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She’d remember if her first husband drank too much. Her lack of an answer was telling enough. How bad was Rafael’s father? Had he been a roaring drunk? He must have died young. Could it have been because of drinking? “If you don’t mind me asking, how did Rafael’s father die?”
“He get sick and go in his sleep.” Mrs. Werner put the broom in a corner and brushed her hands.
That sounded a lot like Daniel’s description of his father’s death. “When was that, Mrs. Werner?”
“A year before they found gold at Sutter’s Creek.”
That would have been almost fifteen years earlier. And fifteen years ago had to have been long after Daniel was born. “Not Mr. Werner, but Rafael’s father.”
“Mr. Werner is Rafael’s father, yes.” Mrs. Werner bobbed her head up and down with more emphasis than was needed.
“Not according to your other son,” Anna said.
“You wish to eat now. I have beans made. I go get them.” Mrs. Werner scuttled toward the inner door.
“No, I don’t wish to eat.” She wanted to understand the family structure, because the more she learned, the less sense it made.
“But you sit at the table,” said Mrs. Werner as she went through the door.
Anna pushed the chair back and followed her into the courtyard. Mrs. Werner entered the kitchen, and, when she saw Anna, she closed the door. The message was clear. She didn’t want to talk about Rafael’s father.
Anna put her head down and pushed into the kitchen.
“You should not be in here.” Mrs. Werner darted around the table and stood between Anna and the room.
Wide-eyed, Juanita looked over her shoulder from the stove where she was ladling out beans into one, two, three—four bowls. Her shoulders rounding, she turned and blocked Anna’s view of the bowls.
“Why not?” demanded Anna. “Is this not to be my home? Who is the other bowl for?”
Mrs. Werner paled. “Oh, Juanita—she is a foolish girl and cannot count.” She grabbed one of the bowls and put it back on a stack. “It is only us here.”
Anna didn’t believe her. But she didn’t know if Rafael was feeling the effects of last night’s drinking or if Daniel had been too tired after staying up half the night helping her do laundry. All she really knew was this family seemed to have a hard time with the truth. A little voice in her head said she’d fit right in with them, given her own massive lie.
* * *
Daniel knelt on the creek bank and studied the tracks he’d made yesterday. His eyes were scratchy, and he wanted nothing more than to end this false search and go home, but he had to make certain no one believed the trail led anywhere close to the ranch.
“They headed up towards those rocks, then,” said the sheriff.
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so. Looks like one horse left the creek and then backed up into it.”
“How do you know that?” demanded the sheriff.
He knew because that was what he’d done to create a false trail. His neck tightened. Tired and wanting the day to end, he hadn’t thought carefully before blurting out the truth. Even if he couldn’t disclose how he knew, telling an actual fact was such a relief. But he’d done it before considering the consequences. He needed to focus on what he was doing and what he should reveal. Yet, he couldn’t seem to get his mind off Anna.
How was she faring alone in the house with Madre and Juanita? And Rafael, although she wasn’t to know that. He wanted to move along so the posse would start thinking about nightfall and turning back before they were caught out in complete darkness. The farther he led them away from town and away from the ranch, the better. “We can look around the perimeter of the rocky section, but I doubt we’ll find more tracks.”
His brow knit, the sheriff dismounted. “How do you know, Danny?”
Hell. He focused his eyes on the impressions, looking for differences that a tracker would have used to form his conclusions. “The spacing is different. This set of prints shows a horse coming out at a fast clip, and on this set the weight of impressions is different. The dirt sprays in the opposite direction. The horse was backed into the water. Its hooves were dry, while these impressions were made while the hooves were wet.”
The sheriff got on his knees and peered at the tracks, looking back and forth between them. He’d once been a Texas Ranger and probably had good tracking skills, too.
His heart thumping madly, Daniel stood and walked alongside the tracks. He should have been paying better attention. “They appear very much the same size, even this notch in the shoe.” The sets made while he was backing up were less distinct and the mark caused by the imperfection was barely distinguishable.
“Don’t know as I would’ve recognized that until we didn’t find any more tracks,” said the sheriff. “Your father was a good tracker.”
His father had been a good observer in a lot of ways. Had to be for his job as a surveyor.
“You remind me of him.”
Daniel’s gut tightened. The sheriff had been one of the few men who’d been in the area long enough to have known his father. Most Californians had arrived after the discovery of gold, just a little after his father had died. “Thanks.”
“Do you think they would have turned their horses and gone upstream from here?” The sheriff turned and looked in exactly the direction that he and Rafael had taken yesterday.
Daniel’s heart jolted. He pulled off his hat and wiped his forehead just so he would not look in the sheriff’s eyes. “And risk running right back into a possible pursuit? That’d be stupid.”
The sheriff pushed to stand and lumbered in front of him. “That way would lead to your ranch, wouldn’t it?”
“Eventually,” said Daniel. A bead of sweat trickled down his spine.
“Haven’t seen any of them cousins of yours lately, have you?”
“I haven’t seen my cousins in years. But if we thought they had taken the horses, Rafe and I just would have followed ’em. We know where they live.” South of the border. Did the sheriff suspect his cousins might have been involved? That was only marginally better than suspecting he and Rafe were responsible.
“No one came to your house for help?”
“God, no. Could you imagine how that would have gone with Miss O’Malley there?” Daniel blustered. “Don’t know who would have been scared worse, her or the man she shot. I’m thinking they took off for Mexico.”
The sheriff nodded. “I agree. With one of ’em wounded and all, wouldn’t have risked heading north.”
Daniel breathed out a sigh.
“And you said Rafe is hunting for them in the hills. He wouldn’t go in after them alone, would he?”
“I doubt if Rafe is that stupid.” But, then again, he was stupid enough to think stopping a stagecoach just to get a look at his bride was a good idea. The point was moot since there wasn’t any camp and Rafael was safely back home in bed. Again, Daniel wondered what Anna was doing and how Madre was dealing with her determination.
“He needs to come in and tell me what he’s found as soon as he gets back.”
How the hell was he going to get Rafe to come into town to talk to the sheriff anytime soon?
* * *
Anna went outside to wait for the brothers to return. The sun was sinking below the horizon, and she was more confused than ever by Mrs. Werner’s nonanswers. Getting information out of her was like trying to get milk out of a cat. Just by her evasive answers, Anna was certain one of the brothers was in the house, but she wasn’t certain which one. She was determined to find out.
She hoped it was Daniel because at least that would mean her fiancé wasn’t hiding from her.
After a few minutes, a lone horseman rode into sight. In the dusk she couldn’t immediately make out which brother it was. But something about the way he moved easily with the horse’s lope convinced her it was Daniel.
Her heart fluttered, which was silliness, and she stood on the edge of the porch as Daniel drew his mount to a halt in front of her and dismounted.
“Enjoying the evening, Miss O’Malley?”
He gathered the reins in his hand, then looked over at her when she hadn’t answered.
“I suppose. Rafael is not with you?”
Uneasiness crossed Daniel’s face. “He’ll be along in a bit.”
“I thought you were going to meet up with him,” she said. Really, how stupid did they think she was? So it was Rafael hidden in the house. Was he still drunk? Or just avoiding her? Either way, she felt like a loaf of bread someone had sat upon. She had to concentrate to keep her shoulders straight in a ladylike posture.
“We did, but he was going to see if he could catch the sheriff to discuss what he found in the hills.” Daniel led the horse toward the open-sided barn. Two fenced areas were near it, a small area with a chicken coop, where Juanita had shooed the roaming chickens and closed the gate on them before the sun fell out of the sky, and a larger area where several horses roamed. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to take care of my horse.”
