A Man with a Past

by Mary Connealy

  “Must be why, when first I come around in that river, I headed for the mountains as soon as I could get land under me. They seemed safe. It’s like I was called to them, like a bird heading for its nest.”

  “Can you read?” Molly asked, untying her apron.

  Falcon knew what reading was. Memory was a strange thing. “Nope. Well, I’m not sure.”

  Cheyenne came and put a piece of paper in front of him with a pencil. “Write Falcon.”

  He stared at the paper for a long moment, then picked up the pencil and wrote his name.

  “I reckon that means I can. Not sure about anything else though.”

  “Let’s go in my grandpa’s study,” Cheyenne said. “We left the will in there and copies of the letters that were going to you and Kevin. You can at least know that much about yourself. I can tell you about the ranch and Wyoming. Molly can tell you about Tennessee.”

  “Maybe,” Molly said, “we’ll say something that’ll shake loose a memory.”

  Falcon hated to get his hopes up. Hopelessness seemed called for at this time.

  “Is that your ma?” Falcon stopped in the doorway of the front room and looked at the huge painting on a wall above the fireplace.

  “Yes, it is. That’s Katherine LeRemy Brewster Hunt.”

  Falcon heard sadness in Cheyenne’s voice and wished he had words that would make her feel better. But that seemed foolish. How could anyone feel anything but sadness over losing her ma? Falcon wondered about his own ma. Someone here had said she was dead, but he must’ve told them that. He couldn’t remember it.

  The picture was hard to look away from, so he paid mind to it and not Cheyenne’s sad, beautiful face. Katherine Hunt had on a blue dress. Her brown hair was down in curls around her shoulders. She was standing in front of this very fireplace that the picture now hung over. Her arms came together in front, holding something Falcon didn’t recognize. A fancy thing, a fanned-out blue thing that matched Katherine’s dress. She had about the prettiest smile on her face Falcon had ever seen. Her skin was tanned, and her eyes snapped blue.

  Falcon might not remember much about himself, but he knew this was a fine room. Pretty blankets were thrown over the backs of a settee and two chairs, and fine lacy circles draped over the chair and settee arms. He saw a small basket with something half-finished in it. It had to be Cheyenne’s work, or Win’s maybe? Cheyenne didn’t seem like the fine lacy type.

  Looking back at the picture, he said, “She looks like you.” He knew Cheyenne had never smiled that way since he’d met her, but he wished she would. “You’ve got dark eyes, but other than that, you’re of a kind with your ma. Both beautiful women.”

  Cheyenne turned away from the picture. “And you look like Clovis Hunt. I can’t tell you much about yourself. But I could tell you a lot about him.” She didn’t make that sound like he wanted to hear it.

  She stepped through an open door and went behind a massive desk of solid oak big enough to nap on and opened a side drawer. She pulled out a packet of papers. “Here’s the will, and it contains instructions about contacting you and Kevin, including information about where you lived.”

  “Then you know more about me than I know about myself.” He picked up the papers and unfolded them and stared awhile. Then he said, “I reckon I can’t read much besides my name.”

  Molly hadn’t followed them into the study, but now she came in with a sheet of paper. “This is the map of the ranch. Kevin got it at the land office, and I had it in my room. You said you might build a cabin.”

  “I did?”

  “Yep,” Molly said. “You could use the map to decide where you want to build it. Maybe Cheyenne could tell you about highlands.”

  Cheyenne took the packet of papers from Falcon and tucked them back in the drawer. “You didn’t need to get that in town. We’ve got a map here.”

  Molly tipped her head and gave a tiny shrug. “I don’t think Kevin wanted to ask you for it. But he planned to ride your boundaries and find a likely spot, far enough away we wouldn’t bother you none.”

  Cheyenne’s eyes glinted in such a way that Falcon knew the newcomers were always going to bother Cheyenne.

  She went to a large wooden table standing in front of a bookshelf and pulled out a deep drawer. From inside she brought out a tube of paper. She brought it to the desk and unrolled it. Falcon saw it was a map. Very detailed and impressive compared to the quickly hand-drawn map Molly had.

