Something More (6 page)

All of which was, no doubt, true about her. But beneath it all she was also intelligent, with a keen, analytical mind. He'd only had glimpses of it, but enough to know that all her innocent-sounding questions were leading somewhere. There was more she wanted from him. And he had yet to decide if he wanted to give it.

“You're right. The steak is delicious.” She sliced off another bite. “I didn't realize how hungry I was until I started eating.”

“Traveling has a way of whetting the appetite.” He picked up his own knife.

“How true.” She popped the bite of steak in her mouth.

“I have to admit I'm a little surprised you came all this way to claim the body of someone you never knew, relative or not.” He watched her reaction, catching only the slightest hint of unease.

“My grandmother would have wanted me to.”

“I take it she's no longer living?” he guessed.

“No. She passed away . . . almost eleven years ago.” Her thoughts turned inward, a shadow of grief passing over her expression, an emotion that Luke was quick to recognize. Then she was all bright-eyed warmth again, alive to the moment. “We were always very close. You could say she raised me. She moved in with us after my father died and my mom took over running the farm. So Grandma was the one waiting for me when I got off the school bus. She was the one who made sure I had my homework finished, listened to all my woes, and kissed away my hurts, real or imagined. Mom was always in the fields, or up to her elbows in grease, repairing some piece of equipment.”

His glance skimmed her in reassessment, but the conclusion didn't change. “I never would have guessed you were raised on a farm,” he admitted. “You look more like a town girl.”

“You won't think so after I've been in the sun a few hours and the freckles start popping out,” Angie replied, with a definite twinkle. “Grandma called them sun kisses and said they were evidence of how much God loved me. When I was younger, I used to wish He didn't love me so much. And with this hair”—her fingers flicked the ends of a darkly red curl—“I never tan no matter how long I'm in the sun. The freckles just run together, giving me the look of one.”

He smiled at her little joke while he turned over the information she had given. “What about your mother? Is she still living?”

She nodded. “And still farming. No matter what I say, I can't seem to convince her that she's getting too old to be bouncing around on a tractor from dawn 'til dusk. But she won't consider selling the place—or leasing the fields to any of our neighbors.”

“It's odd that she didn't come with you. After all, it was her father's remains that were found.”

“This is the wrong time of the year for a farmer to be taking long trips, so I came in her place.” She picked up a crispy french fry and trailed it through the ketchup she had squirted onto her plate. “That's one of the main advantages of being a teacher—you have the summers off.”

Angie deliberately didn't mention that her mother considered the entire trip more than just unnecessary and impractical. In her opinion, it was sheer foolishness. And she hadn't minced words about it when she learned of Angie's intentions.

Angie's argument had been simple: if she didn't go, she would always wish that she had. And she didn't want to live the rest of her life with that regret.

Mentally shaking off the thought, Angie popped the ketchup-tipped french fry into her mouth and crunched it while directing a considering glance at her table companion. “I imagine this is a busy time of year for you, too.”

“Some days more than others,” he acknowledged.

After the smallest hesitation, she charged forward with her plan. “How does tomorrow afternoon stack up for you?” Angie didn't give him a chance to answer. “I was hoping, since it's Sunday, that I could stop out and you could—”

“Scuse me, miss.” A cowboy with a short and grizzled excuse for a beard and his left shirtsleeve pinned back to conceal the stub of his forearm dragged out an empty chair from their table, angled it to face Angie, and promptly lowered his aging bones into it. “I heard it was your granddad's bones that were found.”

Pulling her glance from the shirtsleeve, Angie stared at his leathery face, all seamed with wrinkles, and managed to keep the startled stammer out of her answer. “That's right.” She darted a quick look at Luke, not sure what to make of the interruption—or the one-armed cowboy.

But his attention was on the cowboy, amusement gleaming in his eyes. “Why don't you pull up a chair and sit down, Fargo?”

The remark sailed right over the old cowboy's head as he turned a puzzled glare on Luke. “Have you gone blind or somethin', Luke? I'm already sittin' down.”

