CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Belle paced the front room of the old ranch house, dying to get outside and walk the premises. The doctor, who was exceptionally friendly, had seen to Moses and bandaged his broken ribs. They were to watch for signs of internal bleeding, such as severe pain in the abdomen, coughing or vomiting blood, and something else he’d whispered to Blake after darting several wary looks at her. She’d caught the word urine. At almost twenty-two years old, she wished the men would stop treating her like a child. Moses, awake now—and pumped full of morphine for the pain—had demanded to be taken to the bunkhouse and his own cot.
Strange how suddenly this place feels like home. Alone and in the quiet, it was as if she’d never left. She wrapped her arms around herself and willed memories to resurface. The sink along the far wall. The cooking stove in the corner. Two bedrooms, one of which had been her parents’, and the other, hers and her sisters’, later to be taken over by Blake. She had learned that, after her father passed, Blake had gathered his things and moved into the bunkhouse. He was there now with Moses and the men.
She went to the window, noticing a fine layer of dust on the windowsill. Her parents must have been very unhappy. Why else would Mother leave? Father’s letter had blamed the Indian raids, and yet that didn’t seem like enough. Life is a paradox. Will we ever know the truth?
She sucked in a deep breath. She was supposed to be waiting for a woman that Henry was sending out to stay with her. To act as chaperone. Why? This was now her ranch, and her sisters’. Do I need a chaperone in my own home? That’s ridiculous. Feeling trapped, she stepped out onto the porch, the early-evening coolness calming her. Mavis, Emma, Lavinia, and Katie would be back out tomorrow, after they’d rounded up riding and work clothes.
The lonely call of a mourning dove drew Belle off the porch. She meandered down a path toward the corrals and stuck her hand through the wooden boards. The few cattle inside watched her with cautious eyes, hanging back against the far fence. Skirting the other two corrals, she headed for the barn. The door was heavy, and she had to put her shoulder into the wood to slide the beast open. Several cats darted away. With ease, they bounded up the tall posts and disappeared into the loft. In the second stall, Gunner had his head buried in a mound of hay. He lifted it for a moment when she looked in, then went back to eating.
Leaving the barn, she did her best to pull the heavy door closed. She started up toward where she was told the new place would be built. The sun had set. A brisk chill raised gooseflesh. She realized she should have found a jacket in the closet before venturing out.
Reaching the flat top of the hill, she turned a full circle. Beautiful view. Perfect place for the new house. There was an abundance of trees to the left. Beneath them, she spotted a small cemetery. Father’s grave? As she got closer, she noticed not one, but four, graves, one of fresh-looking dirt, the other three, old grass-covered mounds, beaten down by the weather. Who could they be?
A sorrow deeper than the depths of the ocean filled her. This was the closest she’d been to her father in eighteen years. Her father, who’d loved her, rested right here.
She inched to a stop in front of the new grave. A towering ponderosa pine stood guard only a few feet away. A handful of smaller, whimsical blue-green evergreens with upturned tips bobbed in the breeze. A nice place to rest, she thought. A nice place for eternity.
JOHN COLUMBUS BRINKMAN
BORN MARCH 11, 1830. DIED AUGUST 15, 1880.
HUSBAND TO CELESTE MAY FIELD BRINKMAN.
PROUD FATHER OF MAVIS, BELLE,
EMMA, LAVINIA, KATIE, AND BLAKE.
And the epitaph: NOTHING SOOTHES A MAN’S SOUL LIKE A WIDE-OPEN VISTA.
That made Belle smile. The view here was gorgeous. Father would never tire of the sight.
Thank goodness you had Blake with you for all these years, Father. I’m so happy he was here to be your son. I’m sorry so many years had to pass before we came home. I hope you know we would have come sooner, if we’d known. Please forgive me for not doing more to find out about you.
A twig snapped. Frightened, Belle spun around. Blake had warned her extensively about the ranch hand named Praig, and here she was, out walking around alone at dusk.