  Cheyenne picked up a book, a paperweight, and a stand that held an inkwell. She used them to weight down three corners of the map. She kept the fourth corner from rolling with her hand.

  She began talking.

  Falcon was impressed by how well she knew this land. Knew where the old boundaries were between the land her pa had owned and the Rolling Hills Ranch. Talked about how they’d joined them after her pa died.

  “I was really young. I have only shadowy memories of my own pa. Ma and I moved over here after Pa died, bucked off a horse he was breaking. Grandpa was living in the foreman’s house then. He insisted we needed a fine house for the three of us, and built this. It was finished about the time Clovis Hunt came along.”

  “And you’re saying Clovis was still married to my ma and Kevin’s ma when he married your ma?” Falcon rubbed one hand over his face as if he wanted to scrub that information away.

  “Pa, is that you?”

  Falcon jerked his head up. He looked around the room, but they were the only people in here.

  Who was that? It was a man’s voice, and Falcon thought the question had been put to him.

  “Pa, is that you?”

  For a horrifying moment, Falcon thought he might have children somewhere. A wife. Where were they? Who called him Pa?

  Falcon tried to focus on that strange voice he’d just heard. It had to be a memory, but thinking on it made his head throb. The women were poring over the map, not looking at him at all.

  They didn’t notice him checking the room for someone.

  Should he tell them? The headache grew, and to escape the pain, he forced his mind back to what was going on around him.

  The lack of a memory made him feel like a strange kinda critter. He had no idea what was wrong with him, and he had a flash of, well, it wasn’t right to say he was ashamed exactly. But he felt so odd. Like he had a terrible weakness, and that made him a man who’d be picked out of a herd like a three-legged elk.

  “Mark on my map where some highlands are for Falcon. And do you know where fertile farmland is for us?” Molly slid her modest little map onto the corner of the big, colorful map Cheyenne had.

  “You drew your map wrong.” Cheyenne pointed to a curve on Molly’s map. “Our land goes out way farther than this. You drew your boundary so it follows the east side of Mount Gilbert, but it goes around the west side of it.”

  Cheyenne took the pen off the desk, dipped it in an inkwell, and redrew Molly’s map to add a whole big stretch to match hers.

  “No, Cheyenne. Kevin said he talked to the land agent the whole time he was drawing. He could’ve been off a little, but not that much. That stretch you just added to my map is part of the Hawkins Ranch. Win was with him and look at those tiny letters.” Molly tapped on the line that Cheyenne had added. “They wrote HR for Hawkins Ranch.”

  Cheyenne’s always somber face twisted into anger. Falcon was getting used to seeing her that way.

  “Then the land office is wrong, and Win is wrong.”

  Molly and Cheyenne looked at each other.

  Cheyenne said, “Win doesn’t know her ranch’s boundaries as well as I know mine.”

  “Are you sure your grandpa and your pa really bought their land?” Falcon moved to stand beside the two women and looked closer at the map. “There couldn’t’ve been a land office out here when they settled. Maybe he only claimed the land, but when Hawkins came along, the land office showed open range, and he bought it.”

  Cheyenne’s head snapped up, and she glared at Falcon. �
��This land is ours.” She slapped her hand on the map, and Falcon got the notion that she might want to slap him.

  Weren’t his fault about the maps.

  Her eyes narrowed, and he saw she was thinkin’ something as if she could see inside his head.

  He surely wished someone could.

  “Let’s go to town,” Falcon suggested.

  “We should wait for Wyatt.”

  Falcon smiled right in that cranky face. “You reckon he knows this land better’n you?”

  Molly flinched at the challenge in his retort. Falcon saw it as she stood behind Cheyenne, and it was a mighty big flinch. But he didn’t let it move him from the stare locked between him and Cheyenne.

  “No one alive knows this land better than me.”

  “Considering that there might still be some varmints chasing after us, I’ll ride with you, if I can borrow a horse?” Falcon asked.

  “This ranch owns about a hundred horses. And you own a third of them.” Cheyenne looked like she wanted to scream.

  Just like always.

