In Too Deep (6 page)

“Yeah, Tracker found Wendell. He probably killed him, grabbed the money, and ran,” Mitch said.

Jasper nodded at his man Mitchell Wilks. Trouble was, by hiring Breach, he'd hired someone who didn't have the sense to be afraid of him.

“Wendell was an expert at leaving a hard trail to follow, sir,” Mitch added. The cowboy stood in his sharp black suit with his hands folded in front of him, a nasty piece of humanity. He'd made his living slipping guns and whiskey and runaway slaves past blockades during the War Between the States. He hadn't cared what he was smuggling. He'd taken slaves north and taken them back south. He'd been with Jasper since the war ended, and so far there was nothing that was too low for the man.

No one he wouldn't kill. No vice he wouldn't enjoy. But all in his tidy way. His suit never got wrinkled while he carried on with the worst kind of depravity.

Jasper considered him the next thing to a brother.

“Tracker didn't hide his trail.” Grove Cassidy was cadaver-thin with a face drawn into grim lines that Jasper had never seen bend into a smile. He scared grown men into turning over everything they had to escape his wrath. Jasper's gut clenched when he thought of some of the methods Grove used. He was the reason Jasper had such a choke hold on his territory. Between Grove and Mitch, no one ever crossed Jasper Henry. And now, Wendell had.

“Tracker could hide in the wilderness.” Jasper had lived off the land after Pa had thrown him out. He knew how to survive, but it was a life with no comforts. And the people who lived there were tough men. His easiest prey was in a more civilized world. But he had to have that money. Wendell was small-time, but he'd put his hands on the wrong bag at the exact right moment, and he'd taken enough to ruin Jasper's empire.

“He might.” Grove rarely said a sentence when a word or two would do.

Mitch was all charm, though. “We've found a clear trail the man left heading west. We've gotten a steady stream of telegrams from Tracker and lists of the towns he searched. And we've checked with some men in those towns and they confirm Tracker was there when he said he was. He may have gone into hiding once he found the money, but we should be able to find the exact time and place he went missing. And from there, we can start searching.”

“I made it clear the price he'd pay for betrayal. Real clear. You know the system we set up to leave letters, care of general delivery, in each town. Check for those letters. They'll have a lot more details than a wire.”

“We've gotta get moving.” Grove's cold eyes spoke of eagerness to hurt anyone who'd betray Jasper.

“We leave on the train west in two hours.” Mitch pulled his pocket watch out and flicked it open with a sharp metallic click. “We'll find Tracker, and if he has the money, we'll get it. If he doesn't have it, we'll find it.”

“Don't make me come after the two of you.” Jasper knew exactly the kind of men he hired. Neither could touch him for ruthlessness.

“If you had any doubts about our loyalty, we'd've been dead long ago,” Mitch said, snapping his watch shut.

Grove's steady gaze was all the agreement Jasper was going to get.

Both of them left the room as silently as avenging demons.

Jasper's throat almost swelled shut when he thought of some of the men he owed money.

Fear.

He'd dispensed his share, but he hadn't felt any since he was young and had learned to deny everything weak. And nothing was weaker than fear.

And right now . . . he was terrified.

Ethan was on his way home. He was taking along his wife and two children.

He paused to see if he might wake up—but nope.

And he had Seth, who had just claimed a homestead. Ethan wasn't sure Seth even fully realized that, but Seth was the owner of all the good water holes for a thousand acres. It was mostly forests and yet there was some decent grassland included, too. Seth's land connected Rafe's caldera to where Ethan lived on the old homeplace. It gave the Kincaids control of over ten thousand acres of rugged mountain range, lush with grass and thick with timber. A lot of people would've seen wasteland, but the Kincaids had lived here long enough to know the wealth to be found in these mountains.

Ethan and Rafe would explain the land he owned to Seth more clearly, later, after he settled down. And the first step to settling him down was taking him home.

Home.

Home without Rafe.

That wasn't how Ethan had pictured things when he'd decided to quit his wandering ways. At least now Audra and her daughters were miles and miles away from that ugly hole in the ground.

“What are we having for supper, Audra?” Seth, leading the way, eager to get home, pulled his horse back so he could ride alongside them.

“I have no idea.” She looked from Seth to Ethan. “Is there any food in the cabin?”

Ethan tried to remember. “I haven't hardly been home since I've been home.”

“You haven't been home since you've been home?” Audra smiled at him. A cold, mean-hearted kind of smile. A shiver of fear raced up Ethan's back.

“Being married is kind of strange, isn't it?” Ethan looked down at Maggie, sitting on the saddle in front of him, flopped over his left arm, dozing. Lily was asleep in Audra's arms. He had two children.

