“She said she heard that you drove your wife off with your raging temper, and she ended up in the women’s shelter.”
Jake could feel anger squeeze his throat, and he struggled to keep his voice calm. “Where she gets those lies, I don’t know.” He pulled the truck over to an abandoned parking lot and turned to face Fiona. “I’ve never harmed a woman in my life. Lauren is lying.”
Fiona looked him in the eyes. “I’m not saying you did. I’m repeating something that one woman has told me which might be the source of some unwanted rumors about you and your personal life that you might want to get straightened out. Like I said, I discover new things about you every day. But this is something I didn’t want to hear. Is treating your wife badly part of ordinary living?”
Her look told him that the water had been poisoned. What was he going to do now? He said very slowly, “Lauren doesn’t like me, and it probably has something to do with a night in a bar when she came on to me. She isn’t my type but she seemed to think she was. She wouldn’t let up, and I walked out. She called me several times after that, wanting to know why I didn’t want to take her out. I can’t tell you why, but I have never liked her and don’t trust her. Now she has poisoned the water between us as a way of getting back. She has done a good job because I can see the distrust in your eyes.”
He sat back in the seat and blew out a breath, feeling sick to his stomach he was so upset. He inhaled slowly, in and out, to calm down. He couldn’t believe Lauren would be that hateful, but then human beings had a way of doing things on a regular basis that he couldn’t believe.
Fiona said, “I’ll consider the source. Lauren has always been nice to me.”
“She sees money when you walk in the door.”
“I’m not denying that. I try to keep a level head when it comes to my suppliers. If that is the case, I’m disappointed. Everyone is so nice here, and I’ve gotten used to trusting people. Maybe not everyone’s to be trusted.”
“Maybe so,” said Jake. He started the truck. “You can ask anyone in town about me and my ex-wife. They’ll tell you the same. She was a wanderer, and the grass always looked better on the other side of the fence. She left for what looked like greener pasture and took my little girl with her. That was the saddest day of my life. They’ve disappeared, and I haven’t been able to find them anywhere.”
Fifteen
They drove to the hospital in icy silence after the argument over Lauren’s accusations. When they walked into Glory’s room, they found him sitting up in bed. Jake smiled in spite of his bad mood. It was a relief to see Glory alive and awake.
Jake skipped the pleasantries and got straight to the point. “Who did it?” he asked.
Glory moved his battered, taped up head back and forth where it rested against the head of the bed. “I didn’t see him right. He came up behind me and whacked me something fierce and kept whacking me. That’s all I remember. Next thing I know I wake up in a hospital.”
“Were you drinking?”
“Not too much, just had a little nip is all I remember.”
“An empty booze bottle was lying in the brush.”
“I’m lucky he didn’t hit me with that.”
“You’re lucky you’re still alive.”
Glory’s face crumpled, and he got teary. He coughed and sputtered and finally got the words out. “I’m sorry Jake. I don’t know what gets into me. I know you want to kick me out, but please give me another chance. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Jake stood at the side of the man’s hospital bed, studying his face. Tears in a man always made him uncomfortable, and he shifted from one foot to the other at a loss for words. Fiona stood by the other side of the bed. She reached out and took Glory’s knotty hand in hers.
“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be all right,” she told him.
More tears spilled from his eyes. “I’m just an old, sorry wreck. I wished the guy would of finished me off and put me out of my misery.”
Fiona looked at Jake.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t worry about a job. Worry about getting better. We’ll work something out. You know Opal never turns away a man down on his luck.”
Glory snuffled and tried to wipe his nose with the back of his hand. Fiona handed him a tissue. He coughed and sputtered some more. “The Sheriff’s been to see me. I told him what I knew.” He hiccoughed and tried to speak some more, but no more words came out.
Fiona said, “Did you hear, see, or smell anything that would give us an idea of who attacked you? What time of the day was it? Lead us back through what you remember before you were attacked.”
Glory wiped his eyes and nose again. His battered face was turning redder, and Jake worried he might have a heart attack on top of everything.
“I don’t know. Jake told me to go out to check, make sure the stock pond was full. The dog followed me, and I rode along easy. When I got there, there was no water in the tank so I got down and saw the switch was off so I turned it on. The water started coming. Then I rode the fence while I was out to make sure it was secure.”
“And you had the bottle,” said Jake, “and you took a nip every now and again to keep your strength up.”
Glory nodded. “How’d you know?”
“Used to do the same thing myself, but I realized one day that I couldn’t keep drinking and be worth much to anyone, and I stopped.”
“I know I got to kick the habit. It’s hard. My problems weigh me down at times.”
“Is the guy who beat you up part of your problems or mine?”
Glory looked sheepish. “Might be mine. I don’t know.”
“Who’s your problem?”
“I can’t be sure.” Glory’s look became cagey, visible even under all the bandages. Some things he might not share.
But Jake had to know. It might mean saving Opal’s ranch. He sat down on the side of the bed.
“Glory, someone is trying to run Opal off her ranch. Or warn her away. Someone burned the bunkhouse, someone whacked me over the head when I tried to track the rustlers, someone tried to burn down the hay shed on the night you disappeared.”
Glory’s puffy eyes widened. “They did?”
“Yes. Earl started barking late that night. I went out and found him in the hay shed, guarding an overturned can of gasoline. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
Glory looked toward Fiona who stood beside the bed and had remained quietly studying him. He looked at Jake. “It wasn’t me.”
Fiona spoke up. “Are you sure that someone came up and attacked you from behind?”
Glory looked sharply her way and a look of terror spread over what could be seen of his face.
She said, “The wounds are around the front of your face, Glory. You arms and hands show the lacerations of a frontal attack. I believe you know who attacked you.”
Glory’s face crumpled again. He started to sob silently.
Fiona patted his arm as if to reassure him. “Tell us who it was, Glory. You owe it to Opal and Jake.”
Between sobs, he said, “I needed the money, and he said all I had to do was set a little fire at that old bunk house to scare you.” He tried to say more, but he was having trouble voicing the words. He hiccupped and struggled on. “I guess I had too much to drink, and I got too much gasoline on the old place, and I was just going to set a little fire and before I knew it the whole place was up in flames.”
Fiona said, “And you had the old gun along with you that night and dropped it.”
Glory looked at her. “If you found the gun, why did you leave it where I dropped it?”
“Because I wanted the Sheriff to see it in place. You came back and got it before the Sheriff came back. But you let it lay in plain sight on the couch in the new bunkhouse.”