Hamilton men, many of whom carried Blade as their first or middle name. His father, Henry Blade Hamilton, stared back from an army photo. Vietnam, Blade guessed. It must have been taken when he was Blades age, early thirties.
Until a week ago, he hadnt known hed been named after the man his mother left before he was born.
When he stopped by his mothers place last week shed simply handed him a huge envelope and announced, Looks like its from your fathers side of the family.
I have a fathers side? Blade grumbled, thinking this was a hell of a way to start his monthly visit with her.
She gave him that youre-dumber-than-rocks look shed perfected during his teen years and walked away.
Blade swore, claiming in a loud voice that he never should have bothered to stop by. She never wanted to talk to him, anyway. Or maybe he simply didnt want to hear what she had to say. From childhood hed convinced himself hed been adopted from another planet, and his mother was the only female whod take him in.
She also took in stray dogs and cats along with an occasional out-of-work drunk, so being adopted wouldnt have made him feel special.
His mothers answer to any questions about his other parent was simply the slamming of a door, so Blade had learned early not to ask. He swore his dear old mom hadnt liked him since birth, and once he left home, shed never asked where he lived or what he did. A few times when hed dropped by to check on her, shed even had the nerve to look like shed forgotten him completely. Hed thought of introducing himself.
His mother might be surprised if she had kept up with him. He wasnt the loser shed always predicted hed be. Hed finished college after the army and was doing quite well. Turned out he was good at solving puzzles, and as an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (the ATF), he got plenty of practice. He might be based out of Denver but as a special investigator, he traveled often.
Blade pushed thoughts of his mother aside as he climbed the stairs and looked out the old Hamilton houses one unboarded window. The huge second-story window faced the open land of Hamilton Acres, its heavy leaded glass pieced together in almost a spiderweb shape. The image it showed seemed fractured. A broken world, pieced back together.
Creepy, he whispered aloud as he remembered how the sheriff of Crossroads had followed him out of the county offices, warning him to be careful.
Blade had taken the time to formally introduce himself, even shown the sheriff his federal badge. But Sheriff Brigman still had that worried look lawmen get when they think someone might be stepping into trouble over his head.
Blade grinned. He knew the look well by now. He saw it every time he parachuted behind the fire line or suited up with the bomb squad. Hed learned a long time ago that if you want answers, you have to go where the trouble started.
It wasnt the adrenaline rush that made him step into danger or the belief that his skills would always save him. Blade was good at his job but it was the absence of fear that kept his hand steady. He didnt think about tomorrow. He didnt believe in it.
Living for today was all he thought about.
From this crows nest vantage point of the second-story window, he could see a brilliant sunset spreading across the western sky. One lonely windmill was all that marked any kind of civilization in that direction. From here he could almost believe that he could catch a glimpse of the future, or maybe the past.
For once, hed found a land as alone as he felt. In an odd way, he sensed he could bond with this untamed landscape. Maybe it was because generations of his family had been buried here. Or maybe Blade just wanted, for once in his life, to feel like he belonged.
Hamilton land. His land. Roots Blade wouldnt know how to handle after a life of drifting.
When he called to tell his mother hed inherited a ranch in Texas, shed laughed and said, Sure you did. Better be heading out to buy some cowboy boots. I hear they dont like biker boots in cattle country.
Dont you want to go have a look with me? After all, you were married to Henry Blade Hamilton. When she hadnt answered, Blade added, You do remember the name of the man who fathered me?
I called him Hank and Ive been trying to forget him for thirty years. She swore in her usual jumble of words that didnt fit together. It hasnt been easy to block him from my mind when you turned out to look just like him.
Then go with me. Hes dead, so youre not likely to have to face him. Well visit his grave and maybe you can bury the memory.
Not a chance. Hed said the place was worthless when we married. Nothing but tumbleweeds and wild plum bushes. Good for nothing. Turned out, so was he.
Was he a cowboy? Blade asked.
I dont remember. She ended the call without saying goodbye.
He didnt call back or try to see her again. He packed a change of clothes, climbed on his Harley and rode down from Denver to explore a side of the family he never knew existed.
