“Last night, Elray and his cousin, Tup, went back to the same still. A decision they came to regret. There was an incident.”
Her heart in her throat, she asked, “What kind of incident?”
“One that warranted investigation. Tonight, when Sheriff Amos organized a team of deputies to return to the scene with Elray, I was more or less recruited to go along.”
That was the convoy she’d seen. Thatcher had been among those who’d discovered the location of their stills, and there he’d found the barrette she’d given Corrine.
Feeling that her silence might be a giveaway to her mounting anxiety, she said, “Like at Lefty’s. You were roped into taking part in the raid.”
He gave a mirthless smile. “Literally this time.” He told her about lassoing Elray. “But that’s neither here nor there. He was pressured into leading us to the site. Seemed like we covered miles of wilderness on roundabout roads. I thought the kid had been lying. But no, we found Cousin Tup.”
“At the still?”
“In a hole in the ground with his arm mangled so bad you couldn’t identify it as a human part.” His eyes holding steady on hers, he said, “It had been snared in a bear trap.”
By now her heart was pumping so hard, she thought she might faint. By a sheer act of will, she contained a sob pressing at the back of her throat. “That’s horrible,” she said hoarsely. “Was he dead?”
“Last I heard, he was still alive but short one arm.”
The strength to stand up deserted her. She sank down onto the end of her bed and hugged her elbows close to her body. “How awful.”
Thatcher sat down in the rocking chair in which she had planned to spend hours rocking Pearl in her lap, reading to her from storybooks, loving her. She had attached a cushion to the chair’s back, so she’d have something to lean her head against during nighttime feedings that had never taken place.
Thatcher placed his head on that cushion now and closed his eyes. “Whoever was operating the stills—there were at least two of them—had cleared out, taking everything with them. Setting that trap to catch a man stealing moonshine seemed extreme, a cruel thing to do.
“But,” he continued on a sigh, “Tup had stolen from them, and had gone back with every intention of stealing again and then destroying their property. He and Elray had been ordered by the family head, Hiram, to rain down hell on them. If they hadn’t caught Tup in that trap, if they hadn’t cleared out, chances are good they would be dead.”
He rocked two or three arcs. “I used to think the difference between right and wrong was clear-cut. Law and justice meant the same thing. But I’m not sure of that anymore.”
She studied him for a time. He looked like an everyday cowboy who lived from one day to the next, accepting and dealing with the vagaries of life without giving them much thought. Not so, Thatcher Hutton. Perhaps he thought too much, saw too much. “Who are you?” she asked in a hushed tone that conveyed her mystification. “Who are you, really? Where did you come from?”
He stopped rocking and looked over at her. “What do you mean?” She didn’t say anything, only continued to search his face. Finally, he said, “I’m nobody.”
“Parents?”
He went back to rocking, but rested his head on the cushion again and gazed into near space.
“Well, I didn’t hatch, but I don’t remember either of them. I was told my father worked in a smithy, shoeing horses mostly. He was accused of laming a horse on purpose because he held a grudge against the owner. The horse had to be put down. My dad was tried and sentenced. He didn’t survive prison. I never knew what exactly he died of.”
“Is your mother still living?”
“I don’t know. She ran off with my daddy’s accuser days after he was convicted. They were never seen or heard of again.” He glanced over at her and asked dryly, “Do you reckon that story about the lame horse might’ve been made up?”
Laurel was dismayed. “She just left you?”
“Appears so.”
“Who took care of you?”
“I was placed with a family. Decent people. They took in orphans, kids like me. We were expected to do chores on their place, but they saw that we got schooling.
“When I was eleven, thereabouts, I heard that a Mr. Henry Hobson, who had a large spread, was looking for hands to drive his sizable herd to the nearest railhead, which at that time was Fort Worth. Mr. Hobson’s age requirement for trail hands was thirteen, but I passed for that. He signed me on.”
He smiled with one corner of his mouth. “Years later, he told me he knew I’d fudged on my age, but he saw how bad I wanted the job. Anyhow, after the drive, he made it permanent. I lived and worked on his ranch for the next fifteen years, till I was drafted into the army.”
“Why haven’t you gone back?”
“Nothing to go back to.” He told her the circumstances, his gaze pensive and sad when he talked about his mentor’s death and the change of fortune it had wrought for him.