“I know,” Luke responded dryly, then switched his attention back to Angie while using his knife to gesture at the cowboy. “This ill-mannered old coot is Fargo Young. I'm sad to say, he works for me. I sorta inherited him from my father along with the ranch.”

“And a lucky day it was for you,” the one-armed cowboy fired right back.

Luke just grinned and finished the introductions. “Angie Sommers from Iowa.”

After hurriedly brushing the french fry salt from her fingers, Angie extended a hand in greeting. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Young.”

He started to reach for her hand, then stopped. “Sommers. Your name's Sommers?” A surprised frown deepened the furrows in his face. “I thought it was Wilson.”

“Wilson was my grandfather's name,” she explained.

He nodded, understanding registering in his expression. “I hadn't thought of that. For a minute there, I'd about decided Liz had got the name wrong.” Belatedly he took her hand and gave it a vigorous pump, then released it to squint one eye at her as he sharply probed, “Your granddad—he wouldn't happen to be any kin to that train robber Ike Wilson, would he?”

The robbery had happened so many years ago that Angie hadn't expected anyone would make the connection—at least not so soon. Suddenly tense and self-conscious, she opened her mouth to answer, but it was a full second before she could force it out.

“As a matter of fact, he was Ike Wilson's grandson.” Even to her own ears, the delivery sounded much too casual and falsely offhand.

But Luke McCallister seemed to be the only one who noticed it as Fargo Young slapped his thigh. “I knew it! I knew it was gonna be somethin' like that.” Turning and craning his withered neck, he raked his gaze over the crowd until he located the object of his search. Pursing lips and teeth, he emitted a short, shrill whistle, then yelled, “Hey, Joe! Joe Gibbs, c'mere a minute!”

Several heads turned at the shouted call, but it was a short, heavyset man at the bar whom Fargo motioned to with a summoning gesture. Like every other male in the place, Joe Gibbs wore a cowboy hat, boots, and jeans. At the throat of his western-cut white shirt, he wore a bolo tie ornamented with the silver head of a longhorn. Snug-fitting Levi's swooped low, as if straining to hold up the underside of his rounded belly. As he straightened from the bar and ambled toward them, there was something about the way he carried himself that marked him as a rancher rather than an ordinary hand.

Drink in hand, he stopped at their table, his glance flicking to Angie with undisguised interest even as he addressed his words to the one-armed cowboy. “What do you need, Fargo?”

“I want to test your memory a minute, see if you recall that story folks used to tell about a kin to one of those outlaws coming here to look for the gold they buried.” Fargo studied him with sly, watchful eyes.

“I remember something of the sort. Why?” His glance remained on Angie.

“This young lady here is Angie Sommers. It was her granddaddy's bones we found out at the Ten Bar,” Fargo announced.

“Yes, I heard.” Turning to Angie, the rancher nodded gravely. “You have my condolences, Miss Sommers.”

“That's very kind. Thank you,” she murmured, conscious that more than one set of ears was listening to this conversation.

“It turns out, Joe”—Fargo leaned back in his chair, smugly pleased with himself—“he was the grandson of the outlaw Ike Wilson.”

“You don't say.” The rancher showed his surprise, then grunted, “I guess no one has to wonder anymore whether he found it.”

“Wait a minute,” an old woman at the next table spoke up. “I remember my dad telling me about him. He let him stay in that old line cabin out in Booker's Canyon, the one they built back when all of that land was Ten Bar range. That guy packed up and left. My dad said so.”

“He sure didn't go very far,” someone else said, drawing a round of subdued laughter.

The woman took exception to the comment, turning huffy. “It's true. I remember my dad telling me how this guy showed up at the ranch one day after being there five or six months. My dad said he'd never seen anybody look so downcast and dejected. He told my dad that he was giving up and going home.”

“That was always the story I heard.” Fargo nodded in emphatic agreement.

“I'll tell you one thing for a fact,” the woman threw out in challenge. “My dad went out to the line cabin a couple weeks later. He said he never saw that old shack look so clean. There wasn't a thing out of place—and nothing had been left behind.”

“I see what you're getting at, Marge,” another customer inserted thoughtfully. “If he packed all his stuff, where is it now? They dug all around where the body was found and didn't find a thing. Not even so much as a comb or a razor.”