It was Blake. He stood back, giving her time. She was sure he wouldn’t come up unless invited. She smiled and motioned him forward.
“I see you found your father’s grave,” he said, his voice bringing a surprising peace to her jittery heart.
So much has happened so fast. Learning about Father’s death, then the trip here. The inheritance. The stunning discovery Father wasn’t the scoundrel we’d all believed.
And now this all-encompassing feeling she got whenever she took in the sight of these mountains, the ranch, the old house. Even the man beside her. All parts of her father. She wished with her whole heart she could have him back. Even for one minute.
“I did. I hope you don’t mind?”
“You need to be careful, at least until we find Praig.” He held her gaze. “This isn’t a game. You understand?”
She nodded. “How’s Moses?”
“Still feeling the effects of the morphine. He fell asleep a few minutes ago.”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, gazing at her father’s grave. He seemed to be wrestling with a problem in his mind. The mourning dove that had been breaking her heart suddenly fluttered down onto the grass a few feet away.
“Will you tell me about him?”
“Your pa?”
She nodded. “Your father as well, by the words on his headstone.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that. Henry took care of all his last wishes.”
“I see.”
He was hurting too. The long grass around the perimeter of the small, quaint burial ground waved gently, and she had the urge to step closer to him, but she didn’t. The peace here was intoxicating.
“John was a darned good man. Best I’ve ever known. He fed the Andersons through a hard winter, making sure they had plenty to eat after Mr. Anderson hurt his back. He did the same for Widow Lang and her granddaughter. Sent the Greens’ twins to a hospital in Denver when Doc Dodge couldn’t diagnose the problem at hand.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “Made sure the orphanage had firewood and food. He never turned anyone away, no matter their problem. There’re too many instances to list.”
“Did he ever talk about us?”
A sentimental smile crossed his lips. “All the time. He’d worry I’d get sick of listening and said so, but I didn’t. I liked how reminiscing made him feel. He wondered about you. What you looked like. What your characters and behaviors turned out to be. What you liked, or disliked. If any of you had married. He had his opinions from when you were babes.” He turned his head and winked at her. “‘Now Belle,’ he used to say, ‘she’s my firecracker. I pity the man who she decides to marry. He better be strong, because I’ve never seen a spirit on any of my girls like I do in her.’ Then he’d chuckle and shake his head, recounting a story I’d heard about a thousand times about you wanting a toy Mavis was holding, a little doll your mother had sewn out of cloth. You were only about one, too young to know about temptation, but somehow you did. You hounded Mavis until you got it—keep in mind you could barely crawl at that time.” He shook his head. “Once you had the toy, you plopped down on your diaper and held it out in offering until Mavis came close, eyeing the toy. When she was within reach and put out her hand to take it, you jerked it away, making her cry.”
Belle tried to hold it in, but a strangled sob slipped out between his words. She’d thought she could handle learning more, but out here under the blue sky that her father had loved so much, she realized just how much she’d lost, how much they’d all lost. Standing in front of a grave instead of him—alive, vibrant, and happy—caused an unendurable agony. Heartbroken, she dashed at the moisture on her cheeks.
He cut his gaze to her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I really do want to hear.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “My tears, though. I’m embarrassed . . .”
“Don’t be. Just shows you have a heart.” He went back to staring at the graves. “For all these years, I didn’t think you did. Now I know different.”
She looked at another grave, the one with the oldest, most faded headstone, beaten and shabby from the weather. Several of the chiseled-out letters had crumbled away, making reading it a challenge—except that it bore the same name as her father’s. Her grandfather, John Brinkman. This land had been in her father’s blood for years, and his father’s before him. No wonder he couldn’t leave it when her mother had decided to go to Philadelphia. That would have been a sentence worse than death.
“Whose grave is that?” She pointed to a smaller, simpler marker. “Cranston Field. Do you know?”
