Webb sat on the edge of the bed, tears streaming down his face. He gathered Lilli into his arms and buried his face in her dark copper hair. Great, racking sobs tore through his body. He held her like that until there was no more warmth in her body.
29
No expression showed on his face, all the grief locked behind his stony features, as Webb stood beside the open grave, his feet slightly apart and his nearly one-year-old son in his arms. The minister droned out his prayer for the living to the mourners. With the exception of Simon Bardolph, they were all Triple C riders and their families.
A swirling wind kicked up dirt from the freshly dug earth mounded beside the grave and swept it over the mourners. Little Chase rubbed a fist at his nose, making a face of dislike at the stinging dust that pelted him, but Webb was mindless of it.
With the close of the prayer, Webb stepped forward and shifted his son to the crook of one arm. A shovel was planted upright in the earth mound. He gripped its handle and scooped up the loose dirt with a push of his foot, tossing it into the grave. The larger chunks made a hollow noise as they landed on the wooden coffin below. Webb dipped the shovel into the dirt a second time and shifted his hold on the handle to raise it, offering it to his son. The small hand eagerly closed on the dirt to grab up a fistful. Then Chase gave his father a bright-eyed look, thinking they were playing some game.
“Throw it down, son.” It was a flat request, accompanied by a nod of his head toward the grave.
With a wild fling of his arm, Chase released the dirt in the general direction of the grave and clapped his hands together. He reached for more dirt, wanting to do it again, but Webb emptied it into the grave. He then turned and passed the shovel to Nate Moore, standing with his parents. He stepped back, a lonely figure in his black broadcloth suit, too impassive and too silent. And the youngster in his arms only made the picture more poignant.
A darkness was filling the sky to the west when the last mourner added his shovelful of dirt to the grave. Anxious glances were cast in its direction. No one mistook the looming cloud for a billowing thunder-head. They had seen similar formations too many times not to know it was a wind-driven wall of dust, commonly referred to as a black-roller.
Before the group of mourners splintered to go to their individual homes, Webb approached Ruth Haskell and her husband. Chase immediately reached out his arms to the woman who was his second mother, and Webb handed him to her.
“Take care of him for me, Ruth,” he said and walked away.
Like the others, Nate had observed Webb’s action and was vaguely puzzled by it. His interest sharpened when he realized Webb was heading for the barns instead of The Homestead. He followed him out of concern and curiosity. Nate finally caught up with him inside the barn, where he found Webb saddling a dingy-colored buckskin.
“Where’re you goin’?” Nate wandered over and combed the horse’s mane with his fingers, eyeing Webb in a side look.
“Town.” He snugged up the cinch and wrapped it around and through the ring.
“What for?”
“I g
ot some questions to ask Pettit.”
“Can’t it wait?” It was already growing dark outside. ‘There’s a dust storm fixin’ to blow in.”
“Nope, it can’t wait.” Webb took up the reins and stepped a booted toe into the stirrup.
“Then I’ll come along with you,” Nate volunteered. wanting to find out why it was so all-fired important for Webb to talk to Doyle Pettit.
“Thanks, but I don’t need company.” He walked the horse past Nate and out the opened barn door into the ranchyard.
The black and billowing dustcloud was casting a long, dark shadow across the land, shutting out the sun’s rays and turning the day into a false dusk. He rode most of the way to Blue Moon ahead of the storm, but it caught up with him five miles from town. The storm enclosed the horse and rider in a blowing shroud of dust. Its accompanying wind whipped the horse’s scrubby tail between its legs as the buckskin lowered its head, pinching its nostrils together to shut out the clogging dirt particles, and plodded blindly down the road. Webb turned his collar up and tied a kerchief around his nose and mouth, hunching his shoulders against the sandblasting wind.
The buildings were all shuttered and boarded when Webb rode into town. Some of them were permanently closed and some were just battened down against the storm. The street was littered with blowing papers, rolling cans and bottles, and tumbleweeds. Shingles were torn off roofs to become flying missiles.
There was a Closed sign on the bank. Webb turned his horse down the alley that ran alongside it, the near building breaking the fury of the wind. A light showed in a rear window of the bank. Webb dismounted by the back door and took a gun and holster out of his saddlebag, strapping it around his hip. The buckskin sidled closer to the building, taking advantage of its shelter from the storm.
When Webb tried the back door to the bank, the knob turned freely under his hand. He pushed it open and stepped inside, pulling down his kerchief and breathing in dusty-smelling air.
The source of light in the darkened building came from Doyle Perth’s private office. The door was ajar and Webb walked to it, nudging it open. The howling wind thrashing around outside had covered any sound Webb had made. Yet when Doyle Pettit looked up from his chair behind the desk, he didn’t look surprised to see him.
A whiskey bottle was sitting in front of him, more than half empty, and a glass was in his hand. The stubble of a beard growth was on his cheeks, and his shirt looked as if it had been slept in. He stared at Webb through liquor-reddened eyes. His mouth flashed briefly with a smile that belonged to the Doyle Pettit Webb had known all his life, and intensified the contrast between that man and the broken, desperate person now sitting behind the desk.
“Hello, Webb.” Even his voice was peculiarly flat, as if Doyle had stopped caring about living. “I knew you’d show up sooner or later. I’m glad I don’t have to wait anymore.”
“You know my wife is dead,” He stepped into the room, but didn’t take a chair, even though there was one empty in front of the desk.
“Yes, I know.” Doyle couldn’t hold his level stare and looked down, reaching for the whiskey bottle to refill his glass. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I am truly sorry about that.”
“Before Kreuger died, he said you had warned him that I might burn his place,” Within the statement, there was a demand for an explanation.