Ralph Compton Ghost Hollow Ranch, page 15
He’d made it almost to the woods where the bear had attacked Charlie and him when he saw a flash of red in the trees. Before his mind had even processed the sight, he dug his heels in and set his horse into a gallop.
Branches rushed by him, some of them scratching at his cheeks or pulling at his hat. He leaned down over his horse’s neck and spurred her on. Cap leapt over a fallen log, then jerked back when she hit a rough patch of ground, but he pushed her onward. The red flashes were getting closer; whoever it was wasn’t running uphill or into a more densely wooded area. Instead he was making a beeline for what Lucas realized was the edge of the property—the same edge near where the trail of bear bait had begun.
They were nearly there.
Lucas jumped from the back of his horse, staggering a bit when he hit the ground, but staying on his feet and hurtling toward his target at speed. “Stop!” he yelled. He was faster than the other man on foot, and caught up in a few strides, leaping forward and tackling him to the ground.
“I said stop, you son of a—”
The man threw back an elbow and nailed Lucas in the shoulder. He lost his grip on the man’s clothes momentarily, but when he tried to squirm away, Lucas grabbed him again and rolled him over.
Sam Coplin.
Coplin’s eyes were wide, like he hadn’t even fathomed that he might get seen. After a second of shock, he kicked out. He hit at the knee, and Lucas’ leg buckled. Coplin was on his feet quicker than Lucas would have thought. He looked all around, like he was trying to find somewhere to go, but when he didn’t see an easy escape route, he reached inside his coat and drew an ugly-looking knife from a sheath at his belt.
“Now why don’t you back off, Mr. Avery? This ain’t none of your affair.”
“As I work on this ranch, I think it is. Put the knife down.”
“I ain’t gonna do that. You’re going to let me go about my business.”
“I can’t say that I am, Coplin.”
“Then I can’t say that I’m not gonna have to kill you.”
A rifle cocked. Both of them snapped their heads to the side.
“That doesn’t seem very friendly, Sam,” Jessie said. She had her rifle aimed right at his heart. “Mr. Avery might take it personally.”
“Might want to drop that knife,” Lucas said, and Coplin did.
Lucas reached down and picked up the knife, then walked toward the bag Coplin had dropped as he ran. “Now, what’s this?” Lucas asked.
“Leave that be!” Coplin ordered, though his voice was weak.
“I don’t think that I will,” Lucas said.
Regardless of the gun on him, Coplin lunged at Lucas. It was his turn to get kicked in the knee, and he fell heavy to the ground.
The man gaped up at Jessie and Lucas. “You ain’t got no right—”
Lucas wound back his arm and punched him. After that, Coplin was silent.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lucas took Coplin to town himself.
Jessie had searched the bag after they’d gotten back to the farm. Nothing but stones. It was no wonder that Coplin had been panting so much when he was running from Lucas. When they’d asked him why he was gathering stones from the MacGill property, Coplin had refused to answer. Lucas had almost wanted to beat it out of him, the way Hammett had beaten information out of union organizers, but he hadn’t liked those tactics then and he didn’t think Jessie would like them now. So instead, he tied Coplin’s wrists with a length of rope and hurled him into the back of the wagon. He’d tried to escape twice on the way to town, though Lucas wondered exactly where he thought he’d go; as far as he could tell, Coplin had a wife and plenty of debt holding him to this town, though maybe that was reason enough for some men to skip.
By the time Lucas had wrestled Coplin out of the back of the wagon, Deputy Denton had opened the door to the station and was staring down at them, bemused.
“Sam Coplin, what you done now?”
Coplin sputtered that he hadn’t done anything, while Lucas threw him to the ground and shouldered the bag he’d been using to cart around his stones. Then he hoisted Coplin up again and shoved him toward the steps.
The deputy backed up to let them inside. He gestured to a chair in the corner when Lucas pushed Coplin through the door; Lucas shoved Coplin down into it, then stood across from Denton as the man took a chair of his own.