So far nothing about the place impressed him besides the sunset. The lake was dark, the land rocky, and the house looked like it belonged next to the Bates Motel. Obviously there was nothing worth stealing or someone would have dragged it off years ago. The lawyer told him over the phone that his father had died in New Orleans six months ago, and apparently old Hank hadnt stepped foot on the ranch since hed walked off the place at sixteen.
However, Henry Hamilton had paid the taxes every year and filed his will both with the lawyer in New Orleans and the county offices in Crossroads, Texas. Henry might never have contacted Blade, but for some reason he wanted his son to have the land.
As he walked back down the stairs, Blade noticed that not one womans picture hung on the wall. There had to have been wives, mothers to these guys, a grandmother or great-grandmother to him. Maybe none had stayed around long enough to do more than birth the next generation. From the dates and names on the frames, Blade traced his family tree.
He had his fathers and his grandfathers dark hair, their gray eyes, their skin that never burned but always tanned. Their tall height and wide-at-the-shoulder build.
But nothing more. They were strangers.
All the other pictures were black-and-white, but if theyd been in color, hed bet the traits would be the same.
Slowly, Blade moved from room to room. It looked like someone had just walked away from the place one day. Moth-eaten clothes hung in the closets, dishes were in the sink, rotting comforters and pillows were still on beds.
No electricity on, no water.
When he opened the back door, wild rosebushes barred his exit. Vines twisted and crawled up the house almost to the second floor. They were thorny and bare. When he twisted one branch to see if it was alive, a thorn sliced into his finger. It was indeed alive, and he felt like the plant was drinking his blood. Dropping the branch, he closed the door, thinking the roses could have the house for all he cared but would get no more of his blood.
As nightfall crept in, he moved out onto the old porch of the house. Boards creaked beneath his boots, but the place must have solid bones to still be standing.
He was tired and bothered that he had no memories of the man whod fathered him. He should have pushed his mother for answers, but when hed asked about the past, she always said that the time would come for talking.
As nightfall crept in, he moved out onto the old porch of the house. Boards creaked beneath his boots, but the place must have solid bones to still be standing.
He was tired and bothered that he had no memories of the man whod fathered him. He should have pushed his mother for answers, but when hed asked about the past, she always said that the time would come for talking.
Only, he had a feeling it never would. Shed married three times since hed been born and each time, like a chameleon, she shifted and changed into someone he barely knew. Shed been a preachers wife in Kansas, married to an oil field worker who moved all over Oklahoma, and, for a few months, the wife of an out-of-work actor in California. Between marriages shed waitressed some, sold cars once in Houston, and finally settled into selling homes in Denver. He doubted she even remembered what she was like thirty years ago when shed given birth to him at eighteen.
Blade told himself he didnt care. She had her life and it hadnt included him for years. It hadnt mattered to her if he dropped by once a month or once a year.
He moved out to the lake. It was time to get out of here. This wasnt where he wanted to be after dark. Maybe hed go back to town and find a hotel. Tomorrow, hed take another look around, not searching for a thing to take away, but maybe hed get a feeling about the man hed been named after. Henry must have grown up here.
Blade could feel change in the air like he had a dozen times before in his life. His mother had wanted no roots and shed raised a son without any until now.
Roots he didnt want, he reminded himself again. He didnt know anything about this land, these relatives. He wasnt sure he wanted to. He had a feeling whatever stories this house held were sad ones.
Lightning flashed to the east and he saw another house across the lake. It was built low to the ground, almost blending into the landscape. Probably another abandoned home. More land that the next generation didnt want.
He zipped up his leather jacket and walked to his bike. Let the coyotes and hawks have this place. Maybe one more circling of the land tomorrow and then he was leaving. When he got to Denver, hed call the lawyer who contacted him about this inheritance and ask for a Realtor whod sell the place. Land, house, and heritage. They could buy it all.
CHAPTER TWO
DAKOTA DAVIS TURNED OFF the county road, driving way faster than the speed limit. In five minutes the dirt road would be a river of mud. If she wanted to get home without all her supplies soaked, shed better make the farm pickup fly.