  But without knowing a thing about what was normal, he decided he liked a feisty woman. By that measure, he liked Cheyenne Brewster more every minute.

  “I think I’ll stay home and make a meal.” Molly drew his attention.

  He’d forgotten she was in here.

  She shook her head in a way that made no never mind to him, then turned and walked out.

  Falcon said, “It’s a funny thing not to have any memories.”

  Cheyenne’s scowl relaxed some. “I’ll just bet it is.”

  “I’ve no notion of what I like and what I don’t like.” Then, bravest thing he ever did, or so he suspected, he chucked Cheyenne under the chin. “But I am finding myself liking you real well.”

  Instead of biting his head off, she arched her brows, and her eyes went wide. She seemed frozen and didn’t say anything back.

  Probably for the best. “Let’s go to town.”

  Shaking her head, then nodding, finally she found her voice. “I’m bringing the maps.”

  TWELVE

  After Falcon took his hand away, Cheyenne still felt that chapped, callused finger on her chin. She even rubbed the spot he’d touched a few times while she saddled her horse.

  “You remember how to do this?”

  Falcon was slapping a saddle on with no sign of confusion.

  “It makes no sense.” Falcon paused from tightening the cinch to rub the back of his head.

  The wound had to be a bullet crease. Tuttle had talked about Falcon being hard to kill. He’d mentioned attacking him and being bested by him in Independence. And here Falcon stood while Tuttle and Baker were dead and, no doubt, being buried today.

  Cheyenne wondered what Oliver Hawkins had thought about his foreman being shot. About the man being involved with an attempt to kill Kevin and Falcon. About his plans to kidnap Win and keep her hidden away until she had no choice but to marry him.

  It hadn’t missed Cheyenne’s notice that Win had yet to go see her father. Tell him about her wedding. The sheriff was going to his place first thing this morning, so Oliver would be over here as fast as he could move after Sheriff Corly left his place.

  As they rode, Cheyenne thought of Win’s pa. She should’ve stayed home. She’d declared a week ago she was going to marry him. Now was a chance to see him—if she guessed right about him coming over, upset at Win’s marriage. Instead, Cheyenne was riding off.

  Well, she looked to be getting her land back, though only in a verbal agreement, not legally. She could live with that, but it still burned bad. She had to find time to seriously consider Hawkins’s proposal.

  She knew he was no great rancher. But she saw the good side of marrying a man she could be in charge of. And he didn’t run off like Clovis. Even as she thought of it, her stomach sank. She realized she had no real interest in the marriage part of saying, “I do,” with Oliver. But as a partner in a ranch where she got to be in charge, that part of it could work. And maybe if she was the right kind of wife, he might take to running off, too. She could hope.

  As they left the ranch yard at a fast walk, Cheyenne rubbed her chin again over the spot Falcon had touched. She couldn’t stop herself.

  That made her say something she might’ve been better off keeping quiet about. “We’ve hired a lawyer to track down just when your ma died. If she was still living when Clovis married my ma, then Ma’s marriage wasn’t legal and Clovis had no ownership of the RHR. That’ll cancel the will and any claim you and Kevin have on the place.”

  Falcon turned to look at her. Really study her. What was he thinking? Maybe he didn’t even know what he was thinking.

  “I can’t help you. I-I think I’d tell you so I could get shut of the land my pa stole. The land’s been kinda hung on me permanent, ain’t it? Didn’t you say it’s in the will that I can’t sell it?”

  “It’s very carefully worded so you have to keep it. It can’t be put up for sale for ten years.”

  Falcon scratched his head and turned to watch the trail.

  “If I ever get to rememberin’ things, I’ll know how old I was when Ma died.” With a disgusted snort he said, “Heck, I don’t even know how old I am now. Older’n Kevin, I reckon. Beyond that, I can’t remember. But my memory will come back after a time, surely. When it does, I can figure out if she died before Clovis married your ma. But for now, I can’t even remember having a ma.”

  Cheyenne managed a harsh laugh. “Pretty good chance you had one. We can count on that. You should have stayed around and gotten to know us before you got your brains knocked out.”

