Joseph rubbed his eyes. “I knew you’d think that, because it was my first thought as well. But it feels like I’m missing something. It’s there, right in front of me, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
David sighed. “I’m sorry, Joseph. I know you like that old lady. But I’m going to have to question her again.”
“I know it.” And Joseph truly did. The evidence was stacking up against Amanda. David would be a piss-poor marshal if he ignored that.
“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll go alone this time,” David said.
“Why? Don’t you trust me to keep quiet?”
“It’s not that,” David replied. “I’m just thinking it’ll be easier for you this way. Chances are, it’s going to get ugly, and for reasons beyond me, you’re fond of the old lady.”
After parting company with David, Joseph rode into town to visit the blacksmith shop. He found Bubba hard at work on the ironwork for the ceiling of Rachel’s courtyard.
“So you decided to go ahead with the idea, did you?” Joseph said.
Bubba grinned. “Folks will be showing up out there with rock soon, so get yourself in a mind to work.”
“I haven’t even gotten her barred doors installed yet.”
“Well, you’d best get started, son. With my Sue Ellen at the helm, things get done in short order. Spring’s coming on. Just look at this pretty weather. She says every day that we delay is one day less that Miss Rachel will get to enjoy the sunshine.”
“I really appreciate what all you folks are doing,” Joseph said.
Bubba went back to pounding a red-hot bar on the anvil next to the forge. “Not doing it for you. We’re doing it for her. And we’ll see how grateful you are when you’re working from dawn to dark, building those walls.”
“I’m hoping to get my brothers to help.” A memory flashed in Joseph’s mind of the first fireplace that he and his brothers had built out at Ace’s place. Along had come a rainstorm, and the whole damned thing had toppled over. Hopefully they’d all learned a few things about working with mortar since then. “Those walls will go up in no time.”
“I hope so, or Sue Ellen will be out there building them herself. That’s how come she’s so skinny, don’t you know. The woman’s a bundle of nervous energy. Never stands still.”
For a time, Joseph and Bubba discussed the particulars of the courtyard design. In snow country, a covered back porch was a must, and Joseph didn’t want Rachel’s to be removed.
“Why can’t we build around the porch?” Bubba asked. “The simplest way would be to encompass the backyard, the courtyard consisting of three stone walls, the house itself providing the fourth, with the porch inside the enclosure. If you build the rock wall shorter than the porch overhang, I can make grid work to stretch from wall to wall until we reach the overhang and support posts. From there, we’ll span the distance with individual bars so we can place them around the posts.”
“So the rock walls will attach to the house at each corner?”
Bubba nodded. “And the ceiling will come in under the overhang and be flush against the house. When she looks up, there’ll be bars spanning from wall to wall, just under the porch roof.”
“That’ll work,” Joseph agreed. And so it was decided.
Darby was sitting up in bed and sipping a cup of broth when Joseph stopped at Eden thirty minutes later. The old foreman’s face crinkled in a weak grin when he saw his visitor.
“Joseph,” he said. “Last time I recall seein’ you, your face was floatin’ around in a laudanum haze.”
“Well, now, and howdy. No haze today, I can see. You look as bright eyed as a speckled pup.” Joseph swept off his hat and grinned at Esa, who had taken up squatting rights on the chair beside the bed. “Your patient is a far sight better today, little brother. You’re shaping up to be a damned fine nurse.”
“Not to mention a wrangler,” Esa countered. “I delivered two calves this morning, too.”
“Any problems with Johnny?” Joseph asked.
“Bart says he’s been doing better since you threatened to dock his pay the other day,” Esa assured him. “Everything’s good on all fronts.”
“I wish I had two Barts,” Joseph said with a sigh. “Sadly, they don’t all have a good work ethic. What else has been happening around here?”
“Doc left about two hours ago.” Esa grinned. “He thinks there’s a good chance Darby might live. I have ten dollars that says otherwise, and Doc’s a betting man, so now he’s in town trying to get a pool going. If the majority of folks go with Doc’s prognosis, I’ll make a killing if Darby goes into a sudden decline.”
