Stripped Bare (24 page)

“I don't see why not.”

“Well, Eldon helped me out, but he was put out with me on account he thought I was being too judgmental about the Webers. He said it wasn't my place.”

I had no idea Eldon was such a moral beacon.

Jack shrugged. “Might be he was right. I don't know. What I do know is he helped me out of a tight spot and me and Aileen will be forever grateful.”

 

20

I slammed the pickup door and started the engine. What did we have, so far? A couple who'd felt cheated by Eldon but had come out better off. A grateful rancher who thought of Eldon as the Second Coming. No killer there. Ted was still on the hook.

Next stop: Nat Hayward. It was time to corner her and find out what she knew about Carly and the goings-on at the Bar J.

I used the headlights as I drove through the herd. Roxy didn't say anything, but she jumped out the door when I pulled up in front of the gate. After I'd driven through and she relatched it, she plopped back into the seat and folded her arms. She showed all the signs of a full-blown snit.

Rocks pinged on the underside of the pickup. “I guess Jack didn't shoot Eldon,” I said.

“Guess not.” She barely moved her lips, and she kept her arms folded across her chest.

“Sounds like Eldon was generous to him and Danny.”

She sounded miffed. “What a guy.”

I turned left on the highway, heading away from town. “Why are you so upset?”

She faced the windshield. “Eldon never gave Brian a damn thing, but he flat-out gives that bad seed a chunk of land. Danny's not even related.”

I didn't offer my opinion, that there was plenty of Bar J to go around for everyone. We rode in silence for a bit. I turned over possibilities. “If Ted shot Eldon—”

Roxy whirled on me, arms unwinding from her chest. “He didn't.”

“It would be logical how he got your gun. You'd have given it to him.” The steering wheel vibrated in my hands as we crossed an AutoGate.

“I didn't have my gun, so I couldn't give it to anyone.”

“Then how did it get into Eldon's office to kill him?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. Well, I do know something about it.”

She had no trouble giving me fashion tips, but getting her to cough up important facts proved more difficult. I took my eyes from the road to glare at her. “Tell me what you know.”

“Not much.”

Back to focusing on my driving, I waited. “How about you tell me anyway.”

Her face softened a little. “I'm trying to spare you some hurtful details.”

“I'm tough. Go ahead.”

She tilted her head in a you-asked-for-it way. “Okay. My gun was stolen.”

God, she was exasperating. “How's that hurt me?”

“It was at the meeting Glenn Baxter's lawyer had at the schoolhouse.”

This would be District 7. The two-room brick schoolhouse for K through sixth grade took up a corner of a pasture between the Bar J and Carson's ranch. “Why is this so bad for me?”

“Because the only reason I had the gun in the pickup is that Ted and I had been out shooting prairie dogs on the east pivot.”

This stuff shouldn't faze me, but it felt like a mule kick to the gut. I'd learned to shoot, since there was cause to take care of certain things on the ranch, but being raised by pacifists left a lingering sense of guilt.

Roxy, on the other hand, shared with Ted a love of guns. When they'd been sweethearts, they'd done a lot of target shooting. After Dahlia and Sid had moved from Hodgekiss to Broken Butte, Dahlia had brought boxes of Ted's childhood possessions to the ranch. She'd specifically handed me the box with all his shooting trophies. Amid the faded blue, red, and white ribbons, the gold-plastic replicas of gun-shooters glued onto marble-colored plastic pedestals, were old Polaroids of Ted and Roxy. They grinned, with their arms around each other, holding up those very trophies and ribbons.

I couldn't be jealous of the past, and for the most part I wasn't. But Roxy and Ted dragged their past right along into the present.

Back to the subject at hand. “How do you know it was stolen?”

It was a stupid question, and her look told me she knew I was just saying anything to deflect my thoughts. “It was in the pickup when we went into the meeting, and it wasn't when we came out.”

“Who was at the meeting?”

She raised her voice in frustration. “Who wasn't? Every rancher in northern Grand and southern Choker was there.”

We were only a few miles from Carson's, and Roxy restarted her beauty ritual, without the extreme measures of the curling iron.

