Chapter Forty-Two

Wendy had gonedeeper into the tack shed, leaving Randall still pacing in front of its open doors, but with no one to shoot words at.

"I understand you looked into the ranch's finances after Robin got home," I said without preamble.

"After I got her home and she was on the road to recovery," he corrected. He looked toward his daughter. "Is that what you were talking about?"

"But you did look into the ranch's finances?"

"Of course. Due diligence. Wouldn't make an offer without looking closely at all aspects of a business. Though it's harder with these little mom and pop places — or just mom in this case. Corporations' required information gives you a place to start. Never the whole story, or the whole truth, but a start. But these little places and all their privacy..." His mouth twisted as if with something sour.

"Uh-huh," I said with false sympathy. "Private companies, private property."

He came as close to saying, "Bah," as I could imagine him getting. "Nothing's really private. Some measures just make it harder and longer and more costly to find out what I need."

"You know that Wendy's uncle left her the ranch?"

"Not directly, he didn't." He said it casually, not showing off. "Left it and the rest of his estate — which wasn't much — to her and her siblings. Thought that would be my way in — they're businessmen. I could deal with the Barlow brothers."

His inference being that Wendy was emotional and unreasonable and female in not wanting to sell to him. While he was supremely rational and business-like and male in relentlessly chasing the acquisition of the place where his daughter turned a corner in her life.

Was he so out of touch with himself, his reactions, his emotions that he didn't recognize why he wanted Elk Rock Ranch?

...Maybe.

Did that make him potentially irrational, even dangerous?

...Maybe.

The door to Keefe's cabin opened.

****

Sam McCracken cameout of Keefe's cabin with a file box.

"You're letting him take things?" Randall demanded of Wendy.

"Saves me throwing it out."

"It belongs to the ranch. If there is a treasure—"

She cursed, but he'd already turned away, heading toward the cabin.

"Dad," Robin called.

He stopped halfway, staring at Sam.

At the same time Serena stood. "Sam. Please. Just leave it."

He didn't, but he altered his path toward her.

Diana and I walked toward the McCrackens.

"...said to go ahead and she's the owner," he said.

"I don't care. It's—" She broke off, seeing us approach.

This didn't feel like a time for subtle.

"Did Keefe tell you your trip into a specific area of the ranch wasn't going to happen?" I asked Sam, deliberately poking.

"What? No. Of course it was going to happen. We were mapping it out the last time I was here. That's why I need this. We were closer than ever to the treasure."

Serena emitted a sound. "We don't need treasure. We—"

"It's not need. It's the chase. It's figuring it out when many others tried and failed."

"Devoting all your time and attention to beating strangers at treasure-hunting. But, Sam, you already won. We won. We have the kids and the time to spend with them we always wanted in a place we're coming to love. We have the treasure."

She didn't have him. Not in the kind of turnaround on a dime she might want. But I hoped she saw that she had a crack. A definitive fissure in his obsession.

Did it come too late for Keefer Dobey?

Sam McCracken wouldn't be the first driven by an obsession to do something terrible, only to have that act return their senses. Too late.

"Please," Serena said. "Please leave me to talk to my husband."

To see if she could persuade him here and now to leave the box, the treasure hunt behind.

Diana and I started toward the tack room door.

I turned back just before I would have been out of earshot.

"Sam, did you and Keefe have champagne at his cabin?"

He frowned. Then it lifted. "Once. Middle of February. I brought some after Ivy first found the secondary source referring to that interview of the posse member. Keefe liked it. I said I'd bring more when he got the DNA results. And I'd bring a case if we ever found the treasure."

****

We stopped inan open space, not too close to anyone else.

I was aware of Diana beside me. Of Randall Kenyon, now over by his daughter against the fence, while keeping an eye on Sam. Of the McCrackens talking in low voices, while Sam kept an eye on Keefe's cabin.

Brenda was nowhere in sight. Wendy continued her sorting, clearing the front saddle rack. Back and forth, back and forth.

I scuffed at the dirt under my foot.

I was thinking about grasshoppers. How they could be under the ground, giving no indication anything was there, but when the timing was right, they rise. Outbreak, infestation, hordes, plague.

I was thinking of Mrs. P and her stance that I needed to understand the history — including how Pony Express routes set the pattern for the railroads, which set the pattern for railroad robberies during the outlaws' heyday. To know what came before to understand what was now.

I thought of the video of Keefe sitting in the woods — no, not of him. Of what he saw. Because we were seeing the scene through his eyes in a way. He wasn't perfectly still — maybe that would have been more suspicious to the wildlife around him. But his movements were slow and infrequent. They almost seemed to keep time with the movement of the tree branches.

I thought about Robin, her leg, her life broken, spoiled and bratty and devastated and lonely, staring up to tree tops meeting overhead with the blue sky beyond. And how Keefer Dobey's stillness and quiet, along with Suzie Q's comforting presence could lure someone like her out of her hiding place.

I thought about people whose endings aren't truly known — Pearl Virtanen, Etta Place or whatever her real name was, along with Sundance and Butch. Also Jacques La Ramée. Or Laura Bullion, who disappeared for years, then showed up, claiming to be a widow of a World War I soldier.

People who were lost. People who were found...

People who didn't want to be found...

People others didn't want found...

But where did that get me?

The DNA test results cued up to reveal the past.

Someone who didn't want DNA to find Keefe as the descendant of Oscar and Pearl?

Was the treasure truly worth that much?

Or was the finding of it, more than the financial gain, what mattered?

I thought about Brenda saying sweeping out and that sticking in my head, which led to realizing Randall hid the fake note.

There was something else... Something Mrs. P said.

Not about Esther Ramalarga or Pearl Virtanen.

Something tickling at the back of my brain. Something I was missing.

And I could swear, somehow, I could hear my own voice saying...

But that was to Robin. While what Mrs. P said—

Oh.

I had it.

And it shifted everything.

But was I making too much of it?

Making too much of something Mrs. P said?

No way.

Mrs. P said it and she meant it. And that meant... I'd been looking at this all wrong. We all had.