“So what’s he done?” Denton asked.
“I ain’t—” Coplin began.
Denton held a hand up. “Shut your mouth, Sam. I asked you already and you declined to give me a real answer. We both know you’ve done something. Forty years we’ve known each other. You’ve always done something.” He looked back at Lucas. “What is it?”
Lucas took a deep breath and told Denton what he knew.
When he was done, Denton looked over at Sam. “You done sicced a bear on Charlie? What sort of fool thinking was that?”
“I didn’t,” Coplin snarled. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“Then why’d he catch you out there, huh? Do you have an answer for that?”
Coplin snapped his mouth shut with a click that Lucas could hear across the small room. He rocked a little back and forth, rubbing at his left arm. Lucas wondered if he’d hurt it in their scuffle.
“This is the same answer Jessie and I got when we tried our questions,” Lucas said.
The deputy’s brows went up. It was only after a long beat that Lucas realized he’d called Jessie by her given name, which must have seemed awful familiar to Denton’s mind. But to try to backtrack out of it now would just make it seem even worse, when the truth was they weren’t more than friends, maybe not even that.
“You both think he’s been behind the trouble out at Ghost Hollow?” Denton asked. “You think one man could cause all that, especially a porch percher like him?”
Lucas looked over at Coplin. He wasn’t sure one man could, not a man like Coplin, who did seem as dull as his mouse brown hair and lazy as could be. But there wasn’t much more of an explanation that he could think of.
Before he could tell the deputy that, the door to the station burst open.
Ames stood in the doorway, his shadow falling across the deputy’s desk, his face set in a scowl.
“Did you do it?” he barked at Lucas. “Come to turn yourself in?”
Lucas almost wished he had no idea what the man was talking about, but he had a sinking suspicion he did know. But he didn’t say anything. Best to let Denton do the talking.
“Mr. Avery came here to turn someone else in. There something I can do for you, Mr. Ames?”
The man strode inside, and quiet like a shadow, Sheldon Howell followed him in. His eyes flickered around the room, like he was taking it all in, while his boss strode right up to Lucas and Denton, spitting mad and nearly shouting.
“This morning, before the sun had even decided to rise, someone took dynamite to my dam. Blew it sky-high.”
Denton’s eyes widened. For a long moment, it didn’t seem like he knew what to say. He stumbled a bit on his words, then said, “None of your men were hurt? The cattle?”
“My dam is gone, Denton. That’s what hurts. Someone crept through the dark like a weasel onto my land. And I know just who it was too.” His finger stabbed at Lucas’ chest, though it stopped short of touching. “The MacGills done it. One of them. All of them.”
“Now, Ames, can you please—”
“If you tell me to calm down, I will take that star from your chest and you will not like where I put it, Denton.”
Denton’s teeth clacked shut. “No need for that, Mr. Ames.”
“I certainly hope there’s no need for it. Deputy, this is a courtesy I’m giving you. The MacGills have come onto my land and blown up my dam, and if you won’t do something about it, then I will. And while I’m at it, I might just do something about you.”
Lucas snorted.
“You have something to say, boy?” Ames asked, his face ruddy with anger.
“None of the MacGills did a thing, Mr. Ames.”
“And I’m sure you’d never lie about a thing like that.”
“I don’t reckon you’d believe me if I claimed honesty. But the truth is, I don’t have to.” Lucas looked over at the deputy. “You know the doctor well. Am I right? Think he would lie for any of the MacGills?”
The deputy guffawed. “I don’t reckon Doc Pierce likes anyone enough to lie for them. In the ten years I’ve known him, I never saw him so much as beat around the bush for kindness’ sake.”
“Well, then, that’s your witness. It ain’t me, impeccable though my own character may be. Doc Pierce was at the MacGill house all night with young Zachary, and there wasn’t a time any of us were away from him for more than a handful of minutes.”