“Okay. Try to concentrate on something other than your makeup. This is important.”

She glared at me for a second, then turned back to the mirror. “It's just as easy to think while looking good as it is to think when you look like a slob.”

I squeezed the steering wheel to keep from smoothing my hair. “Did anyone seem upset with Eldon at the meeting?”

She paused, with her lipstick poised for attack. “Well, yeah. Half the people there were either calling him their best friend or their worst enemy.” She finished applying the lipstick and smacked her lips. I really hated that sound. “May Keller and Bill Hardy were both yelling at Eldon about being a true Sandhiller and not selling out. Shorty Cally had a few people red-faced about his wanting to sell because he wanted the cash. I don't know.”

“Anyone else there?”

“Ranch help, I guess.”

“Who?”

“Dang it, Kate. I don't know. Rope and Nat were there, and Dean from the Spade. Grace and Stewie from Messersmith's. Lots of people; even some kids.”

“What kids?”

“Carly and Danny and some of their friends.”

“Carly?”

“Of course. She probably rounded up the other kids to protest selling. She gave a speech about the younger generation and how they counted on their heritage. She got emotional and cried about having the ‘unique opportunity to experience this lifestyle.'” Roxy used air quotes and I wanted to break her fingers.

We turned off the highway onto the Bar J road. I pictured my blonde niece, full of fire and drive, ready to don her armor and ride fearlessly into battle. For all her bravado, she was still a kid. She needed me, even if she denied it.

Roxy leaned forward and placed one perfectly manicured hand on the dash. “Where is Carly, anyway? Is she okay?”

Red polish, of course. I unsuccessfully tried to block the memory of Ted asking me to wear nail polish. I'd reminded him how I needed to trim horses' hooves and wash dishes and drive the feed wagon. I directed my anger at Roxy. “It's taken this long for you to be concerned?”

I glanced at her and she seemed pensive. She returned my glance. “I know I promised you I wouldn't, but I could sell the Bar J. It would be the best thing for Carly, even if she doesn't understand that now.”

What made me think I could trust her? “How do you figure it would be the best thing?”

Roxy looked at me like I was nuts. “Have you taken a good look at that girl? She's gorgeous. It would be a waste to hide her out there on the ranch, working in the elements. Think of her skin!”

Yeah. It might end up looking like mine.

“The ranch would make her old before her time. There's so much work, and the worry about the markets. One blizzard could wipe out a whole year's income. She's too smart and beautiful to live in the dark ages.”

I thought about Glenda and me. For us, a ranch was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Did Carly feel the same way? Would she love ranching enough that sacrificing other aspects of her life would be worth it?

My answer came in a memory. Two years ago, on Mother's Day, Carly asked me to go for a ride with her. Dad expected us at the house for a Fox potluck, and I still needed to trail the herd from the south pasture into the Burwell section. At first I hesitated. But Carly begged me. She said she'd hook up the trailer and load the horses. All I had to do was climb in the pickup.

It seemed important to her, so I threw away my to-do list and called Dad to tell him we'd be late. Dad's infrequent potlucks were a Fox family requirement, so begging off was like telling him I'd joined the Apollo mission and would be going to the moon for the next two years.

Carly drove us out to the Bar J, several miles north of the headquarters. We bumped down an old gravel road, toward the line shack where she'd lived with Glenda and Brian. The tiny two-bedroom cabin had suited Glenda fine. She loved the isolation of the home tucked below a hill.

Roxy had Brian build her a garish Taj Mahal at the headquarters, complete with an indoor arena. Glenda had loved this simple cabin, situated at the old cow camp fifteen miles from Eldon's place.

Those last few months of Glenda's life, I'd driven out to the line shack almost daily, and eventually had brought a suitcase and camped out on the couch. With Brian focused on Glenda, managing her pain with morphine injections and staying by her side, I tended to ranch chores, cooking, and Carly.

Dark days.

