Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
H arry was still out cold, and Maria was getting worried.
Tires crunched over gravel, and she went to the window. Bubba’s shiny red pickup had pulled in. It had never seen a day’s work, that jacked-up truck. It was flawless, not a hoof-shaped dent or a barbed-wire scratch on it. Bubba got out one side, and Willow the other. The four remaining Brand cousins who’d been riding in the back when the truck had passed them earlier, must’ve stayed behind.
Maria crossed the room and opened the door to greet them. “Thanks for comin’.”
Willow hugged her. “You okay?”
“Yeah, but Harry’s not.” She hugged Bubba in turn and then looked across the room at Harry, still prone atop the bar. “I think we’d better take him to the ER,” she said.
“No. I’m… okay,” said Harry, and he sat up.
They all hurried over there. Harry’s blue eyes were open, the right one was swollen and bruised. “I just need… a bed and some… maybe some uh… pain reliever.”
“We got the bed covered,” Bubba said.
“I have pain reliever!” Manuel went into the back, returned in seconds, and handed Harry three white tablets and a glass of water with a straw.
Harry took the pills, removed the straw, and drank deeply from the glass.
“Ibuprofen?” Maria asked as Harry swallowed.
“Sure,” Manuel said, which made her frown.
“Manuel, what did you just give him?”
“What he said. Pain reliever.”
“I’m gon’ need to see that bottle, Manny.”
He crooked a finger, and she followed him through the doors into the kitchen in back. He opened a cabinet and took out a brown prescription bottle. The label said, Hysingla ER.
“This is hydrocodone.”
“It’s what they gave me when I broke my hip last fall. I never used ’em. See? ‘For pain.’” He pointed at the instructions on the bottle, which said to take as needed for pain to a maximum of two tablets per day. He took the bottle back, turning it to peruse the label. “Oh,” he said. “Uh, did I give him too much?”
“Well, you gave him plenty.” She closed her eyes. “But he won’t be hurting for awhile. Thank you for the help, Manny.”
“Any time, Maria Michele.”
“You tally up the damage. My family’ll take care of it.”
“They always do,” he replied.
She returned to the front room. Bubba was already helping Harry out to the truck. Poor Harry was limping along across the parking strip, head down, but Bubba had hold of him.
Willow stood by the batwing doors, waiting for her, her eyes all sympathetic and soft. “He’ll be okay,” she said.
“He’ll be feelin’ okay, for sure,” Maria replied. “Manny’s pain meds were the real deal. Harry’s gon’ think I’m tryin’ to kill him.” Then she sighed. “Maybe it’ll buy me some time before I have to tell him Billy Bob stole his car outta spite after beatin’ him bloody.”
“Billy Bob stole Harry’s car?”
“He must’ve. It’s gone. And his whole life’s work is in that car, in a little black box in the back. Come on, I’ll fill you in on the way home.”
They walked outside. Willow stopped and looked around. “Maria, if Billy Bob took Harry’s car, then where’s Billy Bob’s truck? He had to drive here in something.”
Maria frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe he had somebody with him.”
“Didn’t have anyone with him when he left the church,” Willow said.
Maria could see the wheels turning behind her cousin’s eyes. Any minute now, she’d be in crime-solving mode and they’d never get out of there. Sleuthing ran in the family. Her youngest cousins, Orrin and Drew, had inherited it from both sides. But she clasped Willow’s shoulder and said, “We need to get Harry back to the ranch. You can do your deputy thing later, okay?”
“Yeah,” Willow said. “Sure, okay.”
Things got very cloudy for Harry. He was in a vehicle, lying sideways, on a narrow back seat. It was not his own car. That worried him. There were strangers in the front seat, a big guy in a big hat was driving, and a woman with long, dark hair rode in the passenger seat. Then he realized his pillow was a set of warm, denim-clad thighs, and immediately sat up.
Maria was beside him. He’d been lying with his head in her lap.
“Hey, no, it’s okay,” she said. “Here, relax.”
“My car?—”
“Willow’s got folks takin’ care of that,” she said, nodding toward the woman in the passenger seat. “She’s the newest deputy at the Quinn County Sheriff’s Department, you know. And don’t you worry, cause like I told you, the sheriff’s my uncle and the chief deputy’s my dad.”
He didn’t know what her uncle being sheriff had to do with them picking up his car for him, but he appreciated it. He couldn’t have driven it himself. “Make sure… the solar?—”
“I will.”
