Chapter 12

“They found her this morning. Widow Jenkins passed away in her sleep, and they was going to dig a grave for her, and they found her. She was laying on her daughter’s grave. With all the snow we been having, no one realized she was there. It ain’t like many people go to the cemetery in the winter months.”

“What happened to her?” Merry had taken another blow finding that her mother had died as well. And Drew was crying softly in Adam’s arms. He had lost his grandmother now.

“All we can really tell is it appears she died of the cold. She had a blanket and a rug. She musta laid down there and just gone to sleep. Who knows how she was thinking with all that drinking she’s been doing. We found a letter she wrote. It was next to her on that blanket.”

“What did the letter say, Roy? Did it explain anything?”

“Adam, the melting snow turned it into ink stained paper. I got it drying in my office but I don’t rightly think we’re gonna be able to read any of it. It was soggy when we found it. Took some time just to peel the pages apart.”

“More than one page then?”

“Two pages folded. Seems to me that she was feeling a lot of guilt and shame, and she just couldn’t take it no more, or maybe she just didn’t understand what she was doing laying down to sleep next to her daughter. Now with what’s been going on, I told the minister to go ahead and arrange a funeral for tomorrow, and ifn it’s all right with you, I’ll have everything in the house packed up and stored if that’s what you want.”

Looking over at Merry, Adam could see that she appreciated what Roy had done. “Thank you, Roy. That would be very nice.”

“Now I’d like to take a look at that spot the shooter was at who shot Little Joe.”

“I can take you up there, Roy. It’s not far.” Hoss went to grab his coat and hat. “I’ll saddle up and meet you outside.”

“Roy, would you like a cup of coffee to warm up while you wait?” So Roy settled into a chair and enjoyed some coffee while Hoss saddled Chubb. As a precaution, Hoss told the couple of hands that were there to saddle up too. He had gut feeling that something wasn’t right.

In the house, Adam had a question for Roy for he had been thinking a lot about who could want him dead. It had to be someone who had a lot of hate or someone who was mentally unbalanced. Margaret had been unbalanced but she was dead. So he began thinking of others who could have been damaged by what Merry’s father and Waverly had done. “Roy, when you were talking to Rebecca Waverly, did she mention who taught her how to shoot? I don’t remember Waverly ever carrying a weapon.”

“She said her mama did. She said her mother had been taught to target shoot by her father who was a hunter. Elaine Waverly’s mother though forbid her to go hunting. She said she would never get a respectable husband if she did that. I heard a lot of that family history when I asked them just a few questions. Those two sure do like to talk.”

“It seems to me that Elaine was angry quite often or at least looked like she was.”

“I got that impression too, but now I can see why she would be. Musta been tough to know your husband preferred girls to you. I’m sure she knew it too. It was that same look Margaret had when I talked to her. They knew what was going on and didn’t do nothing about it. All that anger, guilt, and shame has got to wear on a person.”

Merry and Drew were sitting quietly. Adam watched them carefully to see if they needed anything. Suddenly there were shouts from outside. Ben and Roy rushed to the door.

“Pa, them trees up on the ridge are on fire. We gotta head up there and stop that before the fire crowns and spreads.”

“Go, go. I’ll saddle up and be right behind you. Grab blankets from the bunkhouse and shovels and forks from the stable. Hurry.”

Within minutes, Hoss and the others were gone, and soon Ben was mounted up and riding up to the ridge too. Adam grabbed Joe’s pistol and handed it to Merry.

“Do you still have the pistol I told you to keep in your skirt pocket?” At Merry’s nod, he had further instructions. “Go up to Joe’s room with Drew. Tell Joe everything that happened and give him his pistol. Then wait there until you hear me call you.”

“Adam, what’s wrong?”

“I think the fire may be a diversion. I want to be ready if it is. Now hurry.”

Once Adam saw Merry and Drew turn the corner at the top of the stairs, he told Hop Sing to go in his room with his shotgun. They might be having company. Then Adam grabbed his pistol and stuck it in the back of his pants and then sat in the blue chair, leaned back, and closed his eyes. It didn’t take long for him to discover that he had been correct. He opened his eyes when he heard sounds from the kitchen and then a rifle carrying woman stepped into the dining room.

“Hello, Becky. Well it does seem you learned how to use that weapon well, but not well enough.”

Becky was shocked to see Adam sitting in the great room. She expected him to be wounded in bed.

“You thought you shot me. I can tell by the shocked look you have. Well, you shot Joe when he was wearing my jacket. Not very observant of you.”

“You think you’re so smart. Then why am I the one with the rifle and you’re unarmed?”

“I guess you got me there. So what now? You’re going to shoot me in my own home? What about witnesses?”

“Oh, you see that’s another mistake you made. There aren’t going to be any witnesses. At least none that anyone would believe because I’ll make sure of that.”