Carly had parked the trailer about a mile into one of the enormous summer pastures west of the cabin. We saddled up and rode for an hour, not saying much, but listening to the meadowlarks and watching the awkward brown curlews swoop and caw. Yellow buttercups, purple spiderwort, and pink primroses pocked the greening hills. The fresh smell of sunshine and grass perfumed the air. Carly led me up a tall hill.

We dismounted at the top and held loosely to the reins while the horses bent their heads and chomped the juicy spring grass.

“You know this is called Wild Horse Hill?” Carly's hushed tone sounded as if we were sitting in church.

I'd been up here several times with Glenda. She'd asked me to drive her here when she grew too weak to ride.

The soft breeze teased blonde wisps from Carly's ponytail. Her cheeks were pink because, as usual, she'd neglected to put on sunscreen. “I know I've been a real bitch lately.”

I didn't argue with her.

“I'm sorry I skipped school.”

“And the minor in possession?”

She blew a raspberry. “That was totally bogus. I mean, I wasn't the only one drinking.”

“That doesn't matter.”

“I wouldn't even have been caught except Bryce didn't run. I couldn't let him stand there all alone.”

This was one of those times, as a mother, or a pseudo mother, where you just don't know what to feel, let alone say. Yes, absolutely, a fifteen-year-old should not be at a party drinking beer.

She'd escaped Ted's bust of the party. But her friend Bryce, who hadn't been to any beer bashes before, wasn't clear on the escape plan and had been caught with a beer can in his hand. Carly couldn't bear the thought of him having to face the heat alone, so she'd grabbed a half-empty can and walked out. Ted had to charge her, too. He'd tried to get around it, but I insisted she bear the consequences. I was proud of her compassion, but damn.

“Mom used to bring me here.” Her voice, so clear in the warm air, so free of self-pity.

When I started to sob, she spun around in surprise. “I cry too, sometimes.” She took a few steps toward me, tethered by her horse. She dropped the reins and put her arms around me. “I like to come here to remember her. She loved this ranch—and being on this hill, especially.”

I hadn't been back to the line shack since then, though I suspected Carly visited it from time to time, when she stayed at the Bar J on weekends.

Roxy didn't know the first thing about Carly. Maybe someday Carly would change her mind about running the Bar J. Heaven knows, four years away at college could transform her, though it hadn't done so for me or Glenda. But, for now, Carly's heart belonged here.

My hand clenched in frustration. “You promised me you wouldn't sell.”

“Carly is seventeen. She doesn't know what's good for her. Most of us didn't have a clue at her age.…” Her voice trailed off, as if wistful and wise. “Some of us wasted so much time and waited until it might be too late.”

Roxy was about to say something that would really set me off. “Shut up.”

“I love that you're always so authentic.”

“If you like me so much, why would you sleep with my husband?”

She waved her hand. “You and Ted are totally separate issues. There isn't any reason why we can't be friends.”

“There is that one reason.”

“Okay, I get that you're upset now. But you'll fall in love with someone else, someone who suits you better. And then you'll thank me for giving you a reason to leave Ted.”

“You really need to shut. Up.”

“You have to admit that life with Ted is difficult. You aren't the least bit compatible.”

Oh yes, we had a great deal of compatibility when it came to sex. At least, we used to. My stomach hurt to think about what we'd done and shared, how he liked to push me beyond my comfort zone, just a nudge, to do and try things I normally wouldn't. He made me feel safe, so I could experiment. I felt adventurous and sexy. Real pain seized me, to think he'd shared all of that with Roxy. Everything I'd done with Ted, she'd probably done too.

Maybe the pain was the baby voting for a home with a mommy and a daddy. “Life with Ted might be lot easier if you weren't in the picture.”

“In his way, Ted loves you. But you're more like a little sister or a business partner. Both. He feels like he needs to protect you, and at the same time, he appreciates your attachment to Frog Creek. But you aren't the great love of his life.”

The Bar J headquarters appeared in front of us. “And I suppose you are?”

Her eyes had that glint you see in romantic movies. “We've been together since we were kids. We had a foolish fight. But now we know we belong together.”

I had a satisfying vision of leaping across the console and closing my hands around her neck: