Barely aware of himself.
Three notes.
A tune his father used to whistle.
A habit Jedediah had inherited without thinking.
He reproduced them.
Diablo reared.
Clara’s expression became horror.
“Again.”
“No.”
“Jedediah.”
He whistled.
Diablo tried to flee.
Clara stared at him.
“He’s been trained to panic at that sound.”
Jedediah’s skin prickled.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
She looked back toward the ranch.
“It’s conditioning.
Pain tied to a signal often enough that the signal becomes the pain.”
Silas’s rawhide strap flashed through Jedediah’s mind.
Then another memory came.
Six years earlier.
Thomas sitting on the fence before mounting the chestnut mare.
Their father standing near the barn.
Amos Cross whistling.
Three notes.
The mare’s ears flattening.
Jedediah suddenly could not breathe.
The fire had destroyed half the hay barn but spared the stables.
By midnight, rain finished what the bucket line had begun.
Silas Rourke was gone.
So were two saddle horses.
Jedediah stood in his father’s office soaked to the bone.
Clara placed a folded sheet of paper on the desk.
“My father’s letter.”
Jedediah did not touch it.
“Read it.”
“You should.”
“I said read it.”
She opened it.
Matthew Vale’s handwriting had faded.
Clara began.
“Thomas Cross’s mare was not ready because she had begun reacting violently to a whistle used by Amos Cross during punishment training.
I told Amos I would not clear the animal.
He ordered me to keep quiet.”
Jedediah stared at the portrait above the desk.
Clara continued.
“The morning Thomas was hurt, I inspected the mare.
Her pupils were enlarged.
Her mouth was dry.
She was sweating before work.
I believed she had been given a stimulant.”
Jedediah’s voice turned hoarse.
“Why didn’t he stop Thomas?”
“He tried.”
“He was standing there.”
“My father said Amos threatened to destroy him.”
“Thomas was worth more than any threat.”
“To you.”
Clara’s eyes lifted.
“Maybe not to your father.”
Silence.
She read the next line.
“Thomas had discovered money disappearing from Cross Ranch breeding accounts.
He intended to confront his father publicly.”
Jedediah looked at her.
“No.”
“There’s more.”
“I said no.”
But this time he did not order her out.
Clara continued.
“After Thomas fell, I found the cinch leather partly cut beneath the buckle.
Before I could show anyone, Silas Rourke took the saddle.
That night Amos Cross came to my room carrying Thomas’s watch.”
Jedediah closed his eyes.
“He said if I accused him or Silas, my daughter would grow up without a father.”
Clara’s voice shook.
“I ran because I was a coward.
I have lived with that cowardice every day.”
She lowered the letter.
Jedediah looked old.
Much older than thirty-seven.
“Your father kept Thomas’s watch.”
“He said Amos threw it at him as proof he could make Thomas disappear from history as easily as he could make my father disappear.”
Jedediah sank into the chair.
“My father loved Thomas.”
Clara said nothing.
“He loved us.”
Still nothing.
Jedediah looked up.
“Say something.”
“What would make this easier?”
“Tell me your father lied.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell me Silas acted alone.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me anything.”
Clara’s eyes softened.
