House of Mercy (44 page)

He grinned at her then.

“So,” she said. “I have a horse and a dog. They’re not going to get the two of us very far.”

“Dotti said we could use her car,” Garner said. He bent down to pick up his case. “Either that or she’d shoot us downriver in one of her death traps.”

“I don’t know what that means, but a car sounds safer.”

“So long as you’re driving, it will be.”

“I really like the idea of getting back home in just a few hours.”

“Then that decides it,” Garner announced. “This way to Dotti’s.” He tipped his head in the direction of Main Street and began to lead.

“We’ll have to stop by the stables on my way out so I can make arrangements to send up a trailer for Hastings later.”

“Easy peasy.”

They turned the corner of the abandoned doctor’s office.

“So what changed your mind?” Beth asked.

“Beth, girl, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Several hours later, when Beth turned off the highway, Garner began to second-guess his decision to come to the ranch. They passed under the wrought-iron entry that framed a plank announcing the location.
Blazing B
had been formed of block letters with a large wood-burning tool, and decorative flames that had rusted to an appropriate vermillion danced along the top rail against a summer sky.

Beth was silent too. Herriot sat up in the backseat as if aware they were close to home now.

“I guess we both have reason to be a bundle of nerves,” Garner observed.

“We’ll go to the Hub first,” Beth said. “I can introduce you to whichever men happen to be there. Then we’ll go to the main house. It’ll be a smoother entrance that way. I think.”

Garner glanced at her but had no opinion on how to go about this.

The spectacle of the ranch took him off guard. He was familiar with this valley, and with the properties here, but he’d been away long enough for their loveliness to fade in his mind. Now the golden grassland stretched ahead of him like a new day that took the edge off his anxiety. The San Juans in the west were protective, towering shades of purple and gray.

The dirt road took more or less a straight line west, and soon a house, several outbuildings, and various fenced corrals came into view. Beyond these were harvested fields that smelled of winter feed, and protective shelters that housed hay bales stacked to the roof.

Herriot woofed, and Garner pointed to the south. Three riders on horseback were approaching the house that Beth had called the Hub.

“That’s Jacob in the front, on the Appaloosa,” Beth said. She seemed to relax at the sight of this man. Even the tone of her voice became less taut. The trio was looking in her direction and probably wondering who this 4x4 belonged to. She’d be close enough for them to recognize her soon. “And that’s Danny, behind him.”

“Your younger brother,” Garner said.

“Yes.” Beth glanced at Garner. “Your youngest grandson.”

But Garner’s eyes had already moved to the rider at the rear, a tall woman in an overlarge plaid work shirt, her thick hair pulled back into a long braid down the center of her back. He could see from here the strands of gray striping her hair. Had it been so long? She was such a kid when she left.

“There’s my Rose,” he said.

Beth rolled down her window and reached out to wave as they rumbled along the drive. The one called Jacob tipped up the visor of his hat, studied her for a moment, then waved back and turned to say something to the others. At this Rose kicked her horse into a trot and quickly passed the men.

Garner turned his head to look out his window in the opposite direction.

Rose got to Dotti’s car before they reached the ranch house. She pulled the horse alongside Beth’s open window and spoke down into the car from her mount.

“I’ve worried myself sick, Beth,” she said. And Garner thought she sounded like the saddest soul he knew.

“I know, Mom. I’m sorry. I had to go. I had to try—”

“I should never have told you to leave. That day it wasn’t possible for me to think straight. I said all kinds of things—they were just confused. They were all wrong. I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m so glad you’re back. If I had lost your father
and
you . . .” It seemed she couldn’t finish that thought.

Even though they hadn’t reached the looping driveway in front of the house, Beth stopped the car.

“Of course I forgive you. I should have called.”

“Danny said you left a note.”

“I did. But still.”

Beth opened the door and slid off the seat while her mother dismounted her roan mare. Herriot jumped over the seat and escaped, making a beeline for Jacob and Danny.

“Where did you go? Where’s Hastings?” Rose encircled her daughter in a tight embrace that Garner watched from the corner of his eye. He had no idea what to do. “Whose car is this?”

Rose, now at eye level with the car, seemed to notice for the first time that Beth had come with a passenger. She placed a hand on the retracted window of the driver’s side door and stooped to have a look.

Garner waited. His ears rang with the deafening buzz of uncertainty. Rose put her hand over her mouth and took long seconds to form a reaction. He couldn’t tell if she was going to faint or start screaming at him. He couldn’t stand not knowing.

He grabbed the handle of his door and pushed it open at the same time that Beth took a step away from her mom. Rose didn’t let her get far. She grabbed hold of her daughter’s hand and pulled Beth along behind her around the front of the car, reaching out to her father with her other hand and touching him in just a few long strides. Her arm went around his shoulders and she pulled her to him hard.

She breathed into his shoulder quietly, and as she clung to her father, she tugged Beth into the circle of his embrace. He wrapped his arms around his girls. It was so easy to hold them both.

“I don’t have anything to bring you,” Garner said. “I can’t do anything to save this place.”

“I don’t care,” Rose whispered. “It doesn’t matter. You have to stay. Whatever happens, I hope you will stay. Everything will be all right then.”

