Whispers of Moonlight (7 page)

"In his study, just like he told you he'd be."

"Oh, that's right."

"There's no use pining, girl," she added a little more gently.

Rebecca only sighed.

Lavena decided then and there to go into town the next day. She didn't need much, but she would take Rebecca with her. They worked in silence, the afternoon stretching on. At one point Lavena turned and caught Rebecca's profile. The line of her chin was more prominent than it had been four weeks ago. She was dropping weight. Turning back to her cutting board Lavena called on Travis, wherever he was, to come home soon.

Everything she told you is a lie.
Andrew read the line again and again and then sat back in his desk chair. What had happened to his sister? He hadn't heard from her since the letter came saying Rebecca had left Philadelphia, and now she opened with this line. The rest wasn't very long, and he now read that again too.

/
never tried to keep her from you. I gave her everything you sent. It was Franklin, He's mad but won't admit it. Rebecca is a spoiled child. I gave
her everything a girl could dream of and she betrayed me. I tell you it's all lies, Andrew, all of it, God will get you for what you've done.

And that was the end. It wasn't even signed. Andrew shook his head. Should he respond? Would she even open a letter from him? He knew Rebecca had yet to write to her.

And Travis. What could be keeping him for a month? Why, they hadn't even had snow yet. Andrew shook his head. Could he have been that wrong? He'd seen the young cowboy's eyes. He was honest; Andrew was certain of it. And the way he'd looked at Reba ...

Again Andrew shook his head. He had to be right. He simply had to be. Rebecca had been pushing her food around her plate for over a week now. That man simply had to come back. Andrew pushed himself to his feet and walked to the window. He would welcome the beauty of the snow on the mountains, except that he wanted Travis to return first.

With a hand to the back of his aching neck, he turned to the desk. His sister's letter was as he'd left it. Oh, yes, he wanted Travis to return, not for the money—for Rebecca. But for now, it was time for Andrew to find out from Rebecca what his sister was afraid she would tell.

Denver

"I'm back," the sheriff commented, but Travis remained silent, his feet planted firmly apart, his expression remote. He'd been in a Denver jail cell for over a week and had little to say.

"I talked to your friend, Grady," the sheriff told him. "He's certainly in a bad way."

Travis remained silent.

"He backs up your story about Andrew Wagner." The sheriff spoke as he made himself comfortable in the desk chair. "Says he gave you the money and all, but I still haven't heard from Texas."

Travis sighed; he couldn't take any more. "How many times do I have to tell you that I have never run from the Texas law? There is no wanted poster out on me."

"Then how do you explain this?" The sheriff lifted the handbill from the desktop, and Travis' face stared back at him.

"There's nothing to explain." Travis tried to remain calm as he repeated the same argument. "It says the man's name is Hank Randall. Mine is Travis Buchanan. Grady must have told you that."

"Well, that doesn't make it true," the lawman reasoned. "Even if you did tell Grady that was your name, how would he know the difference?"

Travis dropped away from the bars and lowered himself onto the lone bunk. It was preposterous. He was not Hank Randall. The facial resemblance was striking, but he was not a wanted man. And the man's description was right on the wanted poster—5'8" with a medium build. But Sheriff Turlock was not taking any chances. He thought he had a killer on his hands, and he was going to hold onto him.

Why in the world had he stayed around an extra day?
Travis had asked himself this question a dozen times, but he already knew the answer. Grady would probably never sit up in bed again, let alone ride a horse and manage the Double Star. Travis' heart had gone out to him, even though he was convinced that an act of fate had settled the man in a comfortable home and not on the streets.

Travis had found Grady at the home of an older woman just hours after arriving in town. The woman turned out to be a distant cousin of Grady's, and although she seemed almost as frail as her patient, he could
see that Grady was in good hands. Grady had been gored by a bull, not once but several times. The foreman had lost consciousness, but witnesses had told him that he'd been tossed like a rag doll for several seconds. It was nothing short of a miracle he was alive.

Equally amazing was the fact that he had had every dime of Andrew's money in his pocket, and it had not been stolen. When Travis arrived, Grady asked his cousin lo fetch the full amount from the bank, and he paid Travis every cent. Travis had left, but his conscience had bothered him. Andrew had given no such order, but Travis felt a need to help the older man. He'd gone back the next day to give Grady an amount he thought the owner of the Double Star would think fair. It was as he left the two-story home for the second time that he'd come face-to-face with Turlock's gun.

There had been no struggle. Convinced the sheriff had the wrong man, Travis lifted his hands and allowed Turlock to take the gun from his hip. He was concerned about the money in his coat pocket, but as soon as they arrived at the jailhouse, he watched the man with the badge put everything into the safe. Then the nightmare had begun. There was no reasoning with him. Travis had tried every argument he could think of to get Turlock to believe him, but to no avail. Turlock had immediately written to the sheriff whose name was on the poster and eventually gone to see Grady, but Travis remained behind bars.

