Redemption (22 page)

More sketches of the father she hated, he thought as he walked her to her car. His crows cawed at them from a telephone line, seeming upset. Tiffany shot them an irritated look before climbing into her car.

“I’m glad you came out to see me.”

She responded by slamming the car door, starting the engine and taking off in a cloud of dust, leaving him afraid he might never see her again.

* * *

F
EELING TIME SLIP
like sand through her fingers, Kate couldn’t help being anxious to get back into Ackermann Hollow. With Jack helping her, the search should go faster.

He was right about the map being unhelpfully generic. There were numerous places that looked like those on the map, too many to search in so little time. But she couldn’t give up. Wouldn’t.

Unfortunately, Bethany had called in sick this afternoon, so Kate had to work the evening shift at the café. It would be dark by nine, when she closed. Soon, though, it would stay daylight until almost ten. If she could wait that long.

* * *

“
I
NEED YOU
TO MAKE
sure this never falls into those thieving bastards’ hands,” Claude said. “I don’t care what you do with the gold. Blow it all in Vegas. I just don’t want any of my brother’s descendants to have it. Promise me.”

“Claude, if others haven’t been able to find it, how do you expect me—”

“I know Cull. He’ll hold on to the map as long as there is breath in his body. I heard he’s sick. He’ll try to find one of his boys to give the map to, probably his oldest, Cecil.”

“I thought you said everyone believes his sons are dead.”

Claude nodded. “Everyone doesn’t know those boys like I do. The remains of only one was found. Those other three are alive somewhere. Count on it. And they’ll come back to Beartooth. Either because Cull finally gave one of them the map. Or because they’ll figure out that the only other person who knew was your mother. They’ll come looking for the gold and if they don’t find it, they’ll come looking for you. It won’t matter if you have the gold or not. You understand what I’m saying?”

* * *

S
HE HADN’T REALLY
understood back then. But she did now. She couldn’t let the sons of the man who’d mistreated her mother get her mother’s money. She had to find the gold first.

Jack. He was her only hope. He knew the country, he was smart and as wily as a fox.

She hated needing his help. It would mean spending more time around him. Which meant putting herself in danger in an even more frightening way. Jack was a heartbreaker. She didn’t think for a moment that he would spare her heart.

She looked around the café. It was full this evening, alive with laughter and the sound of voices. She’d made a life for herself here. It wasn’t a bad life. The gold only complicated things.

But as Claude had warned her, she’d have to deal with the Ackermann boys one way or the other. And his prediction had been right.

* * *

T
HE
A
CKERMANN PLACE
was a good walk from Loralee’s house. She had grabbed her sweater, determined to find out what was going on up there. At a spot near her property, she found a place in the fence where she could slide under.

She knew what her daughter would say if she saw her sneaking up the hollow. As she walked, she could hear the whole conversation her daughter would be having with her right now.

“Mother, why in the world would you go up there, of all places?”

“Because I felt like it. Haven’t you ever done anything just because you felt like it?”

“What’s really going on, Mother?”

Loralee fingered the old photo she’d stuck in her sweater pocket. It was her proof that she wasn’t senile. She wanted to shove it in front of Marian’s face and say, “See? Now what do you have to say to your mother?”

Had the person Kate LaFond reminded her of been anyone but Teeny Ackermann, she couldn’t have felt more satisfaction. She’d failed the woman and would never forget it.

She had to stop to catch her breath, having forgotten that the climb into the isolated hollow was mostly uphill. Between keeping her own house and her garden, she was in good shape for a woman her age. At least she’d thought so. But the walk up here had taken a lot of her energy. She wasn’t as spry as she’d thought she was.

But she pressed onward, determined to make it to what was left of the house and outbuildings and find out what was going on up here.

It was cool and shaded in the hollow. She stepped over a piece of old barbed-wire fence that lay on the ground from where a tree had fallen on it, and moved through a stand of cottonwoods along the small creek. The silted water was running fast down from the mountains. Snow-fed, it seemed to throw off a cold breeze that made her hug herself.

