Something More (8 page)

“You won't have any trouble finding the Ten Bar. It can't be much more than forty-five minutes from here,” Ima Jane told her. “Even if you left a little after twelve, you'd still arrive with time to spare—” The telephone on the back bar rang, interrupting her and startling Angie with its harshness. Ima Jane sighed in mild disgust and arched a knowing glance at her husband. “What do you want to bet that's Joanie Michels calling to say she'll be late?”

“It wouldn't be the first time,” Griff replied with marked indifference.

“Isn't that the truth,” Ima Jane agreed, but there was a good-natured smile on her lips when she pushed back from the table and went to answer the phone.

It rang once more, loud and long, assaulting Angie's ears again. Thankfully Ima Jane picked up the receiver before it could ring a third time. After an initial exchange of hellos, she sent a little “I told you so” look at her husband and said into the phone, “Yes, Joanie. What can I do for you?”

Griff didn't acknowledge the glance and made no attempt to keep a conversation going now that his wife was absent from the table. Which left Angie free to concentrate on the rest of her breakfast while Ima Jane chattered away in the background. She was still on the phone when Angie cleaned up the last of her French toast.

Sighing in contentment, she sat back from the table. “That was a fabulous meal, Mr. Evans. I've been in five-star restaurants where the food didn't taste half as good as this.”

“Thanks.” Despite the compliment, his expression never lost its sour quality.

It pushed Angie to convince him of her sincerity. “I'm serious. If you were in a large city, people would be standing in line to eat here.”

His glance ran over the tavern's rustic interior with its planked floor, scarred tables, and mismatched chairs. Something wistful crept into his eyes. “I used to think about movin' to Cheyenne—or maybe Denver—and openin' up a restaurant there. A steak house, maybe, with a limited menu, but everything on it fresh and the best quality—like here.”

“I'm surprised you haven't.”

“How could I?” The vinegar of defeat was in the look he sent her. “In order to get the money to start somewhere else, I'd have to sell this place—and who'd buy it? No one in his right mind, that's for sure.”

As much as she wanted to encourage him, Angie recognized the truth of his statement. She asked instead, “Have you tried to sell it?”

He answered with a slow nod. “I've got a
FOR SALE
sign I stick outside every now and then. It's gotten plenty of laughs but no buyers. When the real estate agents find out it's in Glory, they don't even want to talk to me. I can't say I blame them either.” Rising to his feet, he gathered up their dirty plates and silverware, stacking them atop each other. “Want more coffee?”

After a second's hesitation, she nodded. “I would, thanks.”

“Be right back with the pot.” He loaded the dishes on the serving tray and headed for the kitchen with it.

Talking about the restaurant had resurrected all of Griff's old feelings, both the sweet yearning and the utter futility of it. He was trapped in this place, as surely as if it were a prison with bars at the windows and shackles around his legs. Resentment boiled up in him, rising like a black and bitter gall in his throat. There was no hope that he'd ever be free of this place. No hope at all, short of winning a lottery.

Or finding that outlaw gold.

The thought brought him up short. For a moment Griff almost laughed at the sheer improbability of it. Then he started wondering. Wondering about things—like the tales of the rock pillar that was supposed to point to it. That girl's grandfather had been so sure he could find the cache of stolen money. And there was that letter Angie Sommers had—the one written by the outlaw Ike Wilson.

Wouldn't it be something if that letter really held clues? He pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. And wouldn't it be something if he could find it?

The door whooshed shut behind him, and his face cracked with a smile of silent laughter. He stood for a full minute inside the kitchen, fantasizing over the possibility.

The muffled sound of Ima Jane's voice pierced through his reverie. Two things registered at once: the weight of the dish-laden serving tray in his hands, and his promise to get coffee. Not bothering to unload the tray, he shoved it onto the sink counter. With a kind of eagerness he hadn't felt in years, Griff exited the kitchen to fetch the coffeepot.

