Chapter 2
Two
You’ve got to go.” Winona Hawkins slapped both hands flat on the kitchen table she sat beside.
At the head of the table, Cheyenne jumped.
Winona knew her lifelong friend Cheyenne Brewster wasn’t a jumpy woman in the normal course of things. But this was no normal day. And anyway, Win wasn’t talking to Cheyenne.
“There’s no getting out of this.” Winona shoved her chair back, irritated beyond belief that they were so stubborn.
She understood why, but—“You’re like an ox kicking against the goad, Wyatt. You’re wasting time and energy better used for roping cattle.” She added more gently, “And that’s not like you. You’re a man who accepts things as they are.”
The betrayal of Wyatt’s father had rocked Wyatt and Cheyenne.
Win had been there the day Clovis died, and she’d been there for the reading of the will.
Carl Preston, the lone lawyer in Bear Claw Pass, had come with news that still echoed in Win’s ears.
He’d ridden up to the ranch house just as Wyatt, Cheyenne, and Win came back from unceremoniously burying Clovis Hunt—away from the family cemetery so as to keep Wyatt and Cheyenne’s grandpa from spinning in his grave.
Carl had taken a step toward the front door. “Let’s go inside. I have to go over some details with you.”
“You can just leave it, Carl.” Wyatt had been so calm about the burial, good riddance about summed it up. Then he calmly handled this detail. “I’m sure Ma’s wishes are all in order. She told us both how she’d split things up.”
That earned a grim look from Carl that shifted between Wyatt and Cheyenne. “These aren’t your ma’s orders, Wyatt. They’re your pa’s.”
Win’s heart had stuttered a bit. She knew too much about poor men marrying rich wives and outliving them.
Wyatt frowned and looked sideways at Cheyenne. “Pa didn’t own nothing I’ve heard tell of.”
Shaking his head, Carl said, “That’s not true. A man and his wife are co-owners of any property in the marriage. In fact, the man is the sole owner by law. Clovis Hunt came to me and wrote his own will after your ma died.”
Win’s stomach twisted. What low-down thing had Clovis Hunt done now?
Wyatt had gotten the door and held it while Cheyenne, Win, and Carl went in.
“Brothers? What brothers?” Wyatt shoved himself to his feet.
“Your father, Clovis, left this land, the Rolling Hills Ranch, all the cattle, horses, bank accounts, everything, divided in three equal parts, or rather, technically, kept in one large part with three equal owners. It goes to you, Wyatt; a brother named Falcon, who lives in Tennessee; and another brother, Kevin, from Kansas. Your father explained things very clearly to me, and there’s no other way to say this.
It appears he was married to three women, a-all—” Carl cleared his throat—“all at the same time.”
Cheyenne stood and turned from Carl to pace toward the window.
Win knew just what she saw. The beautiful rolling hills that had given the ranch its name.
It was a landscape that looked out on a huge log barn, well-built corrals, the bunkhouse, the foreman’s house, and the ramrod’s house.
This ranch had forty thousand head of cattle spread over fifty thousand acres, bought up by Wyatt’s grandpa over many years, spending every penny and every bit of strength in his back to build his ranch and build a life for his only daughter and her two children.
Nothing like how Win’s pa had gotten his ranch. The grand and lavish ranch house was built by others, and the land bought in one huge parcel, paid for with Win’s ma’s money.
Over here at the RHR it had been work. Years and years of work done by Wyatt’s grandpa, Jacques LaRemy, followed by Wyatt’s ma, Katherine, and her first husband, Nate Brewster, who were Cheyenne’s parents.
Then Nate Brewster died, and Katherine remarried and had Wyatt—who grew up fast and went to work, too.
They’d poured blood, sweat, and tears into this ranch.
Absolutely none of the work had ever been done by Clovis Hunt, who’d outlived Jacques and Katherine and, without telling anyone, altered the will his wife had left behind.
“And as instructed in this will, I immediately telegraphed another lawyer in Casper to inform him of your father’s death. He’ll contact your brothers and—”
“Don’t call them that.” Wyatt hammered the side of his fist on the desk. Carl jumped and quit talking.
Win’s heart clutched as she waited for Wyatt to launch himself at Carl. Wyatt visibly struggled to get ahold of himself . . . and then his eyes went wide.
“What about Cheyenne? She was supposed to inherit the land from her father. Surely Clovis has no ownership of Nate Brewster’s land.”
Carl swallowed hard. “He does. I’m sorry.
The law says any property brought into a marriage by a wife immediately becomes the property of her husband.
Clovis never exerted any property rights over your mother’s land, but according to the letter of the law, since the day they married, your father has been the owner of all Katherine Hunt’s holdings, including those left to her by her first husband. ”
“That land was meant for Cheyenne.”
Carl shook his head helplessly. “Intent doesn’t override the law. When your grandfather died, his will left everything to your mother, but by law he really left it to your mother’s husband. He, that is, Clovis, wasn’t even here when your grandpa died.”
“I remember that. He hadn’t been around for years. Most of my growing-up years.”
“He came around once in a while,” Cheyenne said bitterly.
“Yep, and we were all mighty glad to see him go, which he always did.” Wyatt began to pace the huge office.