Blake nodded. “I do. Your mother’s father.”
Another grandfather. How special. She studied the dates, her mind filling with a thousand questions. She was about to ask when she noticed Blake’s gaze anchored on a plain wooden cross set off under a copse of aspen all by itself. Could it be a grandmother, or a sister or brother I didn’t know about? Why is that person set away from the rest?
“The wooden cross. Whose is that?”
He stood so still he reminded her of the pictures she’d seen of Michelangelo’s David, only clothed in Western attire. His pants encased powerful thighs, and a blue chambray shirt that looked as soft as the clotted cream they served at her favorite teahouse in Philadelphia covered his potent chest and arms. She was on his right side, so she couldn’t see the scar. How painful that injury must have been. And it had something to do with Moses. But when she raised her eyes farther, it was the devastated look in his thundery blue gaze that captured her completely.
“My wife. Ann. Only eighteen. And my daughter, Marcia. They both died in childbirth.”
He glanced her way for only a second.
The mourning dove called out again, and Belle thought she’d never heard anything so sad. Blake. A widower? Lost a wife and daughter on the same day. How could he stand it? Her heartbreak was complete. She should say a soothing word, but what? There was nothing to cure a pain like that. Nothing that could ever make his world right again.
“How long ago?”
He kicked at a mound of grass. “Four years.”
What to say? Or do? She felt rooted to the ground.
“Blake, I’m so, so sorry—”
He put up a hand to silence her. Surely, his visits here were usually alone, to be with his wife and daughter. And now her father too. The briskness of the wind made her shiver.
Or was that caused by the souls lingering in the dancing trees?
Blake cleared his throat and turned away. He was over the pain long ago. Over everything, as a matter of fact. He just needed to get through each day, and then one day, to his surprise, a certain hour would be his last. That’s what John used to say. “One day at a time, one breath at a time.” Blake understood that completely. He looked off at the mountains. “You have any recollections of making mud pies?” he asked, embarrassed when his voice came out thick with emotion. He waited for her answer.
She shook her head. He began a slow walk in the grass. She followed.
“You should. One day, when your ma was large with Katie, she kept Lavinia with her and sent John and me out from underfoot with you, Mavis, and Emma. John had the bright idea to take his girls fishing. Well, that lasted all of two seconds. Mavis found a shallow spot in the sand, safe with boulders that cut it off from the river. There, the three of you ended up covered in mud, freezing cold from splashing each other—and us—even though it was the dead of summer. And boy, could you chatter like a magpie. You’d Blake me this and Blake me that.” He chuckled. “Your ma was none too pleased with us on our return.”
The story brought a smile back to Belle’s lips.
“You don’t remember?”
Again, she shook her head, a tender look in her eyes.
Spotting a group of riders coming up the long and winding road that led to the ranch, he pointed, thankful for a diversion. He recognized the fellas. One was the town’s mayor, a man who sometimes stood in for Clint when the sheriff had more important things to attend to—like hunting Praig, Riley, and Bush. Moses hadn’t said anything about the other two men being there, but they still had to be questioned. The other rider was a hireling from one of the saloons. Out in front was the woman they were escorting: Nicole Day. She rode as well as any man. Belle was in for a treat.
“That would be your companion.” His chuckle sounded strange, even to his own ears. “I don’t think the ranch has ever seen so much activity in one day.” He slid his gaze to hers, and her lips tipped up. “You have a way of disrupting things.”
“I hope in a good way. And I hope it calms down soon. A person can only take so much.”
“You’re telling me that?”
“Yes, I am. Let’s go see who they sent to hold my hand,” she said with a note of cynicism. “I can hardly wait.”
“Don’t be turning up your nose at help. You haven’t been here but a few hours. I promise you, you’ll be glad Nicole’s here. And then tomorrow we can expect more Brinkmans. Things around the Five Sisters are really looking up.”