Joseph chuckled. He was pleased beyond words to see Darby sitting up. “Seems to me like a conflict of interest, Esa. You’re caring for the patient.”
“Like I’d hedge my bet? I’ll take good care of the old fart.” He held out a hand to Joseph. “Who are you betting on, Darby or the Grim Reaper?”
Joseph reached into his pocket and flipped his brother a gold eagle. “My money’s on Darby. He’s so stubborn, he’ll live just to spite you.”
Darby shakily set the cup of broth aside. “I’ve got an eagle. Can I bet on myself?”
“Hell, no,” Esa protested. “You’d stay alive just to get a cut.”
Darby held his stomach because laughing pained him. “God help me, if I survive, it’ll be a miracle. This boy may poison my broth.” Then he sobered and looked at Joseph. “How’s my little girl doin’?”
“Good,” Joseph said. “Except for her stealing my dog, she and I are getting along just fine.”
“Your dog?” Darby’s eyes filled with bewilderment.
Joseph encapsulated the events that had transpired since Darby’s injury. “Buddy has fallen in love, I’m afraid. Miss Rachel’s prettier than I am, she’s sweeter than I am, and she cooks better than I do. I can’t compete with all that.”
Darby sighed, let his head fall back against the pillows, and closed his eyes. “Take good care of her for me, Joseph. Whoever shot me will go after her next.”
“I haven’t left her alone once,” Joseph assured him. “When I have to leave, my brother Ace stands guard on the porch.”
Esa stood just then and excused himself to go start something for supper. When Joseph had taken his brother’s seat, he leaned forward to rest a hand on Darby’s forearm. “Are you too worn out to talk about the shooting, partner?”
Darby’s lashes fluttered. “I never saw who done it, if that’s what you’re wantin’ to know. Wish I had. I’d strap on my gun and go after the bastard myself.”
Joseph nodded. “David can’t prove anything yet, but we’ve been out to Pritchard’s place twice now, mostly just to make the old codger nervous, hoping he’ll do something stupid and hang himself.” Joseph paused, then reluctantly added, “Amanda Hollister is our other prime suspect.”
Darby gave Joseph a sharp look.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Joseph hastened to add. “I’ve grown right fond of the lady, and I find it hard to believe she has it in her to kill anyone. It’s just that all the evidence seems to be stacking up against her.”
“What kind of evidence?”
As briefly as possible, Joseph recounted Rachel’s terrified reaction to seeing Amanda shortly after the massacre and how Rachel could no longer bring herself to write the letter H.
“Rachel took to leavin’ off the Hs right after her folks was killed,” Darby revealed. “It struck me peculiar, but I had so much on my plate back then that her spellin’ was the least of my concerns.”
Joseph could well imagine.
“It was a hard time after Henry died,” Darby went on wearily. “All the hands quit, thinkin’ they wouldn’t get paid, and left me with all the work. And let me tell you, there was a heap of it. On top of that, I had the girl to think of. She wouldn’t come out from behind her bed. Just huddled there in the corner, day and night. I had no choice but to leave off wranglin’ and set myself to the task of mak
in’ her feel safe. She grew so thin she looked like a skeleton.”
“Hell and damnation,” Joseph said softly.
“That don’t say it by half. I’ve never in all my life seen anyone that pale and skinny. She just sat in that corner, starin’ out all wild-eyed and afraid. When I tried to leave her to do my work around the place, she’d cry and beg me not to go. It fair broke my heart.”
Just thinking about it broke Joseph’s heart. “I’ve seen all your handiwork, Darby. You created a whole world for her in that kitchen. It’s nothing short of amazing.” A lot of men—hell, most men—would have gone looking for another job where they could have been sure to see payday. “You’re a good man, Darby McClintoch.”
“Pshaw. She’s like family to me. You stand fast with family, son, no matter how lean the times. Her and I got through it.”
Joseph sighed. “Back to Rachel screaming at the sight of Amanda and leaving out all her Hs. David and I believe the latter may have something to do with Amanda bearing the Hollister name.”