“But it’ll take time for letters to reach them, won’t it?” Wyatt stopped pacing to look at Carl.
“The lawyer in Casper wired back before I rode out here and informed me he had clear instructions of his own. He sent telegrams to the towns closest to your broth—uh, that is, uh, your father’s other sons.
He was fully paid to hire riders to take the telegrams directly to their homes to make sure they knew of their inheritance. ”
“Fully paid with my mother’s money.”
“That’s correct.” Carl ran a finger around the collar of his white shirt as if it were choking him.
“The brother in Kansas may know already and be heading here. The other one, the oldest, Falcon Hunt, lives in a remote part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. But included in the telegraph were precise directions to Falcon Hunt’s home.
Your father kept track of his sons and thought of everything. ”
Carl paused. “I’m not aware of the . . . condition of the other wives.”
“Other wives, good grief.” Wyatt paced faster, his fists clenched.
Cheyenne remained utterly silent, looking out. Win waited for her to start shooting. Cheyenne wasn’t known for taking bad news cheerfully.
“It’s possible your br—” Carl coughed suddenly, then continued. “That is, your—that is, Cl-Clovis’s other sons may be bringing his wives—their mothers—here as well. In addition, they could be married men. They could have children.”
Wyatt slapped himself in the face. There was an extended silence.
Carl didn’t break it. Cheyenne kept staring out.
Win sure enough wasn’t going to speak up.
Finally, Wyatt’s head came up, his hazel eyes flashing fire. “I want you to find a way to break this will.”
Carl’s mouth pinched tight as he shook his head.
“The will is finely and carefully drawn, including caveats that make it almost impossible for your father’s other sons to sell—if they could be convinced to sell their parcels back to you.
I wrote it up, but Clovis took it to Casper and had it gone over to make sure there were no weak spots. ”
“Cavee-what?”
“Caveats. What it comes down to is, if any of the three brothers sells his parcel within the first ten years of Clovis’s death, the entire ranch must be sold, and Clovis arranged to donate the full amount, bank accounts and everything, to the state of Tennessee to build a monument to the Confederacy. ”
Win rubbed her mouth for a few seconds before she said, “Did he write the will before or after the South lost the war?”
Carl winced. “After, I’m afraid. About a week after Katherine’s death.”
Wyatt swept a hand wide. “That don’t matter. My pa’s other sons won’t sell out anyway, leastways not for less than a fortune. They’ll be like him. They’ll come out here and move in like a pair of locusts, chomping it all down for themselves.”
“I did have one notion.”
Win started. Cheyenne turned around.
“What’s that?” Wyatt asked.
“If your father had another living wife when he married Katherine, then he couldn’t legally marry again. That would make his marriage to your mother bigamous. If that’s the case, then he’d have no legal standing to inherit her land.”
Wyatt—just told he might be the offspring of an unmarried mother—looked wildly hopeful. “What can you do to track this down?”
“Well, we can see if Falcon Hunt arrives with his Tennessee mountain ma. If she’s living, then the will is void.”
“And if she’s not living, we’d need to know when she died,” Wyatt said. “Not likely Falcon would aid in his own loss of the ranch.”
“If he won’t cooperate, I suppose we’d need to hire investigators of some sort.”
Wyatt’s mouth got tight, and he frowned at the lawyer. “I guess we can pay for that out of my third of this ranch’s bank accounts.”
“Let’s wait until Falcon arrives. His mother is the first marriage and possibly the only legal one.
Once he’s here, we’ll know more. While we wait, I’ll try and figure out how to handle things if need be.
Finding investigators and such. We’ll talk about it as soon as I have some advice for you.
” Carl left a copy of the will on the table and gathered up his satchel.
Win watched him go, left in the house with two very unhappy people.
But they didn’t start raging.
Yes, the telegrams had gone out to Wyatt’s brothers.
Yes, the ranch was in the hands of two strangers who might be as worthless as Clovis.
But those two things could be endured because, at least for now, they had hope.
And now the time had come to meet the brother from Tennessee.
Falcon was coming in on today’s train. He’d gone to the lawyer in Casper. Apparently, he was instructed to do that. The lawyer sent him to Bear Claw Pass and wired ahead to Wyatt with the news.
“You. Have. No. Choice.” Win could only say what was true even if it was the worst kind of dirty shame.
Wyatt Hunt was the same as a little brother to Win. A full-grown man, of course, but she had a hard time not thinking of him as a kid. A stubborn kid. She was tempted to give his ear a good twist.
Cheyenne was Winona’s lifelong friend. They’d spent their younger years picking on Wyatt, and he’d done the same right back. It was hard to get out of the habit of growling at him. Bossing him around. Insulting him. Tormenting Wyatt was her favorite thing to do.
There was just no use for him acting like this.
“You have to go to town.” Win tried to use small words so the poor idiot would listen. “It’s the right and decent thing to do.”
“There’s nothing right nor decent about this ranch being stolen from Cheyenne. I’m mad clean through, and I don’t have one speck of interest in making this easy for anyone else. Pa was a coyote, and we all knew it long before he died, but I never thought he would sink this low.”
Win closed her eyes. She had to say it, and it caused her pain, dread really. But Wyatt was digging in his heels, and Cheyenne wasn’t about to go to town. That was just too much to ask.