Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (17 page)

After untying the bucket from the rope, Owen attached his own wooden pail and repeated the process. His bucket came back full
of water as foul smelling as before.

“What in the hell is going on around here?” he muttered.

“It’s kerosene,” John Grant announced.

He stood beside the tainted well in the bright early morning sunlight, his face filled with concern. His jaw was set tight
and his flat, contemplative eyes traveled back and forth from the well to Owen’s bucket where it sat on the ledge. John touched
its edge and rubbed his fingers
together. When his tongue touched his thumb, he spat on the ground. “Kerosene, all right.”

All around him were the men who had been summoned after Owen’s discovery. Hale stood closest to John, his thick, muscular
arms folded across his broad chest, while Del and Clyde Drake, another ranch hand whom Owen didn’t know particularly well,
were opposite, closer to himself. Every face was pensive, worried.

Owen hadn’t known whom he should talk with first, but had settled on speaking with Del, who had always treated him right and
seemed particularly levelheaded. Surprisingly, the Grant Ranch’s best man hadn’t immediately sought to inform John of the
matter, joking that he hadn’t wanted to interrupt his boss’s breakfast, but Hale, who had overheard their initial conversation,
thought otherwise, and told them in no uncertain terms that if they wouldn’t disrupt Mr. Grant’s meal, he most certainly would.
On this particular matter, Owen couldn’t help but see things Hale’s way. Clyde had just been finishing his eggs and bacon
and was swept up on their way to the well.

“You sure about that, boss?” Del asked.

“I am,” John answered gravely. “Ain’t no doubt ’bout it.”

“How’d kerosene get in our well?” Hale asked the obvious.

“Ain’t rightly certain how it got there, but I aim to find out,” John replied.

“Maybe when they was diggin’ this here well, they struck
oil and didn’t even know it.” Clyde laughed, his speech drawling. He was a short and thickening man, his potbelly threatening
to spill over his belt line, his blond hair going dirty and grey at his temples. When he smiled at his own inappropriate joke,
his stained, crooked teeth retained a smile that kept on even when no one else laughed.

“This ain’t likely to be an accident, I reckon,” John observed.

“Why not?” Del asked.

“It must be intentional tamperin’. There ain’t no other explanation.”

“Maybe it’s that a lantern fell down the well,” Hale offered. “Maybe someone came out here in the night, thirsty or whatnot,
maybe they’d been doin’ a bit of drinkin’ and weren’t right on their feet or were overly tired and just stumblin’ round. Either
way, they put it on the ledge and bumped into it, causin’ it to fall, plain and simple. The lantern sinks and the oil floats
round on top. Seems like it could’ve happened, just that way.”

“Could be,” Clyde echoed. “Could be that right there.”

“We could ask around, see if anyone will admit to it,” Del offered. “This ain’t like droppin’ a match that set the ranch on
fire. Somethin’ like this here ain’t so hard to fess up to.”

“Even if no one comes clean,” Clyde said, “and I ain’t sayin’ they wouldn’t, don’t mean that that ain’t the answer.”

John remained silent for a while, his mind struggling
with all of the possibilities that might explain what had happened, although it looked to Owen as if he wasn’t giving Hale’s
suggestion much of a chance.

“Owen,” John finally began, turning to face him, “there wasn’t anyone else around when you come out here this mornin’?”

“I didn’t see anyone.”

“Did you look around?”

“No. Not until I pulled up the bucket.”

“Were you the first person to use the well today?”

“Probably.”

“Your place is just over yonder?” John nodded over Owen’s shoulder.

He followed the older man’s gaze. The sight of the cabin, indistinguishable from most of the others on the ranch’s grounds,
set off a fluttering in his chest, completely unexpected, as if there was something about his living inside of it that was
about to change. Owen’s nerves went drum tight. He could see in what direction John Grant was headed. Cautiously, Owen nodded.

“Livin’ right there and you didn’t hear nothin’ last night,” John kept on, “no sounds of commotion or somebody rootin’ round,
up to no good?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Nothin’ at all?”

“If someone was out here, they must have been taking pains to keep quiet.”

“Anyone else hear anythin’ last night?” John asked, his eyes examining each of their faces.

