The fire gave out a welcoming warmth to the Great Room of the Lancer hacienda as the two men dropped into armchairs on either side of the fireplace.
"Quiet around here with Johnny gone," said Murdoch, "and Teresa and Jelly away, too."
"I hope Johnny will be all right, going down to Mexico on his own," said Scott.
"You think your little brother can't take care of himself?" Murdoch asked with a lift of one eyebrow.
Scott gave a rueful grin.
"Of course he can. It's just, with him going into territory where he's so well-known as Johnny Madrid... Who is this woman, exactly, that he's going to see?"
"Estela? She was his mother's nurse. She must be an old woman by now – Johnny may not find her still living when he gets there. She helped take care of Johnny when he was young, apparently, when he and his mother were managing alone." A shadow passed over Murdoch's face. "Johnny's fond of her, and wants to see her again. He shouldn't be gone long," Murdoch went on, "and Teresa and Jelly will be back from Sacramento in a couple of days. I hope that doctor in Sacramento can do something for Jelly's back. Meantime," he smiled and lifted a decanter from the tray, "you'll have to make do with an old man's company and a bottle of whisky."
"Good whisky and good company, both." Scott returned his father's smile and lifted his glass in salute.
The two men were silent for a minute. Murdoch leaned back in his armchair, relaxing, his eyes half-closed. Scott gazed into the fire; now was a good time, he thought, with just him and his father here, and little likelihood of being disturbed. He didn't know when he might have such a chance again.
"Murdoch," he began, "there's something I'd like to ask you ... something I'd like you to tell me."
His father looked up.
"What is it you'd like to know, Scott?"
"When you came to Boston that time, when I was five years old, you were going to bring me back here with you, but you didn't." Murdoch nodded and his son went on:
"I won't ask 'why', Murdoch; I don't need to, now. I'll just ask 'what happened?' I don't have any illusions left about my grandfather. I know you've avoided telling me about a lot of things because it would sound like you were accusing him, blaming him. You're too honorable for your own good, Murdoch. You'd protect my image of my grandfather even at the cost of my image of you. But there's no need to any more. So I don't need – explanations. I just need to know what did happen."
Murdoch smiled sadly and looked down at his glass for a moment. Then he looked up and said, "Yes, Scott, you do have a right to know." He drew a deep breath and began the story.
"When your grandfather took you to his home as a baby, I let him keep you because it was the best thing for you, then. Your mother was dead; there was no woman here to look after a young child, only hired help and they would come and go. I was working day and night to build up the ranch. You were better off in your grandfather's home."
Scott nodded.
"Yes, I can understand that. It was the right decision."
"I knew you would agree with that," said his father. "But by the time you were five, things were different. I was married again; the ranch was doing well. I could give you a home, a mother, a good education, all the things you should have. Even a little brother," he added with a laugh.
"I understood your grandfather wanting to keep you," he went on. "Your mother was his only child; you were, by that time, his only living relative. I thought we could arrange something. Perhaps you could go back to Boston to school when you were older. Certainly your grandfather would be welcome here at any time. But it didn't work out that way." He paused and Scott waited.
"When I said I was taking you back with me, your grandfather asked if I had brought my lawyers. He said he intended to fight me for custody of you. He painted a picture of years of legal battles, with you dragged into court as a witness and subjected to a childhood of uncertainty and misery." Murdoch's mouth twitched into a wry smile. "He even said that if I won, you'd be doomed to living on a stretch of dirt in a mud hut!" He looked around him. "He didn't realize that the Spanish owners of the land had built a hacienda as elegant as his mansion, thirty years before I came to California. I knew that what he was saying was wrong," he went on. "Any court would put a father's rights over a grandfather's, if that father was providing a good home, which by then I was, but I didn't start an argument at the time; I didn't want to risk any upset for you. I just quietly left, thinking that I would see a lawyer and get things underway. There would be some unpleasantness, yes, but I knew I'd get you back – there would just be a little delay."
"Then what happened?" Scott asked.
"First, I found that no lawyer in Boston would act against your grandfather. Some were sorry, regretful that they couldn't help me, but your grandfather was simply too well known and too powerful. One advised me to go back to California and get a lawyer in Sacramento, where I was the well-known, influential one. It sounded like good advice, so I came back. And when I got here, I found your stepmother had gone, taking Johnny with her.
"That made things completely different, as far as reclaiming you went. As a married man, with a family, any court would give my son to me. But as a man whose wife had left him – well, it would have been just as Harlan said. Years of court battles and misery for you. At first I thought I would be able to find Maria and bring her back, then bring you home. It just meant a little more delay. But you know what happened. She disappeared so completely that it was years before I could trace her. By that time, it was too late for legal battles. I decided to wait until you could make up your own mind where you wanted to live. But of course, you never got my letters, so…"
Scott was silent for a few moments, then said, "Don't let Johnny know about that, ever. If he feels his mother was the reason why you lost me, well, you know Johnny – he'll torture himself over it. I don't want him to know."