  “I don’t remember a’course, but I expect I didn’t feel all that welcome. I’m just guessin’ that, on account of how y’all have acted since I found you.”

  “Let’s pick up the pace.” Cheyenne kicked her horse into a ground-eating gallop, and Falcon stayed with her.

  They reached Bear Claw Pass, and Cheyenne rode straight to the land office. Hitching their horses, Cheyenne charged through the door, in no mood to wait another second to figure out why the map she had at home didn’t match the one in town.

  She’d brought hers along, carrying it carefully. It was a prized family possession. But she didn’t see how she could challenge the land office’s map without proof.

  Gordon Spellman was behind a counter, sitting at a desk writing when Cheyenne slammed the door open. He jumped at the loud noise, then smiled when he saw her. He was a gray-haired man with a tidy white moustache and golden-framed glasses. Cheyenne had known him for years. He and his wife went to church with her on Sundays. Whatever was going on here, she believed that Gordon’s honesty was beyond reproach.

  “Cheyenne, what brings you to town?” He frowned a bit. “Winona Hawkins was in here only a few days ago with some stranger, looking at a map of your property. Is there a problem?”

  He wore a white shirt that buttoned down the front. His sleeves had black armbands, which Cheyenne knew many men wore because the general store didn’t get in ready-made shirts in sizes that were overly particular. So the armbands shortened up long sleeves.

  “There’s a mighty big problem, Gordon.” Cheyenne slapped her map on the counter and began unrolling it. “We have our own map out at the house, and it doesn’t match yours.”

  Gordon watched the map unroll, studying it briefly before looking over at the map he had in his office.

  “This right here.” Cheyenne drew her finger on her family’s map, then over to the land office’s map. “There’s an inward curve on your map while there’s an outward curve on mine.”

  She tapped the map hard on the area she said was hers.

  “It’s Mount Gilbert.” Cheyenne looked from Spellman to Falcon and back. “This here is Falcon Hunt, brother to Wyatt. He’s come to claim his inherited land. It’s real important we get the ranch’s boundaries right if we’re going to have new ownership.” Cheyenne leaned down close to compare the two maps.

  Gordon looked at Falcon,
then returned to studying the map. “I’ll admit to you, Cheyenne, that your ownership of the land is old. It was settled before I moved here. It’s not a map I pull out and study.”

  “And see here, in fine handwriting, it says this is the boundary with the Hawkins Ranch. Now, I know Mount Gilbert is ours. I know it. Some of the land, well, there might be a question about details. But Gilbert here”—she tapped again—“Grandpa had a love for that land. He used to say it wasn’t good for grazing, it was good for gazing.”

  “Are you sure he owned it though, Cheyenne? This was all open range when your grandpa Jacque settled. Does he actually have a deed that shows what land he owns?”

  Cheyenne paused. “There are deeds somewhere. I know Grandpa was like a lot of others on the frontier. First, he just stopped, put up a cabin, and reckoned the land around him was his. When there was finally a way to own land, after he’d been here for years, he started buying it up. First the water holes, then the best grazing. But I know he pushed himself hard to own his land tight and legal. And Ma did the same for the land my pa had settled on.”

  “Your pa, Clovis Hunt?” The man glanced at Falcon. It was plain to see he’d known what Clovis Hunt looked like because he was seeing a young version of the man right before him. He for sure didn’t question for one second whether Falcon was truly Clovis’s son.

  “No, my real pa. Nate Brewster. He might’ve died before the land was even surveyed and for sale, but Ma was mindful of owning her land. Grandpa and Ma worked hard to get their land under their legal ownership.”

  Gordon went back to studying the maps. “And you say this is a mountain good only for gazing? Why would your grandpa spend money to own what is, in practice, a wasteland?”

  Gordon leaned closer to study his version of the map. “You’ve got the Hawkins Ranch as owners of this disputed mountain area, but that’s not right.” He touched a spot on the map. “This section isn’t owned by Oliver Hawkins, either. He doesn’t put his money toward wasteland no matter the view.” Gordon sniffed. “Hawkins has little interest in the wonder of the land around us. He only wants property he can profit from.”