Give Me Tonight(3)

"See this?" Addie held up the green glass bottle and turned it in the sunlight. "The man I was telling you about-his eyes were exactly this color. Real green, not just muddy hazel. I've never seen anything like it. "

Leah shifted against her pillow, looking at her with sudden interest. "Who is he? Did anyone mention his name?"

"Well, yes. Everyone was whispering about him. I think someone said his name was Hunter."

"Hunter." Leah put her hands up to her cheeks.

"Ben Hunter?"

"That sounds about right."

Leah seemed aghast. "Ben Hunter. After all this time. After fifty years. I wonder why he'd come back. I wonder what for."

"He used to live here? Did you know him?"

"No wonder he was staring at you. No wonder. You're the spitting image of my Aunt Adeline. He must have thought she'd come back from the grave." Pale and upset, Leah reached out to the nightstand for a headache powder, and Addie rushed to the water pitcher to get her something to wash it down with. "Ben Hunter, an old man," Leah muttered. "An old man. And the Warner family all split up and moved away. Who would have dreamed it back then?"

"Here, drink this." Addie pressed the cool glass into one of Leah's hands and sat down next to her, patting the other hand with unconscious vigor. Leah downed the powder and a few sips of water, then clasped the glass with trembling hands. "My good­ness, why are you so upset?" Addie chided quietly, hardly knowing what to say. "What did this Ben Hunter ever do to you? How did you know him?"

"There are so many memories. Lord have mercy, I'd never have guessed he'd live this long. He's the one, Addie. The one who killed your great-grandfather Russell. "

Addie's mouth dropped open. "The one who—"

"The man who ruined the family and the Sunrise Ranch, and killed Grampa Warner."

"He's a murderer, and he's just walking around free as a bird? Why isn't he locked up somewhere? Why didn't they hang him for killing Russell?"

"He was too slick. He hightailed it out of town as soon as people began to realize he was the one who'd done it. And if that old man you saw today really was Ben Hunter, then it seems he was never caught."

"I'll bet it was him. He looks like the kind of man who's capable of murder."

"Is he still handsome?"

"Well . . . I guess. . . for an old man. Maybe some old woman would want him. Why? Was he handsome when he was younger?"

"The best-looking man in Texas. That's not a yarn, either. He was something else. And everyone liked him, even though there were rumors he'd been a mav­ericker and even a rustler. Charming when he wanted to be, smart as a whip. Why, he could read and write so well that some said he'd graduated from some fancy eastern college."

"And he was just a ranch hand?"

"Well, a little more than that. Russell made him foreman just a week or two after he came here. But after he arrived, things went sour."

"What kinds of things? Problems with the cattle?"

"Much worse than that. The first spring after Ben first appeared on the doorstep, my Aunt Adeline—the one you were named after—disappeared. She was only twenty years old. Ben took her and her brother Cade to town one day, and when it came time to leave, they couldn't find her. It was like she'd vanished into thin air. The whole county looked for day and night for weeks, but they never found a trace of her. At the time no one blamed Ben, but later on people began to sus­pect he'd had something to do with her disappearance. There was never any love lost between the two of them. "

"That hardly proves he did anything to make her disappear."

"Yes, but he was the most likely suspect. And then just after fall roundup Grampa Warner was found dead in his bed, strangled."

Though she'd heard that part of the story before, Addie's face wrinkled with disgust. "How awful. But how did you know for certain Ben Hunter did it?"

"The cord that was used to strangle Russell was a string from Ben's guitar. He was the only one on the ranch who played the guitar. Oh, he could make the most beautiful sounds with it. Music would just float out over the house at night." Leah shuddered deli­cately. "I was just a little girl then. I would lie in bed and listen to that music, thinking it was just like an­gels' songs. And there was something else they found . . . oh, yes, a button off Ben's shirt, right there by the body."

"Sounds to me like he was guilty."

"Everyone thought so. And he had no alibi. So he sneaked out of town in a hurry and he's never been seen or heard from since. If he'd come back before now, he'd have been dry-gulched in a minute. But now I guess he figures he's too old for anyone to want to hang him."

"I don't know about that. People around here have long memories. I think he's bought himself a whole lot of trouble by coming back. I wonder if it really is Ben Hunter. Do you think he's sorry about killing Rus­sell?"

"I don't know." Leah shook her head doubtfully. "I wonder why he did it."

"He's the only one who really knows. Most people think he was paid to do it. Grampa Warner had a lot of enemies. Or maybe it was . . . something about a will . . . I never understood." Leah sank back into the pillow, suddenly exhausted. Addie gripped her slender hand tightly as she felt it go limp. "Don't you ever go near him," Leah said breathlessly. "Don't ever. Promise me."