It was hers. The idea wouldn’t penetrate. It made no sense. She had never even been here to visit Lucy. She had never thought of their friendship as being something that went so deep as this. They had shared laughs and gripes over a few beers. They had been drinking buddies, comrades in arms against the vicious lawyer hordes who never wanted to pay them and always wanted to get them into bed. The thought that their relationship had meant something more to Lucy left her feeling confused and vaguely guilty, the way she had felt in high school when one of the nerd boys had revealed that he had a crush on her.

Hoping for an answer or at least a clue, she pulled the envelope Daggrepont had given her out of her jacket pocket and opened it with a nail file from her purse. Inside was a strip of green paper folded in half, torn on both ends. Stenographer’s notes, a set of hieroglyphics no one but another court reporter would have been able to decipher. How like Lucy to be dramatic even from beyond the grave.

Mari leaned over the letter with her elbows braced on her knees and read the phonograms.

Dear Mari,

If you’re reading this, it means I’ve gone on to my just reward. Do you think I might get a lawyer to plea-bargain a better hereafter for me? Probably not. The bastards always want the best for themselves and the rest of us can go to hell. Oh, well, God knows I was a very naughty girl. I’m sure He does. But that’s between me and the Big Guy.

This is about you. You need a life, pal. I’ll give you mine. You have to promise to dump that schmuck Bradford. And you have to promise to devote yourself fully to aggravating your family. We all have our calling in life, that’s yours. Mine was being a thorn in wealthy paws. I was a champion. It got me where you are today. Or did it get me where I am?

No matter, my peach. Take the bulls by the horns and ride them into the ground. You won’t get into Martindale-Hubbell, but my name will live on in infamy and you’ll have some fun for once.

Shed a tear or two for me. No one else will.

Raise a glass in my name. Know that you’re the only real friend I ever had. And when you bed your first cowboy, think of me fondly before you mount up, then ride ’im, cowgirl.

Live it up, sweetheart. Life’s too short to play by someone else’s rules. Take it from someone who knows.

Yours in a peanut tin,

Lucy

She read it twice. It didn’t make any more sense the second time. All she managed to do was increase the ache of loss and the feelings of abandonment and guilt.

She slipped the letter under the feet of Mr. Peanut and curled up in the chair, her gaze fixed, unfocused on the beauty that lay before her. And she thought of Lucy, so brassy, so tough, surrounded by important people… alone in the world with just a drinking buddy for a friend. Full of secrets and hidden pain. Dying alone. Left on a mountainside, forgotten.

Foul was a kind word for the mood J.D. was in. As days went, this one had started out bad and gone downhill from there. In the morning Will had shown up just as J.D., Tucker, and Chaske were getting ready to ride out. It had been clear that if he’d spent any time in a bed the night before, he had not been sleeping. His eyes were as red as tomatoes, his pallor a shade of gray generally reserved for corpses. He was in no shape to get on a horse. So, naturally, J.D. had badgered him onto one and then made him ride drag all morning, eating the dust of a hundred fifty cows and their bawling calves.

Will hadn’t uttered a word of protest. Tucker had done enough complaining on his behalf. Cut the boy some slack. Give the kid a break. He’s going through a rough patch. Have a heart, J.D.

Will didn’t need any slack as far as J.D. could see. What he needed was for someone to knock some sense into him. He needed a good kick in the pants. He had needed that his whole life, but their daddy hadn’t cared enough to do it. He had conceded Will to Sondra. And Sondra didn’t let anyone lay a finger on her baby. Of course, Sondra’s say-so had never meant spit to J.D.

“You can’t hit me, J.D.,” Will challenged, his lower lip jutting out, trembling just a little despite the fierce gleam in his eyes. He offered up the only real threat an eight-year-old boy could use to ward off his big brother. “I’ll tell Mama.”

J.D. circled around him, his shoulders hunched, his hands curling into fists. Anger was like a red-hot poker inside him, burning, turning his blood to steam in his veins. He was sick of his little brother’s threats. He was sick of his little brother, period. Always slacking, always screwing up and never taking the blame. “I’ll hit you if I want, you little snot-nosed mama’s boy. And if you tell, I’ll whup you all over again. You left that gate open and I had to spend the whole goddamn day chasing horses.”

“You swore! You’ll go to hell!”

“You’ll be there first, brat.”

Will started to dart away, quickness being his best defense. But J.D. was quicker, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and wrestling him to the ground. They tussled in the dirt like a pair of tomcats, howling, arms and legs in a tangle, punching and kicking. Will fought with all the wild fury of someone who knew the odds were stacked well against him, jabbing at his brother with fists and boots and elbows.

J.D., who, at twelve, was in the first growth spurt of early adolescence, was taller by a foot and heavier by half. He was too aware of the disparity as he twisted his little brother over in the dirt and rolled on top of him. He loomed over Will, knees on either side of his heaving rib cage, and wished to God the little snot was bigger. He wanted nothing more than the chance to let out all the pent-up anger and pain that had been storing up inside him practically since the day Will was born, but he couldn’t hit something that was so much smaller than him. Picking on little guys was for bullies and cowards, and Tucker had told him no Rafferty had ever stooped so low.

Reining back the tangle of feelings inside, he spit in the dirt beside his brother’s head and got up off him. Will scrambled to his feet, glaring, tears streaking mud down his face. J.D. curled his lip in his best sneer. “Go run and tell Mama, you little jerk.”

“You’re a jerk first!” Will shouted, running after him as J.D. turned and headed for the corral.

“Yeah, I’m everything first,” J.D. grumbled. “First to do the chores, first to clean up all your messes, first to ride after the stock you let out.”

First and forgotten. That was what he was. Will was the little prince, the apple of his mama’s eye. And J.D. was slave labor, doing all the jobs Daddy neglected. The afterthought of a marriage Tom Rafferty had mourned deeply, then forgotten.

He stopped at the gate and unwrapped the chain with angry movements, bruising a knuckle in the process. His eyes burned, and he sucked on the joint and fought off a pain that had little to do with his injury.

Will looked at him sideways, his anger melting into contrition. “I didn’t mean to leave the gate open, J.D.,” he admitted in a small voice. “I don’t want you mad at me all the time.”

“Why do you care what I think, worm boy?”

“’Cause you’re the only brother I got.”

J.D.’s hands stilled on the bars of the gate. They were family. That was what mattered more than anything between them. They were Raffertys. Raffertys stuck together and took care of their own. That was important, especially now. He had heard the late-night conversations between his parents. Sondra telling Daddy how unhappy she was on the Stars and Bars, how she wanted out. She wanted to break them up, to leave and take Will with her. But Daddy said they were family and family had to stick together. No one could take a Rafferty off the Stars and Bars. Nothing mattered more than family-except the land.