AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Whatever the consequences, I must act, for Rowena’s sake; yes, even for Todd’s. What I have learned changes everything. The letter I have written—yes, that must be destroyed. Later, I can write another that will explain, but I must wait until my mind has grown more clear. The first thing I must do, of course, is write a codicil to my will. I have put it off too long. There are certain matters that must be taken care of, and in doing so in this manner perhaps I might prevent—no, I will not accept it as inevitable. Lucas must be stopped…
I stared down at the page. It looked as if the inkwell had overturned and spilled, obliterating everything else that had been written—if, indeed, my father had been able to write more. The rest of the journal was blank. The pages that should have explained everything to me were so smudged and soaked through with black ink that the edges of the paper had begun to curl, and were hardly readable.
And I was left with a greater, and in some ways more frightening, mystery than I had started out with. The torn and ink-splattered pages, the letter to me that my father himself had destroyed, and the fact that his diary had ended so abruptly, on that last, ominous note, “Lucas must be stopped…”
Here were my facts, if I could piece them together to make some sense. What was the truth that my father had been afraid to face? He had learned about Lucas and Elena, that much was apparent, but I was left with the impression that his grief and disillusion went deeper than that. And now it was I who did not want to face the evidence I was confronted with, and an even worse thought that crept insidiously into my mind and would not go away.
I rose so abruptly to my feet that the chair I had been sitting on overturned and went crashing on the floor, bringing Marta running to me—a startled question in her eyes. I did not know and did not care what she must have seen in my face that made her start twisting her hands together, her plump face creasing with concern.
“Patrona! You are ill?”
I shook my head impatiently. “No, not ill. Only… Marta, would you ask Jules to come in for a moment? There are some questions that I must ask.”
I could tell that they were both uneasy. Jules’s face was a guarded, impassive mask, but Marta looked frightened and began to shake her head as if to ward off more questions.
I had asked bluntly for details of my father’s death. Had it been expected… was there a doctor with him? Did he die of his wasting illness, or—I could not help hesitating, the memory of Jesus Montoya’s sly hints coming back to me with a new significance.
“Jules—was it sudden? Had he been… upset in any way before?”
I thought I saw Jules’s eyes flicker, although he answered me straightforwardly enough. “Mr. Guy had not been his usual self since he returned from his trip into the mountains, ma’am. It worried me to see how pale he looked, and the way he’d pace around this very room, from one end to the other. Sometimes I thought he hadn’t slept at all all night—I’d leave him sitting here when I retired, and find him sitting with his head in his hands in the morning, with—begging your pardon, ma’am—the bottle of brandy empty beside him.”
“But didn’t he say anything? Didn’t he…”
“I took the liberty of speaking to Mr. Mark myself, ma’am. About the advisability of asking the doctor to visit. Mr. Shannon was away on a business trip at the time, but Mr. Mark came over that very evening, and they sat talking for a long time. And afterwards, for a little while, Mr. Guy seemed calmer. But that same night…” Jules paused, and his face had grayed, as if the memory was still painful to him.
I said softly, “Go on. Please. It is not morbid curiosity that makes me ask all this, but—perhaps I will be able to explain later. There is a reason why I must learn as much as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jules’s tone was wooden, and I wondered how much he really did understand.
He went on slowly. “He was sitting at his desk, writing in his book, when I came to ask him if there was anything else he’d need before I retired. And I brought him his drops too, in the coffee he always had just at that time. I remember he looked up, but his eyes were—well, like he was looking somewhere else and didn’t see me. He looked very tired, and he said something about the pain being worse, and he needed the drops tonight. And then he asked me to bring along another bottle of brandy and leave it by him, for he and Mr. Mark had finished half the bottle that was out already. And that was all, ma’am. Except…”
“Except what? Jules, I must know. All the little details, even if they do not seem important now.”
I heard Marta muttering to herself in Spanish, and did I only imagine that Jules sighed before he gave me his reluctant answer?
“He asked me to leave the door open, ma’am. It was seldom locked anyhow, for Mr. Guy—he was a man who trusted people. He was expecting Mr. Bragg early in the morning, he said, and…”
This time I did not imagine the hesitation in Jules’s voice, the almost imploring look in his eyes. But before I could prompt him again, Marta burst out in a torrent of voluble Spanish, her mouth working.
“But he did not come! We know this, Jules—he did not come. If he had, he would have spoken to us, he would have said: ‘Marta, won’t you give me some of your good tortillas to take with me on my journey?’ You know this is what he always did—there was never a time when he visited the patron that he did not come into the kitchen to taste what I had in the pot, and to tease me…”
I looked from her to Jules, and felt a dryness in my mouth.
“Who…” She was talking of Mr. Bragg of course. Please, God, let it be Mr. Bragg. Not…
“It was Mr. Lucas he was expecting, ma’am.” Jules’s voice sounded as dry as mine must have been, and he went on quickly, seeing, I suppose, the sudden lack of color in my face. “But he didn’t come, ma’am. Like Marta said. It was Mr. Bragg who found Mr. Guy, and woke us up. It was still dark, not quite five in the morning. He looked… it was just as if he had fallen asleep over his writing, his head on the desk and the ink spilled all over.”
I found that now that I had heard the final indictment—the last piece of evidence I had both dreaded and expected to hear—I could be amazingly calm and clear-headed. It was just as if all emotion had drained out of me, leaving only a cold hardness in its place.
There were only a few more questions to be asked, a few more facts to be ascertained. Facts, I called them, for neither Marta nor Jules had any reason to lie to me. They had both been unwilling to speak at all. I had begun to think that they were the only two people in the world that I could trust any longer.
I was thinking this while I composedly ordered a light supper, pretending I didn’t notice Marta’s tear-stained cheeks and pushed-out lower lip. She did not like the turn my questions had taken, but I was the patrona, and she bobbed her head when I had finished speaking. Yes, in spite of everything I could count on her loyalty… and then, suddenly, I thought of Mark. Perhaps it was because my eyes had fallen casually on the chessboard, and that made me remember the last game I had played on it—so long ago, it seemed.
Mark, my patient friend, whose steadiness and common sense had helped me before. Mark, who loved me. How unnecessarily cruel I had been towards him yesterday! Why hadn’t I thought of Mark before? And if I needed an excuse, he had been one of the last persons to speak with my father before he died. Mark would help me decide what must be done; Mark would listen, and help me find an objective point of view.
And so I said to Jules, who still hovered uncertainly by the door, “Would you mind waiting for a few moments, until I write a note to Mr. Mark? You might ask one of the cowboys to deliver it to him. And ask Marta if she will lay an extra place for supper, if you please.”
I thought Jules was on the verge of saying something, but when he met my eyes he seemed to purse his lips, and only inclined his head courteously instead.