He closed his eyes in relief.
When he opened them again, he was in a big, soft bed, in a bedroom with flowered wallpaper. Sheer curtains danced in the breeze that came through an open window, beyond which was darkness. It was nighttime. An old man in a red plaid shirt with pearl snaps was standing over him on the other side of the bed. He had a thick head of white hair that fell in waves to his neck and a white mustache to match. If he’d had a goatee, he’d have looked like General Custer.
“No skull fracture,” he was saying, and nearby the runaway bride and several strangers sighed in apparent relief. “He should sleep off the hydrocodone by morning. You tell Manuel to turn that in at the pharmacy, Maria?”
“Uh, sure,” the beautiful redhead replied, but her compassionate brown eyes were on him.
“Good girl,” the doctor said. “Nice job on the butterflies. Can’t believe Billy Bob would do something like this.”
“Well, let’s keep that between us, for now.”
“Pssh. ’Round here? Good luck with that, little lady. Thank your mamma for bringing the portable X-ray over from the vet clinic.”
“I will.”
“Call me if there’s any change. But I think he’s fine.”
“He has to be in Silver City by noon on Wednesday,” she said.
“Well, it’s only Saturday. He should be okay to make that trip. He won’t be pretty, but he’ll be up and around.”
Harry felt himself relax. His head sank into the soft pillows underneath him. The floral wallpaper and the people standing before it all blurred and faded. Maria, the most vivid figure in the room, faded last of all.
When he woke again, it was morning. He knew it was morning by the way the birds were singing outside the open window. The breeze pushed the curtains so they swelled and floated up, then lowered again. He was in a bedroom with blue wallpaper that had yellow roses all over it. The curtains were white and so was the bedding. Beside the bed, a rocking chair, and a nightstand that held a half-empty coffee cup, a tall glass of water with a straw, a brown prescription bottle, his cellphone and wallet, and an open, face-down paperback called Love on Bluebonnet Lane .
He lifted the covers and found himself dressed in light blue cotton pajamas that were not his own. He tried to piece together what had happened and came up with a series of jigsaw puzzle pieces, most of which featured a spunky, brown-eyed redhead.
It was surreal not knowing where he was or how he’d got there. He got out of the bed, his bare feet greeted by soft carpet. He was a little dizzy, but he stood there for a moment, and it passed. Then he shuffled to the open window and pushed the gauzy curtains aside.
There were green lawns, split-rail fences, a large barn, and several smaller ones, all of them white and trimmed in red. Horses grazed in a meadow that bordered a long building that must be their stable. Beyond the barnyard was rolling land, all kinds of land. Parts were brown and brushy, other parts were covered in woods, and still others were green and dotted with grazing longhorns. The land unfurled all the way to the widest, bluest horizon he’d ever seen. Off to the right, an arch rose over a ribbon of driveway, with the words TEXAS brAND carved into its curve. The X was bigger than the other letters and had circle around it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Her voice made him turn around. The redhead had entered the room bearing a plate full of food and a cold pack. She smiled brightly. “Nice to see you’re awake. And up, even. But here, settle back in and relax. When’s the last time you had breakfast in bed?”
“When I was ten, I think.” He scuffed back to the bed, stacked the pillows high, then got in sitting up, but leaning back against them. “No, eleven. Had strep throat. Mom brought me chicken noodle soup and orange Jello.”
“I bet it cured you, too.”
“Is this where you live? It’s incredible.”
“Oh Lord, no, this is the ranch.”
“The ranch.”
“The Texas Brand. It’s kind of the family headquarters. My mom grew up here with her five big brothers. Most have their own places now, though us kids spent endless time here growing up. Uncle Garrett and Aunt Chelsea still live here. My cousins and I all moved in for the week of the weddin’.” She set the plate of food on the crowded nightstand and offered Harrison the cold pack. “Even Bubba came home, and it’s been a while. Anyway, Uncle Garrett thought you and I would be safer here. You know, until he and his crew find Billy Bob and throw him into a jail cell.”
She talked a lot. Used ten words where three would do. He liked it. He liked listening to her. Her accent was as soothing as a full body massage.
“You gon’ put that on your head, or just chill your hand with it?” She nodded at the cold pack, and he realized he’d been looking at her a little bit too long. He touched his face with his other hand and felt bandages. His right eyebrow and forehead had the biggest one. There was a tiny one on the bridge of his nose.