In turn, every man replied that he hadn’t.

An unsettling silence settled around the well as each man’s thoughts remained his own. Owen felt no closer to understanding
what had actually happened than when he had discovered the stricken well. Whatever the final explanation, he knew that John
Grant was slowly and surely arriving at his own conclusion, one that, deservedly or not, made Owen quite unsettled.

I don’t like where this is headed… not one bit…

“I ain’t followin’ all this here thinkin’,” Del said, breaking the quiet. “If you don’t think this is an accident, how did
kerosene get down the well?”

“I think it was put there.”

“What?” Hale exclaimed, his hands flying from his chest and his mouth hanging open. “You mean someone tried to ruin it on
purpose?”

“I do,” John replied simply.

“But what about the idea of it bein’ a lantern?” Hale kept on.

“One of the lanterns don’t hold enough oil to explain the amount that’s down the well. Oil settles on top of water, so if
it was what fits into a lantern, it would take only a couple of pails full and you’d have most of it out. What’s comin’ up
here is a lot more than that. One sniff of a bucket would tell you that clear enough.”

“Why in the hell would someone do that?”

“The bigger question would be who would do such a thing,” Clyde offered.

John’s tone darkened. “Right now, I don’t know, but rest assured we’re gonna find out, come hell or high water.”

“You reckon it’s someone here?” Hale asked. “Someone on the ranch?”

“Can’t be,” Del answered.

“Don’t see how it could be any other way,” John contradicted. “Be a hell of a walk for a fella to come up from the edge of
the ranch property, ’specially when takin’ into account the oil he’d be haulin’. Drivin’ close enough, comin’ ’cross the road
over the creek, would be a sure way to get noticed.”

“Then it’s someone here,” Owen said. And
he
would be one of the first to be suspected. On the surface, it made a lot of sense. He and Hannah were two of the latest arrivals
to the ranch, and while his sister was outgoing and well liked, he had gone well out of his way to be aloof and even unfriendly
with the other men; and he was, as John had already established, living close enough to the well to have been able to pull
off the crime without being noticed. Somehow, the fact that he had been the one to
report
the tainting of the well would be conveniently overlooked, people assuming that he had alerted them to throw them off his
trail.

When he looked at the faces of the men gathered around
the well, he saw that they were thinking similar things. Even Del, whom Owen had trusted enough to inform of what had happened,
even he was stealing glances in his direction, suspicion in his eyes.

Everything Owen had done since he had arrived in Oklahoma, all of the time devoted to discovering if John Grant was his real
father, hung in the balance. If the suspicion of his involvement grew too great, he could be asked to leave the ranch, regardless
of what excuse he offered. After the death of his mother back in Colorado, he had sworn over her freshly dug grave that he
wouldn’t rest until he made the man responsible for her suffering pay. If he were to falter now, if he were to fail to fulfill
his vow…

He couldn’t allow that to happen;
he just could not
…

When the gathering around the well broke up, Owen couldn’t help but notice the way Hale kept looking back at him as he walked
away.

“I couldn’t give a damn whether he likes the plan or not!” Carter Herrick thundered, his fist clenching so tightly that the
lit cigar clutched between his fingers snapped in two. “Who does he think he is to question what I have ordered? Ruining that
well was what I asked him to do and by God, he’ll do it, any consequences to his own person be damned!”

Clyde Drake shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other and then back again. He’d been on his feet all
day and was utterly exhausted, but no matter how much he wanted to sit down in the chair opposite Herrick’s oak desk, he understood
that he couldn’t do so without first being invited; it hadn’t taken him long to learn that a man in Herrick’s employ never
dared do anything without his boss’s approval.

“I don’t think he likes havin’ me lookin’ over his shoulder,” Clyde ventured. “He feels like you don’t trust him.”

“And why in the hell should I?” Herrick shouted, tossing his broken cigar at his employee, the lit piece bouncing off Clyde’s
chest and sending a shower of smoldering tobacco cascading to the floor. “Maybe if he hadn’t been so damned concerned about
stopping the blaze that he had set, he wouldn’t find himself in such a delicate position!”

