jerked his head to indicate an easterly direction, and winced when pain crept up his neck. “There are three graves up on the rise that overlooks Deer Hollow.”
The rest of the color had drained from her face by now. “Three?”
He resented being the one to tell her all this. He resented talking about it at all. “Lost a baby four years ago.”
She got up and left the room.
* * *
Ruby stood at the foot of the stairs, her hand on the worn banister, her heart in her throat. Crushing fear rose up and threatened to suck the air from her lungs. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing this nightmare to end...willing sanity and reason to return. Needing her world to settle back on its axis and stop careening out of control.
The dust everywhere, her mother’s clothing, the vanity set and hairbrush... It all added up to confirm that man’s claims.
But she didn’t know him.
What reason would he have to make up a story like that?
She didn’t know him.
Where else could her mother be if he wasn’t telling the truth?
“Ruby!” The man’s angry voice carried from the kitchen. “Come back here and untie me!”
Trembling, she lowered herself to the bottom step and rested her spinning head on her knees.
His story did explain everything, even the hay field she’d seen on her way here...her mother’s forgotten vegetable garden. If all his claims were true and Pearl and her mother were dead, Ruby was too late. She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. She could never make up for the past.
“Come back here now, Ruby!”
She disregarded his ravings and sat like that until her backside and spine ached. Sat there while the impact of that man’s information sank in. Ruby became lost in her thoughts and the grief that bore down on her. She sank to the floor and half sat, half laid with her head on a step.
She’d waited too long.
He stopped yelling and she lost track of time and place. Eventually, with stiff movements, she stood and crossed the foyer to open the front door. The first rays of morning sun were visible behind the horizon. From the porch, she watched them creep above the cottonwoods that lined the river in the distance, until eventually she made out the yard and barn.
Ignoring her complaining body, she set out across a pasture, dew making the grass slippery under the soles of her boots. A cool breeze lifted her hair from her face and neck. At the top of a rise, silhouetted against the pale orange sky, stood three crosses.
Heart aching, not daring to breathe, Ruby approached.
In the dim morning light she made out the names burned into the wood. Margaret May Sommerton. Pearl Dearing Sommerton. And the last—the newest—in the same neat lettering: Laura McWhirter Dearing.
Ruby dropped to her knees in the dewy grass.
All the way to Nebraska she’d planned what she would say to her family. A million times she’d imagined the scene and their conversation and reactions. She had so much to make up for, so much to explain. She’d made plenty of mistakes, staying away so long being the biggest, but she’d hoped for forgiveness. Now she would never get to say the things she needed to say.
She would never be able to tell her mother she was sorry. She’d missed her last opportunity. While she’d been singing in theaters, eating and sleeping in hotels across the eastern states, her mother and sister had needed her here.
All those years her mother had believed Ruby didn’t love her or care enough to come home—to stay home. But she’d loved Mama. Of course she had loved her.
Tears came then; great racking sobs rose from her belly and her chest heaved.
She hadn’t said goodbye.
Her grief combined with overwhelming guilt and regret until it hurt to breathe. It didn’t seem right to be here with the breaking sun on her face or to hear the sound of birds chirping in the nearby trees when the rest of her family was gone.
Finally, through her tears, Ruby turned her gaze to her sister’s grave. Now that the sky had brightened, the neatly mown grass in this spot and the beds of violets planted at the head of each plot caught her attention.
Never again would she see Pearl’s bright smile. Gone was the person who’d shared her memories of growing up, the sister who shared her father and knew the same pain of loss. Now there was no one to remember him with. No one with the same curly hair or blue eyes. Ruby was alone.
She turned her bleary gaze to the grave marked Margaret May. Buried here was the baby Pearl’s husband had mentioned. Ruby didn’t know if Margaret had died as a newborn or if she’d lived a short while, but in either case, Ruby felt Pearl’s loss now, and it became her own.
The wetness that had soaked through her skirt made her knees ache. Pushing herself to her feet, she studied the dip in the landscape and the trees that outlined what her father had named Deer Hollow, because of the deer that tiptoed from cover to feed in the early morning and late evening. A pair grazed in the valley below her now. The largest one lifted its head to look right at her, obviously finding her no threat, because it went right back to feeding.
A dim memory swirled into perfect clarity. Many years ago she and Pearl had lain here in the grass watching the deer, several of them with fawns. The sisters had looked at each other, marveling in silence. Ruby had admired her sister’s ability to wait and watch, while she herself had itched to creep closer. Her heart ached for that moment. For the years since. That same impatience had led her away, and pride had delayed her return. The land and the house were familiar, but everything else was different. Everything that mattered was gone.
Eventually, Ruby turned and made her way back across the pasture to the house. Making mistakes was nothing new for her. At least this one with Nash Sommerton was fixable. If she hadn’t addled his brains with that skillet.
She walked all the way around to the back door and opened it without pause.
Rather than seeing her sister’s husband tied to a chair, she discovered a pile of splintered wood.
Nash’s hands had gone numb before he’d had the sense to hobble to his feet and bash the chair against the cast-iron stove.
Mad enough to spit fire, he’d stormed through the house, finding that Ruby was gone. Finally, belly rumbling, he made himself something to eat. He figured as soon as it was daylight, she’d want to prove his story true or false and make her way to the grave markers. He pumped water, lit the stove and put the coffeepot on to boil.
He’d downed two cups before she returned.
Her appearance was startling. The front of her suede skirt was blotched dark. Not only did she look disheveled and exhausted, but her nose and eyes were red and puffy. Her hair looked as though she’d crawled backward though a bramble bush.
“So you’re Ruby.”
At the sound of his voice, she started and turned to where he sat.
“You’re not what I expected.”
She looked toward the coffeepot, shuffled to the cupboard for a cup and poured it half-full. Easing onto a chair at the opposite end of the table, she took a sip and met his eyes. “How did my mother die?”
Her voice was even raspier now.
He drew a breath and released it. “About five years ago the doctor said her heart was weak and that she needed to take life easy. Everything made her tired. She was pretty feeble.” He picked up his cup, but then set it back down. “A Cheyenne woman from nearby made her teas and poultices,