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Johnny had plenty to occupy his thoughts on the ride to Sonoyta. He wondered if Estela would still be there – it was a few years, now, since he'd last seen her. He wondered, too, whether she would be able to give him the help he was looking for. He hadn't told Murdoch his whole purpose in paying a visit to his mother's old nurse and friend. It was true, he wanted to see the woman who had always been so good to him but he had another motive. He was after information.
His mother had told him that Murdoch turned them out. Johnny had believed her – he knew his mother would never lie. He knew it then and he knew it still. But Murdoch had said Johnny's mother had left him, run off of her own accord, and Johnny knew by now that Murdoch would never lie either. It was like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that were parts of the same picture but didn't fit together. There must be another piece somewhere. Old Estela had been closer to his mother than anyone else he knew; perhaps his mother had said something to her, sometime, that would provide a clue to that missing piece.
Sonoyta was some bigger than when he'd last been there but the street where Estela's lived looked much the same as it always had. Two little children whom Johnny didn't know were playing in front of her house. The door was standing open and Johnny dismounted and went up to it. To his relief, he saw Estela sitting at a table, humming to herself as she picked over a pile of beans. He tapped on the door and she turned. For a moment she stared, then gasped,
"Juanito!" She was up and throwing her arms around him "Come in, Juanito, come in! Sit down. Oh, Juanito, I am so thankful to see you. So much I have heard about Johnny Madrid – such a dangerous life you have been leading. I pray the Blessed Virgin every night that you might be kept safe."
"It's good to see you, too, Mamacita." Johnny returned the old woman's hug. "And you needn't worry; I'm not leading that dangerous life any more. I'm a rancher now. I live with my father in California."
"Your father? You have returned to your father's house?"
"That's right." The two children had followed Johnny into the house and were giggling as they stared at the newcomer with undisguised curiosity.
"Those your grandchildren?" Johnny asked Estela.
"No, my great-grandchildren," she replied. "I am an old woman, Juanito, and it cannot be long before I am with the angels." She waved towards the door as the told the children, "Run home, now. I have a special visitor." Still giggling, the two little ones scampered off. Estela watched them with a smile of love that Johnny remembered from his own young days. "They are my joy: my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren – and you, Juanito. You are like my own. But come, you have had a long journey. You must eat, and tell me of your life now."
Johnny and Estela sat together as the evening closed in.
"Estela, you make the best tamales in the whole of Mexico, you know that?"
Estela laughed and patted Johnny's hand.
"Always they were your favorite, Juanito; your mother's, too. You are like her in so many ways."
"Mamacita," Johnny's tone became more serious, "I want to ask you something. My mother always said that my father turned her, and me, out. Did she ever tell you anything about it? Ever say why she thought my father didn't want us?"
"Yes, Juanito, I know all about it," Estela answered. "You were too young to remember, but it was me she came to first, after her husband had her sent away. She had no-one else just then. Her mother and uncle had gone to Spain and she had no other relatives still living – her father had died many years before."
"Had her sent away?" Johnny repeated her words. "Do you mean Murdoch – my father – didn't turn her out himself?"
"That is right. He had gone to the home of his first wife's family, in one of the big American cities."
"Boston?"
"Yes, that was it. He sent a messenger to your mother to tell her she was no longer wanted and to bring her back to Mexico."
"A messenger? And Mama believed what he said? Just like that?"
"No, chico, he had papers to show that what he said was true."
"What sort of papers?" he queried.
Estela laughed gently.
"I do not know, Juanito. I cannot read. But I have the papers here. You know, when your mother died and you left so quickly, the priest sent her belongings to me. She had spoken of me to him. I have them all; I have kept them carefully. They are yours now, of course. Wait, I will fetch them."
She went into the bedroom at the rear of the house and returned after a few minutes with a bundle wrapped in cloth. She handed the bundle to Johnny; he unwrapped it and spread the contents out on the table. They were pitifully few: some items of clothing, faded and worn, an ebony rosary and a rolled up leather pouch. Johnny lifted the pouch, untied and unrolled it. Inside were a few letters, his mother's birth and marriage certificates and an envelope.
"In the envelope, Juanito. That has the papers. Your mother showed it to me when she first came."
Johnny pulled two sheets of paper from the envelope: a decree of divorce and a letter signed 'Murdoch Lancer'. He carried the two sheets to the door for a closer look in the fading daylight.
"This messenger, Mamacita, did you see him? Do you know his name?" Johnny asked.
"No, chico, I did not see him. He left you and your mother at the hotel and drove away. He had gone by the time your mother sent word to me and I went to her."