“Drew? You want Drew?”

“What is it to you? He’s just my father’s bastard son. You must have seen the resemblance. My mother did and so did I.”

“What’s going on, Becky? What is the grand scheme?”

“I suppose I could tell you. It was all about money, wealth. You should understand that. My mother and I were blackmailing my father and that other sick bastard. We told them we would tell everyone what they had done. I didn’t know about those others until they weren’t available any more, and then my own father came to me. I wasn’t even ten years old. He said Charlotte and Meredith had been so nice to him and that he expected me to do the same. Well that lasted until mother taught me how to shoot. I said I’d shoot him if he touched me again. That’s when Mama and Margaret and I came up with a plan. We got my father to siphon money out of accounts at the bank and into an account for Drew. He’s just a boy and easy enough to manipulate. Then Margaret’s husband was forging documents for us at the land office so we could call in loans on property. It was all set to go until you killed him and got my father banished.”

“You intended to kill Charlotte and Dwayne all along then?”

“Of course. That way Margaret would get custody of the brat and be able to control all of his property. It’s all the fault of this society where everything is set up for the males. Except you stepped in there too and took him out here. We need him back so we can get the property.”

“But Margaret is dead.”

“That damn cowardly drunk. She started feeling all guilty once we told her about the rest of the plan and actually started putting the plan into operation.”

“How could you get the court to give Drew to you?”

“My father would admit he was the father of that bastard, that’s how we’ll get the boy. We control my father with what we know so he’ll do whatever we tell him. Once we have all the property, well then the boy is expendable too.”

“Very clever except for shooting Joe instead of me. You do know he’s in the house too, and Merry and Drew are with him upstairs.”

“That’s not true. You’re lying because there is no way you knew I was coming here.”

“I not only knew it, I planned for it. I wanted to hear what you had to say. Hop Sing is in his room with a shotgun, and Joe and Merry have pistols upstairs. That’s just in case I can’t stop you.”

“How are you going to stop me, smart mouth? You don’t even have a weapon.”

Suddenly Adam drew his pistol from behind his back and dropped behind the settee. “I have a pistol. You’ll never leave her alive unless you drop that rifle.”

Rebecca fired a shot, and then shots seemed to come from everywhere at her. Hop Sing fired from the kitchen, Joe from the top of the stairs, and Adam from down low behind the settee. She was dead before she hit the floor. Adam looked up the stairs at Joe.

“Doc said only light duty with that arm.”

“This was light duty.”

“Did you hear?”

Merry and Drew stepped from behind the protection of the wall and stood at Joe’s side. “We heard it all. What a sick woman and a sick mother. I guess we know now why Mama did what she did.”

Ben, Hoss, and Roy burst through the front door then with guns drawn. Seeing Adam and Joe standing, they all holstered their weapons. “What in tarnation happened here?”

“Pa, surprised to see you back so soon.”

“Once Hoss told me those fires were set deliberately, all three of us had the same idea. It was a diversion to get us away from the house. The hands are finishing up with putting the fires out and will stay there to make sure nothing reignites. Now what happened here? I’m not asking again.”

So Adam told most of the story with the others filling in bits and pieces along the way. Hop Sing and Joe then rolled Rebecca’s body in the dining room rug. Roy would take her into town, and then he would arrest Elaine Waverly, and contact the authorities to arrest her husband for embezzlement. The good news was that the money had never left the bank. It was all there under an account opened by Waverly in Drew’s name. After Roy left, Merry looked at Adam who was sitting with Drew on his lap.

“How did you know?”

“I guess it all started to come together when Roy mentioned that your mother left a two page note. Now saying she was sorry and such would not have taken that much to write, so I guessed she was explaining something a lot more complex. And we kept moving our suspicions from one woman to the next with those three. There was a reason why each one of them could not be the one doing it. But if you lumped them all together as a conspiracy, then they could be doing it. Once the fires were set, I knew it had to be a diversion and expected either Elaine or Rebecca to walk through those doors. I wasn’t sure which one it would be but it had to be one of them. The rest of it I didn’t guess, but I knew it had to be some grand scheme cooked up by the three demented women.”

“You are scary smart. No wonder I have trouble beating you at chess.”

“Merry, you can beat Adam at chess?” Joe was surprised.

“Well when he was recuperating, I won a couple of times. He said I cheated.” Then she grinned for she had cheated, but there were those two times when he couldn’t prove it.

“She cheats.”

“Oh yeah, and Hoss says I cheat at checkers too.”

“Well, dadburnit, you do.”

Drew looked up at Adam who wiped a tear from the little boy’s cheek. “Are you sure you want to join this family, Drew?” Nodding, Drew had a little smile before he dropped his head back on Adam’s shoulder. “Good.”