“I’ll make sure to follow up with the doc, Ames, but it sounds as though someone else did that job.”
Ames shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “This ain’t over.” He didn’t wait for whatever the deputy would have said next; he stormed out before the words could form on Denton’s opening mouth.
Sheldon Howell put his hat back on his head. “He’s not liable to believe anyone on this, not even the doc. You sure he really is so trustworthy?” Howell’s eyes were dark and keen on Denton.
The deputy looked away first. “Nothing says he ain’t, Mr. Howell. If you can talk some sense into Mr. Ames, I’d be grateful.”
Lucas wasn’t sure that Howell cared about the deputy’s gratitude. All he did was shrug his shoulders and leave.
“I’ll be going too, Deputy,” Lucas said.
“I’ll make sure your troublemaker here does nothing further out on that ranch,” Denton said. He sat in his chair and leaned toward the cell in the corner. “You hear me, Coplin? I won’t have you making no more trouble.”
All Coplin did was grunt.
But then Denton’s eyes were back on Lucas. “You know anything about that dam blowing? Aside from the fact that it ain’t a MacGill?”
Lucas shook his head. “All I know is who it wasn’t,” Lucas said, and thanked the heavens that he had always been a good liar.
* * *
* * *
The sun hadn’t quite set when Lucas made it back to the ranch. He unhooked the wagon, led the horses back to their stalls, and gave them both a treat from the sack he’d brought back from the general store in town.
“What’d the deputy say?” a voice called from the loft.
He turned around to face Olivia. She was sitting with her legs over the side, swinging them as though in rhythm with a tune. It looked as though she were ready to leap down at any moment.
“I’ll be going inside to tell your mother that,” he said. Before she could argue like she always did, he added, “You should come on in and listen.”
She grinned down at him. She looked younger when she smiled. That was what anger did; it aged a person, not just on the face, but soul deep.
“You got your wish, you know,” he said. “That dam got blown last night.”
He’d expected the smile to grow, but instead it faded. She swallowed hard. “Everyone all right?”
“I expect so. Mr. Ames is not all that concerned about the men in his employ, but it didn’t seem like anyone was hurt.” He could hear the breath she let out from down below. “He thinks someone here did it.”
“Well, no one did,” she said. “You know that.”
“I know lots of things,” he replied. “If Ames knew what I know, Rafael’s father would lose another family member.”
Olivia shook her head. “That won’t happen.”
Lucas hoped she was right. “I’ll see you inside.”
* * *
* * *
A strange sort of peace settled over Ghost Hollow for the next few days.
No one saw the ghost, and there weren’t any more incidents. Lucas made his repairs to the chicken coop, always ducking the question of why he was so intent on getting it fixed. They buried Olivia’s horse. Olivia had objected at first; it just wasn’t done. But when it was done, she seemed grateful for the gesture. Zachary was slowly getting stronger.
But it felt to Lucas like the calm before the storm, not like anything had ended. They’d caught Coplin. It should have been over.
It didn’t feel over.
The doctor came back three days after Zachary’s bad spell to check on him. Pierce spoke quietly to the boy. Lucas, who was watching from the doorway to the kitchen, couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, but it seemed to be good news. Jessie had sent him out for wood and, once he’d hauled that in, sent him to ask the doctor if he wanted to stay for dinner.
The boys were sitting in the parlor, Zachary on the sofa bundled in blankets and Len sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace, fussing with the canteen he’d found in the caves.
“Still can’t get that open?” Lucas asked.
Len shook his head, then held up the canteen and shook it. “It’s all rusted shut. But there’s something inside.” He stared down at the canteen with a frown. “Maybe I could smash it.”
The doctor tucked his wooden stethoscope away and pulled a stoppered vial from his bag. “Len,” he said, and when the boy looked up, he tossed him the vial. “Try that.”
