummond in her dusty wake. She didn’t care whether he followed or not.

  Blinded by outrage, she arrived home only to have the wind knocked out of her sails again—another of Mama Dee’s expressions. She was greeted by a bagful of problems. Todd was first.

  Todd, who should have been in school, came barreling out the front door, just as she entered the packed-earth yard. The sight of him ignited the volatile mixture of despair and anger that churned inside her.

  “What are you doing out of school?” she demanded.

  He shrugged insolently. “John Wesley Hardin learned to be a lawyer in prison. Maybe I will, too.”

  Without a moment’s warning, she lifted her hand and slapped him hard on the cheek. It took them both by surprise, stunning Todd into silence, and raised four red welts on his cheek.

  He rubbed the spot, typically unrepentant. “You’re gettin’ crotchety as an ol’ maid, Aunt Jace.”

  Todd was the only person in the family who called her Jace. He got it from Trevor, and she died a little more every time he used the name. Lord in heaven. What an unholy mess!

  “Prison is nothing to joke about, Todd,” she retorted, summoning the will, if not the emotion, to reprimand the boy. “If your father were here, he would take a strap to you.”

  “He isn’t here,” the boy retorted. “He’s in prison for killing a whore. And Uncle Trevor’s fixing to get caught.”

  While Jacy’s mind made the leap from Todd’s rebellion to his claim about Trevor, the front door slammed. She glanced up to see Constable John Selman step out of the house, hat in hand.

  “There you are, ma’am. I’m told you had a run-in with Trevor Fallon.”

  Jacy went still as death. It seemed the world stopped, too. No wind, no birds, no light. “What?” she managed, while she willed her mind to work.

  “Heard Fallon accosted you folks down in town. Your father called for help.”

  “Papa?” Jacy searched her brain, trying to decide what she could tell without outright lying. John Selman wouldn’t be suckered into believing just anything. He knew the connection between Trevor and the Kimbles; he had come to them the instant he learned Trevor escaped…if he escaped. Regardless, John Selman would be looking for a lie. So hers had better be good.

  “You know how Papa likes to feed the alligators,” she said. “He dozed off there on the bench. I don’t know exactly what happened, but something startled him. He must have been dreaming. He thought he saw Fallon but—”

  “I did see that sorry, worthless bastard.” Drummond panted up behind her. “He’s down there in the plaza, Constable.” Drummond wagged his walking stick toward the heart of the city. “I expect you to find him before he gets to my daughter.”

  “Papa!” Jacy felt herself grow hot. She resisted the urge to cover her face with her hands.

  John Selman studied her with a perplexed expression. “From all accounts, Fallon’s a dangerous man, Miss Kimble. Not one to fool around with.”

  “I am not in the practice of fooling around with anyone, Constable, dangerous or not. Now if you will kindly—”

  “One minute, ma’am. I’m not finished. Where did you see Fallon?”

  She glared at him.

  “San Jacinto Plaza,” Drummond barked. “You deaf or something?”

  “When was that?” Selman demanded.

  “Not longer’n it took us to walk the distance. I expect you to find the man, Constable. Find him and send him back to Yuma Prison before he gets to my—”

  “Papa, that is quite enough.”

  Fortunately, John Selman thought so, too, for he took his leave with a final warning. “I’ll expect you to notify me if he shows up here.”

  He left a steami
ng Jacy and unrepentant Drummond behind.

  “Where is Uncle Trevor?” Todd wanted to know. “Want me to go warn him?”

  “No, Todd.” Jacy stared in the direction of town. “Is your mother back from Mass?”

  “She’s in there with Tía Bella, fixing dinner.”

  “Why don’t you run up to the school and wait for Sophie and Carter?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.” At his insolent worst, Todd reminded Jacy of Hunter in a desperately poignant way. “Todd,” she added softly, “I’m sorry I slapped you.”

  A smile swept briefly across the boy’s face, then he shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I reckon it runs in the family, hitting and stabbing and shooting.”

  Before she could respond, he was gone, leaving her with an increasingly heavy mantle of responsibility. Then she went inside the adobe stage station, and Marielena hit her with another request. Leaving Tía Bella to cut up vegetables for the stew, Mari came to Jacy.

