The Bunkhouse
The sun was barely up when Tommy strode into the small sheriff's office the next morning. He'd planned to go back to the office last night after he'd left Jude, but he'd taken a couple of emergency calls instead. Nothing serious, but time consuming all the same.
Gordon turned as the door swung open. "You're in early." The young deputy finished, dumping the used coffee grounds into the trash as he greeted Tommy. "Is something up?"
"I hope not. I'd like a nice, quite day. How was your shift?"
"Damn near perfect. Only call I had was from Mrs. Clifford. She wanted me to lock George up cause one of his buddies brought him home drunk again."
"Was he causing problems?"
"not unless you call passing out on the front porch a problem. I helped her get him to bed and told her I'd talk to him tonight when he was sober. I'll let you have that chore if you want it."
"Not me. From the looks of Branson's desk, I've got more than enough waiting."
"Yeah. Calamity said you got a load of phone calls yesterday afternoon. None of them were emergencies, so she just left you messages."
Clamity. It wasn't her real name, but it fitted her well. No wonder her family had pinned it on her a long time ago. She was a redheaded woman Branson had hired recently to take care of office duties.
According to Branson, if you left her in the office by herself too long, you'd always come back to trouble. She riled more folks than she helped, telling them whether or not she thought their problems were worthy of the sheriff's attention. And she didn't hesitate to give the caller her two cents worth on any problem they had.
But she apparently saved Branson a lot of unnecessary distractions. This week, she was doing the same for Tommy. If she decided the call was important, she paged him. If not, she stacked the messages neatly on Branson's desk for either him or Gordon to tackle.
This morning, the array of yellow slips streched from the middle of the desk to the front. He stifled a yawn and shuffled through them while Gordon started a new pot of coffee. Liam had called just before five yesterday afternoon. He'd located some correspondence from Stewart Harrison, including several documents with his signature. He was sending them by overnight mail from his office in San Antonio so Tommy could compare the signatures with the writing in Jude's letter.
Buck Bogard's had called from the bank. Stewart did have a safety-deposit box with them, but he couldn't let anyone open it without a court order. Some more red tape to fill Tommy's day, but hopefully the box would contain a legal will so Jude could go ahead and officialy claim the ranch. Otherwise, they would have to come up with proof that she was the only living relative. Tommy doubted a handwritten letter would suffice for that.
Even better luck would be if there was some reference to the rest of Jude's family, something that would help her get in touch with her past and maybe inspire the return of her memory.
Gordon tramped back across the room and perched on the edge of the desk where Tommy was sitting.
"Coffee should be ready soon."
"Good. I'm sure I'll need it."
"I guess you still have your hands full with that woman who says she's Stewart Harrison's daughter."
"I don't know about having my hands full, but I plan to help her if I can. The evidence indicates she is, in fact, his daughter."
"Yeah, I hear her boyfriend's going all around town telling people how you won't let him take her home where he can get medical help for her. He says you have no right to keep him away from her."
Tommy leaned back in the chair. "He's probably right. I still have a few questions to ask him, though. I'm hoping he'll volunteer to let you take his fingerprints so we can check them against the ones we found at Stewart's cabin the other night."
"Do you want me to be there when you talk to him?"
"I think I can handle it, but I appreciate the offer."
"Well, I know you haven't done this in awhile. What did Branson say when he called?"
"The same as you did. He said to dot my I's and cross my T's...make sure I followed procedure."
"Yeah, that's Branson's philosophy, though he doesn't always follow it himself. Not that we usually have much trouble around Kelman."
Branson had also warned Tommy that the whole amnesia bit might be a hoax. Jamie and Jude might be in this together, trying to gain possession of a ranch they had no legal claim to. Only Tommy couldn't see Jude as a con woman. Hopefully, that was intuition and not wishful thinking.
He shuffled through the rest of the messages. Dr. Silver's, the New Orleans psychiatrist who'd treated Jude, had returned his call. The message said he was relieved to hear that his patient was safe and that he hoped Tommy would have Jude contact him. He left his office number and the number of his cell phone.
Gordon sterched and stood. "If you don't need anything else from me, I'll mosey on home."
"I think I've got it covered."
"Then I'm outta here. I've had a hard time keeping my eyes open the past couple of hours. These slow nights seem to go on forever." Gordon grabbed his hat and jacket and headed for the door.