“You’re right, Mr. Herrick.” Clyde nodded. “I don’t understand what he was thinkin’ ’bout…”

“If only he’d let the blaze grow, Grant would be destroyed and his debt would be repaid,” Herrick said as he got up to pour
himself another whiskey; to Clyde’s displeasure, no offer was made for a glass of his own.

“His heart just ain’t all the way in it, boss.”

“Thank you, Drake.” Herrick sneered sarcastically. “I’m so happy that I have a smart man such as you to tell me these things.”

“It ain’t all bad,” Clyde explained. “He done what he should’ve when Grant was talkin’ round the well. He kept his head and
didn’t say nothin’ suspicious. Ain’t no one
gonna be lookin’ at him. Ain’t no way that he’ll be suspected of dumpin’ the kerosene.”

“Who does Grant suspect?”

“Can’t say for certain just yet, but it looks as if the attention’s turned to the fella that done first reported it. Man by
the name of Williams.”

Herrick nodded. “All the worse for him.”

“Course…” Clyde began tentatively, struggling to choose his words carefully, “that don’t mean our man still don’t think you
done made a mistake by actin’ the way you did.”

“And I told you I didn’t give a damn what he thought!” Herrick roared.

“Now, boss… it’s… it’s just that… well, he might have a bit… of a point is all I’m sayin’,” Clyde continued, beads of sweat
dotting his brow. “If it had only been the fire, then it could be seen as nothin’ more than an accident, a cigarette butt
or somethin’, but now we gone and ruined that there well, it makes things pretty clear that someone is out to do the ranch
harm. From this point on, Grant’s gonna be watchin’ close.”

“Let him, for all the good it will do.”

“It’s just that—” Clyde began, but Herrick’s scowl silenced him.

What Clyde left unsaid was that the other man’s concerns were also his own. In fact, his own position was even more precarious;
he hadn’t been at the ranch long and his boisterous nature always drew attention. Even if
he were to be scrutinized by accident, he would have to be a fool to think that Grant wouldn’t take a long look at him as
a possible suspect, so it was still possible that his connection to Carter Herrick could be found out. But there was no way
for Clyde to give voice to his concerns; the man who gave him orders was not the kind who would stomach weakness.

“What happens if we get found out?” Clyde asked.

“Then that would mean you weren’t doing your jobs as you should,” Herrick spat angrily. “What your task requires is both a
low profile and an attention to detail. You are to follow my instructions to the letter, nothing more. When you deviate from
the plan,
that
is when you will fail. You’re both being paid a substantial amount of money, so the last thing I want to hear about are excuses
and failures! Success is the only outcome that will be tolerated, so if Grant learns about what I am planning, if he finds
out about my involvement, it will be your lives! Am I making myself clear?”

“Ye-yes, sir, you are,” Clyde stammered.

“You tell your fellow saboteur every word that I’m telling you tonight. If he has a problem with what he’s being asked to
do, remind him of how solid his standing at that godforsaken ranch would be if word got out about his gambling problem. That
should serve to silence his tongue.”

“What are you gonna want us to do next?” Clyde asked.

For a long moment, Carter Herrick was silent as he
stared out the window into the night sky. When he finally turned, a malicious smile curled the corners of his mouth in a way
that unnerved his lackey.

“Now is the time for us to be bold,” Herrick answered. “Now is the time for drastic measures…”

W
ITH THE DINNER PLATES
cleared from the table and the men headed back to the remaining chores of the day, Charlotte joined Amelia Grant and the
other women in the kitchen to wash dishes. Positioned at the end of the working line, she dried each plate, glass, and piece
of silverware that came her way, joining in the easy talk and ready laughter. It felt comfortable, different, yet still similar
to the life she had left behind in Minnesota, a part of her new life, a future she felt glad to be pursuing.

Charlotte had no more than put the last plate in the cupboard when she heard a light rapping on the door frame beside her.
When she looked, she was surprised to see Hale, although the look on his face didn’t appear as warm as usual.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked softly.

“Sure,” she answered. “Just give me a minute to finish up.”

Outside, the night air was cooler than usual, but still pleasant. Charlotte rubbed her arms for a bit of warmth, marveling
at the thousands of stars in the clear sky as night swallows dived and dipped, illuminated for an instant passing against
the bright moon.