Upon a Midnight Clear Read online

  "Forget it, Isabel. The jig's up. Bellamy's a crackpot With a mashy club."

  "With a what?

  "Mashy golf club. I've played the game before. This guy's brain is just as mashy as that club he's holding. The old bird has been duffing balls at me."

  Isabel had to walk fast to keep up with John. "Him? Really… I don't think he'd hit you on purpose. He looks so… harmless."

  "Harmless as a busted pump rod."

  "But what if he really does have money he's giving away?" she reasoned. "We can't risk somebody else getting it."

  He stopped and faced her. "Isabel. There is no money. The guy's flat busted after the renovations he made on that house. This contest is a fake."

  She understood why John was skeptical. Deep down she had her doubts as well. But there was something about Bellamy's eyes: the crinkling blue with tines in the corners; the warm depths; the merry cheeks; the way his tummy sort of shook when he laughed.

  "You have to want him to be real," she said with firm conviction. "Bellamy Nicklaus's contest is all we have."

  John pointed his forefinger toward the direction of the house on Ninth and Mill. "That guy reminds me of somebody."

  "Me, too," she conceded. "But I can't put my finger on it."

  "Yeah… like somebody I knew when I was a kid or something."

  "Right…"

  Rubbing the stubble at his jaw, he pondered aloud, "A lot of land swindlers in Texas when I was growing up. Could be he's one of them and this is his new scam. Holly berry contests."

  "I doubt that. I grew up in Los Angeles, and I'm sure I know him. I think my mother and father showed me his picture… but I can't remember why."

  "Too bad Limonero doesn't have a telephone. You could call them and ask them who this Bellamy is."

  Unexpected tears filled her eyes. "My dad died some ten years ago. And my mother's been with him for three."

  John let out his breath and laid a comforting hand on Isabel's shoulder. "Isabel… I'm sorry."

  "You didn't know." She blinked her eyes, thinking her mother hadn't lived to see her become divorced. The shock of such a thing would have wounded her—even though Isabel had been deserted by her husband. Her mother had old values and old ideals. To her, marriage was forever no matter what

  Isabel was no longer a romantic woman. But that didn't mean she'd given up on love. She was hopeful that maybe one day she'd meet somebody… and he'd be everything her husband hadn't been.

  Giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, John lowered his arm. "Okay. We'll keep collecting the berries."

  Gratitude made her smile bright.

  John added, "But if Bellamy doesn't put up, I'm having the sheriff lock him behind bars."

  "He'll make good on his word. I know it."

  "All right. Pack for overnight. We're leaving for Foster's Hideout just as soon as we water those lemon trees of yours."

  The hair on the back of John's neck still prickled as they rode through the narrow canyon. Bellamy Nicklaus had gotten to him, had unraveled him right out of his skin and muscles… had stared at him down to his bones.

  John knew him.

  And Bellamy had sorely disappointed him in the past.

  But what exactly that past was… John couldn't be sure. It was too vague. Too cloudy. But he kept seeing a scene play out in his head.

  He'd been about five or six. It was Christmas morning. His dad hadn't come home the night before, and he must have promised his mother because she'd kept a vigil at the window. That's where he and Tom had found her when they'd come down to see what was under the tree.

  Nothing.

  His mother had tried to make up for it by baking them special gingerbread cookies for breakfast. Then his father had finally come through the door and his parents had argued a long while; afterward, Dad had stormed outside and gone into the barn.

  It was then John stopped believing that penny whistles and wind-up dancing bears and pull toys came from some magical being. They were from his dad. And his dad had drunk their gift money at the Lucky Spot bar. From then on, John had known Christmas was for dreamers.

  As he nudged his horse onward, John reflected on the years after that winter day. He'd changed. Rather than being an optimist like his brother, he'd turned into a bitter young man. From then on, he knew he could never count on anyone but himself. Discovering he had a talent for a divining rod, John would make a little money from time to time.

  Mostly he worked the fields with his father, giving his elder no more than a few words when necessary. He hated having the plow strapped on him, so much that one day he'd said he'd had enough and had never gotten behind one again.

  He'd left Texarkana and made his own way, doing just enough to stay afloat. Enjoying a game of cards. A glass of liquor. The soft and willing flesh of a woman.

  A disturbing musing filled John's head. How did he get to be so much like his father? Why couldn't he be more like his younger brother, Tom?

  Tom, who was ambitious enough to open his own sporting goods store. Tom, who saved enough earnings for it to amount to something. Tom… to whom John owed a pocketful of money. Every time John asked his brother for a loan, Tom complied. When would he wise up and realize John would never pay him back?

  John lived day to day. It had been the smell of flowing oil that had attracted him to Limonero. But what did he have to show for years of working for Calco? Not a damn thing.

  When Bellamy had looked at him, a single word had played over and over in John's head, knotting him up with apprehension:

  Change. Change. Change.

  What did Nicklaus want him to do? Change his ways? How could he? It had taken him thirty-four years to get this way. He didn't know any other existence but the one that had him Irving by the seat of his pants.

  Change. Change. Change.

  The branches of valley oaks stretched overhead, framing Isabel as she rode through them. They traversed oil country—all of it owned by Calco. The vast spread of shale glistening with a rainbow of petroleum and water oozing from the slopes made John think. If he could just get enough money together and buy a piece of land… he could drill for himself… be rich… have something to offer a woman.

  A woman like Isabel.

  Where that thought came from John didn't want to go. He didn't even know her very well—other than to know she worked hard, was trustworthy, and was more pleasant to look at than the sunset over Ventura beach. And that was saying a lot, because he surely enjoyed that hour when the sun slipped into the ocean.

  "How much farther?" Isabel called over her shoulder.

  "Not that much. Across the creek and over that ridge." He pointed and her gaze followed his hand.

  Along the hillside stretched an endless length of pipeline. Calco's. They'd finished it some five years back and saved a bundle on transporting fees through the railroad. The oil flowed from the fields all the way to the pier in Santa Barbara, making for one hell of an enterprise.

  The distant gallop of horses caught John's ear in the windless canyon. The cliffs and large grove of oaks muffled sound, so the horses had to be well inside the canyon's mouth for John to hear them. They were close. Too close. He didn't want anyone giving them a run for the berries, so he trotted up to Isabel.

  "We're crossing here." He steered his horse down the incline, Isabel falling in behind.

  As he cantered toward the water, he flushed a flock of buzzards looking for a little wind to ride up over the ridge. But nothing moved down here except dust and heat. Not even the gunmetal layer of clouds that hung low in the sky could give any respite from the simmering air. Rain would be a salvation. And while he thought it, several fat drops hit him on the face and arms. John didn't want to be near the creek when the downpour hit. Flash floods could strike swiftly.

  He urged his horse fast up the incline, making sure Isabel could keep up. He didn't see the riders behind them, but a swirl of dirt rose from an area in the canyon about a mile back. Whoever else was on the berry chase wasn