  “Did you see Trevor?” Her soft voice was filled with desperation. Her large doe-eyes pleaded. “Tell me about him. How does he look? What did he say about Hunter?”

  Jacy studied her sister-in-law, wondering how much she should tell. Before she could decide, Mari went on.

  “Is Hunter well? Did Trevor say how he looks? How he—?

  “Trevor hasn’t seen Hunter in five years,” Jacy said, sorry to be so blunt, but not knowing how else to say it. Gentleness evaded her. Even gentle words.

  Mari’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”

  “Trevor said they haven’t seen each other since they were sent to Yuma. Before that, you remember, they were held in separate jails.”

  Mari’s black eyes brimmed with tears. Jacy steeled herself. Who appointed her guardian of everyone’s feelings? She had feelings of her own. Desperate, confused, frightened feelings.

  “I don’t guess he could come to dinner?” Mari asked.

  It was such an outrageous request, what with Constable Selman’s recent visit, that Jacy smiled. “No, I don’t guess he could.”

  “Will you arrange for me to see him?” Mari questioned earnestly. “We were so close. I would feel a tiny bit better about Hunter if I could see Trevor.”

  Jacy swallowed the lump in her throat. “Constable Selman is watching us like a hawk, Mari. I can’t contact him.” She paused, wondering how much to tell. “You might as well know the truth,” she said at length, before explaining Trevor’s belief that Hunter would hang at the end of the month unless they discovered who was behind the murder of Ana Bowdrie.

  Mari sank to a plank bench inside the door, her face bloodless. Drummond exploded.

  “Don’t believe that cock-and-bull story, Mari.” Drummond turned beady eyes on Jacy. “Fallon’s made it up for his own purposes, which you know well enough, Sis.”

  “Papa, I warn you. I have just about had enough of your foolishness.”

  Mari glanced from Drummond to Jacy.

  “It’s a cock-and-bull tale,” Drummond repeated. “Designed to get him one place. And you know where.”

  “A cock-and-bull tale?” Jacy asked through clenched teeth. “How can you be so certain? Hunter’s life is at stake. Explain how you know Trevor is lying about that.”

  Drummond turned away while she was talking. “I don’t have to explain anything.”

  Jacy pursued. “You expect us to take your word that Hunter won’t be executed, when that is exactly what he was sentenced for.” She glared at him, and was shocked to see how clear and hard his blue eyes were. “Why, Papa?”

  “Because it’s true, damnit. Believe me.”

  “I want to,” she cried. “We all want to believe you, but you have to give us some reason. Trevor—”

  “Is a liar. A sorry, worthless bastard liar.”

  “What is he lying about? He accused you of buying off the court. Did you?”

  Mari gasped.

  “Did you?” Jacy demanded.

  “All you need to know is that Hunter is in that prison for life. There’s not a damned thing you or I or anyone else can do about it. So stay away from Fallon. Do you hear me? Stay away from that worthless bastard scum.”

  “If you can’t give me a sound reason, Papa, I can’t believe you. And until I believe you, I intend to do whatever it takes, even consorting with Trevor, to protect my brother.”

  If I can find him without leading the law to him, she thought, miserably aware of the hopelessness of their situation.

  “If he won’t tell you why, Jace, he’s lying,” Trevor argued. He was in a surly mood, and the topic of Drummond Kimble had never been a favorite. He was sick of the whole mess. Sorry he had come to El Paso. Sorry he hadn’t run to Mexico when he had the chance.

  When? Hell, he still had the chance. And he should do it, before Selman caught up with him. He should jump up from this hillside and head for Old Mexico. He could practically feel the constable’s breath on his neck already.

  Leaving Jacy and Drummond in the park this morning, Trevor had slipped into Hardin’s office by the back staircase, where he outlined the situation to the lawyer.

  “Jacy Kimble is one hell of a woman,” Hardin commented.

  “Yeah,” Trevor agreed. “Her middle name is Trouble.”

  Hardin laughed. “What woman isn’t?”

  “Hear you tried to warn her away from me.”

  Hardin stroked one side of his sweeping mustache. “That I did.”