“You don’t need to explain your reasonin’ to me,” Darby said. “If Amanda opened fire on the family and Rachel saw it, everything makes sense, don’t it?”
Joseph relaxed back on the chair. “So you think we’re on to something?”
“Didn’t say that. I just see how you’re thinkin’ and can understand why.”
“But you disagree?”
“Absolutely,” Darby answered without hesitation. “I can tell you right now, son, you and your brother are tryin’ to tree the wrong coon.”
“Rachel screamed when she saw Amanda, Darby. She must have seen something when her family was killed—something that made her terrified of the woman.”
“Maybe so. Rachel loved her aunt Amanda like no tomorrow. There has to be a reason why she screamed. I just know it had nothing to do with Amanda being involved in the killings.” A distant look filled Darby’s green eyes as he stared at the ceiling. “Only Miss Rachel can give you the answers you’re seekin’. All I can tell you is what I know to be fact.”
“And that is?”
“Amanda might have been furious enough to shoot Henry, but she loved Marie and never would’ve harmed a hair on those children’s heads. Especially Rachel. She loved that girl like her own. Rachel takes after Amanda, you know.”
Joseph had noticed that, yes.
“Before Rachel took to hiding behind her walls, she and Amanda were like two peas in a pod, both of them as pretty as can be and too spunky by half. Rachel drove her mama to distraction. Marie wanted to put the girl in fancy dresses all covered with lace, and Rachel always ruined them first thing, more inclined to be in the barnyard than the parlor. I think Amanda pretended in her mind that Rachel was her own daughter. She lost a child early on, back in Kentucky when she was real young. I don’t think she ever quite got over it.”
“Who told you about that?” Joseph blurted.
Darby gave him a long, inquisitive study. “I was there, son. Question is, who told you?”
“Amanda.”
A slight frown creased Darby’s brow. “Did she now? In all these years, I’ve never known her to speak of it.”
“She swore a solemn oath to her father that she wouldn’t,” Joseph revealed. “He demanded her silence in exchange for allowing her to remain with the family.”
Darby’s eyes drifted closed. “That heartless old bastard. Is that why she never spoke of it?”
This was a fine kettle of soup, Joseph thought, with more secrets stirred into the mix than he could count. Darby knew about Amanda’s child? It boggled Joseph’s mind to think that two people who loved each other and should have been together might have been happily married all these years if only they’d been honest with each other.
“I hated that old son of a bitch,” Darby said.
Joseph jerked back to the moment. “Who, Luther Hollister?”
“Yes. He didn’t deserve Amanda as a daughter. Her little brother, Peter, was a sickly child. She was the only mother he ever knew, nursing him through one sickness after another while she kept the house and worked outdoors with the men every chance she got. Luther never gave her credit for one damned thing. She was such a fine girl. Loyal, clear to the marrow of her bones. But that counted for nothing when she got in trouble. He just washed his hands of her, like as if she was dirt. I honestly believe the only reason he allowed her to come back home was for fear of what folks might say. He didn’t care about Amanda, not the way he should have, anyways.”
“That’s too bad.”
Joseph studied the old foreman’s weathered face. Darby was a good, honest man and firmly believed in Amanda Hollister’s innocence. That probably wouldn’t sway David, but it went a long way with Joseph.
“She loves you, you know,” Joseph said softly.
Darby’s lashes fluttered open. “Who does?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “Amanda. She never stopped loving you.”
“Aw, heck. Go away with you. That’s pure nonsense. That girl never loved me. I just thought she did.”
Joseph met the old foreman’s gaze, saw the glimmer of hope in those green depths, and decided the poor man had been getting the small end of the horn long enough. “She wouldn’t marry you all those years ago because she felt unworthy. ‘Tarnished,’ was the word she used. She believed that you deserved someone pure and untouched, so she refused your proposal. She couldn’t tell you why because she’d sworn to her father that she’d never speak of it to anyone. But she never stopped loving you, Darby, not once in all these years.”
