Texas Lucky (40 page)

Leaning forward and gripping the edge of Maxwell’s desk with black-gloved fingers, Tess icily demanded, “For what reason, Mr. Burkette?”

He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I’m afraid at the time your husband died he had amassed quite a gambling debt. The club’s board of directors had begun to take steps to collect, as he apparently was delaying settlement in hopes of winning to be able to pay it off. So, of course, when they heard about his death they put a lien against his estate.”

Tess felt like she had been kicked by the hind leg of a bucking bronco as she managed to ask, “And how much was his debt?”

“I’m afraid it will require all the funds in his personal account to satisfy it.” Mr. Burkette shuffled through some papers, found what he was looking for, and handed it to her. “We can save time if you’ll sign this now, and I can get everything taken care of with just a few minor details with the court.”

She was bedazzled by the long, legal form but did not have to read it to understand she was signing away all claim to whatever money Wendell had in the bank.

Mustering all her dignity, she turned to Maxwell Jernigan. “And what do I have left?”

“The money now in your account is all yours, Mrs. Thorpe. No one can touch that.”

That acknowledgment brought little comfort to Tess, for it was only enough to get her through the winter till the herd was driven to market. Then, if she got a good price, she would be all right. The scary part was, however, that there was little to fall back on should she have misfortune.

And she could forget finishing the fence on the five hundred acres she had agreed to purchase from George Peterson, because she didn’t have enough money now to buy the land, anyway. Wendell had said he was going to deposit it in her account but had not gotten around to it before the accident.

“Well,” she said finally, “at least they didn’t need that, too…or the money the bank has on deposit as a reward for information about my brother.”

The two men exchanged distraught looks again, and Tess gasped, “Oh, no. Not that, too.”

“I’m so sorry,” Maxwell said, sounding like he genuinely was. “But Mr. Thorpe dissolved that several weeks ago. That’s why the posters were taken down.”

“I understand he took most of them down himself,” Mr. Burkette interjected. “You
did
notice they were no longer posted, didn’t you, Mrs. Thorpe?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. Dear God, she’d had no idea Wendell had been in debt.

Mr. Burkette gently prodded, “If you’ll sign, we can get this over with and not bother you anymore.”

He was holding a pen out to her. She took it and scrawled her signature with shaking fingers.

Then, once more struggling for dignity in the face of such an embarrassing situation, Tess got to her feet and both men jumped to do likewise.

“Gentlemen, good day,” she said with a curt nod, and hurried out, head held high.

As she passed through the bank, Tess felt as though everyone were staring at her, but not because she was dressed in black and wore a veil. In her humiliated mind she was sure they were all pitying her because her husband had died in debt, stripping her of the wealth she had become accustomed to, and wondering what she would do now.

I could tell you what I’m going to do
, she thought fiercely, angrily, as she quickened her step to rush out of the bank.
I’m going to survive. I’m going to make it through the winter and get my steers to market and sell them for top dollar. Then I’m coming home to get ready to do it all over again, and nobody, by God, is going to take anything away from me, because it’s all I’ve got. I don’t have a man to love me and never did, and my brother is gone, probably forever, and…

She stopped short to stare through misty eyes at the man standing by the post just outside the bank.

He had a thick beard and long hair hanging down his back and was wearing dusty, tattered clothes, evidence he had been traipsing around in the wilderness for some time. Probably he was a trapper.

But it was not his unkempt appearance that Tess found startling.

It was how he was looking at the tattered corner of all that remained of one of Wendell’s posters offering a reward for information about Perry.

The man touched a tiny shred of paper and mumbled to himself, “Well, I guess it won’t him after all.”

Sure she had heard wrong, and with apprehension, Tess dared to approach him and ask, “I beg your pardon, but what did you just say?”

He jumped, startled that anyone had overheard. “Oh, just that it won’t him I saw after all.”

“Who?” she pressed. “Who did you think it was?”

“It don’t matter. The posters are all tore down. I saw ’em when I was here a while back, but there ain’t none nowhere in town, so that must mean they found the boy.”

Tess’s heart was threatening to jump out of her chest. “And you think you saw him?”

“Yes’m, but it wasn't him. Not if they found him,” he repeated.

Tess willed herself to be calm lest she scare the man into clamming up. “Would you please tell me what you saw anyway?”

“Well…” he tugged at his beard, looking her up and down, then said, “If you really want to know…”

“I do. Please go on.”

And he obliged.

“It was when I was deep in Indian territory, on the other side of that river called the Canadian. Didn’t mean to go so danged far, but I was after beaver and my mule got untied one night and wandered off. When I went to look for him, the next thing I knew I’d crawled up on a ridge and found myself lookin’ down on an Indian camp hidden in a nest of boulders. Nobody lookin’ for it would’ve ever found it. It was hid too good. I just stumbled on it.

“Anyhow,” he continued, “I knew I had to hightail it outta there before they saw me, but just as I was turnin’ to go, I saw a white boy. Looked to be twelve, thirteen years old.”

“How…how far away was he?” Tess was having great difficulty speaking, for her throat was squeezed tight, with fear and hope knotting together.

“Oh, maybe from here to the saloon.”

Tess gasped to see how close it was. “But I thought you were up on a ridge looking down.”

“I was,” he said firmly, “but the boy was up where I was. He saw me and froze where he stood.”

“And what did you do?” she asked, all the while wanting to scream,
Why didn’t you grab him and run, you idiot?

“I got out of there fast. I was afraid he’d go to yellin’ and bring ’em all runnin’. He looked like one of ’em, anyway. Dressed just like an Apache.

