Betrayal at the Buffalo Ranch Read online

  “Tina’s pregnant.” He dropped his head at the weight of the words.

  “Tina?” she repeated. “Who the hell is Tina?”

  “She’s the bartender,” he said, and then added, “I don’t even know

  if I’m the father . . . but, probably.” He turned and walked toward the

  door.

  Anger swelled inside Rebecca as she took off her shoe and threw it

  at him, hitting him squarely in the back of the head as he walked out into the darkness. After he had been gone for a while and Rebecca realized he

  wasn’t going to return, she scribbled her name on the papers and sealed

  the envelope. Giving herself no time for second thoughts, she walked to

  the corner and let the envelope fall into a blue mailbox next to the convenience store where she had once worked. As she closed the door on the

  mailbox, a weight lifted from her shoulders. That’s when she knew she’d

  made the right decision. She hadn’t seen Levi since.

  Now here she sat, holding a letter demanding she vacate her home.

  She wondered if she would have to file bankruptcy, and for a short mo-

  ment, thought maybe she should tell Levi about the letter. After all,

  his name was first on the mortgage. But then she realized she didn’t

  care. He’d find out eventually. Right now she needed to focus on herself

  and decide where, at the age of thirty- six, she was headed on her life’s journey.

  25

  Rebecca got out of her chair and walked across the room to a bookcase that held more junk than books. She picked up their wedding photo

  and deliberately dropped it on the floor. The glass broke in a jagged line across Levi’s face. The location of the crack amused her, bringing a moment of levity.

  Another photo on the bookcase caught her attention. It was of her

  father and mother, Grover and Marie Chuculate. She picked up the

  picture frame and wiped the dust off the glass with the palm of her

  hand. The picture had been taken five years ago, the last time she’d

  seen her mother alive. She ran her finger across her parents’ faces,

  and then looked at her reflection in a nearby mirror, trying to imagine

  which of her facial features came from them. The high cheekbones, the

  strong jawline, and her dark chocolate- brown hair all resembled her

  father’s. Her hazel eyes, slender fingers, and perfect nails came from

  her mother.

  Shortly after the photo was taken, her mother had died from a

  deadly mix of too much alcohol and a smoldering cigarette. Rebecca

  hadn’t been back to Oklahoma since her mother’s funeral.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the familiar number. Her father

  answered, and his quiet voice tugged at her heart when she heard it on

  the line.

  “Daddy,” she said. “Yes, I’m fine. I’ve got some extra time off. I

  thought I might come back to Oklahoma and visit, if it’s okay.”

  She smiled when she thought she could hear a tiny bit of excitement

  in her father’s voice.

  “No, Levi isn’t coming,” she said, realizing she would eventually

  have to break the news to him, but not now. She changed the subject.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  She listened while he repeated the canned speech he always gave her

  about doing fine, never mentioning the diagnosis of leukemia the VA

  hospital had given him several months before. It was a result of being

  sprayed with Agent Orange in Vietnam, they’d said, and offered him

  little hope of beating it without endless rounds of chemo and a bone

  marrow transplant, which he had promptly refused.

  “It will be good to see you, too,” Rebecca said, as she hung up. She

  thought about her childhood in Oklahoma. Her father had been gone

  most of the time, traveling to Indian communities all over the country

  26

  for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But Rebecca always cherished what little time she’d had with him.

  She sat back down and began to make plans. She had a friend who

  might let her store the larger household items in her garage until she

  could figure out what to do with them. The rest of the stuff, she’d leave for the bank to dispose of. They wanted it; they could have it.

  After straightening things out in her mind, she returned her thoughts

  to her father and tried to piece together the words she would need to tell him that she no longer had a home or a husband in California. She knew

  he’d have the words of wisdom she needed to hear. He always did.

  27

  Chapter 4

  The day after Angus Clyborn buried his son, he drove into town, got out

  of his one- ton dually Dodge truck, and made his way into the First Merc

  State Bank on Main Street in Sycamore Springs. He almost collided with

  an elderly lady leaving the bank, caught his balance, and continued to-

  ward the elevator. Knocking the ashes off the end of his cigar, he snuffed out the burning embers on the bottom of one of his alligator boots before placing the half- smoked stogy into his shirt pocket and pushing the elevator button. The doors parted and he joined two other men for the

  elevator ride up one floor to the trust department.

  The décor on the second floor differed greatly from that of the

  lobby. In contrast to the economy tile on the first floor, Angus’s exotic boots sunk into the lush, royal- blue carpeting of the trust department.

  He entered a large open area with several desks arranged in perfect or-

  der, flanked by six offices on three outer walls.

  Angus walked past the young receptionist, ignoring her request for

  him to wait, and continued straight to Fred Lansing’s office, where he

  pushed the office door open without a word or a knock, intruding on

  two women signing papers across the desk from the trust officer.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Fred,” he said, with a loud voice. “I didn’t know you

  were busy. I’ll wait right outside your office for you to finish.”

