Unspeakable (16 page)

"That's my understanding. It was a genetic defect."

"Awful tough on a kid and her parents."

"I didn't know her folks. Didn't meet Anna till Dean brought her home." Jack assumed a listening posture. Delray glanced at him but he didn't start speaking again until his eyes were back on the road. "I can't say I was too happy about it. My boy came home all excited about this deaf girl he'd met at the junior college. Sure, I admired her for attending school. College isn't easy on kids who aren't handicapped. Must be a real struggle for someone like Anna. She had an interpreter, but it's gotta take guts."

Jack stretched one arm along the back of the seat. "Kids who have to work harder at it probably appreciate it more, and might even do better because of it."

"I know Anna did. She worked hard and got good grades. But admiring somebody for what they've accomplished and inviting them into your family are two different things. I admit that I was against Dean and her being together. At first. But then I got to know her and saw how crazy Dean was about her, and—"

"And if Dean was the man he should have been—and I figure he was—your opinion wasn't going to matter."

Delray turned his head, looking ready to challenge Jack's comment. Then his features softened and he shook his head with chagrin. "My opinion didn't matter. They got married and for a while were as happy as any two people I've ever seen. Then he decided to join the army." Jack let Delray tell him the rest of the story, even though he'd already heard it from Anna.

"While Dean was overseas, Anna continued her schooling. Her parents had left her enough of a legacy to pay for her education. After she finished at the junior college, she drove forty miles one way to take her upper-division courses. She was studying photography.

"But when Dean came home and got sick, she gave up school to take care of him. After he died and David came along, there wasn't much point in her continuing her studies, I guess." Jack disagreed, but it wasn't his place to say so.

"That's when she stopped talking, too."

Jack had been mentally arguing all the reasons why Anna should have completed her education and earned her degree. It took several seconds for him to process Delray's last statement. When he did, he lowered his arm from the back of the seat. "Come again? Did you say that Anna used to speak?"

"She was shy about it, especially around strangers, but Dean had encouraged her to keep up her speech classes."

Jack was still struggling with his disbelief. "She could speak?"

"Not like you and me, but pretty good. You could understand her. Actually it's amazing when you think about it. That she could say out loud sounds she had never heard." This revelation left Jack shell-shocked. Whenever Anna signed, she mouthed the words. Her moving lips were an intrinsic part of her very expressive face. But she had never put her voice behind the words. "Why'd she stop? Why doesn't she speak now?" Delray's shrug looked defensive. He shifted in his seat like it had suddenly become prickly. "She doesn't need to. Fact is, some deaf people don't want to speak and resent those who think they should learn. They rely strictly on sign language."

"But don't others—like Anna did—combine them?"

"Sometimes, yeah."

"They sign, read lips, and speak, right?"

"I'm not an expert on deaf education."

Jack persisted. "It must have taken years for her to develop those skills. Why did she stop using them?"

"I don't know." Delray's tone was testy and his volume bordered on a shout. "Why don't you ask Anna? Next time you two get together for a chat."

Jack had been right. Delray was angry about what he had spied from his bedroom window the night before. Jack had seen him standing there, outlined against a faint interior light. Darkness and distance prevented their eyes from connecting, but Jack had known beyond a doubt that Delray was looking directly at him. He also got the impression that Delray had been standing there a long time and had seen Anna leaving the barn.

Neither had moved for several seconds. Finally Delray had turned into his room and disappeared from the window.

Now he was hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it tightly, staring at the road ahead as though it were the enemy and he had resolved to conquer it. His jaw looked set in concrete. If Jack were to guess, he would say the man was angry and in emotional pain. Quietly he asked, "How long have you loved her, Delray?"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

N
aturally the Mexicans had demanded to be paid immediately. Emory Lomax was out fifty bucks, but if it had cost him twice that to sabotage Delray Corbett's livelihood, it would have been well worth it. Jesse Garcia and his ever-changing band of assorted kin had rumbled down Main Street just when Emory needed them. If he hadn't happened to be looking out his office window at the same time Garcia's pickup truck rolled past, he still would be trying to formulate a plan to ensure acquisition of the Corbett ranch. Fortune had smiled on him in the form of Jesse Garcia.

He was known around town as a fix-it man. Screen doors, sprinkler systems, septic tanks. And situations. You needed a storm-door lock replaced, Garcia was your man. Your trees needed the deadwood trimmed, Garcia and his cousins could take care of it in an afternoon and haul off the brush. You wanted to see your asshole of a neighbor run into some real bad luck with his brandnew van, fifty bucks in Garcia's hand, and you had the pleasure of watching the man next door have a hissy fit in his driveway.

When it came to payback, Garcia was a good man to know. He didn't mind getting his hands dirty, literally and figuratively. All those things people said they would like to do to their enemy, Garcia did for them. He drew the line at maiming or killing, but he had a creative imagination. If you didn't have an idea for a befitting revenge, he had a menu of selections. He didn't discriminate. He would work for anybody willing to pay his fee. You might be his client one night, his victim the next. But that was Garcia's system. Nobody argued with it because nobody wanted him as their enemy, and it is an established fact that all Mexicans carry knives.

He had told Garcia to create a little havoc with the Corbett herd. "Nothing too catastrophic. Do you comprende catastrophic, Jesse?"

He had comprended, and the following day it was all over town that Corbett had lost several head of cattle under mysterious circumstances, the scourge of every cattleman. Bad for business. Stigmatizing. That kind of scare would have any rancher shivering in his shoes. Look what mad cow disease had done to beef sales in England.

