Chapter 20 #2
“Clint will bring me home,” Kate said, turning toward him.
Clint’s face tensed, then relaxed. “I would be pleased to.”
Russ nodded, then turned to Shea. “I’m sorry your visit has been so … unfortunate, but at least it appears that your father will be all right. You’ll let me know if you remember anything else? Or if Jack does when he wakes again?”
“Yes,” Shea said, uncomfortable under his steady, questioning gaze.
After he left, Kate announced she would go down and find something to cook for dinner.
“You stay here with your father,” she said sympathetically.
She looked toward Clint, her eyes softening, and Shea felt a tug of sympathy for Clint.
His jaw had set, a muscle tensing in his cheek.
She wondered whether Rafe had any idea of the dilemma his friend was in.
She sympathized with all her heart. She was learning the agony of divided loyalties.
Kate left, and Shea was alone with Clint. Her father was once more in a deep sleep.
“You did well,” he said.
“I’m a good liar after all?” she said, hearing bitterness in her own voice.
“Not the best, but you’ll do.”
“You’re pretty good at it yourself.” She couldn’t contain the accusation.
His lips twisted in a wry smile, but he said nothing. His eyes, however, clouded, and she sensed the regret in him, a dislike for what he was doing.
“Rafe is lucky to have you as a friend,” she said suddenly.
“He’s had damn little luck these past years,” Clint said. “Even now …” He shut his mouth, then turned away and walked out of the room.
Shea gazed again at Jack Randall, her eyes fighting to stay open now. She hadn’t had any sleep for a long time. Last night …
Was it only last night that Rafe had made love to her? So gently. So passionately. She closed her eyes, remembering his touch, her mind erasing the cruel words of this morning.
“Rafe,” she whispered to herself, unaware that the name somehow penetrated the half-conscious world of the man so near to her. “I’ll always love you.”
Sam McClary cursed his luck as he rode his horse along Rushton Creek. If only those hands hadn’t ridden up.
He could only hope that no one had seen him leave, that Randall was dead. But he couldn’t count on either one.
There was nothing here for him now, anyway, not at the ranch. No more money to frighten from Randall. No more baiting the bastard.
Damn Randall for losing his nerve. Sam had always known Randall had a streak of yellow. But this thing about Tyler … That odd, incomprehensible guilt had destroyed Randall’s usefulness. Could it have anything to do with rumors of a daughter? Randall had denied it, but …
Too bad. The connection with Randall had been a good thing. Always good for a few dollars when things became too hot for McClary someplace else.
He should leave this place, leave Colorado, but he knew if he did, Rafe Tyler would find him. Just as he had found Randall. McClary couldn’t take that risk.
Although he couldn’t return to the ranch, he had to stay just a little bit longer in the area.
The law would be looking for him and Tyler, but Tyler wore the brand.
And Tyler would stay, McClary knew, if the murders continued, if Tyler suspected McClary was still in the area.
McClary would take his chances now rather than wait until the day Tyler found him.
McClary wanted to see Rafe Tyler hang. He wanted it enough that he was willing to risk getting caught.
Tyler had become a personal obsession, and not only because of the danger he represented.
McClary had hated him ten years ago; he hated him every bit as much now.
He would never forget Tyler’s contempt, before Tyler’s disgrace and even after.
There were plenty of places to hole up here, and McClary had been in the territory enough times to know many of them.
Abandoned dugouts and cabins dotted the canyons from the heyday of placer mining.
And he could increase his stake. A few more dead miners should give him enough dust to head down Mexico way and tie the noose tighter around Tyler’s neck.
But damn Randall. He’d enjoyed the Circle R. He’d enjoyed baiting Randall.
His attention was diverted when he saw what he’d been searching for. He rode up to the flimsy dugout built into the hill that ran alongside the creek. Almost totally hidden by the bushes, it was obviously abandoned. He could stake his horse in the woods to the side.
Sam McClary dismounted and went inside. There was nothing left of the dugout except three log walls, the back being packed earth. Whatever the previous owner had left had been picked clean.
It would do well enough for now for shelter. Then he would go hunting again. For miners.
Rafe Tyler sat on the rocks above the pool. He hadn’t seen the bears this afternoon. He hoped the cub was surviving, healing.
He stared at the waterfall, which had given Shea such delight. He tried to concentrate on his next move, but there could be no next moves until he knew whether Randall lived or not.
What had Shea found? The father she’d wanted badly enough to travel half a continent? A dead man? He hoped for her sake, it was the former. But then what?
He had to continue his pursuit. He couldn’t throw away ten years of planning, all the sacrifice Clint and the others had made. He couldn’t give up the last hope of being vindicated.
Rafe had put the glove back on today. He didn’t want to see the brand. He had purposely left it off the last few days, trying, he told himself, to make a certain point to Shea. But she had not reacted the way she should. The way he thought she should.
He still couldn’t believe it didn’t make a difference to her.
The woodpeckers drummed out a melancholy song, and it reminded him of the tat-tat-tat of those drums so many years ago.
Years ago but only yesterday in his mind.
He would go crazy if he stayed here. Tomorrow he would go hunting on his own.
He would find McClary and then make the other decision: what to do about Jack Randall if he still lived.
He sensed the sergeant was still around, especially if he’d killed Randall. He would want to eliminate anyone who knew of the connections. McClary would know that he was Rafe’s next target.
Rafe took Abner from his pocket and ran his hand along the mouse’s back, feeling its shiver of delight.
But Abner was no longer enough. He closed his eyes, trying not to think of Shea Randall, of the light in her eyes and then the sadness.
