Birthright

Grogan, Bill McDowell. Bill’s one of our grad students.”
    “Yeah, hi,” Bill offered before his focus zeroed back on Callie. “I was hoping I could work with you today. Wow! What happened to your face?”
    She didn’t snarl. It would be too much like snarling at abig, sloppy puppy who couldn’t stop himself from humping your leg. “I ran into something.”
    “Gee. Does it hurt? Maybe you want to sit down in the shade. I could get you a drink.” He swung the gate open for her.
    “No, thanks. I’m going to show Roger around, then . . .” She trailed off when she saw Jake standing nose to nose with the big man from the bar. The big one who’d given her Rover a new paint job. “What the hell’s going on there?”
    “Oh, that guy? He was looking for you. Jake got in his face.” Bill barely glanced back at Jake, his imagined rival for Callie’s affections. “We’ve had enough trouble around here without Jake starting more.”
    “If Jake was starting trouble, that idiot gorilla would be on his ass. Sorry, Roger, I need to take care of this. Bill, why don’t you show Mr. Grogan the knapping area?”
    “Sure, sure, if you want me to, but—”
    “I could speak to Austin,” Roger offered. “I used to sneak him peppermints when he was a boy.”
    “I can handle it. Won’t take long.” She strode across the site, giving a quick head shake when anyone spoke her name. But Dory popped up, tugged her sleeve.
    “Do you think we should call the police?” she hissed. “Do you think we should call the sheriff? If they get into a fight—”
    “Then it’s their business. Go help Frannie with the spoil for a while. Stay out of the way.”
    “But don’t you think . . . What happened to your face?”
    “Just stay out of the way.”
    Callie was ready to rock by the time she reached Jake and Austin.
    “I hear you’re looking for me,” she began.
    “I got a check for you. I just came to bring you the check. For the damages.”
    Silently, she held out her hand. After he’d dug it out of his pocket, dropped it on her palm, Callie unfolded it, read the amount. It matched the total of the estimate she’d given Hewitt.
    “Fine. Now go very far away.”
    “I got something to say.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m gonna tell you just like I told him.” He jerked a thumb at Jake. “And just like I told Jeff, Sheriff Hewitt. I was home last night. In bed with my wife by eleven o’clock. Didn’t even watch the late news or Leno because I had a job this morning. A job I’m missing to be here and tell you up front. Now maybe me and Jimmy were out of line with your four-wheeler—”
    “Maybe?” Jake’s voice was much, much too quiet for safety.
    The muscles in Austin’s jaw quivered. “We were out of line, and we’re making restitution for it. But I don’t knock women around, or go out shooting at people, for Christ’s sake. Neither does Jimmy. Jeff, he comes out to where we’re working today, tells us we’ve gotta say where we were last night, ’round midnight, and what we were doing and can anybody swear we’re telling the truth.”
    It was the mortification on his face that had Callie throttling back her temper.
    “If you hadn’t vandalized my car, Hewitt wouldn’t have embarrassed you at work. I figure we’re even, because it’s pretty damned embarrassing to drive around with ‘lesbo freak’ on my hood.”
    Austin flushed until his face looked like a bloodstained moon. “I’m apologizing for it. For me and Jimmy.”
    “You draw the short straw?” Jake asked.
    The slight twitch of Austin’s lips was acknowledgment. “Flipped a coin. I don’t know what happened last night, but I’m telling you I never raised my hand to a woman in my life. Not once,” he said with a quick glance at Callie’s forehead. “Never shot at anybody either. I don’t want you here, and I’ll say it plain to your face. Ron Dolan, he was a good man, and a friend of mine. What happened to him . . . It ain’t right. Just ain’t right.”
    “We can agree on that.” Callie tucked the check into her pocket.
    “Seems to me maybe what people are saying is true. About this place having a curse on it.” He shot an uneasyglance toward the pond. “Can’t say I’d work here now anyway.”
    “You can leave that to us then. Bygones,” she added and held out a hand.
    Austin looked momentarily confused, then took her hand gingerly in his. “A man who hits a woman that way,” he said with a