“If you insist.”

“I
dreamed
of this day. I knew you would come.”

When the time was right, he would give credit to Beth for that. If not for her, father and daughter would have each dreamed the same dream until they met at the gates of heaven.

He heard Danny say to Jacob, “Is that my grandpa Remke?”

Garner replied, “It is, son. Back from the grave.” He added so that Beth would hear, “In more ways than one.”

Danny was beaming. “Prodigious,” he said.

Garner laughed, still holding Rose and Beth close to him. “Now that sounds like something I would have said when I was your age.”

“You two already have something in common,” Jacob said. Garner saw the man cast a smile at his granddaughter, though he was talking to Danny. His first thought was that this cowboy was far too old for Beth—and then he turned his back on the thought. He had no desire to travel that judgmental road again. He despised the destination.

Rose tilted Beth’s forehead toward her and planted a firm kiss on it. “I can’t believe you did this,” she whispered.

“Why don’t you take your dad back up to the house?” Jacob said to Rose. “Danny and I can keep looking for Wally.”

Beth stepped out of Garner’s embrace. “What’s happened to Wally?”

“He ran off during the night,” Rose said. “Sometime after bed check.”

“He was upset yesterday,” Jacob told Beth. “That lockbox of his is gone again. He accused one of the other men of stealing it. You know how they tease him sometimes.”

“We try to keep that sort of thing to a minimum,” Rose said to her father. “Most of the time the men are really decent.”

“He took a couple of shovels and went off last night, then didn’t show for breakfast. The three of us have been all over the southern property line, but so far, nothing.”

“It’s easy to dig down there by the creek,” Beth said. “And there’s lots of places to hide something.”

“Those were our thoughts,” Jacob said.

“I looked there for my truck when—did Levi really sell it?” she asked.

“No! Why would he tell you that?” asked Rose. “And when?”

“It doesn’t matter now. Who else is searching?”

“Everyone,” Rose said. “Eric and Emory are searching the west side, Roy’s on the north, and Lorena’s keeping a lookout at the ranch house.” She looked at Garner and squeezed his hand.

“Everyone except Levi,” Danny said. “He’s got higher priorities.”

“Respect your brother, Danny,” Rose said.

“I know, Mom. But c’mon. We all know that Levi’s the reason why Wally’s so agitated,” Danny said. “Jacob’s just too respectful to say so.”

“What do you mean?” Beth asked, looking at Jacob.

Rose said, “Sam Johnson has been on the property a lot this past week—he and Levi are already drawing up plans.”

“I haven’t surrendered my share yet,” Beth said.

“No one has. But they’re moving ahead. In any case, Wally was up at the cemetery while Sam and Levi were surveying those acres, and—you tell it, Jacob. I guess everything I know I heard from you.”

“Wally said he heard them talking about relocating the family plots.”

Beth looked at her mother. “Levi promised not to.”

“I know, hon.”

“That sounds bad,” Garner said.

“Downright iniquitous,” said Danny. Garner liked this boy more and more.

Jacob continued, “Wally barged in and started objecting. He threatened to tell you all about their plans, Beth.”

“Me?”

“He hasn’t stopped talking about you since the day we buried your dad. He’s been wanting to know where you are. Levi told him you were dead, and that’s why you hadn’t been around.”

Beth paled.

“Spawn of the devil,” Garner said. Danny belted out a laugh. Rose shot him a look of disbelief. “Oh, I didn’t mean
that
,” Garner said.

“Wally came back around suppertime out of his head,” Jacob continued. “He said he couldn’t find his lockbox and Levi had stolen it. He was desperate to get it back.”

Beth’s sigh was heavy. “I suppose Levi denies it all.”

“Not in so many words. You know the notebook Wally carries?”

“Yeah, it’s how he remembers things.”

“He pulled it out and started taking notes of their conversation. Levi took the notebook, nothing else, he says. I got it back and thought that would settle Wally down. By the way, I assured him that you are
not
dead.”

“Where else might a man hide something around here?” Garner asked. “It’s a mighty big place.” He would try to redeem his spawn-of-the-devil remark as fast as he could. And yet Rose’s posture was already withdrawing from him. Not offended, but fearful, aware she had jumped toward him across a great chasm on a flimsy bridge that might not hold.

“We’re racking our brains,” Jacob said. “We’ve gone up and down the entire creek, the irrigation ditches. I’m starting to worry he might have gone off the property.”

“We’re giving ourselves until sundown,” Rose said to Beth. “Then we’ll call the sheriff.”

“Did he say anything about a wolf ?” Beth asked. She was facing north, twisting a piece of hair around her finger.

“Nope,” Jacob said. “What makes you ask that?”

Beth fell silent. Garner, curious about the wolf in her question, tried to follow her secret thinking.

“But you know what he did say that I thought was odd?” Jacob asked.

She looked up at him.

“When I told him you were alive, he was so relieved. And he said, ‘That’s good news, because Beth promised to help me dig.’ ”

Beth said, “I think I know where he is.”

41

B
eth drove north along the access road, her mother in the passenger seat and her grandfather in the back. The ranch looked the same but seemed so different from when she had left it.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Rose kept murmuring. “I can’t believe you’re both here.”