Suddenly comments began coming from all directions as everyone joined in the discussion.

“Wasn't he supposed to have a map that would take him right to the gold?” someone asked, then added quickly, “that was always the story I heard.”

“If he had a map, my dad never saw it,” Marge replied. “But he did say that the guy was real confident about finding the gold when he first arrived. Dad was always sure he knew something nobody else did.”

“You're right, Marge,” the rancher Joe Gibbs agreed. “I remember now there was talk of how he would go around describing certain landmarks and asking people if they remembered anything like that around here.”

“Yeah, wasn't there something about a tall rock that looked like a pillar?” someone else recalled.

“I always heard it was a rock shaped like an eagle's head,” someone in the back offered.

Angie could feel the excitement spreading and growing, touching everyone. Except Luke McCallister. If anything, it aroused only amusement in him.

F
argo scooted his chair closer to Angie, the wooden legs scraping across the planked floor. Resting his stubby forearm on the table, he leaned toward her, his gaze fastening on her with burrowing intensity.

“What do you know about all this talk of a map?” he challenged. “Did your granddad really have one?”

“If he did, it's news to me.” Which was the truth—as far as it went. “Certainly no one in my family has ever said anything about a map.”

Her response failed to satisfy Fargo. “If your granddad didn't have a map, how come he seemed so sure he knew where the stolen gold was hidden? And why'd he go around describin' landmarks to folks and askin' if they'd seen anything like that around here?”

“I really couldn't say,” Angie hedged the truth, nervously aware of her audience. Her hand was halfway to the purse lying on her lap before she managed to check the movement and reach instead for her knife. Desperate to divert more questions, she asked, “Are there any landmarks like the pillar of rock someone mentioned?”

Old and half crippled with arthritis Fargo might be, but there was nothing wrong with his vision or his hearing. His eyes had observed that abortive gesture of her hand toward her purse, and his ears had picked up the nervous edge to her voice. Suspicion and curiosity merged in his mind, leaving him convinced that she was hiding something, and wondering what it was.

Her question drew an amused snort from him. He was smart enough to recognize a diversionary tactic when he saw one. She might fool others with her innocent act, but she hadn't fooled him.

“There's probably a half dozen such rocks like that around here. With a little imagination, you could call 'em pillars,” he replied, being deliberately as uninformative with his answers as she was.

Disappointment took the brightness from her eyes. As if realizing that, she averted her glance to the food remaining on her plate.

His reply drew a quick comment from the crowd. “It's true, there are a lot of pillar-like rock formations, Fargo. But most of them aren't tall enough to cast a long shadow.”

“What has that got to do with anything?” someone else scoffed.

Uncomfortable with all the amused glances aimed at him, the first speaker turned slightly defensive. “The way I always heard the story about the pillar, at a certain hour of the day, its shadow was supposed to point to the place where the gold was buried.”

“You watch too many old movies, Pete,” a voice mocked.

The comment drew a round of laughter and more gibes.

“What time of day was it, Pete? High noon?”

“Probably ten at night.”

“Are you sure it didn't have to be a certain day of the year, too, Pete?”

After initially reddening at the razzing from his friends, the man called Pete finally managed to smile. “I never said it was true; only that it was the way I heard the story told.”

Through it all, Angie carefully concentrated on the food before her. But somewhere along the line, she had lost her appetite, and the steak that had been so tasty before now had about as much flavor to her as cardboard. All the while she struggled to appear only mildly interested in the run of conversation around her even as she strained to catch every scrap of information, useless or not.

“How much did they steal anyway?”

“Two hundred thousand, wasn't it?”

“I thought it was a million or more.”

“Boy, are you dreaming? Back in those days, nobody probably ever saw a million dollars all in one place—unless it was Fort Knox.”

“It may not have been a million, but I bet it's worth that now if a fella could find it.”

“Hey, Ima Jane,” Joe Gibbs called to the woman behind the bar. “Whatever happened to those old newspaper accounts of the train robbery and the shoot-out with the outlaws south of here? You know, the ones you used to have hanging on the wall?”