He tried not to think of the warmth she’d sent rushing through him.
He looked up. The sky was darkening. Night was coming. An early moon looked transparent in the sky. The temperature was lowering. Before long, it would be cold.
But he was already cold. And he didn’t think he would ever be warm again.
Jack Randall slid in and out of consciousness.
Pain sliced through his head with such agonizing strength that part of him wanted to slip away. But another part, the part that recognized the miracle of finding a daughter, kept him fighting to return.
He felt her hand, and at times he thought it was Sara’s hand. And then he remembered Sara was dead, and he’d never had the chance to say good-bye.
Once he’d opened his eyes, and his daughter was there, her eyes closed, her body slumped in a chair.
She was asleep, and he’d ignored the pain to watch her.
She looked very much like Sara. It thrilled him, but then sadness flooded him for having missed the joys and pleasures of watching his child grow.
He would have changed. If he had known about the child, he would have changed.
He tried to remember everything that had been said, but images started to form and then faded away.
He had heard her say she had been lost. Thank God nothing had happened, but then other words crept into his consciousness, tapping at him and then sliding away. Rafe. She had mentioned that name. Why?
Jack Randall tried to move, and agony shot through him again, pushing every thought from his head.
His shoulder was burning, and he tried to move his arm, only to find it tied tightly against his chest. A moan escaped his lips, and the girl’s eyes opened again, his daughter’s eyes, filled with concern and sympathy.
“I have some laudanum,” she said. “Would you like some? Or a glass of water?”
He swallowed. He wanted oblivion from the pain, but then he would sleep again, and he wouldn’t see her, talk to her.
Jack shook his head and held out his hand, which she clasped. “Just … talk to me.”
She smiled. “About what?”
“Your mother. You. What you’ve been doing these years. What you like to do …” The last words trembled slightly on his tongue as the pain struck again, and he closed his eyes.
He forced them open again after a moment. She was watching him intently. “Please,” he said, “just talk.”
She started in a low, uncertain voice, hesitating now and then as if the words weren’t worth much, but they were worth everything to him.
He let them drop on him like diamonds from heaven.
“We lived in Boston, in a fine little house there, and we had shop, a hat shop. I designed hats, and I like to draw.”
His eyes closed, but her words went on, and he soaked them up like a sponge. They were better than laudanum.
“We used to go to concerts in the park, and we would read. I went to the Young Ladies’ Academy and learned all the social graces, although you wouldn’t know it now,” she said, a bit of humor in her voice. And a sweet guilelessness he remembered from Sara.
“All my dresses are somewhere in the mountains.” She paused, and there was a long silence. He opened his eyes and looked at her and saw wistfulness, even a deep, heartfelt grief she tried to hide.
“We’ll buy new ones,” he said. But the sadness didn’t leave her face, and again something pounded in his head, something he should remember.
Rafe. The name had been said softly, not hard and accusing, as it had echoed in his mind for years.
But it couldn’t be. He was mixing up dreams and nightmares. She had only been lost.
Her words stopped. She’d hesitated again, and then those wonderful eyes looked down at him, this time with a question. “Do you remember anything yet?” she asked. “About who shot you?” There was an intensity in her voice that startled him.
He tried to remember because it sounded so important to her. But there was only the memory of riding, of thinking.…
And then it started coming back. Brief, quick, painful flashes. McClary drawing a gun. McClary firing. Holy Mother in heaven. He’d told McClary he was going to confess all.
He looked up into his daughter’s face. The daughter he’d just met, the daughter who looked at him with a wonder of her own. And he knew he couldn’t explain his past and see the contempt on her face.
Jack closed his eyes. He had to have time first. Time to make her love him. Time to spoil her. Time to know her.
McClary was probably gone for good, especially since he must have thought he’d killed the man he’d blackmailed for so long. And Tyler? Perhaps Tyler would decide the shooting had been vengeance enough. He would realize he would be the prime suspect.
“F-Father?” The word was so uncertain on her lips. So tentative. He had to have time before she realized what kind of man he’d been.
He kept his eyes closed, pretending sleep to keep anything from showing on his face, to keep from answering any more questions.
But he kept her words in his mind, like photographs he could take out at will and study.
Then Rafe Tyler’s face replaced them, his eyes piercing him with hate as they had ten years ago on the parade ground.
And he knew Tyler would never let him go.
Her hand touched him so gently. He heard her soft sigh, and then the movement of the chair, her steps across the room, the opening and closing of a door. He opened his eyes, and the room was empty.
Jack Randall tried to move again, tried to sit up. He managed, but only after waves of pain assaulted him. He could see himself in the mirror, and he looked away, hating what he saw there, hating the notion that now kept flitting around in his mind.
He had only one way of holding on to his daughter. And that was to destroy Rafe Tyler one last time.
He only needed to tell Russ Dewayne it was Tyler who shot him.
Jack Randall clamped his teeth together, trying to swallow the leadlike lump in his throat.
Rafe Tyler or his daughter. Guilt against his need to know and love his daughter.
He already knew which course he would take.
Even if it hastened his descent into the hell he’d tried to avoid these past few years by doing some good.
But God knew him, had offered another choice, and Jack Randall knew he would fail again. The Devil had always had the upper hand with him, offering comfort rather than poverty, freedom rather than punishment. Someday he would pay the price, but he’d never been able to resist the Devil’s choice.
As he knew he wouldn’t now.
He only wished he could remember what it was that kept nagging at him. Words he should remember. His daughter’s whispered words.