“Not that I remember. I was only three when she died.”
“What about money?”
“What money? We were so poor we had to live with our relatives. There wasn’t even money for a doctor when my mother got sick. If there had been, she might have lived.”
“You’ve got a lot of anger in you, boy,” Jasper said.
“Can you blame me? My mother was a good woman. Bull Tyler got her pregnant and tossed her away like an old shoe. He didn’t give a damn about her.”
“So that’s what you think, is it?” Jasper settled against the back of the seat, his far-sighted eyes watching the birds that flocked around the seep. “It’s about time you decided to hear the truth.”
Sky waited for the old cowboy to begin, part of him still braced against the pain of knowing. But Jasper was right. It was time for the truth.
“I was with Bull the first time he saw your mother,” Jasper said. “It was the day Ferg Prescott’s wife, Edith, was buried. You know Bull and Ferg never did get on. But when there’s a death in the family, it’s only common decency to set bad blood aside and pay your respects. It’s what Bull was doing that afternoon, and he’d asked me to come along—most likely to watch his back.”
“So my mother would’ve been serving at the house.” Sky filled in the brief silence.
“That’s right. And Lord Almighty, she was the most beautiful woman I’ve seen to this very day. Even in that dog-plain maid’s uniform, with her hair in a bun, she was a queen. I reckon every man in the room was givin’ her sideways looks. But she wasn’t lookin’ back. Not till she locked eyes with Bull.
“By then Bull’s wife, Susan, had been gone a few years, and Bernice had come to cook and help out with the boys. I know for a fact there was a gal in Lubbock that Bull paid now and again to see to his needs, but there was no love in it. He was still visiting his wife’s grave with flowers every Sunday. I don’t think he ever meant to remarry. But when he set eyes on your mother, and she looked back at him . . . it was like seein’ him come to life again.”
Jasper raised his binoculars to scan the brush around the seep, lowered them, shook his head, and then continued. “I saw the two of them talking in a corner that day. After that I never saw them together. But I knew they were findin’ ways to meet up. And I could see that, for the first time in years, Bull was happy.
“One day she took that old car she drove and left without a word. Bull never was much of a one to share, but I could tell how bad he’d been hurt. I know for a fact he really loved the woman.”
Jasper paused to lift the canteen to his lips and wet his dry throat. “A day or two later, Bull got a call from Ferg Prescott. It seemed Marie had written Bull a letter before she left and put it in the mailbox by the Prescotts’ gate. When Ferg came out to mail something else, there was the letter, waiting for the mailman. Naturally the bastard took it. But that wasn’t all. The low-down skunk steamed the envelope open and read every word.”
Too stunned to curse, Sky listened in silence. No wonder Bull had hated Ferg Prescott. And no wonder Jasper had nothing good to say about the man and his family.
“Ferg offered to make a deal,” Jasper said. “He would give Bull the letter and swear not to make a copy on condition that Bull deed him that little piece of canyon land where the Spanish gold was supposed to be hid. Otherwise, he’d keep the letter and use it any way that struck his fancy, maybe even send a copy to Bull’s sons when they got older.”
“Did Bull know what was in the letter?” Sky was still struggling to wrap his mind around what he’d just heard.
“Ferg wouldn’t tell him. He just hinted that it could do some damage if it came out. Bull would’ve done anything to keep his boys from bein’ hurt, and he was plumb frantic to know why your mother had left. In the end he gave in to Ferg’s blackmail and signed over the land. I signed as witness to the contract Ferg drew up. That’s how I know all this.”
“Did you ever read the letter?” Sky asked.
The old man nodded. “Bull showed it to me before he burned it. Said he wanted somebody else to know, in case somethin’ ever happened to him. He made me swear I’d never tell his boys or anybody else. But now that he’s gone, I can’t help thinkin’ he’d want you to hear this.”
“So what did it say?”
“About what you’d guess. Your mother was in a family way. But she was a proud woman. She knew how people would talk if Bull married her, and how they’d treat her and their children. She didn’t want to put him and his family through that kind of shame. She made it clear that Bull wasn’t to come after her or to ever try and get in touch with her. But she told him not to worry, their child would be raised with love.” Jasper gave a slight shrug of his bony shoulders. “That’s about all I remember.”
“So Bull just let her go?”
“Your father was a better man than that. He hired a private detective—gave the man a letter sealed in an envelope, with a check made out to her, for fifty thousand dollars. The detective was to give it to her when he found her. The detective came back a couple weeks later, said he hadn’t found her so he’d left the letter with her brother. The man had promised to give it to his sister.”
Sky groaned out loud. “I’ll bet that check was cashed, wasn’t
it? With a signature on the back that looked exactly like my mother’s.”
Now it was Jasper’s turn to look stunned. “I saw the cancelled check myself. The handwriting on the back looked just the way I remembered from her letter. When she didn’t answer the letter or even send a note to thank him for the money, Bull had to accept that it was over between them. He never tried to contact her again.”
“My uncle was a thief and his wife was a master forger,” Sky said. “I can guarantee my mother never saw the letter or a cent of that money.”
“So those were the two buzzards that gave birth to Lute and to the rascals that shot me.” Jasper shook his head. “It all makes sense now. But to cash a big check like that at a bank—wouldn’t somebody have to show their ID?”
“My aunt could fake anything. Believe me, ID would have been no problem. I’d guess she opened an account as my mother, deposited the check, and then took the cash out.”