Johnny bit his lip as he tried not to show his disappointment. It was not Estela's fault that she couldn't tell him more and besides, these papers were a find in themselves. They were forgeries, he was certain. The letter was, for sure – it looked like Murdoch's handwriting but the signature was wrong. Murdoch always put his middle initial in his signature but not always the same letter: sometimes he'd put an I and sometimes a J. When Scott had asked him about it, Murdoch had gone into a long explanation of how his middle name could be either Iain or John, depending whether he used the Gaelic or the English form. Whoever forged this letter must have seen the two different versions and been unsure which to copy, and just left out the middle letter altogether. His mother must have either not noticed the letter was missing or not realized the significance of it.
As for the divorce decree: Johnny didn't know much about legal documents but he knew they weren't printed on sheets of paper identical to a personal letter they accompanied, like this document was. He just wished he could figure out the who and the why. He looked up to see Estela gazing at him anxiously.
"It's all right, Mamacita," he reassured her. "You've helped me a lot. I know a lot more now than I did."
She still looked troubled but suddenly she brightened.
"Tomás might know. You remember him – my son-in-law, he works at the hotel. He was there when Doña Maria arrived. Speak to him tomorrow, Juanito; perhaps he can help you."
"I'll do that," Johnny said. "I'd like to see Tomás again anyhow."
"Johnny! I heard you had come to visit. Little mouths speak loudly." Estela's son-in-law had more gray in his hair than Johnny remembered but his handshake was as hearty as ever.
"Good to see you, Tomás." Johnny returned his old friend's grip. "Hey, have you got a few minutes to spare? There's something I'd like to talk to you about."
"For you, Johnny, of course I have time."
"Great. Come over to the cantina and let me buy you a beer."
Tomás grinned.
"For the cerveza, there is always a few minutes to spare," he said.
When he and Tomás had got themselves seated at a table in the cantina, with mugs of cold beer in front of them, Johnny put his question to the older man.
"Estela says you were working at the hotel when my mother came here after ... after she left my father's house."
"Yes, I remember it well," said Tomás. "I lifted you down from the buggy when you and your mother arrived. You were fast asleep, tired out from your long journey. Your mother had trouble waking you up to walk into the hotel."
"The man with my mother – do you remember anything about him? His name, or where he came from?"
Tomás shook his head.
"No, I only saw him for a moment when he escorted your mother into the hotel, then a few minutes later when he came to get the buggy. I'd watered the horses and I asked him whether Doña Maria wanted them fed and stabled. He told me the team belonged to him, not to Doña Maria, and he was leaving right away."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"No, he said nothing more. Except... "
"Yes?" Johnny urged. "What did he say? Anything at all might be useful."
Tomás shrugged.
"It was almost like a joke he made. When he told me the horses and buggy belonged to him, he laughed and said, 'A gift from Mr Garrett'."
Johnny jumped.
"Garrett! Are you sure? Are you sure that was the name?"
"Yes, I'm sure." Tomás responded. "He said it twice, now that I recall. First, 'a gift from Mr Garrett' then he repeated it:: 'A generous gift from good Mr Garrett', like he was making a joke, playing with the words, you know – using the letter G over and over. Garrett, that was the name."
"Thanks, Tomás. I think you've told me what I need to know."
Once again, Johnny had plenty to churn over in his mind as he turned Barranca's head north and rode home to Lancer.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
"Of course they're forgeries, Johnny," Murdoch said as his younger son passed him the documents he'd brought back from Sonora. "But your mother wouldn't realize that. She'd probably never seen a legal document in her life except our marriage certificate and come to think of it, that was probably the only time she ever saw my full signature. Any note or letter I wrote her, I just signed 'Murdoch'." He gazed at the pieces of paper that had torn his family apart; kept his sons from him for almost twenty years. Johnny's voice started him out of his reverie.
"Murdoch, we don't have to spread this around, do we?"
A frown creased Murdoch's brow.
"It would clear your mother's name, Johnny; restore her reputation."
"I know, but it sounds like Scott's grandfather was involved."
"Yes," Murdoch nodded. "Going by what Tomás told you, it's almost certain that Harlan was behind it."
"Then it would be one more thing for Scott to handle," Johnny said. "He's already had enough – first his grandfather trying to blackmail him, then finding out your letters were stolen before they got to him. If he finds out it was because of his grandfather that you lost me, well, you know Scott. He wouldn't show it but that hurt would go deep. I don't want him to know."
Murdoch looked down again at the sheets of paper in his hands.
"If it's enough for you, that you and I know the truth, Johnny... "
"It's enough, Murdoch."
"Then so be it."
Murdoch stepped up to the fireplace and dropped the two documents into the flames. He watched as the kindly fire destroyed the last barrier between him and his son and dispelled forever the shadow that for so long had darkened his memory of a woman he had loved.