23. Porter
23
PORTER
E verything was hauntingly still as we made our way from the storage building back to the house. Cici clung to me as we walked across the yard. Buck and Mav were in front of us, and Steel and Jagger followed behind.
Nothing Martinez had said about Hank killing his father made sense, but the other things he’d confessed to did. Hank and Lillian’s accident. Even Maverick’s. I hadn’t seen a third vehicle that night, but now that I thought back on it, the way Mav’s vehicle came barreling at me, it seemed likely he’d been forced off the road.
When the shock of what had happened in the last few minutes wore off, Cici would remember what Martinez had said about how drunk Mav was and she’d have questions.
Me? I couldn’t help but wonder, now, if fate had put me in his path that night to save his life more than take the fall for his blood alcohol level. If I hadn’t pulled him from the vehicle that exploded minutes after I had, he’d be dead—just like Martinez had intended.
Had he stuck around? Witnessed the conspiracy that unfolded that night? I doubted it since if he had, he would’ve already used it against us. I didn’t care about that anymore, though. If I went to jail for what I did, so be it. I prayed Kaleb didn’t experience any fallout, but still, I knew I had to tell the truth about what I’d done. Not just that night, but every truth, including that I hadn’t shown up at the ranch of my own volition. It hadn’t been because of a promise I made Hank. It was because I was forced to be here. I couldn’t stomach any more lies, of omission or otherwise.
We’d only been inside for a couple of minutes when Cici asked to be alone with Maverick. As the two siblings made their way up the stairs by themselves, I approached my own brother, needing to both give and get comfort.
“How are you holding up, Port?” he asked.
“Honestly? I could use a drink pretty damn bad.” I pulled my chip out of my pocket. “That doesn’t mean I’ll take one.”
“I hear ya,” he said, squeezing my shoulder.
I looked out the window and saw Martinez being escorted to the back of the patrol car and Kaleb walking toward the house after he’d shut the vehicle door.
“Fuck of a thing,” Buck muttered under this breath.
“Fuck of a thing,” I repeated.
“Porter?” I heard Mav say from upstairs at the same time Kaleb came inside.
“Go ahead,” he said when I glanced over at him. “We’ll talk later.”
I took the stairs two at a time, and when I reached the top, found Cici in the middle of the bed, propped up by a pillow. Mav was on the opposite side, where I’d slept the last few nights.
“Come sit with us,” Cici said, patting the mattress.
What I wanted to do was stretch out beside her, wrap her in my arms, and beg her to forgive me for everything I was about to tell her. Instead, I sat facing her.
“Porter…”
My eyes met hers, waiting for whatever she’d say, praying it wasn’t that she never wanted to see me again.
“I don’t remember much about that night,” Maverick said, propping himself up on his elbow. “Just bits and pieces.”
“I remember everything,” I confessed, looking between him and Cici.
“Will you tell us?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I met Kaleb, who’s not just my friend but also my AA sponsor, for coffee that night…” I reiterated the rest as factually as I could, attempting to keep my voice as free from inflection as possible. When I talked about pulling Mav from his vehicle, Cici’s eyes filled with tears, and when I told them both what I’d asked Kaleb to do, she reached for my hand and sobbed. By the time I got to the end, Mav and I were both crying too.
“I hated you,” she whispered.
I nodded. “In a lot of ways, I deserved it.”
She shook her head. “Never.”
I took a deep breath. “There’s more I have to tell you. Things that don’t concern Maverick.”
He brushed his tears and got up. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
“Whatever it is, I don’t care,” she said once we were alone.
I shook my head. “I have to tell you, Ceec.”
“Can you come here at least?” She tried pulling me closer, but I wouldn’t budge.
“I wasn’t honest about why I showed up here or why I stayed.”
Her eyes opened wide. “What do you mean?”
“Your father did ask me to look out for you and Maverick if anything happened to him. That part is true. I’d like to think I would’ve regardless.”
“Regardless of what?”
“Whether I had a choice.” I told her about the trust my siblings and I had learned about after my dad died and what Buck had to do in order to keep us all from losing our inheritance. I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone about it, but this was Cici, and there couldn’t be secrets between us. Not any longer. “We thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. Cord was next.” I explained how he’d had to travel to a small town in New York State and that he’d have to remain there for a total of three hundred and sixty-five days.
“Is that why you’re here?” she asked. “Because of the trust?”
“It is.” When I tried to remove my hand from hers, she held on tighter.
“What if I hadn’t let you stay?”
“You did, so honestly, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
“You would’ve lost the Roaring Fork.”
I nodded. “Maybe.” I looked down at our clasped hands. “I wasn’t honest with you, Cici. That’s the bottom line.”
She sighed. “You’re right. You lied to me, Porter, and I can see why you think I wouldn’t forgive you for it.”
“I’ll understand if you don’t.”
She raised a brow. “And if I told you to leave, would you?” I opened my mouth to speak, but she shook her head. “Let me finish.”
I nodded.
“If, right now, I told you to get out, to leave my property and never come back, would you leave, just like that?”
“No.”
“What would you do instead?”