“He was holdin’ a bow in one hand,” he recalled, “and a dead rabbit in the other. Guess he’d been out huntin’ and was so stunned to see one of his own kind he didn’t think to yell—or maybe he wasn’t goin’ to. Maybe he didn’t want no harm to come to me. Anyhow, I headed back here as soon as I could, hopin’ to claim the reward.

“And now somebody else done did,” he finished, disappointed.

“What…what color hair did he have?” Tess was praying to hear his next words.

“Yellow. Like yours. Blue eyes like yours, too.”

Though Tess’s hand was shaking so hard she feared it would fall off her wrist, she reached out to him and said, her heart full to bursting, “Would you be willing to lead a patrol there to try and find him?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. “I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t want to help a white boy escape the Indians. But the fact of the matter is, I’d be risking my life for nothin’, ’cause evidently that won’t the boy the reward was posted for, so I wouldn’t get nothin’ out of it.”

“Yes, you will,” Tess determinedly assured him. “If you’ll lead the way to that Indian camp, I’ll see you get every bit of that reward, because that boy has not been found.”

His brow furrowed with suspicion. “Then how come the posters all been tore down?”

“Don’t worry about that. I promise you’ll be paid.” And she meant it…even if it took everything she had.

Because somehow Tess knew that the boy he had seen was Perry.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Captain Lance Albritton was every inch an Army man. Standing over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, he was an imposing figure.

And, as he stood to politely greet Tess with outstretched hand, she saw the set to his jaw and the hostile gleam in his steel-blue eyes and knew he would not be an easy man to sway once his mind was made up.

As it turned out, she was right, for no amount of arguing could convince him to send out the Army to try and rescue Perry from the Apaches.

“I am very sorry, Mrs. Thorpe,” he said with military crispness, “but there is no way I am going to send soldiers out on what will doubtless be a wild goose chase.”

“How can you say that?” she argued, motioning to Homer Wilkes, who was sitting in the chair next to her. “This man saw my brother. He knows where the Indians are camped and can take you there.”

Homer’s head bobbed up and down. “That’s right. I surely can.”

Captain Albritton looked at Homer and smirked as he inquired, “And why did you come all the way to Dallas with this information, Mr. Wilkes? Why didn’t you just go somewhere closer to report it—like a way station?”

Homer ducked his head, cheeks coloring slightly.

“Did the reward posters you saw in the past bring you rushing here?”

Tess protested, “I don’t see that has anything to do with it.”

“I think it has
everything
to do with it,” the captain said testily. “The man obviously wants money for his information.

“Mrs. Thorpe”—he sighed—“do you have you any idea how many people have come to this office—which is no more than an information center for the Army—to make claims on that reward?

“Dozens,” he rushed on without giving her a chance to answer. “And each and every one of them turned out to be a hoax. All they were interested in was the money.”

“Well, that is a chance I am willing to take,” Tess said firmly as she rose from her chair. “With or without the Army’s help, I intend to find out if the boy he saw was my brother.”

“Mrs. Thorpe, even if I believed this man’s story—which I don’t—I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to help you. The Army has its hands full protecting settlers right now. We just don’t have the time or the men to check out every cockamamie story we hear about white captives being seen with Indians, and”—he tossed a disgusted look in Homer’s direction—“if he had stumbled on an Apache camp, he’d never have lived to tell it. That’s why I find it astonishing that you can consider for even one minute that he’s telling the truth.”

At that, Homer yelped, “But it was her brother that saved me, don’t you see? He coulda hollered and brought them Injuns swarming on me like ants after honey. Only he didn’t. And that’s how come I was able to get away like I did. Otherwise, they would have killed me.”

Captain Albritton slammed a fist on his desk. “Let me tell you something, Wilkes. If I could, I’d send a patrol out to try and find that camp just to prove you’re lying, and then I’d have you horsewhipped, for getting this woman’s hopes up. It’s cruel, and—”

“That’s quite enough, Captain,” Tess said, fearing any second that Homer Wilkes would bolt and run and then she would never see him again.

“And it seems to me,” she continued, “that the Army would want to try and find the camp for no other reason than to locate Quanah Parker’s band, regardless of whether my brother is actually there.”

Captain Albritton fired back, “If I thought the old fool knew where it was, I’d see to it a patrol did go out, but I don’t think he does. And if you’ll pardon me for saying so, you’re a fool to listen to him.”

“Then I guess that’s what I am,” she said with a curt nod, “because I’m going to find my brother with or without the Army’s help. Now good day to you, sir.”

“And good day to you, ma’am,” he said. “And good luck, too, because you’re sure going to need it.”

Out on the street, Homer said, “I’m real sorry, ma’am, but I ain’t about to go back to that camp with just you. If the Army won’t go, I reckon we’ll have to forget it, and I don’t mind tellin’ you I’m disappointed. I sure coulda used that money.

“And, of course,” he remembered to add, “I was hopin’ you’d be able to find your brother.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I have my own army.”

She was hurrying along, and he was trying to keep up with her but slowed, sure he had not heard right. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but what did you say?”

She motioned him to keep walking as she explained, “I own a large ranch, Mr. Wilkes, and a lot of men work for me. They all know how to use guns, so you might say I do have my own army.”

“Well,” he said doubtfully, “that don’t mean they’ll agree to go.”

Tess was tired of debate. They had reached her carriage, and she told him to get in with her. “You’re going to tell my men what you told me, and then they won’t hesitate to ride with us.”

Tess’s confidence was short-lived, however, for, after listening to Homer Wilkes tell his story, followed by her explanation of how she wanted them to go with her to rescue her brother, the men immediately began to shout their objections.