Montana Sky

“Wait. And don’t worry.”
    “I won’t worry.” She kissed him. “You found me. You’ll find her. Bring her back safe.” It was a plea as much as a statement, but she stepped back to let him mount.
    “Take Lily inside, Tess.” Nate reined in, steadied his eager mount. “Stay inside.”
    “I will.” She laid a hand on his leg, squeezed. “Hurry” was all she could say.
    The horses drove west, and she and Lily turned, started back toward the house to begin the painful process of waiting.

THIRTY
    “M Y MOTHER SERVED DRINKS IN A BAR DOWN IN Bozeman.” Jim sat cross-legged as he told his tale, like a true storyteller should. “Well, maybe she served more than drinks. I expect she did, though she never said. But she was a good-looking woman, and she was alone, and that’s the kind of thing that happens.”
    “I thought your mother came from Missoula.”
    “Did, original. Went back there, too, after I was born. Lots of women go home after something like that, but it never worked out for her. Or me. Anyhow, she served drinks and maybe more for the cowboys who passed through. Jack Mercy, he passed through plenty back in those days, looking to kick ass, get piss-faced drunk, find a woman. You ask anybody, they’ll tell you.”
    He picked up a stick, ran it over the rock. Behind her back Willa twisted her wrists, working them against the rope. “I’ve heard stories,” she said calmly. “I know what kind of man he was.”
    “I know you do. You used to turn a blind eye to it. I saw that too, but you knew. He took a shine to my motherback then. Like I said, she was a good-looking woman. You see the ones he married. They all had something. Looks, sure. Louella, she had flash. And Adele, seemed to me, seeing her, she’d have been classy and smart. And your ma, well she was something. Quietlike, and special, too. Seemed she could hear things other people couldn’t. I was taken with your ma.”
    It made her blood chill to hear it, to think of him anywhere near her mother. “How did you know her?”
    “We paid some visits. Never stayed long in the area, never at Mercy either. I was just a kid, but I got a clear memory of your ma, big and pregnant with you, walking with Adam in the pasture. Holding his hand. It’s a nice picture.” He mused on it for a while. “I was a bit younger than Adam, and I skinned my knee or some such, and your ma, she came up and got me to my feet. My mother and Jack Mercy were arguing, and your ma took me into the kitchen and put something cool on my knee and talked real nice to me.”
    “Why were you at the ranch?”
    “My ma wanted me to stay here. She couldn’t take care of me proper. She was broke and she got sick a lot. Her family’d kicked her out. It was drugs. She had a weakness for them. It’s because she was alone so much. But he wouldn’t have me, even though I was his own blood.”
    She moistened her lips, ignored the pain as the rope bit in. “Your mother told you that?”
    “She told me what was.” He pushed back his hat, and his eyes were clear. “Jack Mercy knocked her up one of the times he was down in Bozeman and looking for action. She told him as soon as she knew, but he called her a whore and left her flat.” His eyes changed, went glassy with rage. “My mother wasn’t a whore. She did what she had to do, that’s all. Whores are no damn good, worthless. They spread their legs for anybody. Ma only went on her back for money when she had to. And she didn’t do it regular until after he’d planted me and left her without a choice.”
    Hadn’t she told him that, tearfully, time and time again throughout his life? “What the hell was she supposed todo? You tell me, Will, what the hell was she supposed to do? Alone and pregnant, with that son of a bitch calling her a filthy lying whore.”
    “I don’t know.” Her hands were trembling now from the effort, from the fear. Because his eyes weren’t clear any longer, nor were they glassy. They were mad. “It was difficult for her.”
    “Damn near impossible. She told me time and time again how she begged and pleaded with him, how he turned his back on her. On me. His own son. She could’ve gotten rid of me. You know that? She could’ve had an abortion and been done with it, but she didn’t. She told me she didn’t because I was Jack Mercy’s kid and she was going to make him do right by both of us. He had money, he had plenty, but all he did was toss a few lousy dollars at her and walk