“I’d stay anyway, but not because of the Roaring Fork. I’d stay because I love you, and I’d rather die than ever walk away from you again.”
“In the time since you arrived, and even before that, you risked your own life for Mav and me. The night of his accident, in the fire, today when you stopped Martinez from killing my brother. Did you do all that out of guilt?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
Cici pulled my arm, and this time, I shifted so I could sit beside her and take her in my arms. “What happens at the end of the year?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but for Buck, he was free to do whatever he wanted.”
She shook her head. “Not with the trust, with us.”
“Nothing. I mean, I don’t want to leave, Cici.”
“So you’d stay?”
“Yes.”
She tightened her arm around my waist. “You wouldn’t leave?”
“I would not.”
“And you love me?”
I put my finger on her chin and raised it so I could look at her. “I love you, and I’m never leaving you or this ranch.”
Her eyes scrunched. “Hmm.”
“What? Do you think I’m lying?”
“No, but…”
I studied her. “Whatever it is, just say it.”
“My daddy said you love me, heart and soul, just like he loved my mama. He also said you haven’t figured out life yet. So, I guess I’ll just have to wait.”
“Jesus, Porter, even a dumb kid like me can figure out what she’s hinting at,” Maverick said from right outside the bedroom door.
“Mav! Go to your room!” Cici hollered at him.
“What? I’m trying to help here, Ceec.”
“Go away, Mav,” she hollered.
We heard him shuffling down the hallway.
“I love you, Cicily Morris, and I’m committed to you, this ranch, and to our future.”
“I believe you, Porter Wheaton. And I believe in you.”
Kaleb returned the following morning, saying he and his interrogation team had gone through a grueling hours-long interview with Juan Martinez. While the story he’d told filled in some of the blanks, there were still so many unanswered questions.
Martinez grew up believing his father had abandoned him and his mother, which, in part, had happened. She’d gotten pregnant when still in high school. The two never married, and she raised Juan in Montrose, where her family resided.
When he turned eighteen, which was six years ago, he visited Parlin, where his mom had once lived, to search for his father or his father’s family, who he knew little about. Another point of information—the name on his birth certificate was Juan Garcia.
According to what he’d said in the interrogation, the only living relative he found in Parlin was his paternal grandmother, who said she hadn’t seen or heard from her son in over twenty years.
He’d done a lot of asking around, and most people either never knew his dad or didn’t remember much about him.
Coincidentally, or so he said, he’d run out of money and was looking for a job when he heard Morris Ranch was hiring hands. Wade Carson was the ranch manager at the time and offered him a minimum-wage job. Wade died shortly after that, and Jack Shaw took over his position. When asked what name he was hired under, he responded he’d used the surname Martinez. So far, it wasn’t clear whether he’d legally changed his name, or if he hadn’t, how he was able to collect a paycheck.
A few months into his job, Juan met an old cowboy who said he remembered Esteban Martinez and that he’d also worked for Hank Morris. He’d done some digging and had even asked Shaw and Johnson about him, but neither recalled much about him.
When he ran into Hank Morris one day when they were out moving cattle, he asked him too. While Hank also said he didn’t recall anyone by that name, explaining how many ranch hands had worked at Morris through the years, Juan said there was something about his initial reaction that made him suspicious.
It wasn’t until almost two years later, when Juan was asked to move a piece of equipment to the storage building, that he stumbled on a photograph, similar to the one Cici found, of a woman he recognized as being his mother. In it, she was holding an infant, and a man Juan suspected was his father, stood next to her.
He’d asked around again, showing people the photo. A local resident told him two things that had changed the course of his life and those of Hank, Lillian, Cici, and Maverick.
According to that man, the rumor at the time was that Hank had killed Esteban, but his body was never found.
When Kaleb asked if anyone had reason to believe Hank killed Esteban, Juan reiterated that no one knew the details, only what they’d heard.
After others repeated the same rumors, Juan was convinced they were true and that Hank was responsible for his father’s death.
That marked the beginning of the inexplicable accidents that befell the Morris family.
The details he’d given about certain occurrences were close enough for Kaleb to believe Juan was responsible for the majority, if not all, of the sabotage inflicted on the ranch, animals, and equipment.
“What did he say about the night Hank and Lillian died?” I’d asked.
“He confirmed what we overheard him say to Maverick, saying he’d been the one who called Hank, claiming to be with the sheriff’s office and saying Mav had been in a fatal car accident,” Kaleb responded.
“It makes sense that my mother would’ve gone with my dad that night, searching for their son,” said Cici, tears running down her cheeks.
Kaleb went on to say that, while there was no evidence to confirm it, Juan’s statement about running them off the road that night was plausible.
I knew the sheriff well enough to say that whatever he was about to tell us wasn’t going to be easy. His eyes were hooded, and his shoulders drooped in a way most others might not pick up on.
He leaned forward in the chair where he sat and rested his arms on his knees. “Cici, I know we touched on this briefly, but how much did you know about your father’s sister’s murder?”
“Very little. Like I said, neither of my parents liked to talk about it.”
“You asked me if I thought it had anything to do with what was happening now, and I told you I didn’t believe so.”
She nodded. “I remember.”
“I no longer feel that way.”