Maria took the cold pack from him and laid it across his left eye. It had a little strap attached that she stretched around his head to hold the cold pack in place. “Your eye’s still swollen, but I’ve been puttin’ ice on it for ten minutes every little while, and it’s improving.”
“Is it?”
“You can see through it now, can’t you?”
He lifted the cold pack to peek out then nodded and put it back in place.
“It’s Sunday,” she said. “You still have plenty of time to make your Silver City Shark Tank thing by Wednesday. You don’t need to worry. We’ll drive you ourselves if we don’t find your car by then.”
“ Find my car?” He sat straight again, got a little dizzy, and put a hand on his head.
Maria bent over him, hands on his shoulders, her face near his bent head. She smelled like fresh air and sunshine. “Easy now, easy. Just be still a minute, it’ll pass.” She moved one hand to his head and somehow it helped.
“It’s really not that bad.” As the dizziness eased, he lifted his chin. It didn’t return. Carefully, he said, “What happened to my car?”
“Billy Bob stole it, after he kicked the stuffin’ outta you. Did you leave the keys in it, do you remember?”
He tried to think back. His memory of having his face pounded had returned the minute she’d uttered the name Billy Bob, but what had come before that was still cloudy. “We stopped at a cantina,” he said. “For tacos. God, all this for a taco.”
“They were amazin’,” she reminded him. “I was right about that.”
He closed his eyes. “We have to get the car back. The prototype is in the car,” he said.
“Right, I know. I guess— I was hopin’ you’d have a backup.”
“In a safe, in my lab two-thousand miles from here, yeah. But still?—”
“Billy Bob’ll have no interest in pawing through your dad’s tackle box. And he wouldn’t know a solar tile from a floor tile. We’ll find the car and your project will be there safe and sound.” Maria handed him his plate of food. “Chelsea’s famous flapjacks,” she said.
The plate held a foot-tall stack of blueberry pancakes, with a tiny pitcher of syrup that was warm to the touch and home fries on the side. He picked up the fork and his stomach growled.
Maria paced to the window, gazed out and said, “I’m real sorry, Harry. I’ve brought disaster rainin’ down on you.”
“I don’t blame you for what that guy did,” he said. “And I suspect this breakfast is about to make the whole thing worthwhile.”
She let the curtains fall and faced him. “Take your time in here. There’s a change of clothes waiting in the bathroom, right there. When you’re all set, c’mon downstairs. Willow wants to get the full story from you, while Dad and Uncle Garrett are trackin’ down your car. I figured a tour of the ranch would make the time pass faster, if you feel up to it.”
“Okay. That sounds good to me.”
She bit her lip then her eyes turned intense. “I’m gon’ get your tile back and make all this right, Harry. You tried to help me out, not that I gave you much choice, but I’ll be danged if you ought to suffer for it. I’m gon’ make it right. You have my word as a Brand.”
She left the room before he could come up with a reply.
Harrison sighed, glanced at the plate. He loved home fries in a way he loved few other things. He should call his sister and dad to check in. He talked to them both daily, and they’d worry if he didn’t.
But he figured it could wait until after breakfast.
With his bandages off for a morning shower a short while later, Harrison got his first good look in a mirror. There was a cut across one eyebrow, expertly taped up. His eye was swollen and the eyelid was slightly purple, and there was a tiny cut on the bridge of his nose. That was all the damage that showed, but his head hurt like hell, and his back was none too limber.
The dizziness seemed to ease the more he moved around, though. He put on the clothes he found in the bathroom attached to the bedroom he occupied— his own jeans and a borrowed T-shirt. His own shirt had been laundered and folded and returned to him, too, but it was bloodstained and torn. He put it into the lined wastebasket beside the sink. Then he took the time to send three texts. One to his father, saying their daily phone call would be a couple of hours late and that everything was fine; one to his sister, saying he’d run into some trouble, but everything was fine, and he’d explain when they talked later; one to Carrie Sayre, the most reliable member of his research team, asking her to get the backup prototype from the safe at Cornell and bring it with her to the upcoming demo in Silver City.
She texted back immediately, saying sure and asking why. His sister was also responding with questions, so he told Carrie he would explain later, and focused on Lily, answering in brief as best he could while heading down the stairs in search of Brands to thank.
Harrison: Picked up a runaway bride
Lily: What?
Harrison: The groom caught up. Punched me out and stole my car.
