Chasing the Sun (32 page)

At least the new name was easier to say than
RosaRoja Rancho.

The last time Stanley had been to the ranch, Wilkins had been a hard-luck rancher living in a worn-out adobe house with his two idiot brothers—one of whom looked like a damned cave dweller. Now he heard they lived in a grand log and stone mansion. They had mines and their own spur line and fancy crossbred horses and cattle. Now they were rich.

But not for long. Stanley took some satisfaction in that.

Pleased with the width and fluff of the bow tie, he crossed to the small wardrobe that passed for a clothes closet in this dismal hotel room. He pulled out the black gabardine jacket he’d had the coolies in the laundry down the street clean and press. After inspecting it carefully for wrinkles and scorch marks, he hung it on the door then made the same thorough examination of the brocaded vest he intended to wear under it.

Hate for Brady Wilkins churned in his belly. He’d despised the cocky bastard from the moment Wilkins had walked into the stage stop where Stanley had been gagging down a bowl of chili and enjoying the admiration of Jessica Thornton.
Widow
Thornton, she had assured him and her other fellow passengers on the westbound that day.

But the
Widow
Thornton had fooled them all, hadn’t she?

He had known who Wilkins was, of course. The Wilkins brothers were notorious throughout the area, and not just because of their feud with Sancho Ramirez over their ranch. They were admired, actually
admired
, for being hardheaded, clannish, uncompromising sons of bitches who would rather live in prideful squalor than allow the railroads access across their land.

Idiots.
The West was full of them.

But advance work for the railroads was Stanley’s business, and he had dealt with men like Wilkins before. In fact, Wilkins was the reason Stanley had been in the area that day—to secure the RosaRoja water rights for his employers, the Texas and Pacific Railroad. And when Wilkins, whose horse had died somewhere between the stopover and El Paso, had climbed onto the stage for the last leg into Val Rosa, Stanley had considered it a lucky break.

Then their stagecoach had fallen over a cliff. By the time Stanley had recovered—at the Wilkins ranch, that pesthole—the T&P had decided upon an alternate route to San Diego, and Stanley was out of a job. Oh, he soon got another one, of course. In this wasteland, men of his refinement and education and experience seldom lacked employment for long. But working for a small group of investors on a branch line was not as lucrative as working for one of the big railroads or the transcontinental, and Stanley had soon found it difficult to maintain his style of living. So using that education and experience his employers had so vastly undervalued, he’d augmented his meager salary by using the money his employers had set aside for the purchase of water rights to make his own investments in the Union Pacific Railroad.

And it would have paid off handsomely except for the Credit Mobilier scandal. Now the railroads were toppling like a house of cards, and the Union Pacific was looking at bankruptcy, as were most of its investors.

Except in Stanley’s case, it would be embezzlement charges and prison as well.

Smoothing his hands over the front of the vest, he savored the slickness of silk against his palms then pulled on his jacket. He smiled, liking the feel of it too. A perfect fit and well worth the outrageous price he’d paid for it.

Stanley liked looking his best. He liked living well and enjoying fine things. Perhaps that small weakness was what had led him down the treacherous path he found himself on today.

No matter.
Soon he would be back on track and all would be as it should be.

Either Wilkins would repay the smelter loan that Stanley had forced that banker, Lockley, to sell him—which would then enable Stanley to return the borrowed funds to the railroad account before the auditors came. Or if Wilkins couldn’t pay, then Stanley would take the deed to the ranch instead, and as the new owner of RosaRoja, he would hand over the secured water rights to the auditors and he would be saved.

Either way, he couldn’t lose.

And just to be doubly sure, he had an ace up his sleeve. The Widow Thornton. She would do anything for her husband, he’d been told. And Brady Wilkins would do the same for her. All Stanley had to do was apply the right pressure on the right spouse.

A perfect plan.

After dusting his coat sleeves for stray lint, he straightened his lapels, then moved to stand before the full-length cheval mirror beside the bureau. Bracing himself, he looked at his reflection.