As he finished refilling Angie's mug, Ima Jane rejoined them. “We were right,” she announced, taking her chair. “Joanie's going to be late.”

A harrumph of nonsurprise came from Griff. “What's her excuse this time?” He poured more coffee into her cup.

“The car won't start, and Bud is out with the pickup checking cattle.” She took a tentative sip of her coffee, then pulled back, making a face of distaste. “This is cold. Would you get me a fresh cup?”

“Sure.” He took the cold coffee from her and headed back to the bar with both the cup and the coffeepot.

Lifting her voice, Ima Jane said to him, “Joanie said she'd be here as soon as Bud got back, but would we please start setting things up.”

“Don't we always,” he grumbled and dumped the cold coffee in the bar sink.

Ima Jane tasted a bite of the French toast remaining on her plate, but it, too, had grown cold while she was on the phone. With a sigh, she laid her silverware on the plate and pushed it back as Griff returned to the table with her coffee.

“Want me to warm that up in the microwave?” He gestured to her plate.

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. My hips really don't need the calories.” She gathered the cup to her. “I'll just drink my coffee, then give you a hand with the pulpit.”

Doubting her hearing, Angie asked, “Did you say ‘pulpit'?”

A smile stretched Ima Jane's mouth. “I did, indeed. We hold church services here every Sunday.”

“You're kidding,” Angie blurted in amazed delight.

“I'm not, I promise,” she replied. Then she explained, “You see, nine years ago, heavy snows caved in the roof of the town's only church, collapsing one of the sidewalls in the process. Unfortunately, the loss wasn't covered by insurance and, so far, we haven't been able to raise enough money to build a new one. In the meantime, since the Rimrock is the only place in town big enough to hold everyone, we have church here on Sunday.” Pausing, she ran a self-conscious glance over the interior. “I know it isn't exactly an appropriate place of worship—”

“Oh, but it is,” Angie insisted. “Back in the days of the Old West, a saloon often doubled as the town church.”

“Really? I didn't know that.” Ima Jane lowered her cup to stare in surprise.

“It's true. Saloons were invariably the first substantial structures built in a town. I guess”—Angie allowed a smile to show—“the first settlers in a town had a greater thirst for whiskey than they did for the Word. And, just like here, saloons were the only places large enough to accommodate a crowd, which made them the logical choice.”

“Isn't that something, Griff?” She gave her husband's arm a pat of amazement. “And here I thought our situation was unique.”

“I'm afraid not.” Always fascinated by the history of the Old West herself, Angie couldn't resist the chance to share interesting tidbits of it. “Most saloon keepers looked at church services as being good for business. Probably because, back in those days, most of the preachers were the hellfire-and-brimstone kind—true Bible-thumpers determined to put the fear of God in their listeners. And after a heavy dose of Godly fear, some listeners felt a desperate need for a drink. Of course, some saloons didn't shut down at all, and people continued to drink and gamble during the sermon. And in some places, the saloon owners insisted that services be held on Saturday because they did more business on Sunday.”

“How do you know all that?” Ima Jane marveled.

“I teach American history.” Angie smiled. “A long time ago I found out that students pay more attention when you include bits of background trivia along with major historical events,” she explained. “It keeps history from seeming so dry and boring, little more than a bunch of dates to be memorized and later forgotten.”

“I hadn't thought of it that way. Still”—she studied Angie with bright, speculating eyes—“to know so much about saloons and churches seems unusual.”

“Probably, but I did my college thesis on the role religion played in settling the West. The Old West has always been a special love of mine. It probably comes from watching all those Western movies with John Wayne and Randolph Scott when I was growing up.” That, and all the whispered family stories about her outlaw ancestor.

Ima Jane looked at her askance. “You're too young to remember Randolph Scott.”

“In theory, yes.” Angie smiled at the comment. “But he was my grandmother's favorite actor. Every time one of his old movies ran on television, we watched it. It didn't matter how many times she might have seen a particular one before; we watched it again.” Her expression grew thoughtful. “I think she liked him so much because he reminded her of my grandfather. She showed me a picture once, and there was a definite similarity around the nose and eyes.”