Lily: WHAT?
Harrison: I’m fine. Staying with friends near Quinn, Texas. I’ll Call you ASAP to explain.
Lily: What friends?
Harrison: The runaway bride and her family.
Lily: Huh. What’s she look like? This runaway bride?
Harrison: What’s that supposed to mean?
Lily: Nothing. Call soon. Dad’s asthma is worse.
Harrison: Is he okay?
Lily: For now. Fill you in when we talk. Love you.
Harrison: Love you back.
At the bottom of the stairs, he followed voices through a big living room with a fireplace and a long-eared bloodhound lying in front of it, even though there was no fire at the moment. He went out the front door onto a wide front porch with a swing on one side and two rockers on the other all facing that same view he’d glimpsed from upstairs. A warm breeze wafted over him, and horse scent came with it. In front of the porch, Maria stood with people he might or might not know. A twenty-something young man had dark curly hair under his cowboy hat. The Native American woman beside him was wearing a badge. Willow, from the ride back, he recalled. She was a rookie deputy.
Behind them, four saddled horses nibbled at the grassy lawn. Two were thoroughbreds, one was a prancing black mare with as much nervous energy as a certain runaway bride he knew, and the fourth was a docile chestnut mare with age in her eyes.
He realized his tour of the ranch was going to take place on horseback. Sure, he thought. Why not give the redhead another chance to kill him?
The cousin with the badge and the long black hair extended a hand as he approached. “Hi, again, Harry. I’m Willow. We met in Bubba’s truck, but you were kinda out of it.”
“Harrison,” he said. “I remember you.”
“And this is my cousin Trevor,” Maria said. She gestured toward her younger cousin, who was as darkly complected as Willow.
Trevor sent him a wave and a friendly smile. “Good to meetcha. Sorry about your… uh… face. You sure you’re okay to ride?”
“Um…”
“Have you ever ridden?” Deputy Willow asked with concern in her eyes.
He nodded. “When I was a kid, we took a family trail ride every fall to see the foliage. My mom was nuts about the foliage. She even made us take riding lessons the first summer.”
Maria said, “You’ll do fine, then.”
“Yeah, it’s like riding a bike,” Trevor said. “But more like riding a horse.”
“Adaline is the gentlest mare you’ll ever meet.” Maria moved to the horse as she spoke and as he suspected, it was the elder chestnut mare. She took the reins and stroked the mare’s muzzle. The horse closed her eyes in a slow blink of appreciation. “She’s not gonna spook and she won’t misstep. You can trust her. If you feel up to it, I mean.”
“Sure,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”
He saw the disapproving look Willow sent to Maria, and not wanting to be the cause of strife between cousins, walked right up to the chubby mare, pet her nose, and said, “I’m Harrison. Is it okay if I ride you?”
The horse blew as if answering him, and he said, “I hope that was a yes.” Introducing yourself to the horse and asking permission had been step one, according to his mom, though he’d never seen the riding instructor do that part. Just the rest. He stepped into the stirrup and swung his leg on over. The mare didn’t move at all the whole time. He patted her neck. “Good girl,” he said and when he glanced Maria’s way, he saw that he’d impressed her. His chest swelled a little bit. Dumb.
Maria got on the fiery black mare. Willow and Trevor mounted the thoroughbreds, and as one, they turned around, and started off at an easy walk. Maria led the way out past the barns, through gates opened for them by ranch hands who touched their hats as the group rode by. They crossed a wide meadow behind the larger barn, moving among grazing cows, through another gate, and then picked up a trail through a wooded area.
Willow said, “Harry, just so you know, I’m not goofin’ off here. Uncle Garrett has an APB out on your car, Billy Bob’s truck, and Billy Bob himself. He and Uncle Lash— Maria’s dad— are checking his known haunts, his friends. And I’m keepin’ an eye on you, here, just in case.” She glanced at Maria. “We got the guest list from his stag party, so we’re startin’ there.”
“He punched the stripper, you know,” Maria blurted.
“He did what ?” Apparently, Willow hadn’t heard.
“The dancer at Billy Bob’s stag party. I knew her from college. I’ll send you the video.”
She pulled out her phone and did so.
“Either way,” Willow said to Harryison, “I expect we’ll find Billy Bob and your car before the day’s out.” Her phone beeped, so she pulled it out and tapped it to watch the video Maria had sent her. Trevor, who rode beside Willow, leaned over in his saddle to watch as well.