A few minutes later, as she passed the old Hamilton place, she thought she was hallucinating. A man dressed in black was standing knee-deep in the muddy lake, looking like he was swearing at heaven.
For just a moment he reminded her of something her shichu, her grandmother, had said about a legend of the lake. Shichu said the last man to die in a battle over this land was a strong warrior, but hed simply walked out to the middle of Indigo Lake until the water was over his head because hed lost his will to live. Apache legends, tales of her people who fought and died over this land, were common, but this story was about the Hamiltons.
Shichu knew them all. Ancient tales and stories of battles fought near this quiet lake between neighbors whod settled here over a hundred years ago. The Davis family and the Hamilton clan. Curses once screamed across the water now simply whispered in the trees lining its banks.
Grandmother said the land was damned and all who fought to keep it would die in water. Maybe that was why the last one, Henry Hamilton, stayed away, Dakota thought as she stared at the vision before her.
When the man in black turned to stare at her pickup, she had to remind herself she didnt believe in ghosts. But the stranger looked exactly like the Hamilton men shed seen in pictures at the museum near Crossroads. Tall, broad-shouldered, slim.
Only, all the Hamilton men were dead, even Henry, who shed never seen. Folks in town said he was killed six months ago in a car crash somewhere in Louisiana. As far as anyone knew he hadnt been back to the place for forty years, but the Franklin sisters whispered that the crash had pushed both his car and him off the highway into water.
The man standing in the lake looked very much alive and was waving for help. Curiosity got the better of her, and Dakota turned away from her farm and toward Hamilton Acres.
A heartbeat later she slammed on her brakes.
The bridge that usually stretched across a stream that fed the lake was now halfway in the water. There must have been an accident: what looked like the back wheel of a motorcycle spun in the lake as if trying to tread water.
Jumping from the truck, she yelled to the man, You need help?
No, he yelled back. Im fine. My bike just wanted to go for a swim.
Dakota frowned, then turned around. Oh, all right. Sorry to bother you. She climbed back into the truck.
Wait. The man stormed out of the water. Im sorry. The bridge gave way as I was leaving. I just watched a classic 1948 Harley drown.
I can see that. She thought of asking what he was doing on Hamilton Acres in the first place, but she had a feeling he belonged here. Black hair. Angry. Too noisy to be a ghost. Why dont you pull it out and dry it off?
It doesnt work that way. Id have to take it apart and rebuild. It will no longer be original, and parts cost more than the bike, if I can find them.
Too much information. She didnt have time to visit or cry over the loss of a motorcycle.
Her grandmother had told her once that the men of this ranch only had two possible traits: stubborn or crazy.
This one had both, plus he had the look of a Hamilton. Shed bet his eyes were that funny color gray of a wolf. Anything else you want to educate me about motorcycles? I need to get these supplies home.
You wouldnt want to help me pull my bike out? he asked in a calmer tone.
Nope. I dont go on Hamilton land. Theres a curse. Anyone named Davis who steps foot on that land dies a violent death. She didnt add by a Hamilton bullet. Never give ideas to the insane.
We all die sometime, lady.
She stepped into her truck. Ill have to test the curse later. Good luck with your bike. Thunder rolled over the land as if pushing her away. Im in a hurry.
Wait. Im sorry. Let me try again. Im Blade Hamilton and Ive just lost a sixty-thousand-dollar bike in the mud. Forgive me for not caring about an old curse or your groceries.
Youre forgiven, Hamilton, but Im not stepping on your land. The good news is that bike isnt going anywhere. It will still be right there in the mud tomorrow, but if I get these supplies wet, well lose a weeks income.
Lightning flashed as if on cue. The blink of light showed off the skeleton trees dancing in the wind near the water. Dakota fought the urge to gun the engine. For as long as she could remember shed always feared this land. It felt like Halloween night without a light.
The man didnt seem to notice the weather or the creepiness of the place. Who knewmaybe Hamiltons were used to scary nights.
Fine, he said. Any chance youd rent me your truck? I just need it for ten minutes and Ill pay you fifty.