Ahead, she spotted the stone corner of the foundation of the Ackermann house. Cull was said to have built it himself. Just like the old barn and outbuildings. Most still stood.

It surprised her. She’d have thought the land would have reclaimed everything over the past thirty years. As she moved, the tall spring grass whickered against her pant leg. The sound of it and the creek seemed so lonely she felt like crying.

Or was it the sight of the gaping hole, dug in the side of the mountain, that had once been a root cellar? And a prison for the first Mrs. Ackermann.

She felt a chill move through her and turned away. Her daughter would have been right. She was a fool to come up here. What had she hoped to accomplish by heaping on more guilt? Maybe more to the point, what was she going to do if she was right and someone was staying up here?

The house looked full of dirt and critters. No one in his right mind would be trying to live on this property. As she started to turn back, she was startled to see a man come out of the barn.

Strangling off her startled cry, she had the sense to step behind the trunk of a large cottonwood. But in her haste, she wrenched her ankle and almost fell, dropping the shotgun. It clanged on rock and she feared the noise had given her away. As she clung to the tree, the pain excruciating, she knew it could be the least of her problems if the man had seen or heard her.

She waited a few moments before peeking around the tree. The man was carrying a shovel, the blade dark with soil. He wore only jeans, his white chest bare except for a tapestry of dark tattoos.

Loralee held her breath as the man headed in her direction. It was his haircut that sent her already thundering pulse into overdrive. It was cut the same way all the Ackermann boys had worn theirs. A
buzz,
she thought it had been called thirty years ago. But maybe that was only in Montana.

What hair he had left was dark, just as she knew his eyes were—that bottomless black. Like a pit with no way out. He was tall and thin. Like his father, she thought with a shudder. His face was pockmarked and narrow as a ferret’s. He moved stealthily, ghostlike, and she was reminded again of that brood of vegetable-stealing young’ns—now grown men. Which Ackermann was this one?

As he neared, she saw with relief that he had some kind of music device sticking out of his jeans pocket and those ear things stuck in each ear. She looked down at her shotgun only to find it had broken open, both shells having spilled out on the ground. Even if she could trust putting weight on her hurt ankle, she feared she would never be able to get the shotgun and reload it quickly enough.

When she looked up, he was within yards of her. All she could do was squeeze her eyes shut tight and pray he hadn’t seen her. Her greatest fear was opening them to find him standing over her. Looking at her as he had thirty years ago before, when she’d chased him out of her garden only to find him back, ripping out her plants by the handfuls.

But when she opened her eyes, she saw to her weak-kneed relief that he was nowhere in sight. A few moments later, she heard what sounded like a four-wheeler start up over a rise to the north.

Loralee slumped to the ground, her good leg too weak to hold her as she listened to the four-wheeler drive away. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t think. She sat for a few long moments. Darkness was settling into the hollow. She couldn’t stay here, because every instinct told her he would be back.

But she wasn’t sure she could walk. Her ankle still hurt like the devil. She remembered the cell phone Marian had insisted she have and dug frantically in her pocket, praying she had cell service this far up the hollow. She’d never needed her daughter more than she did at this moment.

But her pocket was empty. She’d left the cell phone at the house.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
T WAS THE WEE HOURS
of the night by the time Loralee reached the house. She’d used the shotgun like a crutch and still there’d been terrifying times when she’d thought she would never make it.

There’s no fool like an old fool
.

Was that a song? Or just a remarkably acute expression?

The cell phone wasn’t the only thing she’d forgotten. When she’d left home, the day had been cool. She hadn’t thought to bring water or even a candy bar.

She was famished and weak, her ankle hurt like the dickens and she would have given anything if someone had come along and offered her a ride.