The meal that night was tasty and plentiful, but Travis ate with little interest. Andrew Wagner had trusted him. And Rebecca. Would her heart forget him
before he returned? The plate was still half full when he set it by the bars and stretched out on the bunk. His boots hung a laughable distance over the end, but he didn't feel like laughing. Once again he had
the feeling that no one was up there. At times it seemed that God was real and working on the earth, but not now. Travis felt as he never had before that he was on his own.

"There isn't going to be anything left of you if you keep on this way," Andrew commented during dinner, but Rebecca only shrugged and tried to smile. She knew she was horrid company these days.

"He'll come back, Reba," Andrew told her with more conviction than he felt. "You wait and see. He'll be back."

Rebecca looked at the worry in his eyes. She nodded and tried to perk up for his sake.

"Lavena's taking me to town with her tomorrow."

"Good! Buy yourself something pretty."

"Well, she's just going for supplies and such."

"That doesn't mean you can't shop. I'll
get Lucky to go in with you, and you can spend the day."

"Shouldn't you ask Lavena?"

"Shouldn't you ask Lavena what?" The woman who'd heard her name spoke from the edge of the room, hands on her hips.

"I want Rebecca to make a day of it tomorrow. You stay in town until she's done."

"I'm an old woman, Andrew Wagner! I'm too tired to be running around Boulder on a winter day." With
that she stormed out.

Andrew winked at Rebecca. "She says you can take all the time you need."

Rebecca laughed for the first time in days. Andrew hated to spoil the mood, but he had to have some answers.

"I heard from your aunt today."

"Did you?" Rebecca's look was open as she speared a potato with her fork. "Has she forgiven me yet?"

Andrew smiled. "You still haven't written her, have you?"

"No." Rebecca's voice grew soft. "I don't know if I can. One of these days, I'd like to explain."

Andrew pulled the letter from his pocket and watched as she read. Her face was sad and regretful, but not guilty. He knew it wouldn't be, but the whole thing was more curious than ever.

"I know you're sad about Travis, Reba, and I don't want to add to that, but I'd like us to talk tonight."

She nodded. "All right. Papa. Shall I bring some coffee to the living room?"

Andrew smiled. That was definitely an eastern custom. "Yes, I'll wait for you in there."

She wasn't long in joining him, but long after they had their coffee, Rebecca sat mute. Rebecca felt a headache coming on. How should she begin?

"A few years ago Hannah stopped leaving the house. I mean, we went to church, but she would stay home most of the time. She wanted me home too, but whenever I would question her, she would change her mind and let
me go, almost as if she were afraid I would grow angry. It was strange because we never quarreled. And the reason she stayed home wasn't to clean or anything; in fact, the house just fell into worse repair as the months went on." Rebecca shook her head for a moment.

"Well, anyway, this one day was very odd because I was home alone. I couldn't remember being home alone in at least two years, but there I was on my own when the bell rang at the door. I went, and there was the mailman; we had letter service in our neighborhood," she explained, "but anyway, he said he'd missed a letter for me. Well, it was from you, the last one you had sent. I opened it right away and knew something was wrong.

"Hannah was just next door at Mrs. Wood's, but it never occurred to me to go get her. I read your letter, and suddenly everything became clear. It was your handwriting, and yet it wasn't. And the things you said, the things about wanting to see me. I was amazed."

Andrew's mind raced with where she could be headed, but he remained quiet and hoped that she would explain.

"I felt cold," Rebecca told him, her mind far away, her eyes on the fire. "I'll never forget how cold I felt, but then I looked at the stairs and for some reason I thought of Aunt Hannah's room. I was never allowed in there. She didn't share a room with Uncle Franklin. It wasn't at all unusual for Uncle Franklin to send me to find something in his room, but Hannah never wanted me in hers.

"I didn't stop to think; I just walked. I walked up the stairs to her room, and I began to look around. It wasn't long before I found them." Rebecca looked at her father. "Every letter you'd ever written me. Papa. The box was huge. She had been taking all of your letters and opening them. She always handed the letter to me already open, not because she read them, she said, but because she had a silver letter opener and it made the slit so neat.

"It was all a lie," she whispered, her face a mask of pain. "She had taken every one of your letters, read them, and then rewrote them in your handwriting before giving them to me. I took the box to my room and hid it just before she came home. That night I sat up until morning and read everything you'd ever said to me. You can't believe the way she lied. Your letters to me, through her, said so many things. She wrote that you had met a wonderful woman and that even though you and this woman both wanted
me to join you, it was taking her some time to get used to having a child."

Andrew's eyes slid shut, and he couldn't stop the hand that went to his chest.

"It's all right now." Rebecca jumped up and ran to his side, spilling coffee and not even noticing. His face was ashen, and Rebecca hated herself for not holding back the truth. If her father died on the spot, she would never forgive herself.

"[ understand now, Papa," she told him desperately. "I know she was lying," she tried to tell him, but he looked stricken.