Texas Tall (The Tylers of Texas 3)

“It’s too late for that,” Sky said. “I saw what was left of a collar and a belt. It was a young boy down there—a boy who had a name and a story. I need to know what happened to him. So does Lauren. It’s her land now.” He turned to look straight at Jasper. “If you know the story—and something tells me you do—”

“Oh, hell,” Jasper muttered, “I reckon I won’t get any peace till I tell you. But once you hear the truth, you’re liable to wish you’d left well enough alone.”

“I’ll take that chance,” Sky said.

Jasper shifted in his chair, crumpling the empty beer can between his gnarled hands. “What happened up in that little canyon was before my time here. I didn’t know about it myself till Bull told me a few months before he died. He made me swear not to tell, but since the ones involved are all in their graves, I reckon your knowing won’t hurt none. And since you’re plannin’ to wed a Prescott, it might help you understand why Bull and Ferg hated each other like they did.”

Sky settled back to listen. He’d hoped to have Lauren with him tonight, but she was home nursing a cold. Maybe that was just as well. The old man might talk more freely without her.

“Ferg and Bull weren’t always enemies,” Jasper said. “As boys the same age, on neighboring ranches, they grew up friends. When they weren’t workin’ to help their dads, they were tearin’ around on their bikes and ponies, learnin’ to rope, and playin’ cowboys and Indians in the canyons. I reckon it was about as good a life as two boys can have—till somethin’ happened.”

Jasper sat silent for a moment, watching the dusky shadows creep across the yard. “Ferg had a younger brother—Cooper, that was his name. Cooper was a couple of years younger than Ferg. As Bull put it, he was slow in the head—I guess the way they say it now would be that he was mentally challenged.

“Cooper didn’t have friends his own age, so whenever he could, he tagged after Ferg and Bull—not that the boys liked havin’ him along. Kids that age can be pretty mean. I guess they teased him and played tricks on him. But Cooper just kept taggin’ along like a puppy, probably not smart enough to figure out they didn’t want him.”

Jasper gave Sky a sharp glance. “I’m tryin’ to tell this pretty much how Bull told it to me. One day—the boys would’ve been about eleven—they were playin’ cowboys below the canyon, shootin’ off their cap guns and throwin’ their lassos. Cooper was with ’em, and Ferg got the idea to pretend the youngster was a cattle rustler they’d caught. They used a bandanna to tie his hands behind his back—something Cooper didn’t mind. They’d done that to him before. I guess he was happy just for the attention.

“Then Ferg got a new idea. ‘Hey, let’s hang the thievin’ varmint!’ he said, and he made a loop with his rope.”

Sky felt the horror uncoiling in his gut. He wanted to stop Jasper from telling the rest, but it was too late now. He needed to hear the story, all the way to the awful end he knew was coming.

“Ferg was a big, husky kid. He put the rope around Cooper’s

neck, tossed one end over a cottonwood limb, and hauled his little brother off the ground. Then he tied the other end to the roots of an old stump. Bull said he would’ve tried to stop him, but it was just a game, and he thought, for sure, Ferg would untie the rope in time. I’m guessing Ferg thought the same thing. They weren’t bad kids. They just didn’t know how far was too far.”

Jasper shook his head and cleared the emotion from his throat. “When they realized what was happening, they tried to untie the rope from the stump, but the knot was tangled in the roots, and they didn’t have a knife to cut it. By the time they finally got him down, Cooper was dead. The boys knew they were in big trouble, so they concocted a scheme. First they dragged the body up the canyon to the cave, untied his hands, and dropped him down that hole, right where you found him.”

Sky swallowed the ache in his throat. Those little bones had a name now—Cooper Prescott, who would have been Lauren’s great-uncle.

“Since Bull hadn’t done enough to stop the hanging, and since he’d helped hide the body, he was guilty, too. The boys made a pact—cut their fingers and sealed it in blood—that they’d never tell what had really happened to Cooper. They made up a story for their folks that some Mexicans in an old car had grabbed the boy and kidnapped him. They even made up a license plate number. The authorities combed the state for those Mexicans. Course they never found ’em.”

The old man fell silent again, his hand stroking the dog.

“I’m guessing there’s more to the story,” Sky said.

“The rest is about Bull and Ferg,” Jasper said. “What happened with Cooper put an end to the friendship. For years afterward, Ferg was afraid that Bull would tell on him. He threatened Bull that if the story ever got out, he’d swear that Bull was the one who’d hanged Cooper. After all, who’d believe that Ferg would kill his own brother?”

“Bull never told, did he?”

“Not till he told me, a long time after Ferg was dead. I guess he wanted somebody to know the truth, in case the body was ever found.”

“And what about the land?”

“That canyon was Tyler property. The Spanish-gold legend was around even then. Nobody put much stock in it, but Ferg was always afraid somebody would go lookin’ for that gold and find Cooper’s body. He wanted to own that little strip of land so he could keep people off it.”

“And his chance came when Bull got involved with my mother.” Incredibly, the fragments of Sky’s family history were coming together.

“Yup. That’s the part of the story you already know. Ferg blackmailed Bull into selling him the land.”

“And when he was digging around up there, pretending to look for the gold, he was really covering the cave?”

“That’s about the size of it.” Jasper pushed himself to his feet, a sign that the conversation was winding down. “So,” he said, “are you going to tell your future wife that she’s the grandchild of a murderer?”

“Whether he was a murderer or just a crazy kid who went too far, I’m going to tell her everything,” Sky said. “Lauren has the right to know.”

* * *

Sky told the story to Lauren the next night, while they were nestled on the sofa in her apartment. He told it gently but carefully, leaving out nothing that Jasper had told him.