“On a shelf in the back room somewhere,” she answered, then volunteered, “I'll see if I can find them.”

Leaving the bar, she pushed through the double swinging doors into the kitchen. Griff was at the grill, testing the doneness of the T-bone steak on it. A slender-built man with a gray crewcut and long, sour face, he tossed a brief, identifying glance in her direction, then switched his attention back to the steak.

On her way through the kitchen, Ima Jane checked to see how many orders he had yet to fill. Only one was clipped above the grill.

“As soon as you have that order dished up, cover the bar for me, will you?” she said and headed for the back storeroom.

“Where are you going?” His frown sent an eyebrow arching into the terrycloth band he wore around his forehead to keep the sweat from dripping onto the food.

Ima Jane stopped, a hand poised on the doorknob. “You'll never guess who that body turned out to be,” she said to him, excitement over the news bubbling up again. She knew better than to wait for her husband to ask. If he never found out, it wouldn't bother him a bit. “It was a man named Henry Wilson. But here's the good part, Griff,” she rushed, seeing boredom set in. “He was the grandson of one of those outlaws who robbed the train. He came here years ago to look for the gold they stole.”

“How do you know that?”

She grew impatient that he should question the veracity of her information. “Good heavens, Griff, everybody has heard the story about the grandson turning up here years ago to search for the gold.”

“I'm not talking about that.” He brushed off her answer with a dismissing wave of the tongs in his hand. “I meant—how do you know that's who he was?”

“Because his granddaughter is out front.” The smile she sent him went from ear to ear.

“She's here,” he repeated in surprise. “Why?”

“She came to claim the body, of course,” Ima Jane replied, mildly exasperated that he hadn't figured the reason out for himself.

“But that's my point,” Griff argued. “Why would she come to Glory when the body's not here?”

Ima Jane shrugged off the question as unimportant. The woman was here; that was what mattered. “She said something to Luke McCallister about wanting to see where the body was found. Don't forget to watch the bar for me.” Turning the knob, Ima Jane gave the storeroom door an inward push. “I've got to find those old newspaper accounts of the robbery that we used to have hanging out front. You don't happen to remember where I put them?”

“Third shelf, back by the napkin boxes.” The old adage “A place for everything and everything in its place,” Griff regarded as a law. The kitchen and storeroom were his bailiwick, and woe to the person who didn't put something in its designated place.

 

 

“What about you, miss?” Joe Gibbs addressed the question to Angie. “Were you ever told how much was stolen?”

“No.” Unable to eat another bite of the now tasteless food, Angie laid her fork down and reached for her coffee, needing to keep her hands occupied with something. “I do know the amount varied with each newspaper. But I have no idea which one was accurate.” She tried again to be the one doing the questioning and glean more information without being obtrusive about it. “You mentioned something about a shoot-out?”

“Yeah. That happened when the posse caught up with them,” Joe Gibbs explained. “The robbers started shooting as soon as they saw them. When the gun battle was finally over, two of the gang were shot up pretty bad. Both of 'em ended up dying from their wounds. Ike Wilson—your ancestor—was the only one of the bunch to survive and stand trial. And they hung him.”

“Does anybody know where this shoot-out supposedly took place? You said something about it being south of Glory.” Angie lifted her coffee cup with studied casualness.

“It was on Ten Bar land.” On that, the rancher was definite. Then he tilted his head to one side, frowning in uncertainty. “I always had the impression it took place only a few miles from the ranch house. Have I got that right, Luke?”

“That's the way I always heard it.” Idly swirling the few cubes in his drink glass, Luke sat all lazy and loose in his chair, most of his weight tilted against a wooden armrest. His glance strayed briefly to the rancher when he answered, then came back to Angie, vaguely watchful and amused. “The story goes that, supposedly, old King McCallister—the founder of the Ten Bar—heard the shooting, got some of his boys, and rode out to join the fray.”

“According to my dad,” Marge spoke up, “when King McCallister and his riders arrived on the scene, the tide of the battle turned in favor of the posse. But the railroad detective heading up the posse never gave him or his men any credit for it. He didn't even mention King by name in any of his reports. Some of the folks around here were pretty upset about it, but King just shrugged it off.”