Remembering that, especially the half-wistful and half-painful look in her grandmother's eyes, Angie felt again the sadness of her grandmother's passing.

Seeing that sadness in Angie's face, Ima Jane remarked, “You still miss your grandmother, don't you?”

Without a trace of self-consciousness, Angie nodded. “I expect I always will.”

“Did she ever remarry?” Ima Jane wondered.

“No. She used to say she was the kind of woman who could love only one man, and that man was my grandfather. ‘My Blue Boy,' she used to call him,” Angie recalled.

“Blue Boy?” Ima Jane repeated, her curiosity aroused.

“Yes. He had a birthmark the color of lapis right here.” Angie touched a spot high on her left temple near the hairline. “A blue nevus is the proper name for it. It's very similar in size to a large mole, only it's blue. The shades can range from light to dark.”

“Interesting,” Ima Jane murmured.

Griff leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table while he held his cup near his mouth. “Did she ever hear from him while he was here looking for the gold?”

“Only two letters. One he wrote shortly after he arrived in the area when all the enthusiasm and excitement for the search were still fresh. In the second and last one, he talked about giving up and coming home. There was a sense of despair in it, not so much in the words, but between the lines.”

“Sounds like you still have those letters, too,” Griff surmised.

“Yes.” Smiling absently, Angie recalled, “Grandma always kept them in the drawer of her bed stand. Nearly every night before she went to sleep, she'd take them out and read them. The writing is so faded from all the times she ran her fingers over the lines that you can barely read them now. There are even a couple places where the ink has been blurred by tear stains.”

Griff didn't care about all that sentimental nonsense. “Did he mention whether he found any of the places he'd been askin' people 'bout?”

“No. In fact, he only made one reference to his search.” She paused to recall the exact wording. Like her grandmother, she had long ago committed the letters to memory. “ ‘It's all confusing, Hannah. Nothing I've found makes sense.'” Angie pulled her gaze from its sightless stare into space and glanced at her tablemates. “That's what I meant about the note of despair in his last letter.”

“Sounds like he was searching in the wrong area,” Griff murmured thoughtfully.

“Who knows?” Angie lifted her shoulders in a shrug of ignorance.

“And it isn't likely we'll ever know either.” Ima Jane released a heavy sigh and lowered her cup, glancing at her watch. “Heavens, look at the time, Griff. It's already after ten. People will start arriving in another twenty minutes. We'd better get moving.” She was on her feet, snatching the cup from his hand and grabbing the water glasses before the last sentence was out of her mouth.

“Would you like some help?” Angie offered, rising to her feet.

A look of gratitude flashed across the woman's face. “Are you sure you wouldn't mind—”

“Mind?!” Angie laughed at the idea. “I'd love it. This will be like stepping back in time.”

“Except Reverend Firsten is far from being your old-time Bible-thumper,” Ima Jane declared, eyes twinkling. “A more soft-spoken minister you couldn't find anywhere. Isn't that right, Griff?”

He grunted his lack of interest in the subject.

“What would you like me to do first?” Angie asked when Ima Jane started toward the kitchen.

“You can begin by dragging the tables over against the front wall while Griff and I get the pulpit from the back room. A couple of the tables will have to be stacked on top of each other, but we'll give you a hand with those.”

“Sounds good.” Angie grabbed the edge of an empty table and started pulling it across the floor, smiling at the thought of the look on her mother's face when she'd learn that in Wyoming people attended church in a bar. It would be a severe shock to her Methodist-strict soul. Angie regarded it as an experience not to be missed.

“‘Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound,'” she murmured to herself and laughed softly.

I
ma Jane was lighting the altar candles when the first congregation members arrived. Only seconds earlier, Angie had set the last folding chair in place, one of a dozen that supplemented the bar chairs, arranged now in orderly rows to serve as pews.