"Thanks for the coffee," Tommy said as he picked up the phone.
"You bet. Keep your eyes open and watch your back."
Tommy only nodded at Gordon's parting comment. He was already punching in the number for Dr. Silvers's cell phone. A minute later, the connection was made.
"Hello." the voice was deep, with a definite New Orleans accent. "How can I help you?"
"I'm the one who left you a message yesterday about Jude, the amnesia patient who's here in Kelman."
"Tommy Quincy."
"Right. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time," Tommy said. "I know it's early."
"No problem. I can't tell you how worried I've been about Jude."
Tommy grabbed a pen from the Dallas Cowboys cup where Branson kept his supply. "She seems in good spirits, considering her situation," he assured the doctor. "What exactly are you afraid might happen to her?"
"It's hard to say with this type of amnesia. I'm fairly confident that eventually she'll remember waht happened the night she was attacked."
"Wouldn't that be a good thing?"
"It should be. Except that the actual experience of remembering could be disatrous for her."
"I'm not sure I understand, Doctor."
"My diagnosis was that she was suffering from acute stress syndrome brought on by the assalut itself and possibly by what was going on in her life before it happened. I prescribed a tranquilizer, but after the first few days, she refused to take it. I didn't discharge her from the hospital, you know. She just walked out even though I told her it was dangerous for her to be on her own."
Tommy twirled the pen. As yet the doctor had said little to help him grasp Jude's situation.
"The danger part is what I'm interested in, Dr. Silvers. In what way do you think Jude is in danger? Are you talking physically or emotionally?"
"I'm talking emotionally. You'll have to ask the police if you want to know about the likelihood of her being attacked again."
"I've already done that." And he'd gotten a lot straighter answers from them than he was getting from the psychiatrist. "Describe the danger, Doctor. In layman's terms. What might happen to Jude?"
"All I can do is speculate, based on what I saw of her in the hospital and on the case histories of other amnesia patients."
"All right. Let's speculate."
"I believe she's closed her mind to the assault because it was either too brutal for her to face or because she knows the man who did it to her. Either way, her mind is protecting her from something she's not prepared to face. If and when the memories come rushing in, she may lose control. There have been documented cases where the patient took his or her own life. I'm not saying Jude would do that, but it is a concern."
"She's already had occasions where memories flash through her mind," he told the doctor. "Last night, she heard voices. She became shaky and disoriented."
"That's not uncommon in this type of situation. But if her reactions become too severe, it could cause a setback in her recovery."
"So how do I help her?"
"Treat her as normally as possible and don't say or do anything to upset her. If her condition changes or worsens, she should see a psychiatrist. I can recommend someone in your area."
"If it comes to that, I'll get in touch with you again. In the meantime, I'll see that she's taken care of."
"And I'd advise you to be careful. Sje's vulnerable now. She may misread your desire to help, and may start reading something more into your actions. If she does, you have to back away. She's a very attractive woman, but she doesn't need any more complications in her life."
"I'm not planning to take advantage of her, Doctor. If I had been, I wouldn't have called for your advice."
"Then I hope I've helped."
Tommy wrapped up the conversation as quickly as he could. He longed to discount the doctor's warning about suicide, but he couldn't. He'd been there when the memory of the key and the metal box had sprung into her mind.
He'd only glimpsed the shadow of the fear that haunted her, but it had been enough to make his chest grow tight and his stomach settle into a cold, hardball. He tossed the pen to the table and walked over to the coffeepot. Possibilities tumbled through his mind as he filled his travel cup with the hot brew. He'd finish returning phone calls from his truck.
He penned a note for Calamity and grabbed his hat. Anticipation quickened his step. He had a burning urge to make sure Jude was all right, to satisfy himself that she was still coping with the stress of living in the present without the safety net of the past.
He pictured her waking up at the ranch, her hair tumbling wildly about her face, her eyes heavy with the residue of sleep.
Damn.
These were exactly the kind of thoughts the doctor had warned him about. He'd have to watch himself with her. He couldn't deny that he was attracted to her. Any man would be. But he could and would keep his fellings in check when he was around her. For both their sakes.
Jude stepped out her front door and into the early morning sunshine. Her first night alone hadn't been as bad as she'd feared, but it had been accompanied by the usual nightmares. Probably the only reason she'd slept at all after Jamie left was the fact that Tommy had called to report that one of his hands was riding guard duty. If she had any problems at all, she should yell or else just blink her lights a few times.
