CHAPTER ONE
Last day of February, 2016
BLADE HAMILTON WALKED to the dark water’s edge and stared into Indigo Lake. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong anywhere. He’d wasted his time coming to this nothing of a place.
By birth, the land was his. You’re the last of your branch of the Hamilton line, the judge in Crossroads had said an hour ago when he’d handed over the deed to Hamilton Acres. Only, Blade had never heard of this old homestead before a week ago. He’d known nothing about his father or a dilapidated ranch that carried his last name.
He’d picked up the keys and a map from the sheriff in town and ridden out before dark on his vintage 1948 Harley-Davidson. He’d paid sixty thousand for the Harley, and Blade would bet it was worth more than his inherited land and house put together.
The last quarter mile had been dirt road, ending in an old bridge that groaned as he crossed onto what the judge had called the old Hamilton place.
A weathered two-story house stood a hundred yards off the road, like a sentinel blocking his entrance. Fifty or so years ago someone must have painted the homestead bright red, but the wood had weathered to a sangria color that almost matched the mud along the lake. Huge cottonwoods waded into the water with their bony-kneed roots and haunting skeleton forms still naked from winter.
Thanks to a stream with a wide-yet-shallow waterfall flooding the open land, small trees and bushes grew to his left like a wild miniature forest. The house sat on high ground where vines, now brown with winter, seemed to be crawling across the ground and almost covering the porch. Another few years and the vines would probably pull the place down.
Leaving the bike on dry ground beside a small barn, he moved slowly toward the house, his mind already mapping out the route back to Denver. He’d grown up in cities and the silence of the country made him uneasy.
Blade dropped his saddlebags on the porch and unlocked the door. He slowly walked into a museum of hard times.
Most of the windows downstairs were boarded, so he used a flashlight to navigate. Guns were racked on the walls and animal hides served as rugs. The place must have been furnished about the turn of the twentieth century and left to age. The smell of neglect hung in the moist air, and a thick layer of dirt rested over draped furniture.
Pictures showing four or maybe five generations hung in the stairwell. Faces stared back, resembling him so closely Blade had to take a second look. Ranchers on horseback, soldiers in uniforms, an oil field worker leaning from a rig, a fisherman next to an old Jeep, a man in a suit with a string tie. All were identified by tiny plates at the bottom of the frames.
Hamilton men, many of whom carried Blade as their first or middle name. His father, Henry Blade Hamilton, stared back from an army photo. Vietnam, Blade guessed. It must have been taken when he was Blade’s age, early thirties.
Until a week ago, he hadn’t known he’d been named after the man his mother left before he was born.
When he stopped by his mother’s place last week she’d simply handed him a huge envelope and announced, “Looks like it’s from your father’s side of the family.”
“I have a father’s side?” Blade grumbled, thinking this was a hell of a way to start his monthly visit with her.
She gave him that you’re-dumber-than-rocks look she’d perfected during his teen years and walked away.
Blade swore, claiming in a loud voice that he never should have bothered to stop by. She never wanted to talk to him, anyway. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to hear what she had to say. From childhood he’d convinced himself he’d been adopted from another planet, and his mother was the only female who’d take him in.
She also took in stray dogs and cats along with an occasional out-of-work drunk, so being adopted wouldn’t have made him feel special.
His mother’s answer to any questions about his other parent was simply the slamming of a door, so Blade had learned early not to ask. He swore his dear old mom hadn’t liked him since birth, and once he left home, she’d never asked where he lived or what he did. A few times when he’d dropped by to check on her, she’d even had the nerve to look like she’d forgotten him completely. He’d thought of introducing himself.
His mother might be surprised if she had kept up with him. He wasn’t the loser she’d always predicted he’d be. He’d finished college after the army and was doing quite well. Turned out he was good at solving puzzles, and as an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (the ATF), he got plenty of practice. He might be based out of Denver but as a special investigator, he traveled often.
Blade pushed thoughts of his mother aside as he climbed the stairs and looked out the old Hamilton house’s one unboarded window. The huge second-story window faced the open land of Hamilton Acres, its heavy leaded glass pieced together in almost a spiderweb shape. The image it showed seemed fractured. A broken world, pieced back together.
“Creepy,” he whispered aloud as he remembered how the sheriff of Crossroads had followed him out of the county offices, warning him to be careful.
Blade had taken the time to formally introduce himself, even shown the sheriff his federal badge. But Sheriff Brigman still had that worried look lawmen get when they think someone might be stepping into trouble over his head.
Blade grinned. He knew the look well by now. He saw it every time he parachuted behind the fire line or suited up with the bomb squad. He’d learned a long time ago that if you want answers, you have to go where the trouble started.
It wasn’t the adrenaline rush that made him step into danger or the belief that his skills would always save him. Blade was good at his job but it was the absence of fear that kept his hand steady. He didn’t think about tomorrow. He didn’t believe in it.
Living for today was all he thought about.
From this crow’s nest vantage point of the second-story window, he could see a brilliant sunset spreading across the western sky. One lonely windmill was all that marked any kind of civilization in that direction. From here he could almost believe that he could catch a glimpse of the future, or maybe the past.