But she lived miles from the nearest house, on a road that was seldom used. That was one reason Cull Ackermann had bought property out here, far to the north of town, hidden at the edge of the Crazies.

It made the trip into Big Timber thirty-five miles instead of twenty. Beartooth was closer, but not by much, since the road often drifted closed in the winter and was rutted and muddy most of the rest of the year. In the spring, it was sometimes impassable because of mud. By fall, the county would finally get around to grading it.

Loralee had always thought it was a darned good thing she wasn’t like some women who thought they had to go into town all the time.

As she considered the way her thoughts kept straying, she wondered if she was suffering from hypothermia. With the sun long gone, the wind had come up and was now blowing a chill down from the mountains. At least it wasn’t supposed to snow again. But this was Montana. She’d seen it snow any month of the year.

Cold and exhausted, stumbling along in the dark, she prayed she didn’t encounter a grizzly. Or worse, that Ackermann boy.

When her house came into view, Loralee began to cry. She was glad there wasn’t anyone around to see her. All her life, she’d prided herself on being strong and capable. Isn’t that what Maynard had said he loved about her?

Maybe she
was
getting senile. Maybe Marian was right. Maybe she should at least consider an apartment in Big Timber. Or even assisted living.

The thought stopped her tears. She straightened her back and limped to her front door. Had she left it wide open? She supposed so, since it had been nice earlier.

She pulled open the screen and stepped inside, never so glad to be home.

That’s when she saw that someone had been here and whoever it was had torn up the place.

She thought about calling the sheriff. In fact, she planned to. But first she was too cold and hungry. She dropped her shotgun by the front door and stumbled into the kitchen. It wasn’t quite as messed up, although someone had gone through her canisters. Her little bit of mad money she kept hidden in one of them was gone.

In the refrigerator, she took out the milk and saw that he’d gotten into her leftover fried chicken. Most of it was gone, but he’d left her a couple of pieces—probably the pieces he didn’t like, she thought as she dropped into a chair at the table.

She drank half a quart of milk and ate the chicken before she felt better. Her ankle ached, but she knew it would be fine once she got off it.

As she glanced around the kitchen, she tried to assess what might be missing. Getting up, she limped to the drawer where she kept her mother’s silverware.

It was still there. Relieved, she went back into the living room. A few things had been knocked over or taken off the wall. A lamp had been broken, as well as several picture frames. She’d never liked those pictures anyway.

The bathroom hadn’t been disturbed, except he’d gone through her medicine cabinet and taken all the old pain pills she kept around should she need them. In the sewing room, she saw the sewing machine was still there. Thankfully he hadn’t realized what a new model like that was worth.

In her bedroom, she found all the drawers in the bureau askew with some of her unmentionables on the floor. He must be desperate for money to go through an old woman’s underwear drawer, she thought with an amused shake of her head.

That thought made her move to her jewelry box. To her surprise, nothing seemed to be missing. Maynard hadn’t been the kind of husband who’d bought his wife diamonds or even gold. He might surprise her with a new tractor or even flowers a few times. Usually it was a box of candy and a note that said he loved her. That had been all she’d needed and more.

She tidied up her bedroom, but decided the rest of the house could wait, since she really needed to get off her bad ankle.

Everything could wait, she told herself. Just like calling the sheriff. No damage was done. She didn’t keep much pin money in the house. Her purse was under a pile of new fabric she’d purchased, so the thief hadn’t even gotten what little cash she carried.

And what could the sheriff do anyway? The thief was gone and it wasn’t as if he’d left a calling card. Without proof of who’d done this, the sheriff couldn’t do a darned thing.

She considered calling her daughter, but quickly decided it would only worry Marian and for no good reason.

Loralee was no fool. At least that’s what she hoped people said after she was gone. She’d never been robbed in her life. Nor had she ever seen anyone slinking around the ranch house—other than those Ackermann boys.

It didn’t take much to put two and two together and come up with who had been in her house, trying to steal from her.