Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (4 page)

“
He
was the one they arrested?” Esther felt stunned.

“You don’t remember?”

Esther shook her head. “I didn’t really pay a whole lot of attention. Well, I don’t get the newspaper, and I don’t listen to the radio or anything…”

“But didn’t you draw the picture of the kidnapper?”

“Well, yes, but they didn’t ever need to use it because the man confessed the same day that I talked to the little girl and did the drawing. The girl’s mother was upset because the drawing didn’t look at all like the man who was in jail, but I never did pay attention to who he was. By the time I got to the sheriff with the drawing, the real rapist had confessed.”

And she found herself wondering why she felt as if she needed to apologize for not keeping up to the minute on local events. In point of fact, she
hated
the news and avoided it as much as possible. What was the point of listening to an endless litany of pain and suffering when there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to prevent any of it?

“Well, it was Craig Nighthawk they arrested,” Verna told her. “Kept him for weeks in that jail. He turned down bail, you know.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“Because he figured people was so mad he was safer in jail.”

Esther nodded her understanding. People had been extremely enraged over Lisa Dunbar’s kidnapping and rape. Isolated though Esther was, she had picked up on it whenever she went to town for groceries. “He was probably right about that.”

“’Course he was.”

“But why did they arrest him in the first place?”

“The little girl’s clothes were found on his property. If Dud Willis hadn’t confessed, Nighthawk’d be in prison for life. Ain’t no way a jury around here was gonna let him off.”

“I guess not.” She could well imagine that the clothes would have been taken as absolute proof, especially when tempers were running high. “It must have been awful for him.”

“Reckon so. They’s still plenty of folks around here who think he had a hand in it.”

“Why? Because the clothes were on his property?”

“That’s part of it. They also figure the little girl knew what she was talking about when she said the man who hurt her had long black hair.”

Esther felt a chill snake along her spine, and she looked out the window as if seeking a reminder that the rest of the world still existed. She had no trouble believing a man could hurt a small child, but she didn’t want to believe Craig Nighthawk could.

“Well,” Verna continued, pausing to drain her cup and set it aside, “ol’ Willis confessed and never once pointed the finger anywhere else. And there wasn’t any other evidence that Nighthawk had any part in it. The sheriff believes he’s innocent and that’s good enough for me.”

But Esther wasn’t sure it was good enough for her.

Craig Nighthawk sat down to dinner that evening with his sister Paula, her husband, Enoch, and their two young children. The little girl, Mary, was five but seemed much older because of the quiet way she watched the world from her huge dark eyes. Little Billy was three, and greeted almost all of life with an irresistible belly laugh.

Paula passed a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese to him, then filled the children’s mugs with milk. The kids loved this meal, but Craig suffered through it only because it was a cost-saving measure. They simply couldn’t afford to serve meat as a main dish every day and Paula balanced the kids’ diets with eggs and milk. Still, Craig liked meat. Back in his trucking days, he’d eaten meat two or three times a day. And lately, with fish so expensive, he was beginning to dream of broiled swordfish and fried catfish.

Hell, he was even beginning to think about sacrificing Cromwell, stringy and tough though that old ewe probably was. It’d surely be a hell of a lot easier on his temper to eat her rather than deal with her.

“Did you take care of the woman’s garden?” Enoch asked him while they ate.

“Yup.”

“That damn ewe is a pain in the butt.”

“No kidding.”

“Was she happy with the new flowers?”

Craig suddenly realized that he hadn’t even asked Esther. “I don’t know.”

Paula shook her head, giving him a smile of sisterly indulgence. “That was the important thing to find out.”

Craig shrugged. “Wasn’t much I could do about it one way or another. They were the only flowers I could get and I’d already bought and paid for ’em. What was I gonna do?”

“I just don’t want to get sued,” Enoch said.

Enoch had a streak of paranoia, but that wasn’t unusual among res Indians. After you’d been kicked two or three dozen times by white folks, you got to expect it. That was one of the main reasons Craig had wanted to get his sister and her children away from there. People in Conard County were still prejudiced, but not to the degree he’d seen where he came from. Hell, there were a couple of Indian sheriff’s deputies, one of them a woman.

Which meant that those two bright and shining faces across the table from him had a chance to grow up without feeling hated and terrorized by the world at large. Unfortunately, the price of that was separation from their roots. He still hadn’t figured out how they were going to deal with that.

He would never forget his surprise as he’d traveled around the country at discovering that the whole world
didn’t
hate Indians. He didn’t want these kids discovering that fact with the same surprise; he wanted them to grow up believing it.

“I think we ought to slaughter that damn ewe,” Enoch said. “We couldn’t afford those flowers. That’s food off the table, and some mutton could replace it.”

“I figure it’d be like eating rubber bands.”

Paula flashed a smile but shook her head. “We don’t want to slaughter her, Enoch. She’s a good breeder. We’ll manage.” She spread her arms suddenly, as if to embrace the whole world. “Why are we complaining? Three years ago we didn’t have an indoor bathroom or central heat. Three years ago we weren’t eating any better and we had a whole lot less hope.”

Enoch looked down at his plate, then gave her a smile. “You’re right. I’m just impatient.”

“Aren’t we all,” Craig remarked. He passed his nearly untouched plate to Paula and rose. “Let the kids have seconds. I’m not hungry.”

Nor should he be, he thought as he stepped outdoors and watched the sun sag toward the mountains. He’d had that bountiful breakfast at Esther Jackson’s place this morning and he felt guilty when he thought of those two little kids inside.
He’d
had enough to eat today; now they should go to bed with their tummies as full as possible.