Fortunately, she hadn't had to do either of those things. She would, though, if Jamie showed up again. Funny, a few days ago, she'd thought the only thing that could make her feel better would be to have her memory return, to find out who she was and where she belonged.
Now she wasn't even sure she wanted her memory or her past life back. Yesterday, when she'd been soaring above the Running Deer with Tommy, she'd felt as if she could take on the world. Last night, listening to Jamie describe what she was like when she lived with him, she'd felt humiliated, almost ashamed.
Stepping over the rotten boards in her rickety steps, she jumped to the ground. She'd gone to sleep last night thinking about the metal box. Tommy had agreed it was impossible to search the whole ranch for the mysterious metal box, but she could still look in some of the more obvious places. The bunkhouse fitted that category.
"Good morning."
Anxiety knotted inside her. She turned to see a handsome young cowboy walking in her direction. She took a deep breath and determined to get a grip on her nerves. Surely this was the ranch hand Tommy had sent to serve as her bodygaird. She returned his greeting.
"You're up and about early this morning," he said, rubbing his clean cut chin. "You must be Jde. You're as oretty as Tommy said you were."
"Thank you." She extended her hand. He took it in his rugged, calised one.
"My name's Mason. Tommy says I'm to keep an eye out for you during the day unless he or Kwest are around. From the looks of those bruises. I'm probably a little too late."
She studied the man.
"Tommy says someone's trying to scare you off the ranch," he said, eyeing her suspiciously.
"I'm hoping they've given up."
"If they haven't, I can handle them." He tapped the fingers of his right hand on the butt of a pistol he wore at his waist. "I brought my welcoming committee with me."
She shuddered at the thought. "I hope you don't have to use that."
"So do I. But I'm not scared to. It's stopped many of snakes in the grass, mostly rattlers, but it would do the same for a two-legged snake." He slapped at a mosquito, then wiped his hand on his faded jeans. "Are you going somewhere in particular or are you just out for a stroll?"
"I though I might look around the bunkhouse."
"I don't know why. I doubt it's been used since Stewart took over the ranch. He ran this spread all by himself. If he did need a little help with roundup or branding, he just hired somebody to come in for the day."
"I've heard he wasn't very sociable."
"He was downright unfriendly, if you ask me. But you didn't. Tell you what. If you need me, give a holler. I'll be hanging around the house somewhere, close enough to know if anyone comes driving or riding up."
"Thank you, Mason. If I need you, I'll call."
He tipped his hat and headed back toward the corral. She watched him go, then hurried across the spongy carpet of dew-covered grass. The door to the bunkhouse hung at an angle from its rusty hinges, dragging on the ground si it couldn't be fully closed.
She peered through the crack. light and shadow spawned eerie patterns along the walls and bare wooden floor. Cots strewn with sagging mattresses and frayed Mexican blankets lined one wall. A long metal table had been turned on its side and left leaning against the opposite wall.
And the sickening odor of something rotting away assaulted her nostrils. Her stomach heaved, and she thought she might be sick. When the nausea eased, she pinched her nose with her fingers and stepped inside.
A huge spiderweb snagged her hair and eyelids. Cringing, she brushed it away and ran her fingers up the wall. She located the light switch and flipped it up. Nothing happened. The bare bulb that dangled from the ceiling was broken, its jagged edges twisted into the shape of a disapproving frown.
Something moved near her foot, something dark that blended into the shadows. Heart pounding, she bent low enough to make out the hairy form of the tarantula as it crawled onto her tennis shoe. She swung her foot wildly, shaking it until the spider fell to the floor.
She longed to run back into the sunshine, but this might be just the type of place a man like Stewart would choose to hide a box he didn't want anyone to find. Stepping cautiously, she moved toward the center of the long, narrow room and peeked into the kitchen. There was a beat-up range and some old iron pots, but the abundance of spiderwebs proved nothing had been cooked in there for many years.
A bat flew from the rafters. She ducked and then glanced up. Up...and into the face of the woman swinging from the rope knotted around her neck
The narrow room began to spin around her. The nightmare had returned. Only this time, it was visiting while she was awake.
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A/N-- I've enjoyed many of your reviews, if the story seems to drag a little bit, please be patient. I only want to fully detail so you see what I see. It only gets better. Thanks for the support.