Harrison had not seen any video. He leaned up in his saddle to get a glimpse. Maria took pity and handed him her phone. He watched as Billy Bob tried to sexually assault an exotic dancer then punched her in the face when she resisted, in much the same way he’d punched Harrison the day before.
The impact made him wince. “What a jerk!” He looked up from the phone.
On the horse ahead of him, Willow’s face was as angry as a storm cloud. “Is the dancer okay?”
“Yeah. She sent me that yesterday mornin’.”
“At the weddin’?” Willow asked. Maria nodded and Harrison thought it had been way worse than he’d known. Some cave-man DNA sent up the desire for another shot at that woman-beating thug Billy Bob. Not that he’d fare any better, but the notion of landing a punch or two felt good.
Willow said, “Aw, shoot, hon, I’m sorry. You’d better believe Uncle Garrett’s gonna charge his ass with every bit of it when he catches up to him.”
Trevor was quietly fuming.
“Anyway, Harry,” Willow went on after a moment, “I expect we’ll have your property back by the end of the day. Meanwhile, I’ve been assigned to keep an eye on you until we have Billy Bob in custody. My personal theory is he blames you for bustin’ up the weddin’.” She winked at Maria. “You should hear some of the speculation around town. It’d make those books you read blush.”
Maria rolled her eyes, nudged her horse, and moved in between the two thoroughbreds to cut ahead of them again. They rode in companionable silence for a little while. Soon, Harrison heard the burbling of a little stream that ran alongside the path and eventually spilled into a large pond.
“Swimmin’ hole,” Maria said, turning to call back to him. “Best place to cool off on a hot summer day.” But they didn’t stop.
“So, are you two siblings?” he asked Willow and Trevor, mainly for something to say.
Trevor laughed. “We get asked that a lot, but no,” he said. “I’m half-Mexican and Willow’s three-quarters Comanche.”
Willow said, “My parents raise thoroughbreds on nearby Sky Dancer Ranch. These are two of them. Butch and Sundance.” She patted her horse as she spoke. “I have my own house on the property.”
“Her parents are Wes and Taylor,” Trevor said. “My dad’s Elliot, youngest of the Brand brothers. My mom is Esmeralda. She immigrated from Mexico, lost all her ID to coyotes on the way, and had to start fresh here. But before this was Brand land, it belonged to her ancestors. So my connection to it is twice as strong.” He said it with pride.
Willow rolled her eyes. “And it belonged to my ancestors, before any of them,” she reminded him.
“Sorry, Will,” he looked sheepish. Then he grinned at Harrison and said, “You aren’t expected to learn all the names. Not just yet, anyway.” Then he winked.
Willow nudged her horse into a trot and rode off the trail to the pond. She paused there to let her horse drink.
Maria slowed until Harrison was once again riding beside her with Trevor close behind. Quietly, she said, “We all inherit the ranch jointly, when the time comes. Willow thinks it should be given back to the tribes.”
“And our cousin Baxter thinks it should switch from raising cattle to raising crops,” Trevor said. “And Bubba wants to build a honky tonk on his share.”
“We all have very different ideas about what to do with it.”
“What do you want to do with it?” Harrison asked.
He was talking to Maria, but Trevor thought otherwise and answered the question before she could. “Rodeo!” he said. “We put in three show rings, huge stands, concessions, the whole nine.”
“I guess you do have different ideas.” He glanced Maria’s way, met her eyes and knew she didn’t want to talk about her own thoughts on the matter. He read her look, gave a subtle nod, and didn’t ask again.
The ride took nearly two hours, and Maria assured him they hadn’t put a dent in the property. He was shown pastures, the prettiest family burial ground he’d ever seen, and a large chunk of woodland near the stream that was fenced off for no apparent reason. As he frowned at it, Willow rode up beside him. “My mother is an archaeologist,” she said. “She discovered some pottery on this site, and did some informal digging. She’s sure a native village thrived here once, so we don’t let anyone in.”
“Is she planning to excavate it?” Harrison asked.
“No,” Willow said. “We just leave offerin’s and let it be.”
Harrison nodded, understanding her position on what should become of the land in a way he hadn’t before. Willow’s phone pinged, she glanced at it. “Uncle Garrett says they just picked up Billy Bob. We’d best get to the station.” She sent Harrison a smile. “That was even faster than I predicted!” Then she gave a little whoop and kicked her horse into a gallop.