She stood back and studied the transformation of a bar into a place of worship. A long black curtain, hung from hooks fastened to the ceiling, encircling the long bar, completely hiding it from view. Along the end wall, a cloth of wine-colored velvet embroidered with a gold cross was draped over one of the bar tables that now saw duty as an altar. Above it, there was a portrait of Jesus against a stained glass background. The neon beer lights in the front windows were silent and dark, hidden behind tightly drawn curtains. To the left of the altar, a speaker's podium served as the pulpit, its new use confirmed by the wooden cross tacked on its tall front.

There were few visible reminders identifying the place as a bar. Even the tables lined up along the wall were covered in white sheets. Yet, mixed in with the scent of burning candle wax, Angie detected telltale traces of stale tobacco smoke and spilt beer. She liked the combination.

A quick glance at her watch warned Angie that she had scant ten minutes before the services were scheduled to start. As she took a step toward the door, Ima Jane intercepted her.

“You
are
going to stay for the services, aren't you?” Her expression held the beginnings of dismay.

“I was on my way out to the camper to change.” Angie pulled at the front of her yellow T-shirt, drawing attention to her inappropriate attire.

Ima Jane dismissed her concern with an expansive wave of her hand. “Good heavens, you don't need to bother doing that. Church here is pretty much a come-as-you-are thing.”

“Maybe, but just the same I think I should change to a blouse.”

Before Ima Jane had a chance to pooh-pooh her plan, Angie slipped out the door, crossing paths with Joanie Michels, who was on her way in, the bottom half of a cardboard box clutched in her arms.

Startled, Joanie did a double take, then stared after Angie while continuing to walk forward, one hand outstretched to catch the door. Not looking where she was going, she walked right into Ima Jane.

“Excuse me.” She bounced off, identified the obstacle in her path, and apologized in an embarrassed rush. “I'm sorry, Ima Jane. I didn't see you standing there.” Instantly she turned curious eyes after Angie. “That woman—is she the granddaughter Tiffany Banks was telling me about? I forget her name.”

“Angie Sommers.” Ima Jane supplied it, then studied the ash blonde with a questioning look. “When did you talk to Tiffany?”

“She called me this morning to fill me in on everything we missed last night.” Joanie paused in the doorway, watching until Angie strode out of sight, then stepped inside and breathed a frustrated sigh. “That's part of the reason I'm late this morning. That, and the car. I swear if Bud doesn't get that thing fixed or else trade it for something more dependable, I'm going to wring his neck. Now, what's left to—” She looked around in amazement. “You've got everything set up.”

“Angie gave us a hand.”

“She did?” With a thoughtful look, she glanced toward the curtained windows and the parking lot beyond them. Another sigh slipped from her when she turned back. This one held regret. “Wouldn't you know the one Saturday night we don't come in, that's when all the excitement happens? We had Warren and Peggy over for dinner last night,” she explained in an aside. “I wanted us all to meet here and have a night out, but Bud insisted that we eat at our place and play cards afterward. After Tiffany told me what we missed, then the car not starting—believe me, he got an earful this morning.”

“Poor Bud,” Ima Jane murmured in amused sympathy.

“Poor Bud?” Joanie scoffed in indignation. “Poor me, you mean. You know as well as I do how picky Peggy is about her food. Sometimes I think she is impossible to please. It makes me wonder what they eat at home. I swear, she hates everything. So, tell me—” She paused to pull in a quick breath, but never got any further with her request.

“Do you have the programs, Joanie?” The inquiring voice came from the front row of chairs where an elderly couple sat.

Her head jerked toward the pair, her mouth curving in an automatic and perfunctory smile. “I've got them right here, the programs and copies of the hymns Reverend Firsten picked out for this morning's service.” She held up the box, then said in an undertone to Ima Jane, “You might know the Hoopers would be here already.” She laid a hand on Ima Jane's shoulder as if to excuse herself and murmured a hasty, “There isn't time now, but after church you need to fill me in on everything that happened last night. You know how Tiffany is. She never gets anything right.”