For once, he’d found a land as alone as he felt. In an odd way, he sensed he could bond with this untamed landscape. Maybe it was because generations of his family had been buried here. Or maybe Blade just wanted, for once in his life, to feel like he belonged.
Hamilton land. His land. Roots Blade wouldn’t know how to handle after a life of drifting.
When he called to tell his mother he’d inherited a ranch in Texas, she’d laughed and said, “Sure you did. Better be heading out to buy some cowboy boots. I hear they don’t like biker boots in cattle country.”
“Don’t you want to go have a look with me? After all, you were married to Henry Blade Hamilton.” When she hadn’t answered, Blade added, “You do remember the name of the man who fathered me?”
“I called him Hank and I’ve been trying to forget him for thirty years.” She swore in her usual jumble of words that didn’t fit together. “It hasn’t been easy to block him from my mind when you turned out to look just like him.”
“Then go with me. He’s dead, so you’re not likely to have to face him. We’ll visit his grave and maybe you can bury the memory.”
“Not a chance. He’d said the place was worthless when we married. Nothing but tumbleweeds and wild plum bushes. Good for nothing. Turned out, so was he.”
“Was he a cowboy?” Blade asked.
“I don’t remember.” She ended the call without saying goodbye.
He didn’t call back or try to see her again. He packed a change of clothes, climbed on his Harley and rode down from Denver to explore a side of the family he never knew existed.
So far nothing about the place impressed him besides the sunset. The lake was dark, the land rocky, and the house looked like it belonged next to the Bates Motel. Obviously there was nothing worth stealing or someone would have dragged it off years ago. The lawyer told him over the phone that his father had died in New Orleans six months ago, and apparently old Hank hadn’t stepped foot on the ranch since he’d walked off the place at sixteen.
However, Henry Hamilton had paid the taxes every year and filed his will both with the lawyer in New Orleans and the county offices in Crossroads, Texas. Henry might never have contacted Blade, but for some reason he wanted his son to have the land.
As he walked back down the stairs, Blade noticed that not one woman’s picture hung on the wall. There had to have been wives, mothers to these guys, a grandmother or great-grandmother to him. Maybe none had stayed around long enough to do more than birth the next generation. From the dates and names on the frames, Blade traced his family tree.
He had his father’s and his grandfather’s dark hair, their gray eyes, their skin that never burned but always tanned. Their tall height and wide-at-the-shoulder build.
But nothing more. They were strangers.
All the other pictures were black-and-white, but if they’d been in color, he’d bet the traits would be the same.
Slowly, Blade moved from room to room. It looked like someone had just walked away from the place one day. Moth-eaten clothes hung in the closets, dishes were in the sink, rotting comforters and pillows were still on beds.
No electricity on, no water.
When he opened the back door, wild rosebushes barred his exit. Vines twisted and crawled up the house almost to the second floor. They were thorny and bare. When he twisted one branch to see if it was alive, a thorn sliced into his finger. It was indeed alive, and he felt like the plant was drinking his blood. Dropping the branch, he closed the door, thinking the roses could have the house for all he cared but would get no more of his blood.
As nightfall crept in, he moved out onto the old porch of the house. Boards creaked beneath his boots, but the place must have solid bones to still be standing.
He was tired and bothered that he had no memories of the man who’d fathered him. He should have pushed his mother for answers, but when he’d asked about the past, she always said that the time would come for talking.
Only, he had a feeling it never would. She’d married three times since he’d been born and each time, like a chameleon, she shifted and changed into someone he barely knew. She’d been a preacher’s wife in Kansas, married to an oil field worker who moved all over Oklahoma, and, for a few months, the wife of an out-of-work actor in California. Between marriages she’d waitressed some, sold cars once in Houston, and finally settled into selling homes in Denver. He doubted she even remembered what she was like thirty years ago when she’d given birth to him at eighteen.
Blade told himself he didn’t care. She had her life and it hadn’t included him for years. It hadn’t mattered to her if he dropped by once a month or once a year.
He moved out to the lake. It was time to get out of here. This wasn’t where he wanted to be after dark. Maybe he’d go back to town and find a hotel. Tomorrow, he’d take another look around, not searching for a thing to take away, but maybe he’d get a feeling about the man he’d been named after. Henry must have grown up here.
Blade could feel change in the air like he had a dozen times before in his life. His mother had wanted no roots and she’d raised a son without any until now.
Roots he didn’t want, he reminded himself again. He didn’t know anything about this land, these relatives. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He had a feeling whatever stories this house held were sad ones.
Lightning flashed to the east and he saw another house across the lake. It was built low to the ground, almost blending into the landscape. Probably another abandoned home. More land that the next generation didn’t want.
He zipped up his leather jacket and walked to his bike. Let the coyotes and hawks have this place. Maybe one more circling of the land tomorrow and then he was leaving. When he got to Denver, he’d call the lawyer who contacted him about this inheritance and ask for a Realtor who’d sell the place. Land, house, and heritage. They could buy it all.