Page 17 of Calder Country

“Don’t just stand there! Go after him!” Amelia snapped.

“What if he won’t come when I call him?”

“There’s a tin of dog biscuits on the porch. Take one of those.”

Mason closed the door behind him, found the tin with the flashlight, and took out a bone-shaped biscuit. By now, the dog was nowhere in sight. He scanned the front yard with the light and caught a flash of tan going around the corner of the house.

“Brutus! Come back here, you miserable mutt!” He called and whistled, holding up the biscuit, but the dog ignored him. He could hear the dry grass rustling as Brutus left the yard and kept going, back toward the small, fenced square of land that served as the Hollister family burial plot.

The wrought-iron fence had a gate that fastened with a simple latch. Brutus waited by the gate, whimpering softly. As he realized what the old dog wanted, Mason’s dislike for the animal mellowed to a twinge of sympathy. He unlatched the gate. The dog passed through ahead of him, trotted to a low mound of earth marked with a headstone, and lay down on it, its massive head resting on its paws.

“So you miss your brother, do you, old boy?” Mason shone the light on the marker, a low granite block, a little bigger than a shoebox, with the names of the two dogs, Cassius and Brutus, etched on its surface. The birth dates were the same, the death date filled in for Cassius.

In all likelihood, Mason surmised, the two dogs were the only individuals his mother had loved and trusted. Her parents had separated when she was young. Her socialite mother had passed her off to her father, who’d died so long ago that Mason could barely remember him. Her husband, Joe Dollarhide, had left her to marry his true love, Sarah. As for her son, her only child . . . Mason had to admit that he’d let her down as cruelly as any of them. Even Sidney was only a paid employee. No wonder she’d turned to her dogs for affection and loyalty.

Not that Amelia was an easy person to love.

The dog hadn’t moved from the grave. Mason didn’t want to risk laying a hand on the creature to move it. It was none too friendly, and those jaws could be deadly. But he was tired, dirty, and impatient to get back to the house.

He still had the biscuit. Stepping back from the grave, he held it out. “Come on, Brutus,” he said. “Time to do your business and get back to your mistress.”

The dog’s nose twitched. It lurched to its feet, lunging for the treat so fast that Mason jumped away and stumbled over a rock. The biscuit flew out of his hand as he pitched forward, catching himself against the headstone.

Pain shot up his arm. For a moment he feared he might have sprained his wrist, but he forgot the injury as he realized that the stone, which he’d assumed was solidly set in cement, had shifted a couple of inches. His pulse raced. Where would his mother most likely hide her treasure, if not with her beloved pet?

While Brutus gnawed on the biscuit, Mason worked his hand under the stone and tilted it onto its side. Without disturbing the actual grave, the ground beneath the stone had been hollowed out. The hole was awkwardly dug, as if Amelia had done the job herself. Fitted into the space was a steel box.

The box was latched, but not locked. Mason held his breath as he raised the lid.

There it was—bundles of cash, most of it in hundred-dollar bills. There had to be thousands of dollars here, money that his mother had withdrawn from the bank and hidden in what she perceived to be a safe place. The woman was clearly not in her right mind. But he would deal with her later. Right now, all that mattered was having the funds to set up his business.

But as he stared down at the cash—more money than he’d ever seen in one place—Mason knew he had to handle this the right way. Siphoning off the money without telling his mother would have consequences when she found out—as she was bound to. So would seizing the funds outright and taking charge by force. The old woman would still have power. She could easily call the law on him or write him out of her will.

The best solution was the simplest—put the money back in the bank with his name on a new account and his mother as beneficiary. The bankers would accept his story that Amelia had grown irrational. There was every reason to believe she could no longer be trusted to handle the ranch’s money.

His mother would be furious. But with the bank backing him, there’d be little she could do. Everything would be carried out legally and openly. His action would be seen as that of a dutiful son protecting his family’s assets.

Mason hadn’t wanted to hurt his mother. But by withdrawing the ranch money from the bank and burying it next to her dead dog, she’d played right into his hands.

He would look after her, of course. He would even keep old Sidney around to make her little sandwiches and serve her tea. But he was the one in charge now—in charge of the money, the ranch and everything.

Mason lifted the box free, replaced the headstone, and whistled for the dog. First thing tomorrow, he would take the cash to Miles City and open a new bank account. Then he would go to the telegraph office and send a coded message to Julius Taviani, who coordinated bootlegging operations from his prison cell. Julius would connect him with the people who could help him set up his business.

He was on his way. Soon, everything he’d dreamed of in that hellhole of a prison would be his.

CHAPTER SIX

Three weeks later

RUBY SWUNG THE BIPLANE INTO THE DAWN WIND AND OPENED THE throttle. The engine roared as the heavily loaded craft lumbered down the runway and caught the air beneath its wings.

As the Jenny began to rise, Ruby allowed herself a deep breath. It was natural to be nervous about this, her first solo delivery, she told herself. She operated the plane from the rear cockpit, packed in front with two hundred pounds of padded cargo and an equal amount behind her, carefully balanced. The flight would be a short one, to a ranch that lay a few miles south of Blue Moon. Piloting a plane that had been stripped of every extra ounce to allow for cargo, she was to land on the rough prairie, collect the money, help unload, and fly the empty plane back to the abandoned farm outside Miles City.

Simple. What can go wrong?

The irony of that thought coaxed a smile from her lips as she banked the plane and headed south, following the map she’d memorized.

Part of the distribution process remained a mystery, as it was probably meant to be. The base of operations was an abandoned farm about twenty miles east of Miles City. The planes, three Jennies now, were kept there in a big barn converted to a hangar. Crated liquor shipments from Canada—Ruby had no idea how they were transported over the border—were flown out to the clients almost as soon as they arrived.

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