Off she went to deliver a set of the church programs and selected hymns to the Hoopers. Ima Jane turned away, suppressing a sigh of annoyance. Sometimes Joanie Michels irritated her. She was the only woman Ima Jane knew who could outtalk her. Joanie absolutely thrived on dirt and loathed it when it was passed on to her with some detail missing. The woman was a gossip, pure and simple.

As much as Ima Jane wanted to complain to Griff about Joanie Michels, she held her tongue. She knew he would remind her that she was too quick to see the splinter in someone else's eye while ignoring the timber in her own. He didn't understand the difference between a gossip and a purveyor of news about the community and its inhabitants. In her opinion, Ima Jane performed a service of sorts, one that attracted customers to their establishment, which was very good for business. On that point, Griff never argued.

The door opened, admitting more churchgoers. Ima Jane went forward to welcome them, taking on the self-appointed task of meeting and greeting, a role that came naturally to her.

Tobe West was among the last to arrive, pushing his younger sister, Dulcie, ahead of him. Like every other male who had preceded him, he automatically took off his hat the minute he stepped inside, something that wouldn't have crossed his mind to do last night when the place had been a bar. He held it awkwardly in front of him, hating that naked feeling he always got when he was hatless.

“Good morning, Tobe. Dulcie.” Ima Jane nodded to both, then smiled at the girl, clad in an ill-fitting jumper dress missing one button. “My, you look nice this morning, Dulcie.”

Ducking her head, the girl mumbled a good morning and plucked at the threads that once held the missing button. Her white-blond hair was skinned back from her face to hang in a limp ponytail secured by a garish pair of red glass beads strung with elastic.

“Mornin', Ima Jane.” Tobe scanned the rows of parishioners already seated. “I don't see that Angie woman here,” he remarked in a hushed voice. Talking softly always seemed mandatory to him when he was inside a church. “I kinda thought she might be here this morning.”

“She's coming,” Ima Jane assured him. “She wanted to change first.”

“You've talked to her this morning?” The sentence had the lilt of a question, but one that anticipated an affirmative answer.

“She had breakfast with us.”

He hesitated, then gathered his courage and made a weak attempt to appear indifferently curious. “You didn't happen to find out whether she still has that letter the outlaw wrote?” he asked. Then, succumbing to an attack of nerves, he hastily explained, “Fargo and me, we were talking about it this morning, thinkin' it was likely that her grandfather had it with him. If he did, then we figured somebody either took it or it got buried with him. If it did, then all those years in the ground, it probably rotted away with the rest of him.” He stopped, noticing the smug little smile Ima Jane wore.

“She still has it.”

“She does?” Tobe was half afraid to believe her as excitement rolled through his stomach.

“She even brought it with her.”

He stared at her, big eyed with hope and doubt. “You know that for a fact?” he whispered. “You saw it yourself?”

“No,” Ima Jane admitted. “But she said she had it, and I believe her.”

Someone arrived, claiming her attention. Tobe stood there, his feet rooted to the floor while he absorbed the incredible news: not only was the letter still in existence, but this Angie person had it with her!

Man, what I wouldn't give to see the letter!
The mere thought was almost enough to draw a groan of longing from him.

He'd lain awake half the night thinking about that letter, certain that if he could get his hands on it, he'd find the hiding place for that outlaw gold. Maybe he didn't know the Ten Bar as well as Luke or Fargo, but he'd ridden over it plenty of times.

Last night his fantasies had taken him all over the ranch, finding the gold one time in this place, the next time in a different area. In his mind, he had even played the role of prospective buyer, looking over various properties to locate the ranch of his dreams. He even imagined himself giving orders to ranch hands instead of being the one to take them.

Tobe West, rancher. He liked the ring of that.