Darby struggled up on his elbow, clenching his teeth at the pain.
Joseph grabbed the foreman’s bare shoulders, which were amazingly well muscled for an old fellow’s. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I got some—hash to settle,” Darby bit out. “Damned fool girl. I knew—about the baby. What’d she think—that I believed she went off to finishin’ school like her daddy said? She didn’t come back finished. She came back skinny, with that little belly gone. In addition to bein’ stupid, does she reckon I’m blind, to boot?”
Esa heard the commotion and appeared in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“I need my britches and boots,” Darby said.
“You can’t get up,” Esa cried. “Doc said so. Two weeks bed rest, no less.”
Darby flung his wiry legs over the edge of the mattress. Hugging his waist with one arm, he sent Esa a fiery look. “I don’t care squat what Doc said. Get me my trousers, boy.”
“Darby,” Joseph tried, “you can’t be doing this. You’ll start that wound to bleeding again. There’ll be time enough later to—”
“Don’t talk to me about time. I almost died with that fever. What if it comes back? I have to talk to her now. So she’ll know I love her back. I can’t take that to the grave with me, son. I need her to know my feelin’s.”
As crazy as it would be for Darby to stand, let alone get dressed and try to ride a horse, Joseph could understand the old man’s sense of urgency. That was sobering. A week ago, he would have thought him totally insane. But that was before he met Rachel.
Thinking quickly, he said, “If you’re bent on talking to her, Darby, I’ll bring her here.”
The tension eased from Darby’s shoulders. “I’m bent on it. I love that woman to the marrow of my bones.”
“Fine, then. I’ll go fetch her. You can’t get up. You’ll bleed to death before you get there.”
Darby lifted his head. “You reckon she’ll come?”
“I know it,” Joseph assured him.
Darby sank weakly back onto the pillows. “Well, damn it, go get her then. I gotta give her a large piece of my mind.”
David’s horse was tethered to the hitching post in front of Amanda Hollister’s house when Joseph rode in. He swung down from the saddle and looped Obie’s reins over the horizontal pole, then ascended the steps two at a time to rap his knuckles on the front door. A few moments later, Amanda answered. S
he sat off to one side of the doorway in her wheelchair.
“Joseph,” she said with a sarcastic edge in her voice. “Have you come to attend the inquisition?”
“No, ma’am.” Joseph peered into the room and saw David sitting on the sofa. “I’m sorry to interrupt, little brother, but something important came up. Miss Hollister is urgently needed over at my place.”
Amanda’s face drained of color. “It’s Darby, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, but not in the way you think. The fever broke, and he’s on the mend.”
She placed a shaking hand over her heart. “Thank God. I thought he’d taken a turn for the worse.”
“No, ma’am. But he insists on seeing you, straightaway. If you don’t go to him, he’ll try to come here. The effort’s liable to kill him.”
Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “You told him.”
It wasn’t a question. Joseph nodded and said, “Damn straight I told him. Someone needed to.”
“You had no right.”
“I know it, and I apologize. But I can’t honestly say I’m sorry. He needed to know.”
“Is he angry?”
Joseph considered the question. “Well, now, let’s just say he’d be whipping wildcats right now if he weren’t weak as a kitten.”
Amanda rolled her chair back so Joseph could enter. “I trusted you.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know you did.” Joseph considered trying to explain his reasons for breaking her confidence, but the words just wouldn’t come. “But there are some things a man has a right to know, and that’s one of them. He knew about the baby all those years ago.”
“He what?”
“He knew,” Joseph repeated. “He never believed the story your father told about sending you off to finishing school. He knew you’d gone away to have a child in secret long before he asked you to be his wife.”
A stricken expression came over Amanda’s face. “Why did he never say anything?”
Joseph removed his hat and finger-combed his hair, thinking that she hadn’t exactly been the epitome of forthrightness herself. But this wasn’t the time for accusations. “I can’t speak for Darby. You’ll have to ask him why he never said anything. Will you go with me? If you don’t and he tries to come here, it’ll be on your head.”