A small notebook appeared, the black cover scratched and worn on the corner, a crumbling blue Tropicana banana elastic holding it closed.
Jake opened it to a list of what looked to be number codes running down the first page. They were in date format but truncated with dashes, almost like combinations.
“What the hell is that?” Tanner muttered.
“Safe combinations,” Jake muttered, and his head shot up to the painting on the exterior wall opposite the bookshelf. It was a print of the famousCowboypainting by Frederic Remington. Very appropriate for the décor of the room.
He strode over to it and carefully lifted it off the wall.
Nothing behind it but some cobwebs and a rusty hook. “No safe,” he muttered.
“Mom bought that print for him. It used to hang in our living room,” Tanner remarked. “Maybe the safe isn’t in this room? I have no idea where it would be, though. Back den?”
“I bet it’s here, we just haven’t seen it yet.” Jake scanned the room again, hoping they’d find something to validate his hunch. His brother was right. More fucking secrets that his father had been hiding. Like a scavenger hunt but with no clues.
Tanner started tapping the exterior walls, and Jake tapped his foot along the floor. Nothing echoed back to them, and after a few minutes, Tanner gave up, his hands on his hips, frowning.
“Would there be a safe in the master bedroom maybe?” Jake asked, his own frustration growing. This was a wild goose chase. He looked down at the book in his hands, the numbers scrawled in faded pen, the pages yellowing.
“Peony would know about it if so. She’s cleaned every inch of this house for years. It wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.”
Tanner turned, eyes roving over the bookshelves, and strode over behind the desk. “There, maybe?” he said and pointed to the middle of the bookshelf nearest the desk.
A piece of stained paneling that matched the color of the shelves covered an entire section. A cover in plain sight. Jake joined him and grasped it with his fingertips, and with some wiggling managed to loosen the panel. Sure enough, underneath it was a black iron safe with a combination dial.
“What’s the last line on that list?” Tanner asked, and Jake thumbed a few pages in to find it.
“07-15-96.”
“Brady’s birthday, huh,” Tanner remarked. He spun the dial and then stepped through the numbers Jake read out, one ear cocked to it, turning it slowly as it clicked.
The door sprang open slightly, and they both stood back, looking at one another.
“Here goes nothing,” Jake said, and opened the door all the way. A pile of envelopes and various file folders were stacked neatly inside, along with a couple of beaten-up cigar boxes. On top of that, a 5 x 7 photo in a polished wooden frame was perched sideways. Jake pulled the photo out first and dusted it off. It showed a young child on a palomino, reins lifted in his hands, too-big cowboy hat on his head. The child looked like he was laughing, and the man whose hand was clamped around his waist was grinning, a cigar clenched on one side of his mouth.
Jake studied the picture. That looked like his dad, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Who is that?” Jake asked, and tilted the picture so Tanner could see it.
“It’s not me or Brady, but that’s Dolly and Dad, I’m certain of it. Brady ’n me learned to ride on her, so did Liz when she got here,” Tanner said.
“Dolly, the ancient blind pony in the shaded pen at the front of the stable?”
“Yep. I’ve never known this place without her,” he replied. “She’s earned her retirement and then some.”
“How old is that horse?” Jake muttered, and looked at the picture again. A sudden hope that it was him, the one remembrance his father had hung on to before his mother had left, flitted through, but the picture looked too old, and he would’ve remembered that, wouldn’t he?
“Maybe there’s something written on the back. Dad used to do that to all the pictures we’d put up from rodeo wins and stuff.”
Jake pried off the backing, and Brett’s spiky handwriting appeared in faded black ink.
“‘Henry on Dolly, Spring 1993,’” Tanner read.
“Who’s Henry?” Jake asked, disappointed. It wasn’t him, but it was really odd thatthiswas the photo his father had decided to keep in a safe.
“No fucking idea,” Tanner muttered.
Jake set the picture aside and reached in again, pulling out all the off-white file folders. Several envelopes slid out, and on each, in Brett’s trademark spiky cursive, were names. One for each of them. Tanner, Brady, and Jake.