Suddenly it didn't seem such a far-off thing. Why, all he had to do—

Dulcie gave his shirtsleeve a tentative tug, interrupting his daydreams. “Can we sit down, Tobe?” she whispered anxiously, worried that any minute people would turn around in their seats and see them standing back there. It would mortify her.

Irritated for no good reason, Tobe nodded curtly and started to shove his hat on, then remembered in time where he was and waved his sister toward a row of empty folding chairs in the rear. She took a step toward them, then looked back to make sure he was coming. Stifling a sigh of impatience, Tobe gripped her shoulder and steered her to the chairs.

Dulcie moved halfway down the row before she sank onto a seat directly behind the rancher Joe Gibbs, confident his bulk would hide her. Papers crackled beneath her. Reddening, she slid off the chair and the papers slid off with her, seesawing through the air before settling to the floor. She scurried to gather them up, then climbed back onto her seat. Head bowed, she worked studiously to smooth away the creases in the program and music sheets, painfully conscious of the exasperation in Tobe's face.

As the hour drew near for the worship service to begin, a hush spread through the small congregation. In the gathering stillness, the click of a turning latch sounded loud. Sunlight flooded through the now-opened door, and heads turned to take note of the latecomer.

Even Dulcie looked, pity welling in her heart for the recipient of all the curious stares. It was the lady from last night, the one called Angie. And she didn't appear to be the least bit bothered by all the attention, smiling an easy apology for her tardiness to the group before she made her way to the nearest chair.

She paused when she saw Tobe's hat on the seat. “Is this taken?” she whispered.

“No.” Tobe almost fell all over himself in his haste to remove his hat from the chair. When she sat down next to him, he juggled with his hat, the program, and hymn music to get a hand free and shove it toward her. “I'm Tobe West, Miss Sommers,” he whispered, earnest and anxious. “You probably don't remember, but we met last night. I work at the Ten Bar for Luke McCallister.”

“I remember.” She shook his hand, then leaned forward, flashing a smile at Dulcie and waggling her fingers. “Hi, Dulcie.”

Self-conscious yet secretly pleased that Angie had remembered her name, Dulcie responded with a barely audible, “Hi.” But the tiniest of smiles edged the corners of her mouth.

From the altar area came the strum of a guitar, sounding the opening chord of the first hymn. The minister's gentle voice sounded almost as musical to Dulcie when he requested, “All rise.”

Feet shifted, clothing rustled, papers shuffled, and throats cleared as everyone stood up. Dulcie stared at the unfamiliar words on her sheet. She tried to sing along, albeit very softly, but she didn't know the tune. Something told her nobody else did either.

Beside her Tobe mumbled the words and pretended often to lose his place. But Dulcie noticed that Angie's head was lifted in song. Rarely did she glance at the words on the paper. Her voice, while not particularly strong, had a pleasing sound and seemed to follow some sort of melody. Dulcie decided to copy her. She ended up coming in about half a note behind.

On the “Amen” part, the congregation was of one voice, singing it with relish. Dulcie held her note a little too long, breaking it off abruptly when she realized her voice was the only one still singing. She felt hot all over and blushed when Angie glanced her way with a wink of understanding before bowing her head when the minister began his prayer. Dulcie did the same, then snuck a peek to see if Angie closed her eyes when she prayed. She did, so Dulcie squeezed hers shut, too.

All through the service, Dulcie made furtive checks of the stranger in their midst, the woman everyone was talking about because of the outlaw gold.

Too soon, it seemed, the service was over, and the standing and milling began. This was the part Dulcie hated. She wished they could walk out the door and go home, but Tobe always hung around and talked.

When he stood up, Dulcie rose to her feet with reluctance, resigned to the misery of waiting. “Ma'am?” Reaching out, Tobe caught Angie's arm when she would have walked away, then jerked his hand back and nervously fingered his hat when she turned around. “Uh, Luke said something about you comin' out to the ranch this afternoon.”

“That's right. Around one o'clock.” She seemed mildly puzzled by the conversation.