“No, he brushed it off.”
Jake studied the photo. “None of the boys ever said anything about collecting guns or that they were interested in old guns. But I can ask them.” He handed the phone back to her. “You know, it may not mean anything. Hoover may be right.”
“I’d probably accept that explanation if my cute little bunkhouse hadn’t burned to the ground. How could one of them accidently lose an old gun up on my knoll? I’m suspicious.”
Jake’s smiled. He could hear the detective wheels turning in her head. “You would be.”
She was not to be put off. “Hoover didn’t seem to approve of some of the ranch hands Opal hired. I offered to try to track down some of the unsavory characters, as Hoover called them.”
“Including me. I had to grow on him. But I’ve been around long enough now I’m a fossil.”
“That goes to show you that some people can turn over a new leaf. I’m interested in your employee list and who might now have repented and who might still be unsavory.”
“I’ll go over it with you, but without the reach of law enforcement you’re not going to be able to find them. And I’m not so sure it would be a good idea.”
Fiona shrugged. “I’m trying to help.”
“It’s your detective genes.”
She laughed. “You’re right. Maybe if we teamed up we could solve this one. We were a pretty good investigative team back in Virginia.”
He smiled at that one. “All right. We’ll have a look at the list, and I’ll tell you what I know about each guy.”
Opal laid her purse on the kitchen table. The room was clean and tidy, and she had nothing to do. Queenie was a great help, and she wondered if Tillie came if she’d do as good a job or if she’d just keep things stirred up. She didn’t need that right now, but she needed to get back to Tillie about her decision. Lord, she was tired, and she didn’t feel quite right, but she wasn’t about to let on to anyone about how bad she felt.
She walked out onto the back patio where a light breeze stirred the huge elm tree that shaded the patio. The king birds were twittering in its leafy branches. They must have young, she thought, they were making so much noise. She picked Shasta daisies and pink yarrow from her flower garden and made a small bouquet. Back in the kitchen she filled a plastic water bottle she kept on the sink. With the water and flowers in hand she walked toward the corrals and the new bunkhouse. She passed them and kept going. She was headed for a stand of Russian Olive trees, their narrow silver gray leaves twirling in the breeze.
The trees formed a windbreak on a slight rise. Henry lay at rest there in the family graveyard. An old wrought iron fence enclosed the area. His mother and father, grandparents and siblings lay around him. A modest gravestone with a cherub angel carved in the top marked where his remains were buried. Opal had added a stone bench under the trees where she came to sit when she needed quiet time. It was her personal sanctuary. No one ever came but her. The trees partially hid the site from the other buildings. She liked it that way.
She put the bunch of flowers in a metal vase anchored in front of the tombstone, added water, and fluffed them to make them look pretty. How many times had she come here with flowers to remember Henry? She sat down on the cool bench to enjoy the shade. It was too hot for June. It never got this hot until July and August. The rain hadn’t come like it should have that spring. The weather seemed mixed up. But then, weather was never normal in Harney Valley. The high altitude, the short growing season, the poor soil, and the endless wind made growing things difficult. Freezing night time temperatures could occur in the summer and destroy the alfalfa crop. The unpredictability of the weather drove more than one homesteader away to the west side of the state where rain was more plentiful.
She had grown to like it. She and Henry had settled at the ranch after they were married. She had no idea what she was getting into. At first, she hated it. She thought the high desert drab and dusty. But then she discovered the people, and the rhythm of the land, the sunny days and cool nights. The winters could be severe. But she’d snuggle up with Henry at night, and they’d love each other. But the children didn’t come in those first years and then Henry got killed when his horse threw him. Life was hard after Henry’s passing, but she was committed to his dream. He used to talk to her at night about what they would do, how many cattle, how much hay, his idea for a prime line of bulls and horses. He had had dreams, that Henry did.
She didn’t bring all of those dreams to fruition. The horses were good but not prime. But the bulls were prize winning, and the H Bar O had a reputation for good cows and calves. She had expanded Henry’s holdings, bought up land around the ranch until it was over one thousand acres in addition to the land that they leased. She was proud of what she had done but sad that she never had children and had no one to leave the ranch to.
All Henry’s brothers and sisters were gone. Opal was matriarch of a fiefdom of quarrelsome nieces and nephews none of whom had any interest in keeping the ranch intact. All those years of work to build an empire, and no one wanted to keep it together. Except Jake. He was the perfect son she had never had.
“Henry,” she said aloud. She liked to talk things over with him as if in the telling the problem would be solved. “What am I to do about your ranch? I may be up in ranch heaven with you sooner than you think. Leastways, I hope it’s heaven. I guess I shouldn’t worry about things that I’ll leave behind, but you know I do.” She sighed. “If only we had had children.” She stopped for a while to think. “But they’d probably never turn out like we’d want. They’d probably be arguing over the ranch, too. If only you’d a lived to old age with me. I miss you so. Sometimes I feel this burden is more than I can bear. This is all too much for me, you know.”
She could feel herself tearing up. “Stop it, you old fool. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop it now.” She blinked away the tears. “Anyway, Henry, if you have any advice or can help out here while I’m waiting to go, I’d appreciate it.”
In the ranch office Fiona and Jake went over a list of fifteen employees who had worked on the ranch over the last twenty years. They narrowed the list to three suspects, one of whom was one of the infamous relations.
“Did Opal have any inside help beside Queenie?” Fiona asked.
“Yes, but why do you ask? We’re interested in someone who knows the surrounding territory, who knows the ranch operation.”
She shrugged. “Maybe she was in cahoots with the ranch hands. If she worked inside and they worked outside, they’d know everything about the operation and how you spend your time.”
Jake was silent like he was thinking it over. “A young girl worked for Opal for a short while. She and one of the boys fell in love and decided to get married and left for Nevada. But that guy isn’t on the suspicious list.” He ran his finger down the list. “It was this guy, Mark Weiner. He was young, green, so-so worker. I wasn’t unhappy to see him go. The girl, Sue White, was in the same league.”
“Maybe they were feeding information to someone else. Maybe they were a plant. Did they come to work about the same time?”
Jake checked the employment dates. “About a month apart. She came first.”
“Maybe she came to case the joint, he comes later and spots the opportunities to take a few cows, and then they leave.”
“Your imagination is going wild again, Fiona.”
She smiled. “I’m brainstorming. We have to think of all possibilities, leave no thought unspoken, put everything on the table, no matter how dumb the idea may be. What year were they here?”
Jake checked the chart. “About a year ago. Queenie had decided she was going to get educated and take some online college courses and was away for a few months. It didn’t work out, and she came back.”