  Without bothering to reclose the trust officer’s door, Angus pulled

  a chair away from a nearby empty desk and sat down. He retrieved his

  half- smoked cigar from his pocket and stuck it, unlit, in the corner of

  his mouth. An employee, a woman dressed in an expensive- looking suit

  and stiletto heels, walked past him and gave him a don’t-you- dare look.

  Forcing a smile, he took the cigar out of his mouth and stuck it back into his pocket.

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  Lansing ushered the two women out of his office, smiling, shaking hands, and offering his future services. After they walked toward the elevator, he shifted his attention to Angus. “Come on in, Angus,” he said,

  with a dry tone.

  Angus strode into the office and settled onto a plush upholstered

  chair across the desk from Fred. He leaned back and rested the heel of

  his right boot on his left knee.

  “What can I do for you today, Angus?”

  “I’d like for you to draw up some legal papers for me, Fred— a trust

  agreement. I’ve accumulated quite a bit of land now, and I’d like to make sure no woman ever gets her hands on it.”

  “I’m not quite sure what you mean, Angus. Your properties are all

  in title with your wife, as joint tenants, aren’t they? Are you saying you want to change that?”

  “Yes, I am. What if something happens to me? They’ll all be yap-

  ping at her window like a pack of wolves, fighting over who gets my

 
; land.”

  Lansing stared at Angus. “But, you’ll be dead, Angus. What do you

  care?”

  “It’s the principle of the thing, I guess.” He uncrossed his leg and

  pulled himself up straighter in his chair. “And then there’s Lucy— Jason’s wife. Now that he’s gone, I don’t want her thinking she can marry someone else and give away part of my land to her new husband.”

  “I thought you deeded part of your land to Jason and Lucy. You

  can’t exactly renege on that now, Angus.”

  “Never filed it. Gave them a copy and kept the original in the safe.

  All I’ve got to do is put a match to the corner of it.” Being in control was Angus’s drug of choice, especially when it concerned his ranch.

  “Oh.” Lansing sat for a moment as if thinking through Angus’s re-

  quest, and then pulled a sheet of paper out of his drawer and began to

  take notes. “Exactly what do you want this trust agreement to say, then?”

  ★

  Cory Whitfield held her cell phone between her shoulder and ear, talking

  while she filed miscellaneous documents in a row of filing cabinets filled 29

  with trust files. She eyed the area around her, making sure no one was close enough to overhear her conversation.

  “Lucy, I am so sorry I couldn’t make it to Jason’s funeral. Old man

  Lansing wouldn’t give anyone time off to go, except I’m pretty sure he

  went. Did you see him?” Cory closed one filing cabinet and moved to

  the next while she listened. “Hang in there, girl. I know it’s going to be hard. When are you coming back to work?” She watched as Lansing

  opened his office door and stood talking to Angus. “If you need any-

  thing, call me,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

  She quickly hung up and dropped her cell phone into her pocket as

  Lansing and Angus turned and walked in her direction. She looked up,

  acknowledged the two men, and smiled.

  “Cory,” said Lansing, “I’ve drawn up a trust agreement for

  Mr. Clyborn. Take this file and type it up for me. I’ll need it by the end of the day.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, taking the manila folder from him. “I’ll get right

  on it.”

  The two men walked toward the reception area, stood talking for

  a moment, and ended their conversation with a customary handshake.

  Angus got on the elevator and Lansing returned to his office.

  Cory sat down at her desk and, pulling out the form Lansing had

  completed, turned on her computer. Once the template displayed on her

  screen, she began to fill in the blanks from the information in the file.

  When she got to the end of the document, she added the customized

  points Lansing had spelled out in detail. She stopped typing, took in a

  deep breath, and looked around. She couldn’t believe what she was typ-

  ing. When she was finished, she hit the print command— for two copies.

  After pulling the printed pages from the printer, she slid one copy

  in her top drawer to read again later, and placed the other copy in the

  front of the file and carried it toward Lansing’s office. One of Lansing’s protégés, dressed in the obligatory navy three- piece suit, burst out of

  his office and slammed into Cory’s arm, sending Angus’s file flying

  into the air.

  “Watch where you’re going,” growled the young man, who then

  continued down the hallway and out of sight.

  Cory’s anger flared. The offices were full of men who had re-

  cently graduated from college with business degrees. They jockeyed for

  30

  positions with wild abandon, trying to impress Lansing enough to win that all- important title after their name so they could move on to a bigger bank somewhere besides Sycamore Springs.

  Cory had an associate’s degree in accounting from Northeastern

  Oklahoma A&M, the two- year college located forty miles north in

  Miami, Oklahoma, but when time had come to transfer to a four- year

  school to get her bachelor’s degree, the grants and scholarships had dried up, so she took a job at First Merc State Bank until she could save enough money to continue her education. She had no doubt that she could do

  the same job as the snobbish males in their fancy suits and outlandish

  ties, but at this point, she just wanted to bide her time until she could find another job somewhere else.

