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"Good, 'cause we got work to do when we get back to the station."
He'd already cooked the coffee beans and now put them in the pot to boil by the fire. When he had the meal on the way, he turned to look at her. He released the hold on the saddle and led her to the fire. "The biscuits are hard, but the bacon will soften them some."
"We need to talk now." He glanced at her as she plunged to the ground with a thud. "I've waited long enough. I want to know where your daddy hid the money. And I want to know now." Hawks flipped the bacon with a stick and grabbed the coffee pot setting it on the fire by the bacon. He reared back to sit down on the hard ground. He studied her for a long moment, his eyes going over her once then landing on her stunned expression. "So where did he hide it?"
"Hide it? You expect me to know. I've no idea what you are talking about. It's your story, not mine." Katherine shook her head and screwed up her face into a frown, feeling the slight breeze that kicked up from the north. "You're crazy Hawks, my father had no money."
"Now lookie here girl, I been a patient man, but I'm running' out of that, you hear me." He jerked on the rope, making her jump to face him. "I've waited five years, nigh on to six to find out what he did with the money. I let your folks be, I didn't do anything, didn't hurt anyone. Why do you think I came upon him so much at the station for? He'd talked me out of my share more than once. Now it's gonna be mine. All of it," He informed her, his grin showing teeth that were rotting and brown. "And rightfully so."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she gasped ignoring his ranting.
He pulled her by the hair and turned her head around so he could look her in the eye. "Don't be playin' no games with me girl. I'm in no mood. I'm hot, tired, and put out with that Captain just a might. Hadn't been for him and his men messing with you at the station, I could have had this done by now. Now you. You know, and you're gonna tell me. No more stallin' me off. I want my money," Hawks said and threw his tin plate over by the fire.
It was the fashion in which he threw it that told Katherine she was in deep trouble.
"But I don't have any idea what you're talking about. What money?" Katherine squirmed and winced when he finally let go of her hair. The roots of her hair seemed to pulse against her scalp. Pain, that's what she needed to remind her she was alive.
"My money, that's what money," he barked. Then shaking his head he rambled on. "Near six years ago," He looked at her, "that's when we did it. Me and yore daddy held up a bank." Hawks was saying as he pulled out a paper to make a smoke. He fumbled with the paper, but had a small smoke made in no time.
"A bank…? My father? I don't believe it." She hollered mutinously, "You're lying…"
"Almost wish I were. Don't matter, it's the gospel. Me and yore daddy held up the Mercantile in Saint Jo. There were a powerful lot of lawmen in that town too. Bold as brass we took that money, in broad daylight. It was raining that day, hard as nails, but that didn't stop us. Yore daddy planned it right down to the last minute. Wasn't nothing gonna stop him once we got started. He already had the plans to come out here to run the station."
His sinister sneer made her skin crawl. "I don't believe you." She frowned and turned away.
"Don't much matter what you believe missy. It's the gospel. They had a posse on our tail for weeks. So we finally split up. He went to Texas, and I went to Indian Territory. We agreed we'd meet in Texas and divide it up, soon as it were possible. Had to let the law cool down, and ferget it. Only they never did. They chased us up everywhere we went. And yore daddy hid it before they caught up to him. We never split it. Yore daddy went and buried it out there somewhere, figurin' on keepin' it all to hisself, he did. But I hunted him up and found him and I knew it was there. I knew all I had to do was wait. If I waited long enough, the law would plum ferget about it. So I did. I waited. Oh I tried to get it out of yore daddy, but he wouldn't talk no matter what I threatened. Even offered the squaw but he wouldn't tell nobody. Now my time's come. Now I'm takin' what's mine. And yore gonna help me." Hawks laughed.
"But…I don't know where it is." Katherine stood on her feet and looked down at him with tears in her eyes. "My pa wouldn't touch an Indian. I don't believe you for a minute. You are full of lies."
"Such an innocent you are. Hard to believe yore his kid. Oh, he'd have her all right. He had her several times as a matter of fact. He liked Indian women because they submitted easy like. Bragged about it to me, years ago how he'd taken a couple of them up in Missouri. Course yore right, he had no real use of her or the others, she weren't good enough for him. That gal had her plenty of white fellas, she was pretty. I sold her a couple of times, but she always came back to me. I reckon she had come to care for me towards the end…"
"What happened to her?" Katherine faced him again.
"Got between me and yore pa and a bullet, that's what happened. He got tired of me hangin' around, came up to my cabin. Told me to stay away, that yore Ma was gettin' suspicious. Told him I'd stay away as soon as he came up with the money. That's when he said
he'd buried it, to keep it safe and when the time come, we'd split it an' I should pack up and get. I told him I wasn't goin' no wheres till he got the money out and gave me mine."
"He got mad and pulled a gun. So she moved between us, to try to stop us from fightin'. Yore dad had pulled the trigger, killed her, shot her in the head. He didn't mean to, he was a little flustered himself when it happened."
"I don't believe you!" Katherine cried out loud. She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head, "Pa would never hurt a woman."
"Now if that don't beat all. First you don't believe he'd take an Indian gal, and then you think he thought something of her life. She was dirt to him. Yore right, he didn't like 'em, not like me anyhow. I never paid no attention to what she was. Yore Pa did, though. But I reckon he didn't want to kill her, that's a fact, it were an accident, pure and simple. Even I admitted that. But yore right about that. He thought of her as trash, 'cause she were Indian, but he didn't mind using her. Besides, she was young and pretty too. He'd done it before. He helped me bury her and promised he'd have the money dug up within the week. I think killin' her kinda changed things. Things were getting a little bit peaked there. He was sweatin'. Yore ma weren't no schoolgirl. She was beginin' to sniff us out. He knew it."
"Then why didn't he just pay you and get rid of you?" She screamed.
"Because he took sick, and died. I believe if he'd a lived, that he would have dug it up hisself and give me my part, to be rid of me. 'Cause after he did the squaw in, I was a might put out about it. We had some feelin's for each other. Jest like I knowed you were sweet on that breed."
Katherine didn't want to think about Chase lying dead somewhere. She only wanted to remember the dream. Silly and foolish maybe, but it fed her hope for a future.
Hawks eyed her, his smile fading as truth shone in his eyes. Katherine wanted to cry, but it wasn't in her. There were no more tears. If what Hawks said was truth, then she hadn't known her father. Didn't want to know him. And her poor mother obviously began to suspect something was wrong.
"So now you know and now you are gonna find that money for me." Hawks sighed as though he were as bone tired as she.
"But I don't know where it is?"
"Why shore you do. 'Cause yore daddy told you. And you been diggin' in that land for some time, cain't remember where I guess. But we'll find it." Hawks shook his head and chuckled again to himself. "I've been a patient man, but I knowed I'd get that money some day."
"My father wouldn't hold up a bank!" Katherine glared at him, even though he paid her no mind.