As always, there was that instant of shock when he first saw his ravaged face, followed almost immediately by a feeling of such fury and disgust it bordered on nausea. Only a handful of people in the entire country were unable to tolerate the smallpox vaccine, and he had to be one of them.

Goddamn Indians.
They’re the ones who kept the virus going. They should all be shot.

Frowning at his scarred image, he tried to see himself through Jessica’s eyes. She had looked on him with approval at one time. Even interest. Certainly admiration. Would she even recognize the handsome man she had once esteemed?

No matter
. She was used goods anyway. He knew all about her now.

Several years ago when he’d first read the notice tacked to the board outside the sheriff’s office in Socorro seeking information about a lost Englishwoman with red hair, he’d known exactly to whom it referred. The sheriff, a garrulous old man missing his right ear, had confirmed it.

The
Widow
Thornton had never been married at all, it seemed. And a man in England named John Crawford was offering a huge reward for her return.

Her lover perhaps? The father of the child she carried?

No,
children
. Twins, he’d heard. One stillborn, and the other very much alive. He wondered if Brady Wilkins knew the truth about lying
Widow
Thornton and her bastard son?

Stanley smiled. He had hoarded her dirty little secret for years, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it to light. How gratifying that the time had finally come.

Lifting the tin of Orland’s French Hair Dressing and Restorative from the bureau, Stanley scooped a dab more pomade and smoothed it over the blond strands covering his bald spot. Then returning the tin to the bureau, he straightened his jacket and made a final check.

Perfect.

Satisfied, he left the room, ready to go visit the esteemed Mrs. Jessica Thornton Wilkins and her lout of a husband. He laughed softly, looking forward to bursting their happy little bubble of domestic bliss.

Just a few more days. Then, either Wilkins would have somehow found a way to repay the loan, at which time Stanley would be able to put back the money he’d borrowed from the railroad account. Or the ranch and all those lucrative water rights would be his.

And if that were the case, the best part, the part he would relish the most, would be booting that English slut and her turd-kicking husband to the road while he toasted his toes by the fire in their fancy new house.

He laughed softly, picturing it. What a treat that would be.

A PURPLISH PINK GLOW WAS JUST BACKLIGHTING THE EASTERN ridges when Brady neared Dead Horse Canyon. After a day and a night without rain, the creek had started back down, but it was still running so full and fast he could hear the roar of the falls even though it was still fifty yards upstream.

He reined in and dismounted. Because of the canyon’s sheer walls, he would have to leave the horse here and climb on foot down to the base of the falls. He had decided to check there first, before working his way back upstream. If Jack had made it this far, and had gone over the falls, then that was where he’d be. Dead or alive.

That sense of urgency grew stronger.

Jack had to be somewhere in this canyon. They’d looked everywhere else. Brady wouldn’t even consider that his brother might be dead and the reason they hadn’t found him was because his body had gotten caught on a submerged log, or trapped in a logjam, or might even now be lying at the bottom of a swirling backwash waiting to be exposed when the creek went down.

Moving quickly, he loosened the coils of rope lashed to the front of the saddle and untied the bulging saddlebags attached behind the cantle. Knowing he might have to cross to the other side, and not wanting to have to backtrack later, he loaded himself up with the supplies he’d brought. In addition to a hundred feet of stout rope, the long knife in his boot, the Colt with five rounds—he never carried a live round under the hammer in case of accidental discharge—he’d also stuffed his saddlebags with a hatchet, a small shovel, an extra jacket for Jack, heavy gloves, a box of safety matches wrapped in oilcloth, a packet of dried meat, and assorted medical supplies like cotton batting, gauze, carbolic ointment, and pads suitable for dressing wounds. The saddlebags felt like they weighed fifty pounds when he slung them over his shoulder.

Leaving the horse tied to a tree, he picked up the rope and with the saddlebags slapping against his back, worked his way as fast as he safely could over tangled brush and downed limbs toward the base of the falls.

Thoughts of his brother haunted him with every step.