Emory's step had been jaunty with confidence as he left the bank for his scheduled appointment with Corbett, believing that he would be in a bargaining mood. But Emory had an unpleasant surprise waiting on him when he arrived at the ranch. Incredibly, Corbett was no more ready to entertain his offer than before.

"Did you look through the material?" he asked out of frustration after half an hour of seesawing.

"I did."

"Wouldn't you say their track record is impressive?"

"I suppose."

How could the old coot not be dazzled by that glossy brochure and the information it contained?

Or was he just being stubborn in the hope of jacking up the asking price? "They're making a mighty generous offer on your place, Mr. Corbett. Mighty generous." Not nearly as complacent as he pretended, Emory sat back in the easy chair and propped one ankle on his opposite knee. "EastPark Development wants this property in the worst way. Their offer is much higher than the appraised value. But it's their money, right?" He glanced across the living room at Anna and winked.

She had politely served him a glass of iced tea when he arrived, but she had looked at him like he had tracked in dog shit. Where did she get off being so hoity-toity?

He had been charming and mannerly, making eye contact with her so she wouldn't feel excluded from the discussion, even though Delray had been signing their conversation for her benefit. He never failed to go out of his way to be nice to her when she came into the bank, but she wasn't what he would call friendly in return.

Right now an ice cube wouldn't melt on her ass. But he would still like to get his hands on it. He bet he could readjust her attitude easily enough.

Delray closed the syllabus and tossed it onto the coffee table. "Let me understand this, Lomax. They want me to part with a square mile of land that I already own, and settle for a little chunk of it?"

Emory smiled expansively. "That's oversimplifying, of course, but yes, as an incentive for you to accept the deal, they're willing to let you have first choice of the lots, plus they would waive all homeowner fees and give you a lifetime club membership."

"A lifetime club membership."

"That's right," Emory replied in a spider-to-the-fly tone. "How's that sound?"

"No deal."

Corbett stood. Lomax shot to his feet. "Mr. Corbett, we put the proposal in layman's terms for you, but I think you're still failing to grasp—"

"I can read, Mr. Lomax."

"I didn't mean to imply... Please don't think that..." He was sunk if Corbett thought he thought he was stupid. He must tread lightly. "It's just that unless you conduct this kind of transaction on a regular basis, the complexities are liable to escape you."

"That may be. But there's no complexity to my answer. I'm not interested." His voice going shrill, Emory said, "They're willing to pay you more than the property is worth."

"Then they're a bunch of damn fools, aren't they?"

Emory lowered his voice to a more reasonable tone. "You would have a great deal of money. You could build any kind of house you wanted on your lot."

"I like this house and this lot."

Emory was hanging on by a thread and he could feel it unraveling in his fist. His pager beeped. Impatiently he turned it off and desperately tried another tack with Corbett. "It shouldn't be your decision alone. What about Anna here? What does she think of our proposal?" Before he had fully completed the question, she was signing an answer. "She says the ranch is mine," Delray told him. "It's her son's legacy. She backs my decision."

"I'm glad she brought up her son. Take him into account. His education. By the time he gets to college—"

"We already have funds set aside for that."

"But—"

Delray held up his hand. "I listened to your sales pitch, Mr. Lomax. It was a waste of breath on your part, and a waste of my time, but I showed you the courtesy of a meeting. Which is now over. Good-bye."

When Delray turned, ready to leave the room, Lomax grappled for his final handhold. "There's the matter of your loan."

Corbett stopped dead in his tracks, then came around slowly and glared at him. His face was turning red. "What about it?"

Emory drew his lips into a pucker of regret. He gave his head a small, sorrowful shake that said he hated to bring this up and only did so because he'd been left no choice. "This quarter's interest payment was late, Mr. Corbett."

"Only by a few days."

"What about next quarter? And the one after that?"

"I have never failed to meet my financial obligations."

"I'm sure that's true. But you've never had as rough a time as you're having these days. And, frankly, I don't see any end to it in the near future. The beef market is soft. You're a beef cattle rancher. You see my point?" He spread his arms wide. "Because you've always been a good customer, the bank was willing to extend you a sizable loan. But we can't let it just sit there forever."

"You're making money on it, Lomax. As long as I pay the interest—"

"But we're at the mercy of the bank examiners. They're the ones who're getting nervous, not me." To demonstrate his earnestness, he folded his hands over his chest. "Because of pressure from them, I'm placed in the position of demanding that you begin reducing the principal in addition to making the interest payments."

"Fine. I'll manage."

"How? As overseer of your accounts, I know that your present cash flow is practically nil. Your overhead hasn't decreased, in fact just the opposite. Do the arithmetic. Your balance sheet is looking less and less optimistic. And now with this other... difficulty." That got Corbett's attention. His head snapped back as though Emory had socked him on the chin. Actually, this was better. A verbal attack was eminently more satisfying to Emory than physically beating the old codger.

"No sooner had you called Dr. Andersen than the tomtoms started telegraphing word of a possible cattle-killing epidemic. Every rancher for miles around heard about your misfortune."

"There was no disease in my herd. It was an isolated incident."

"It appears so, yes, but it was an expensive loss for you. Especially now, when every pound of beef translates into dollars and cents."

"I only lost five head. It won't happen again."

"But you can't be sure, can you? There might be repercussions even after your stepson is captured."

That verbal volley was even better than the last round. It seemed to strike Corbett in the belly. It was all Emory could do not to smile. Jesus, this was great! He was in top form. Why weren't Connaught and the other muckety-mucks of EastPark here to see this? If Connaught could see how effectively he was manipulating Delray Corbett, he would probably boost him into a vicepresident's position.