  She dropped to the floor and started picking up all the papers, trying

  to remember the correct order in which to replace them in the file. A

  tax bill had landed near her left foot. She picked it up, looked at it, and wondered why anything dealing with taxes would be in one of their files.

  She figured it wasn’t any of her business, so she grabbed it and put in the back of the folder.

  Once she had collected the rest of the papers from the floor, she

  smoothed all the pages, placed the file in Lansing’s incoming box, and

  returned to her desk. She pulled out the trust agreement copy she’d hid-

  den in her drawer earlier, folded it, and, when no one was looking, care-

  fully slid it into her purse. She would be glad when this day was over.

  31

  Chapter 5

  Sadie drove into Sycamore Springs and parked behind Playin’ in Paradise

  Travel, the travel office she’d promised to run for a friend three years ago.

  Since then, the friend had bowed out, and Sadie had signed a contract

  with the Maui- based parent company to manage the office. She loved to

  book happy vacations for folks from around the Sycamore Springs area,

  and business had picked up so much that she had hired LaDonna Bean

  to help in the office.

  LaDonna didn’t like her given name, so she had become known to

  all of her friends simply as Beanie. She stood tall and thin, with curly

  reddish- brown hair, emerald eyes, a smattering of freckles across her

  nose, and a vibrant personality. Sadie thought the nickname fit her

  perfectly.

  Beanie opened the office every morning at nine o’clock, and Sadie

  usually arrived around eleven- thirty to relieve her for lunch. Then they spent the afternoon working together.

  When Sadie walked through the back door, Beanie turned and

  waved, holding the telephone smashed up against her right ear. After a

  few minutes, she hung up.

  “Hi, Sadie,” she said. “Can I have a little extra time for lunch today?

  I’m going to meet Cory and Squirrel.”

  “Squirrel?”

  “I’m sorry. I mean Lucy. We call her Squirrel.”

  “Lucy Clyborn? Jason’s wife?”

  Beanie nodded her head. “It’s awful, isn’t it?” she said, her voice

  taking on a sad tone. “I can’t imagine how terrible she must feel. Cory

  thought it would be a good idea for her to get out, and I agreed.” Then

  she smiled, lighting up her entire face.

  32

  “I think that’s a great idea, Beanie. Take as much time as you need.

  I’ll be here.”

  Beanie swiveled in her chair. “We were college roommates in

  Tahlequah, at Northeastern,” she said.

  Sadie smiled.

  “We called ourselves the Three Sisters— Cory for corn, Squirrel

  for squash, and of course I’m the beanstalk.” She laughed. “You know

  about the Three Sisters, right?”

  “Yes,” Sadie said, as she continued to smile at the girls’ clever cor-

  relation of names with the veget
ables that made up the Cherokee tradi-

  tion of planting corn, squash, and beans, vegetables that grew together,

  each depending on the others for support. “The corn provides a structure

  for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for a pole,” she said. “The

  beans balance the richness of the soil for the other plants, and the squash covers the ground, preserving moisture and preventing the growth of

  weeds. The three vegetables together provide balanced nutrition.”

  “Wow,” Beanie said, her eyes wide with surprise. “You really do

  know.”

  “I’m not sure I get the connection between squirrel and squash, but

  it’s cute.”

  Beanie giggled. “I don’t know either, but that’s how it turned out.”

  Sadie loved the conversations she regularly shared with Beanie.

  They always brightened her day.

  “If you girls have a Three Sisters kind of relationship,” Sadie said,

  “then I’d say you have some very special friends. Have a good lunch.”

  “Thanks, I will.” Beanie grabbed her purse, headed for the door, and

  then turned around. “I love working for you, Sadie.”

  Sadie blushed and waved Beanie out the door as the phone rang.

  After a short conversation with a prospective traveler, she clicked on the Internet and typed in the name of Kenny Wayne Sanders. She groaned

  when her browser returned 2,770 hits. “Talk about the proverbial needle

  in a haystack,” she said aloud.

  She began eliminating sites. She read about doctors, athletes, politi-

  cians, sex offenders, Canadians, Norwegians, and Australians, all with

  the name of Kenny Wayne Sanders, or a variation thereof. Before she

  knew it, Beanie had returned from an hour- and- a- half lunch.

  33

  The cheerful girl breezed in through the front door of Paradise Travel, bringing the spring sunshine with her. “Oh, Sadie,” she said.

  “Thank you so much for giving me some extra time today. It was so

  good to see Lucy and Cory. I miss those girls so much.”

  Sadie leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. “It’s good to have

  friends like that,” she said. “Don’t let them slip away, or you’ll be sorry.”

  “We have a new project,” Beanie said with excitement. “We are go-