Strange for sure.

“I'll say it is.” Audra shook her head. “I had hoped that man who hurt Rafe and Julia and Seth would be shipped away by now.”

“Tracker was my friend.” Seth bent toward Audra to look at Lily.

Audra shuddered. Ethan sure hoped she was shuddering because of Tracker and not because of Seth. Life could be a trial if Seth made her shudder.

“He was a bad friend, Seth.” Ethan wondered if Seth would ever start thinking clearly enough to remember Tracker had shot him.

It wasn't just being married that was strange.

“The sheriff said the judge would be in Rawhide soon.” Audra's worry lines seemed deeper all the time. “I had hoped he'd be locked up in a penitentiary by now.”

“Can you cook, Audra?” Seth asked.

She smiled.

Ethan was curious about that, too, and happy to hear a question that wasn't quite so life-and-death.

“Yes, I think I'm a decent cook. I did a lot of cooking before I married Wendell. Julia handled most of it while I lived with her, but I know how.”

Ethan met her eyes and smiled. “I reckon having a woman around the house will be pleasant.” Then his smile faded. “Unless you're planning to cry day and night like our ma did.”

“I hardly ever cry.”

“Well, good. If you do feel such an inclination, I'd appreciate it if you didn't act on it.” Ethan saw the cabin come into view as they rounded a curve in the trail. “We're home.”

He pulled his horse to a stop and looked at the pretty cabin nestled in the valley, tucked up against a mountain, with a barn and corral. There was meadowland to the west and north. Horses grazed on lush grass. The mountain shaded them from the worst of the August sun and kept the grass green all summer. Rafe had turned his skilled hand to improving the cabin after Ethan had left.

“The barn is painted red,” Audra said as she stopped her horse beside him. “A log barn painted red. I've never seen that before. The whole place is really beautiful.”

“That's Rafe.” Ethan loved his big brother, but right now he was just a touch jealous. “He's a hand at carpentry. You saw how hard he worked on his own cabin.”

Audra nodded. “And he said he isn't close to done with it.”

“Our place didn't look like this when Pa was alive.” Seth reined his horse to a stop, and they sat, three in a row, staring at home.

“Nope, Pa never had much use for prettifying things. He wouldn't do it himself, and he wouldn't put up with Rafe doing it. Reckon once Rafe was here alone, he figured he'd run things his way. I got the feeling Rafe was mighty glad to see me. It'd be a lonely place to live with only a bunch of cowhands.”

Ethan looked at Seth and saw his little brother watching him.

Ethan said, “We should've never left him.”

“And now we're home and Rafe isn't here,” Seth said.

“Let's ride in. Audra, the inside is as pretty as outside.”

His wife smiled, and something tugged on Ethan's gut that wasn't jealousy but somehow reminded him of it. It also reminded him that he was a married man.

Ethan had done a lot of traveling around, but he'd stayed to manly places, spent time in the mountains trapping or mining, spent time on ships at sea. He'd never been around women much, except for his ma. And that hadn't been any fun.

The sun was low in the sky, but there was plenty of daylight left as they rode up. “Seth, will you hold the horses while I get Audra inside with the babies?”

“No,” Audra said. “Let me go with you to see the barn. Then we can go inside the house for the first time together. Is that all right?”

Ethan smiled. “Sure.” He steered his horse toward the barn. Steele Coulter, Rafe's foreman, came out of the bunkhouse. No, not Rafe's foreman. He was Ethan's foreman now. Ethan had to try and remember that.

Steele walked into the barn just behind them. “Howdy, Ethan, Seth, Mrs. Gilliland.”

Steele had been over helping build Rafe's house and he'd run for supplies and done other work for them. Ethan had come home and brought Seth a few times, too.

“She's Mrs. Kincaid now, Steele. Audra and I got hitched today.”

Steele's bushy gray brows arched, but he was a man of few words and one to mind his own business. He said nothing, just took the reins of Audra's horse. Ethan helped her down, with the baby asleep in her arms, as Maggie was asleep in his.

“Can you get my horse, too, Steele? Unless you want to hold the baby.” Ethan smiled at the grizzled old-timer, who took both sets of reins and grumbled but did a top job of stripping leather and brushing down the horses.

“Have you had any luck hiring more men? Rafe looked in town today, but there wasn't anyone hunting for work.”

“I've taken on a couple of new men and put the word out for more. We're set pretty well for now. Rafe said in about two weeks he'd be ready to take on hands, so we can see how they shape up here before we send 'em over.”

“Sounds good. And Seth filed on a claim today. He doesn't need to live over there for a while, so we might put off building him a house on his new property, but it should be up before the snow flies. You'll stay with us for a while, right, Seth?”