  “So, what changed your mind?”

  “I saw it was no use.”

  Trevor raised a questioning brow.

  “That woman sticks,” Hardin explained. “She’s loyal, dedicated, determined. When she wants something she doesn’t go after it halfway. From what I’ve seen, I’d swear you’re on her wish list.”

  “Like a notch on a pistol?”

  Hardin grinned, then turned serious. “You haven’t seen her the last few years. I reckon she’s changed since then. Had to. She’s all that kept that family together. They moved in with daffy old Bella Saucedo. Drummond’s been more hindrance than help. Jacy’s kept the whole thing afloat. And she’s never given up on getting her brother out of prison.”

  “What Jacy wants, Jacy gets,” Trevor agreed sarcastically. But Hardin had a point. Trevor had seen it, too. The change in Jacy. “Except maybe this time,” he added solemnly.

  “You’re being too hard on the girl,” Hardin observed.

  “Too hard on Jacy Kimble? That’ll be the day.” But his image of Jacy was beginning to seem as outdated as last year’s newspaper. He chewed his lip, recalling his last sight of the senile old man and the woman who struggled to quiet him down. He had watched from the alley until they left the park and disappeared into the maze of buildings. Again he was stunned that they would walk the two miles home. Walk, when neither Drummond nor Jacy would have been caught dead walking further than from the house to the barn back when he’d first known them.

  “She’s earned my respect,” Hardin was saying.

  Trevor shook his head as a mishmash of emotions assailed him. Desire, that was a given. He had always been drawn to Jacy with a magnetism that was impossible to explain—or ignore. He considered it a perverseness on his part. He might as well be fascinated with a rattler.

  But he resented her, too. And the resentment was new. He wondered where it came from. Wes Hardin was obviously right. Jacy deserved respect. She carried that whole family on her back and hadn’t even bent beneath the weight. Which should have made him proud instead of resentful. He had seen her strength, her maturity, her ability to accept hardship and not lose hope. Unlike his mother.

  No! Like his mother. Then it hit him. “She reminds me too much of someone I knew,” he said, recalling the way his mother bent to his father’s will. If she had stood on her own feet even once, she wouldn’t have died at thirty-five.

  Thirty-five, the same age as Trevor was now. Damn. And there was Jacy, killing herself for an old man who poisoned her life with bitterness, who t
alked about her as though she were a streetwalker instead of his daughter.

  “What do you know about Drummond Kimble?” he asked Hardin.

  “Not as much as you. He’s been nothing but a feeble-minded old drunk since I’ve been in town.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. That old man was hard as walnut. Hunter called him mean as sin, and I never had cause to disagree.”

  “He didn’t cotton to your thing with Jacy?”

  Trevor grunted. “Still doesn’t. Hell, you should have heard him carrying on. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn about Hunter. All he wanted was to be sure I wasn’t…” Trevor paused, shrugged, “You get the drift.”

  The men fell silent. They stared out the window, absorbed in individual thoughts, until Hardin changed the subject. “I’m not long on giving advice, especially when I haven’t been asked, but you don’t have any business hanging around here.”

  “Here?”

  “El Paso. Texas. The United States of America. They’re going to be on you like fleas on a dog, my guess is before sundown. I can get you over to Chinatown; they’ll get you to Old Mexico.”

  Trevor glanced toward the Río Grande beyond the near building. “No thanks. I had my chance to go to Mexico. My reason for not doing it still needs attention. Reckon I’ll hang around and try to get it done.”

  “Freeing Hunter Kimble?”

  “Saving his life, for starters.”

  “Seems to me the answers you need are in Arizona.”

  “Yeah, and I’m no closer to being able to get them than…” His words drifted off. Like lightning it struck him, sizzling down his spine with reckless anticipation. The answer. He knew what he would do. If he could somehow manage to stay alive and free till sundown.

  “Reckon it wouldn’t be too much trouble if I holed up in your apartment again till nightfall?”

  Hardin considered him. Trevor watched the questions form. But men in Hardin’s line of work—former line of work—didn’t ask many questions. Wes Hardin had made a dent in overstepping the bounds of propriety today. Trevor figured he wouldn’t try again.