“But wouldn’t Tom Givens have seen them if they came hack down the mountain after we were here?”
Cordell shook his head. “Not necessarily. If whoever was driving was familiar enough with the lay of the land, he might have known that there are a couple of private roads-ranch roads-that he could have taken. Following those, he could have made it all the way back to Elfrida without once touching the highway.”
“Damn!” Joanna exclaimed. “We had him and I let him get away. Why didn’t I think about checking out the picnic area earlier? I must have driven right past it.”
Ernie Carpenter was philosophical about the oversight. “I expect you had one or two other things on your mind right about then,” he said. “I know I would have.”
It was one-thirty when Joanna finally turned onto the road to High Lonesome Ranch. She had been so focused on what was happening with Hal Morgan that, until she drove back into the yard, she hadn’t given Butch Dixon’s presence there a single thought. She was surprised, though, to drive up and find the whole house ablaze with lights.
When she walked into the house, though, the place was dead quiet. Even the dogs, locked in the bedroom with Jenny, didn’t raise a racket. In the living room, Joanna discovered Butch Dixon sound asleep on her couch. His shirt was on the back of the easy chair. His boots and socks were on the floor beside the couch. One of Eva Lou Brady’s afghans covered him from chest to toe. There didn’t seem to be much point in waking the poor guy up just to send him back to his hotel.
Afraid that turning off the lights might disturb him, Joanna left him as he was while she disappeared into her own room. She set the alarm for seven and then tumbled into bed. Not surprisingly, she was asleep within seconds of putting her head on the pillow.
She awakened minutes before the alarm to the smell of brewing coffee and the sounds of Jenny laughing. For a moment she thought Andy was back. Ile had always been up early on weekends to make coffee and cook waffles and to share what he called “Daddy time” with his daughter. But then Joanna heard the unfamiliar cadence of a male voice and she remembered that Butch Dixon was there. He had spent the night on the living room couch.
Pulling on a robe and taking a stab at flattening her sleep-bent hair, Joanna hurried out of the bedroom. She found Jenny and Butch in the kitchen, where pieces of her vacuum cleaner were spread all over the breakfast nook. Frowning in concentration, Butch was pulling something out of the guts of the machine while Jenny, fascinated, watched over his shoulder.
“What in the world are you doing?” she asked.
Butch looked up at her and grinned. “Making myself useful,” he said. “Unless I’m sadly mistaken, once I get all the pieces put back together, this little hummer is going to work better than it has in years. By the way, I’ve fixed the broken handle on your silverware drawer and repaired the living room lamp that was falling apart. Later on today, if you’ll show me where you keep your washers, I’ll tackle that leaky kitchen faucet.”
Joanna was stunned. How dare he come in here and start fixing things? “Just what exactly…?” she began indignantly.
“Now, now,” he soothed. “What did you expect nee to do, sit around and twiddle my thumbs? You don’t even have decent TV reception. I was bored. How about breakfast? Jenny tells me that on Saturdays, waffles are the order of the day. I make a mean waffle.”
Jenny appeared at Joanna’s elbow with a freshly poured cup of coffee in her hand. She passed the mug along to her mother. “I told Butch that if he isn’t done with the vacuum cleaner, we can eat in the dining room. I’ll even set the table.”
“Butch?” Joanna asked.
“I said it was all right for her to call me that,” Butch said quickly. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Shaking her head and knowing she was licked, Joanna took the coffee and sank down onto the bench. “What’s wrong with the vacuum?” she asked.
“Part of the problem was all the dog hair hung up on a paper clip in the middle of the hose. I’ve been tinkering with the motor, though, too. You’re going to be amazed when I put it back together.”
Butch’s high spirits were somehow irresistibly infectious. “I’m sure I will be,” she said with a smile. “Have you two made any other plans while my back’s been turned?”
“He wants to go on the underground-mine tour,” Jenny said. “And to ride over to Tombstone to see Boothill. Can I go along, Mom? Please?”
“You could come, too,” Butch offered, looking at Joanna.
Joanna glanced at the clock over the refrigerator. “I’m afraid not. I’ll probably have to go into the office today, at least for a while.”
The look of disappointment that crossed Jenny’s face put a hole in Joanna’s heart. “I guess I can’t go,” Jenny said.
“Wait a minute,” Joanna said. “Just because I can’t go doesn’t mean you can’t. You can take the Eagle.”
With a sigh of satisfaction, Butch put down the vacuum cleaner motor, stood up, and sauntered over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “No Eagle,” he said firmly. “Jenny and I’ll wing it.”
“But…” Joanna’s tentative objection was immediately overruled.
He grinned at Jenny. “Have helmet and leather jacket. Will travel. But first, you’d better set the table.”
NINETEEN
Seeing that the waffle-making was in good hands, Joanna abandoned the kitchen for the shower. She was just starting to towel herself dry when Jenny pounded on the door. “Mom,” she said. “Phone. It’s Marianne. They’re home.”
Hastily pulling Andy’s old robe over her dripping body, Joanna took the call in her bedroom. “Hello?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Marianne Maculyea babbled happily. “There are two of them.”
“Two of what?”
“Two babies. Two girls. Ruth and Esther. That’s what we’re calling them. That was what was going on with Jeff-what he couldn’t tell me over the phone or write about, either. And it’s why he needed the extra company. He was afraid one of the officials might take offense and change his mind.”
Joanna was floored. “You have two?”
“‘That’s right. One of the nurses in the orphanage came to Jeff secretly a little over two weeks ago and told him about Esther. Ruth, her sister, was the baby we were supposed to get originally. Esther would have been left behind. The nurse told Jeff that without Ruth sharing her food, she was sure Esther would die-probably would have died already. Once Jeff knew Ruth and Esther were twins, he couldn’t bear to separate them.”
“Two. Why, Mari, that’s wonderful,” Joanna managed as Marianne Maculyea rushed on.
“You should see her, Joanna. She’s so tiny-so much smaller than Ruth. It is a wonder she’s still alive. They’re so different in size that you can hardly tell they’re twins. But they are. Ruth is already walking. Esther can’t even sit up by herself.”
“If they’re twins, how can they be so different?” Joanna asked.
There was a slight hiccup in Marianne’s happy rush of words. “Esther seems to have some… health challenges. She has a heart murmur of some kind. That’s why they weren’t going to let her go. And that’s the other reason Jeff was determined to take her. Left untreated, she’d be dead within months, maybe even weeks.”
As she listened, Joanna had dropped into a chair. In all the years she had known Marianne-from junior high on-Joanna had never once heard her friend blither, but that was what Marianne was doing now-blithering. Joanna felt her own eyes brimming with tears of love and concern.
“How serious a heart murmur?” she asked. “And can it be fixed?”
“We don’t know yet,” Marianne said. “Maybe, with proper medical care and some nourishment. We have an appointment with a cardiologist in Tucson for early next week. In the meantime, she’s eating like there’s no tomorrow. They both are. As soon as I saw them, I was worried about having only one crib, but Jeff said that’s how they sleep together. The nurse told him that when they separated them, they were both inconsolable. That the only way they could quiet Esther was by putting Ruth in the crib with her. I think that’s why the nurse told him in the first place.