Chapter Twenty
Martha Riker looked ecstatic. Upon returning to the farm, Colby found his family unloading the arsenal of weapons and ammunition from the trailer. His mother was giving directions like a worksite supervisor. “No. It’s fine. Just take it into the house.” She turned and beamed with delight as if welcoming him back for the first time again.
“Well done, my boy,” she said. “I can always rely on you to get a job done.”
He couldn’t hide his troubled mind, and his mother could tell something was the matter. “What is it?”
He waved her off. “Nothing.”
“Well, it certainly doesn’t look like nothing. You might not have been here for ten years but I know that look. It’s the same one your father had when he had something he wanted to say. So come on, what is it?”
Instead of going straight for the heart and asking her about Skye, he opted to sidestep it momentarily. Colby climbed the three steps onto the porch and looked through the window at Jessie who was still laid up in bed. “The militia have Paco.”
“From the reservation?”
He nodded. “Militia attacked his group and a fight broke out. One of them was shot, so I intervened.”
She lifted a hand. “You got involved?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to let them kill another. These people are peaceful, Mother.”
She folded her arms and her lips went thin. “And when you say intervened, I gather that means you killed one of them?”
“Several.”
She brought a hand up to her head and sighed, glancing at Alicia. “And you? Were you involved?”
“She had nothing to do with it. Leave her out of this.”
Martha began to pace, running a hand over her dreadlocks. “Oh, Colby. How could you?”
“How could I? Are you serious?”
“We look after the needs of our own, not others.”
“Right,” he chuckled. “That’s just like you.”
“Son, the reason you are alive today is because of me. Because I have done what is necessary to protect this family, this homestead.”
“Oh come on!” He tossed a hand up in the air. “This homestead. Please. You are always talking about this place to the exclusion of all else. This isn’t all that exists, Mother. The homestead is our town, the county, Paco, Dakota, and many of the people in this community.”
She gave him a blank stare.
“Have you been drinking?”
“No, I leave that to you,” he replied after having smelled alcohol on her breath.
She folded her arms again.
“Well you know what this means, don’t you?” Her eyebrows rose. “We can expect them to show up here.”
“We already were. Or did you have something else in mind for those weapons? And while we’re talking about that. What’s the deal with the gold?”
“That is not your concern.”
“No? Like my father’s death wasn’t? Like Skye being pregnant wasn’t?”
His mother turned on her heels. Her eyes widened.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked.
She didn’t respond. The look told him everything.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. When were you going to tell me, huh?” He waited for a response but she didn’t give it. “I had to hear it from Heath, of all people.”
“Heath doesn’t know his ass from his head. Half the time he’s as high as a kite.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
He could see she was having difficulty telling him. “Skye wasn’t going to throw me under the bus that night, was she, Mother? You had Jessie kill her because she was carrying my baby. You are just like Hank.”
He turned to walk away.
She wasn’t done. She followed him off the porch. “I’m not like Hank. That’s not the reason. I would never do that.”
“No. Then what happened?”
“I told you.”
“Bullshit. You keep lying. Over and over again. Manipulating this family. I bet you think I left because of Skye. You’re wrong. I left because of you. I was tired of following your orders, doing your bidding. Mothers don’t force their kids into illegal activities. They don’t encourage the killing of another family.”
She gritted her teeth. “I admit, I am not perfect. I admit that your father and I should have never gotten you kids involved but that’s life. We don’t get to choose who our families are. I will not have you accuse me of something I did not do.”
Colby lost it and stabbed a finger in his mother’s face, furious, tired of the emotional abuse. “Then tell me the fucking truth! Did you know?”
There was a long pause.
“No. I found out after you left for the city. I found out through someone else. Had I known she was pregnant I would have never sent Jessie.”
“You sicken me. You put this on him.”
“He volunteered. That boy in there cares so much about you that he didn’t want to see you go to jail.”
Colby narrowed his eyes. “Jail? You killed her after she’d spoken to the cop. If she wanted to throw me under the bus, it was already done. No, you had him kill her after.”
“We believed from a valid source that she was about to toss all of us under the bus. Not just you.”
“So it was about you.”
“No.”
He couldn’t believe a word she was saying.
“Then who told you?”
“Nancy. I just didn’t know that she’d been fed a lie too.”
Colby looked over her shoulder. Most of the family had stepped outside and were eavesdropping. Few of them had ever stood up to their mother. It was partially respect but mostly fear. “By who? Who told her a lie?”
She was reluctant to say as soon as she became aware that the rest were listening.
“By who?” he asked again.
She dipped her head and he took a step forward.
“WHO!?” Colby bellowed, losing his temper.
“Ryland Strickland!” She spat it out and then all the pieces fell into place and began to make sense. Ryland’s death. The backlash from it and their father being executed.
Dylan stepped off the porch. “Trent was telling the truth, wasn’t he? It was you. You shot Ryland.”
She turned and puffed out her chest. “Yes. And I would
