Unforgiven. B.J. Daniels
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lot of small Montana towns. It had died down to a smattering of families and businesses. Not that it hadn’t been something in its heyday. With the discovery of gold in the Crazy Mountains back in the late 1800s, Beartooth had been a boomtown. Early residents had built substantial stone and log buildings in the shadow of the mountains where Big Timber Creek wound through the pines.
By the early 1900s, though, the gold was playing out and a drought had people leaving in droves. They left behind a dozen empty boarded-up buildings that still stood today. There was an old gas station with two pumps under a leaning tin roof at one end of town and a classic auto garage from a time when it didn’t take a computer to work on a car engine at the other.
In between stood the Range Rider bar, the post office, hotel and theater. There’d been talk of tearing down the old buildings to keep kids out of them. Nettie was glad they hadn’t. She thought fondly of the hidden room under the stage at the Royale theater where she’d lost her virginity. Unfortunately, that made her think of the sheriff, something she did her best not to do. Her sheriff, indeed.
Directly across the street from Nettie’s store was the Branding Iron Café where ranchers gathered each morning. Right now a handful of pickups were parked out front—and another half dozen down the street in front of the bar.
Nettie knew the topic of conversation among the ranchers must have Carson Grant’s ears burning. She wondered if the West family had heard yet and how long it would be before one of them either ran Carson out of town again—or strung him up for Ginny West’s murder.
But it was her husband’s reaction that had her scratching her head.
* * *
“WHERE’S YOUR SISTER?” WT asked Carson as he looked up from his meal and apparently realized for the first time that Destry wasn’t at the table.
“She got a call that some cattle had gotten out and were on the road,” Carson said.
His father grunted in answer, the sound echoing in the huge dining hall. Carson idly wondered how often this dining room was ever used. Not much, he’d bet, since everything looked brand-new, and it wasn’t as if WT had friends or family over. He’d never been good at making or keeping friends.
“Why didn’t she call one of the ranch hands to take care of it? Or our ranch foreman? This is what I pay Russell to do,” WT said irritably after a few bites.
Carson tamped down his own irritation. “I would imagine she didn’t want to bother them in the middle of their dinners, especially when she’s probably more than capable of taking care of it herself.” Knowing his sister, that would be exactly her reasoning.
“You see what I mean about your sister?” WT asked with a curse. “She doesn’t know her place.”
“This is her place,” Carson said defiantly in the hopes that an argument would end this meal faster. It couldn’t end soon enough for him.
WT continued to eat, refusing to rise to the bait. He hadn’t even acknowledged Cherry’s presence since she’d sat down. Did he really think that by ignoring her she would leave? Under other circumstances, Carson might have found all of this amusing.
He’d done his best to convince his father to give him enough money so he could leave the country. Coming back here only reminded him of everything he’d spent eleven years trying to forget.
But WT had been adamant. There would be no money, not even any inheritance, if he didn’t return.
“What about the sheriff?” he’d asked.
“He has a few questions, that’s all.”
A few questions about Ginny’s murder after all these years?
Clearly WT didn’t realize how dangerous it was for him being back here, he thought, recalling the look on Nettie Benton’s face when he’d driven by her store earlier today. There had been no reason to try to sneak back here. In a community this small, there were few secrets.
This was Montana where there was still a large portion of the rural population that believed in taking the law into their own hands—just as they had in the old days. That could mean a rope and a stout tree.
He mentioned that now to his father.
“I told you not to worry about any of that,” WT said without looking up.
“Don’t worry about it? Do I have to remind you that the last time I saw Rylan West he swore he’d kill me if he ever saw me again?”
His father finally looked up from his plate, his expression one of mild amusement. “I guess you’d better not let him see you then.”
* * *
DESTRY FOUND THREE W Bar G cows standing in the middle of the county road, just as a neighboring rancher had described over the phone. She slowed the truck, all three cows glancing at her but not moving. They mooed loudly, though, associating the sound of a truck with the delivery of hay.
“You girls are out of luck,” Destry said as she began to herd them with the pickup back up the road toward W Bar G property. She regretted missing her brother’s first dinner at home, but hoped he would understand. He and his fiancée needed time alone with WT so they could work out whatever was going on. Her being there would have only made things more strained, she told herself.
As it was, her conversation with Cherry by the pool earlier had left her even more concerned about her brother. Apparently the two had met at the Las Vegas casino where they both worked, Cherry as a dancer and Carson in the office.
Destry couldn’t imagine her brother living in Vegas, let alone working in a casino; neither could she see him settling down on the ranch. But then again, she didn’t know him anymore.
She wondered how much Carson had told his fiancée about what had happened eleven years ago. Did Cherry know about Ginny’s murder? Or that Carson was still the number one suspect?
She lowered her pickup window to feel the air, driving slowly as she moved the cattle at a lazy pace down the road. They were in no hurry, and neither was she.
This far north, it wouldn’t get dark for hours yet. Even with the possibility of an approaching storm, it was one of those rare warm fall afternoons in Montana. The rolling hills had faded to mustard in contrast to the deep green of the pines climbing the mountains. As always, the Crazy Mountains loomed over the scene, a bank of dark clouds shrouding the peaks.
She loved living out here away from everything. In this part of Montana, you could leave the keys in your pickup overnight, and your truck would still be there in the morning. The rural area’s low crime rate was one reason Ginny West’s murder had come as such a shock. It rattled everyone’s belief that Beartooth was safe because you knew your neighbors. Now, like a rock thrown into Saddlestring Lake, Carson’s return would create wide ripples.
Ginny West’s murder—and her breakup with Carson right before it—would be rehashed in booths and at tables in the Branding Iron Café and on the bar stools at the Range Rider bar.
There were still plenty of people around who believed Carson had killed her. Rylan West among them, she reminded herself with a sinking heart.
What would he do when he heard that Carson was back?
The cows mooed loudly as she brought the pickup to a stop and got out to open the barbed-wire gate. She’d seen a broken fence post where she figured the cows had gotten out. She’d let Russell know. Overhead, a hawk soared on an updraft.
As she waded through the tall golden grass, grasshoppers buzzed and bobbed around her. She lifted the metal handle to loosen the loop attached to the gate and, slipping the post out, walked the gate back to allow the cows into their pasture.
At the sound of a vehicle on the wind, she looked up the road. Dust churned up in the distance.
“Come on girls,” she said to the cows, swatting one on the backside with her hat to finally get them moving. She could hear the growing sound of the