“Doc, it’s almost suppertime,” Lucas said. “Mrs. MacGill sent me to tell you there’s space for you at the table.”
Pierce smiled at that. “I do enjoy anyone’s cooking other than my own.” Len was on his feet and heading toward the door, but Pierce caught his arm as he went. “What is that?” he asked, gesturing to his cave find.
“It’s a canteen,” Len replied. He held it up and said the next part in a whisper. “I found it in a cave.”
Before Lucas’ eyes, the doctor’s face completely changed. There had been the remnants of a smile on his lips, but they died, leaving his mouth a long, tight line. His eyes went cold. Len saw it too and shrank back a little. The doctor didn’t let his arm go. “A cave? Those caves are dangerous, boy. Your mother surely doesn’t let you inside of them?”
Len opened his mouth, closed it again, then tried to tug his arm away.
“You shouldn’t go anywhere near them. Do you understand me? Do you?”
Lucas stepped forward, about to intervene, when Pierce dropped Len’s arm. “I only worry,” he said. The boy nodded and scampered away.
Pierce stood abruptly. “I must be going.”
“Just a moment ago—” Lucas began.
The doctor shook him off.
“You never stay for dinner, Doctor,” Jessie said from the doorway to the kitchen. “I’m bound to take it personally one of these days.”
Pierce’s smile had returned, softer now. “I do promise, Mrs. MacGill, that the next time you grant me an invitation, I shall take you up on it.”
* * *
* * *
After dinner, instead of heading to bed, Lucas headed to the barn.
He thought about climbing up to the boys’ hideout and keeping an eye out for the ghost, but it felt like there was an itch below his skin. It was that same feeling that he’d had the other day. He wanted to do something.
One of the horses whinnied. Lucas wondered if they could tell one of them was missing. He walked back toward the empty stall where Olivia’s horse had been housed and poked his head in. One of Olivia’s jackets hung on a peg by a bridle. He wondered if she’d ever have the desire to come get it.
The stall beyond that one was the one where Charlie had been stashing whatever he’d been working on the day he died. Lucas walked inside. Whatever Charlie had been working on was covered over with a dusty blue blanket. There were tools on a wooden crate beside it: a small tin of nails, a hammer, and a saw.
Lucas pulled off the blanket, a cloud of dust shimmering in the light from his lantern. Beneath it was a wooden frame that came up a little taller than his waist, four boards nailed together, the bottom and top almost perfectly plumb. On the other side of the frame, neatly stacked in the corner, were three more boards and a book.
“What are you hiding in here working on?”
Lucas looked up from the wooden frame. Jessie was standing in the doorway of the stall, holding a small oil lamp, a curious look on her face. She had flowers tucked inside her hair. Had Len picked them for her? Her dress was a pale green that brought out the color in her eyes. He wanted to tell her that, but stopped himself before he did.
“I was just trying to figure that out,” he said, looking away. “Charlie was working on it the other day. Covered it over before I could see what it was.”
“A box for something?” She tapped her fingers on the top of the frame.
His eyes went from the stack of wood in the corner to the book sitting on top of the boards. He thought of the stacks of books inside the boys’ room, and realized what it was. “A bookcase. For Zachary.”
Jessie turned her gaze away but not before he could see the tears well up in her eyes. “Well, Zachary would have loved that.”
“I think I’ll finish it. Might not be as sound as Charlie would have made it, but I’m a fair carpenter.”
He crouched down beside the frame. Charlie had marked where the shelves should go, but he hadn’t gotten around to putting a back on the frame or adding those shelves. Lucas reached for the piece of wood he’d measured out for the back and fit it against the frame. There was a single nail in the hard-packed dirt of the barn floor. Lucas picked it up and turned it over in his fingers.
Lucas looked over at Jessie. She still looked like she was going to cry. He cleared his throat. “Pass me the hammer?” Lucas steadied the board, then asked, “Can I ask you a question?”