“Well, sure.” Seth looked confused, and Ethan wondered if he remembered filing a claim at all. “I want to live here at home, Eth. What are you going to build? Another house for Rafe? He don't need two.”

Ethan slid his eyes to Steele, who had some idea of how strangely Seth had been acting.

A barely perceptible nod from Steele assured Ethan the foreman would see that Seth got inside and didn't end up hanging from the rafters like a bat, or whatever crazy notion took him.

Ethan wanted just a few minutes in the house with his wife and children. Strange business having a wife and children with barely any notice.

They walked in and Ethan found things in good order. “Let's lay the little ones down. The room Rafe slept in is in good shape. I can pull the mattress off the bed and they can both sleep on that. Then if they roll out of bed, they won't get hurt.”

Audra nodded and followed Ethan upstairs. He noticed Rafe had changed the railing. The old one had been made of a slender young pine. Now it was carved wood. Rafe had taken his tools to his own place, so Ethan knew he had a lathe and a fine set of razor-sharp wood chisels.

They reached the top of the steps. “There are three bedrooms. I put Seth toward the back of the house the few times he's slept over here. I was afraid he'd run off and figured I had a better chance of catching him if he had to walk past my door.”

They were in a hallway with three doors opening off it. Ethan's room was closest to the top of the stairs on the right. It was the room his folks had slept in and stretched the length of the cabin. The bedroom straight across from his would be for the children. That room was about half the length of the cabin. Down the hall a second door opened to the left into Seth's room.

Ethan swung the door open, and holding Maggie in one hand, he dragged the mattress off Rafe's bed with the other.

“I think I'll put Lily in one of those drawers.” Audra pointed at a chest. “Can you pull the largest drawer out and put a blanket in it? I'd like her to be somewhere with sides. She can't roll yet, but I'd just feel better about it.”

“She didn't sleep anywhere with sides at your other house.”

“No.” Audra gave him a sad smile. “She certainly didn't. I'd like to do better for the children now.”

Ethan pulled the drawer out with a whisper of polished wood. “Rafe made all this furniture since I left. There are nice things all over the house.” Ethan set the drawer down, found a small quilt he remembered his mother using, and lined the drawer with it. He took Lily from Audra and laid her in the crib. Neither of the children so much as stirred.

“I'll show you our room.” Ethan led the way out and entered his own room. The nicest bedroom in the house by far. When he got inside it, he noticed Audra hadn't followed him. Just as he was beginning to wonder where she'd gotten to, she came in hesitantly.

“It's a pretty room. It's got a nice view of the yard and we get shade most of the day. The house stays cool in the summer, and we've got shelter from the wind in the . . .” He noticed Audra's silence. “Don't you like it?”

“No. I mean
yes
, I like it. It's not that. It's just that . . .” She looked at him and her cheeks were flushed pink. Her hands twisted together until her fingers had to hurt.

“What's the matter?” Ethan smiled. He solved all his problems by smiling.

“Ethan, you know I just had a baby.”

“Uh, yeah. I just laid her down. I'm not likely to forget her.”

“I . . . I can't be with . . .” The flush turned redder. Her eyes seemed to plead with him to understand.

“Can't be with what?”

Audra gestured toward the bed. “You. I can't be with you. Not as a wife. Not so soon after—”

“Oh, wait. Stop. Sure, I understand.” Ethan didn't exactly understand. “Look, Audra, that's fine.” It wasn't fine, except he didn't really know what she meant by not being with him. The ways of married life were a mystery to him. Did she want to sleep with the children?

His ma sat around and cried a lot. His pa worked the cattle or took off to check his traplines. That's all he knew about marriage. Oh, he knew about man-woman things in a general sense. He lived on a ranch after all. He'd helped deliver his share of foals and calves, and he'd certainly known how the babies had come to be in there. But beyond that, he was ignorant.

“Look, Audra. You'll have all the time you want. We need to get used to each other for a while before . . . before . . .”

The downstairs door opened and slammed shut. “Ethan?”

Seth.

With a sigh of relief, Ethan veered his mind away from
before
. Or more honestly, he veered it away from
after
, or really the truth was he had to veer it away from
during
.

“Anyway, you'll have all the time you want.” For whatever she was thinking about. Before whatever was supposed to happen happened. “So stop worrying. Let's go down and see about getting some supper.”

Audra smiled and looked so relieved it irritated Ethan for no reason he could understand. And that made about the tenth thing he didn't understand about being married.

She turned and fled from the room.

Ethan decided to just chalk it up to the woman being hungry.

He was a little hungry himself, though food didn't seem to be the exact right solution to his hunger.