Hunter's Moon (Hunter Family Saga; Half-Moon Ranch 1) (3 page)

Edmund stared at him for a moment, looking
away only when Brent stared back at him. He went
back indoors, leaving Brent alone with his thoughts.

Brent did not follow him in. He was in no mood to talk with anyone. Confusion, sadness, and anger
tore at him.

A driven man, he left the porch and returned to
his mother's grave. He stayed there until the last of
the visitors had gone. Only then did he return to the
house.

"Well, we're almost there," Brent said to Quince and
Abby as he drove the buckboard slowly through the
streets of Diablo the following afternoon.

Brent had thought long and hard about what
Edmund had said to him the night before. As uneasy
as the man made him, he'd realized that in this case
the banker was right.

He needed answers, and he needed them now.

Brent had told Quince what he planned to do,
and Quince had insisted on accompanying him. No
one knew where Matt was. He'd left the ranch after
the funeral and hadn't been seen since.

When Abby had heard what was happening, she'd
told them they would not be leaving without her for
she wanted to see her papa again.

"Good," Quince said tightly. "I want to get this
over with as fast as we can."

"I wish Matt had come with us." Abby was
growing a bit nervous now that the actual
confrontation was drawing near. She would have
liked to have had all three of her big brothers with
her for support. "Why did he go away?"

"Who knows what Matt was thinking?" Brent was still angered by his youngest brother's disappearance.
Matt had always been the undependable one, the
wild one, but at a time like this, the whole family
should have been together.

Brent thought back over the weeks and months
just past. He remembered how his father's drinking
had increased dramatically and how his parents had
seemed more and more at odds with each passing
day. Sometimes they barely spoke to each other, and
at other times they argued heatedly. As difficult as
things seemed to have been for them, though, Brent
would never have suspected that the situation would
end in tragedy.

"But maybe Papa didn't really do it," Abby said.
In her innocence, she was clinging desperately to a
last thread of hope that this was all some horrible
mistake.

Neither Brent nor Quince responded to her.
There was no point. Brent just hoped that she
wouldn't be hurt any more deeply by what was
about to transpire.

"Ready?" Brent asked when he reined in before
the sheriffs office.

"As I'll ever be," Quince said in disgust. He
jumped down and went to tie up the horses.

"Brent... I'm scared." Unlike the absent Matt,
Abby had never been inside the Diablo jail before.

Brent took her hand in his to reassure her.
"Quince and I will be right here with you. You
won't be alone."

Her chin quivered a little as she fought to keep
from crying. "All right. I'm ready."

Brent wished he could say the same.

Quince helped Abby down, and when Brent
joined them, the two brothers shared a steadying
look before they started into the sheriffs office.

At the sound of the door opening, Sheriff Miller
looked up from his desk.

"Sheriff Miller," Brent began as he led the way
inside, "we were hoping to see our pa."

"Sure."

The lawman stood as Brent and Quince walked
in, but he frowned slightly when he saw that Abby
was with them. He'd known the Hunter boys would
show up eventually, but he hadn't thought they
would bring their little sister along. This was hardly
the place for a young girl. Still, he couldn't refuse to
admit her to see her father. Fortunately, Jack was his
only prisoner. He noticed that Matt wasn't with
them.

"Let's go on back," Sheriff Miller said as he
opened the door to the cell area and went in, leaving
them to follow.

"Jack, you got company," the lawman announced,
standing aside.

Jack Hunter had been lying on his cot, one arm
across his eyes. At the sheriffs announcement, he sat
up. His children were standing there looking at him
through the bars of the jail cell-all of them except
Matt.

"I'll leave the door open in case you need
anything. I'll be right outside at my desk," the sheriff
told them as he left.

"What are you two doing here?" Jack demanded
coldly as he glared at Brent and Quince. "And why
did you bring Abby?"

"Papa... I wanted to-" Abby began in a soft voice.

"She doesn't belong here." He cut her off without
acknowledging her. Even at so tender an age, Abby
greatly resembled her mother, with dark hair and
green eyes. Pain stabbed at Jack as he thought of
Beth and all that had happened. He was sober now,
and being sober only made everything worse.

"Abby needed to see you-and we wanted to talk
to you," Quince said.

"Where's Matt?" Jack asked harshly, standing up
and looking past them to see if his youngest son was
still in the outer office. "Going over old times with
the sheriff?"

"Matt didn't come with us," Quince answered
him.

Jack's eyes narrowed. "Why not? I've hauled him
out of here often enough before, what with his
drinking and whoring and carrying on." He glanced
at Abby as if to say it was time she knew what kind
of brother she had.

"The truth is, he's gone. We don't know where,"
Quince said.

"Gone?" Jack repeated in anger. He glared at Quince for a long moment. "I should have figured."
He turned his cold-eyed regard on Brent. "Get out
of here-all of you."

"No, Pa," Brent said. "We're not leaving until we
get some answers."

"You want answers?" he demanded.

"That's right," Brent went on, determined not to
be denied. "Why did you do it, Pa? Why? We want
to understand."

"You want to understand? How can I make you
understand, when I don't understand how it
happened myself? I was drunk. We were arguing.
The next thing I knew, she was dead."

"That's your only explanation? That you were
drunk? That the two of you were arguing?"
Brent challenged angrily. "That's not good
enough."

"It's going to have to be. Your mother's dead. I'm
guilty! What don't you understand about that? Go
away and leave me alone!"

"Papa!" Abby ran to the bars, tears streaming
down her face.