At least now, Angie understood why she couldn't recall the name McCallister being mentioned in any of the various accounts she'd read. “You didn't tell me that any of your family was involved in the capture of the outlaws,” she said to Luke, her smile gently chiding.

“The fight was pretty well over when they got there.”

Angie came back to her original question, still unanswered.

“Where did the shoot-out take place? I don't think you ever said whether you knew its location or not.”

“I guess I didn't, did I?” His mouth slanted in a smile of half mockery. “Now that I think about it, it isn't very far from where your grandfather's body was found. Ironic, isn't it?”

The coincidence seemed somehow eerie. Rather than comment on it, she asked, “How far is ‘not very far'?” She smiled quickly, making a joke out of the question. “Something tells me the definition of ‘not very far' in Wyoming isn't the same as it would be back in Iowa.”

An answering smile crinkled Luke's eyes, lethal in its attraction. “Probably not,” he agreed. “As the crow flies, it's probably less than a mile.”

“I knew it would be different,” she declared. “In Iowa, we'd measure it in yards.”

 

 

“Here it is.” Ima Jane came out of the kitchen, carrying the framed newspaper accounts. On her way to Luke and Angie's table, she snatched a bar towel off the counter and wiped the dust from the frame's glass front.

Before she could show it to Angie, the heavyset rancher intercepted it and ran a verifying glance over the trio of age-yellowed clippings, then nodded in confirmation. “This is what I was talking about.” Joe Gibbs offered it to Angie. “All the facts are right here in these newspaper stories. The conductor got killed during the robbery. Shot him in cold blood, they did.”

Obligingly, Angie took it and skimmed the century-old articles mounted beneath the glass, then handed it back to Ima Jane. “Actually I have copies of these.”

“You do?” Ima Jane said in startled response.

Angie laughed at her look of astonishment. “It's really not so surprising. There aren't many family trees that contain a genuine outlaw. I grew up hearing bits and pieces about him. And like any kid, I became fascinated by the story and always wanted to know more.” She paused to choose her next words. “Obtaining copies of articles from newspaper archives isn't all that difficult. I have a family scrapbook filled with mementos and stories about various members, including ones that have been written over the years about the robbery.”

“Well, isn't that smart,” Ima Jane declared. “More people should make the effort to document their family history. I've been after Griff for years to do that for his. According to his grandmother, one of his ancestors served under Custer and died at the Battle of Little Big Horn. But do you think I can talk him into finding out if it's true? Why, the way he digs in his heels in absolute refusal, you'd think I was asking him to open a can of spaghetti sauce and pass it off as homemade.”

Her analogy elicited a round of good-natured laughter and glances of approval directed at the sour-faced man behind the bar. It confirmed what Griff Evans had long proclaimed: every dish out of his kitchen was made from scratch or it wasn't served. He not only butchered his own meat, but he also personally rendered the lard that was used to make his incredibly tender and flaky pie crusts.

Drawn by all the talk about the robbery and buried gold, Tobe West left the booth and joined the small group that had gathered around the attractive redhead. His sister, Dulcie, was right on his heels, as constant as a shadow.

“Can I see that?” He reached for the framed clippings Ima Jane held.

Without a moment's hesitation, she passed it into his hands, then frowned absently as she searched the walls for an empty space among the numerous photos and memorabilia. “I need to find someplace to hang that up again.”

Rising onto her toes, Dulcie tried to get a peek at the yellowed articles her brother studied with such interest, then gave up the effort as futile and snuck a glance at the woman seated at the table across from Luke. Used to being ignored by adults, she was suddenly flustered to see the stranger looking straight at her.

“Hi, there. What's your name?” A wonderfully warm smile curved the woman's mouth.

Embarrassed by the sudden attention, Dulcie edged closer to her brother, trying to disappear behind him. Tobe glanced down at her, then appeared to realize the question had been addressed to her.

“That's my sister, Dulcie.” He tossed out the answer and turned his curiosity toward the good-looking redhead. “I'm Tobe West. I work at the Ten Bar for Luke.” He bobbed his head in the direction of his employer.