He couldn’t imagine life without Jack. As much as he’d butted heads with his brother in the past, and even resented and envied him at times, there was something about Jack that had such a strangle-hold on Brady, to lose him would be to lose part of himself.

Maybe even the best part.

They’d always fought. Jack could try the patience of a saint, and Brady was no saint. On the farm in Missouri, before they’d come west, whenever there had been a task to be delegated or a reprimand to be given, it had fallen on Brady. Never Jack. Pa always had excuses.

Jack’s too young. Jack’s head is too far in the clouds. You’re stronger, more responsible. You do it.

And Brady had done it because he was oldest and that was the way it was. And also, whether he’d let on or not, because he’d liked being the one Pa had depended on or turned to when he’d needed help. Brady had gotten a taste of running things in ’48 when Pa had gone off to fight the Mexicans, leaving him to watch over his brothers and Ma and baby Sam. Brady had barely been twelve at the time, but he’d liked being the man in charge. He was good at it. And still was.

But managing Jack was like shoveling manure—a thankless, never-ending chore that brought more aggravation than reward. And being charged with that task throughout their growing years had left Brady with a well of resentment. Mostly because he had never been fooled by Jack’s antics. He knew his brother wasn’t the dimwit he pretended to be because he’d seen him come up with some astoundingly creative ideas, especially when a woman or a prank was involved. Like the time he’d danced a jig on the courthouse steps wearing nothing but a red bandana and wooly chaps, just to impress the judge’s wife. Or when he’d dusted the personal papers in the outhouse with ground chili peppers.

Crazy maybe, but not stupid. Brady knew that beneath the charm and big grins was a good brain, but like Hank’s, it just didn’t work the way everybody else’s did.

After Pa had died and the huge task of running the ranch and watching over his brothers had fallen on Brady’s shoulders, Jack had become his biggest burden, his chief aggravation and tormentor, and certainly his greatest worry. Yet throughout the years, no matter how much he had silently railed at the unfairness of having to do his job and Jack’s too, or how much he had resented the way his brother charmed his way out of chores or accountability, or how often he had wanted to knock some sense into that seemingly empty head, Brady couldn’t help but love the little bastard. There was something about Jack that made you forgive him, and laugh and shake your head, and let him go on chasing his rainbows and talking his dreams, simply because he was ... well, Jack.

In other words, he was everything Brady wasn’t allowed to be when he was a kid, and a lot of what he wished he could be as a man.

And Brady couldn’t imagine a world without him.

That sense of impending doom that had dogged him ever since he’d awakened in a cold sweat that morning now hardened into a grim determination. He would find Jack. He would find him and bring him home. Then he would probably have to watch him leave again, but at least he would know his little brother was out in the world someplace ... alive.

When Brady reached the base of the falls, the roar of water cascading fifty feet down onto the rocks drowned out all other sound. A fine mist collected in his eyelashes and mustache and dampened his shirt until it stuck to his back. The air smelled cool and wet, like the inside of a dank cave.

Stopping at the edge of the rushing water, he let the saddlebags slide to the ground and flexed his shoulders. He stood a moment, scanning both sides of the creek, but saw only piles of limbs and debris lining the banks, indicating last night’s high water mark.

“Jack,” he yelled, but his voice was lost in the thick mist and didn’t even bounce back at him off the rocky walls. He didn’t see Jack, or any evidence that he had gotten this far.

Brady told himself that was a good thing. At least he hadn’t been swept over the cliff.

Picking up the saddlebags again, he started the hard climb over tumbled boulders crowded against the sheer walls rising up to the top of the falls. It was hard going, loaded down as he was, and the leather soles of his boots kept slipping on the damp rocks. He was sweating like a muleskinner when he stopped to catch his breath about a dozen feet below a tangled logjam that hung out over the top of the falls, stretching from the far bank almost halfway across to his side of the canyon.

Pushing back his hat, he studied the pile of timbers, recognizing remnants of the bridge in the snarl of ropes and broken planks. He wondered if it would be stable enough to hold him if he tried to cross on it—assuming he could get over to the logjam without being sucked under it or washed over the falls.