Not that they were starving. God knows, he and Paula and Enoch had all had times in their lives when they’d had nothing to eat. Those kids weren’t dining on five-star cuisine, but they had enough food. He just felt guilty because he wasn’t giving them any more.

Stupid.

Wishing for a cigarette, he rocked back on his heels and looked up into the blue sky. He’d given up smoking back when he sold his truck because it was a waste of money. What killed him was that all this time later he could still crave a cigarette as strongly as the day he’d quit.

Oh, well, no point thinking about it, he told himself. They’d pulled this ranch through more than two years, and he didn’t for a minute doubt that they would pull it through to better times. The pasture was shaping up, and he figured between the lambs his ewes would drop come April, and the profit he expected from wool next year, they ought to be doing better soon.

From where he stood on the porch watching the day dwindle, he could see other signs that this place was just getting by. He’d painted the house five years ago when he bought the place, but Wyoming winters were harsh and it was looking as if it needed another coat.

He and Enoch had done some work inside the barn, making it more useful to their needs, but the outside looked weathered and even a little dilapidated. They were going to have to do something about that before much longer or buy the paint several times over in repairs. The roof was sound, though. They’d seen to that last fall.

Around back of the house, Paula was raising an extensive vegetable garden, canning whatever they didn’t immediately need for the coming winter. Her henhouse was making more eggs than they needed, and she’d begun to sell them here and there for less than the supermarket wanted. With those proceeds she bought clothes for the children.

They were doing as well as could be expected, and considering that he owned the spread free and clear, they were doing better than most people.

So what the hell was he feeling gloomy for? Because he wasn’t driving a truck any longer?

Nah. He wasn’t drowning in self-pity. He’d done what was necessary to take care of the people he cared about, and that wasn’t something to pine over.

But for some reason today he just felt…glum. Lonely, actually, which was ridiculous considering his house was full of people, and that he generally preferred to be alone anyway. But being alone and being lonely were two different things, he guessed, and right now he was feeling lonely.

Turning to go back into the house to work on the books, he paused and looked around him.

In the evening light, the place still looked as beautiful as it had the first time he laid eyes on it. Maybe even better because back then it had been run down and left to go to pot. Now there was a lawn and a garden and signs of life everywhere, like that swing hanging from the limb of the big old cottonwood beside the house. It was a home.

For an instant, just one uneasy instant, he wondered what Esther Jackson would think of it.

Then he brushed the thought aside like an annoying fly and went inside to deal with the other part of ranching.

It wasn’t until she was about to go to bed that Esther remembered the letter from her agent. She’d shoved it into her pocket when Verna gave it to her, and later had dropped it onto her desk, meaning to get back to it after dinner.

It probably wasn’t all that important—Jo generally called when something significant was up—but now that she’d remembered it she knew she wouldn’t be able to forget about it until morning. As long as she was busy, she could ignore her curiosity, but not when she was trying to go to sleep.

Sighing, she pulled her flannel nightgown over her head and limped barefoot down the stairs. Without her brace on she had to be exceptionally careful because her knee and ankle were so unstable, but she leaned heavily on the railing and negotiated the steps successfully.

When she’d considered buying this house, she had hesitated because of the stairs, but everything else was so perfect that she had assured herself that one or two trips a day up and down these stairs was something she could manage. And so far she had.

With care she crossed to the small room she used as a study. The letter was waiting for her on the blotter, glowing whitely in the near-dark. She hesitated to reach for it, however, suddenly feeling strangely reluctant.

Instead she went to the window and looked out at the night. No city dweller, as she had been most of her life, could possibly imagine how dark the night was out here. Stars sprinkled the sky in breathtaking profusion, and with only their gentle light the world appeared to vanish in the black of night.

She could see the hulking shape of the tree at the corner of the house, and the dark shadow of the barn silhouetted against the star-spangled sky. She could dimly see the edge of the porch but little was visible beyond it. From a distance she heard the lonely hoot of an owl, carried on the soft sigh of the breeze.

She might have stayed there for hours, admiring the perfection of the night, except that the envelope on her desk was like a silent pressure, beckoning to her and tugging at her. Jo wasn’t one to waste paper or telephone calls. If she’d written, it was important enough to take the time.

Still feeling reluctant, she limped to the desk, taking care to balance properly on her bad leg. It was a relief to lean against the desk and know for a few minutes that she wasn’t apt to fall if she didn’t pay strict attention.

With a flick of her wrist, she turned on the desk lamp, then opened the letter. The note was brief and very much to the point.

Esther crumpled the paper in her hands, unable to read another word. Her father knew where she was.
He knew!

Her mouth was dry, her palms damp, and her heart was hammering rapidly. The night which had seemed so beautiful only moments before was suddenly filled with threat. Her father might even now be somewhere in Conard County, Wyoming.

How long had he known?

Quickly, with trembling hands, she spread out the crumpled letter and searched frantically for the information. Jo didn’t say when the address had been given out, but her letter was dated the tenth, three days ago. That meant Richard Jackson had known his daughter’s whereabouts for at least that long and probably longer.

Panic washed over her in hot and cold waves. She had to close the windows and lock them.
Now!
He might be out there watching, waiting, planning…. Oh, God, he had always hurt her at night. Always. Stinking of alcohol and his own vomit, he had filled the night with terror and pain.

She locked the study windows swiftly, sobbing for breath as her heart continued to beat like a jackhammer. Limping painfully now, she hurried toward the living room to close those windows.

Her knee buckled suddenly, sending her sprawling facedown in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. Oh, God, oh, God… Broken prayers wandered through her frightened mind as she gasped for air and waited for the shattering pain to subside. She felt so helpless…she
was
so helpless…