"Get out of here, and don't come back!" Jack
ordered, turning his back on them. "I don't want to
see any of you."

"Abby... come on." Brent said, as he and Quince
went to their little sister and drew her away from the
cell and into the outer office.

Brent closed the door behind them, shutting their
father out of their lives.

One Month Later

The Diablo State Bank

Brent stared down at the legal documents Edmund
had spread on his desk, trying to come to grips with
what he'd just learned. Edmund owned the only
bank in Diablo, and he had summoned Brent to
discuss the Half-Moon's financial situation.

"You're serious about this?" Brent asked.

"Absolutely," Edmund answered. "Look, I'm just
being honest with you. I'm not trying to hurt you.
Your father took out these loans using the HalfMoon as collateral. Now that he's in prison, I may
have to call them in."

Brent was shocked by the news that the ranch was
so deeply in debt. He'd had no idea his father had
borrowed this heavily to buy the thoroughbred stock
he'd wanted so badly. "But you can't-"

"I can, and I will-if you don't make the
payments on time."

Brent looked up at Edmund, wondering how the
man could have changed so much in such a short
time. At the funeral he had seemed supportive, but
now he was threatening to take the ranch from
them. They had already lost their mother and father.
The Half-Moon was all they had left, and he had no
intention of losing it. It was their home.

"You know what a difficult time this has been for
us," Brent argued.

"This isn't personal, Brent," Edmund explained smoothly. "This is about money. This is business. I
made these loans to your pa in good faith. Now that
you've taken over running the ranch, they are your
responsibility."

Brent was chilled by the banker's manner.

This is business....

Brent had thought things were difficult before,
but discovering his father had gone in debt-almost
to the point of losing the ranch just to finance his
dream of raising thoroughbred horses-left him
stunned. "I'll take care of it."

As he spoke, Brent looked down at Edmund. The
banker stared up at him with the hard, cold eyes of a
predator. The coldness was as shocking as if he'd
pulled out a gun and aimed it at Brent's gut.

"I can count on your being on time?" Edmund
asked.

Brent matched his coldness. "You have my word."

He turned and walked out of the bank without
saying anything more. There was nothing left to
say. He wasn't sure how he was going to break the
news to Quince that they were on the verge of
losing everything. Matt, too, if he ever showed up
again. They were all going to have to work damned
hard to make the Half-Moon a paying proposition,
and according to Edmund, they didn't have much
time.

Brent knew he could count on Quince. He
couldn't say the same where Matt was concerned.

Brent had given Edmund his word that the loans would be repaid on time, and he would do it. The
Half-Moon meant too much to him. He would not
lose the ranch because of his father's debts.

Somehow, some way, he would save their home.

Long Horn, Texas, 1880

"What are you going to do about the money you
owe John Hall, Dan?" Crystal Stewart asked her
brother as they found a moment to talk in private at
the Palace Saloon. Dan was a gambler who liked
high-stakes poker games, and he'd just lost a big
hand to the other player. "You owe him a lot."

"I know what I owe him!" Dan seethed, his anger
hiding his desperation. "If you'd helped me the way
you were supposed to..."

Crystal was his shill. Dan had trained her to work
the saloon like a bar girl and to signal him and let
him know what the other men at his table were
holding in their hands. Tonight, however, the other
gamblers had been very careful not to let anyone get a look at their cards. And Dan had lost badly.

"I tried, but it almost seemed that they were on to
me," Crystal said. "I'm tired of doing this, Dan. I
don't like trying to cheat people. It's wrong. We
need to find another way to support ourselves."

"I'll worry about finding another way to support
ourselves right after I figure out a way to pay off
Hall," he said in a snarl.

Dan was tired of her talk about quitting. He knew
she didn't like helping him, but he didn't care. She
was a pretty woman with her blond hair and
curvaceous figure. She could distract the other
gamblers and help him win. That was all that
mattered. They had a good thing going, most of the
time, and he planned to keep it that way.

Dan went on, "I told Hall before he left that I'd
meet him later tonight with the cash."

"But you don't have it!"

"I'll get it somehow. How much do you have on
you? What have you made in tips tonight?"

"I'm not sure a few dollars."

"Give me what you've got."

"We need this money for food and to pay our
hotel bill."

"I'll figure out a way to take care of that laterafter I get Hall off my back."

Crystal was disgusted as she handed over what
cash she had. "I'm going back to the hotel."

"Fine."

As Crystal left, Dan returned to the poker table with her money. He hoped his luck would change. It
had to. He needed to win back enough to pay his
debt.

If he didn't...

Dan refused to think about the possibility.
Instead, he concentrated on the hand he was dealt.

Crystal sought out the quiet sanctity of her small
room at the hotel. It had been a very long night. She
undressed and donned her simple cotton nightgown,
more than ready to seek the solace and peace of
sleep. At least when she was sleeping, she didn't have
to worry about Dan.

She went to the washstand and for a moment
studied her own reflection. The woman looking back
at her seemed almost a stranger. Dan always insisted
she wear face paint to make herself seem older and
more sophisticated than she was. The reflection in
the mirror looked worldly and mature and very
tired.

Crystal scrubbed her face clean, wondering how
she had come to live like this-working in saloons,
helping her older brother cheat at cards-but she
knew the answer. Their parents had died when she
was only sixteen and Dan twenty; they'd had no
relatives or family friends to help them. Dan had
always been the wild sort who fancied himself a good
gambler, and he'd planned to make his living that
way. At first he'd resented having to take care of her,
but when he'd realized how pretty she was, he had bought her some fancy dresses and trained
her to help him.