Rueful Death Read Online Free

writing letters. One of the letters went to her old friend Helen Laney, who invited her to visit the Laney Ranch and look around. By now, Helen was quite ill, she was living alone in a large house, and she had no children to inherit her property when she died-no relatives at all, in fact, except for her husband's nephew and his wife, the Townsends. The ranch, Helen thought, might satisfy Sister Hilaria's needs.
    When Sister Hilaria arrived at the Laney Ranch, she saw that God had answered her prayers with a resounding "Yes, ma'am." Remote but accessible, the property was situated along the wild Yucca River a couple of hours south and west of Austin. The rambling stone-and-cedar ranch headquarters could serve as office, chapel, and refectory. The large bunkhouse could easily be converted into a dozen eight- by ten-foot cells, and several small cottages along the river could serve as guest quarters. There were the usual outbuildings-barns, vehicle storage sheds, a repair shop- and plenty of room to build more. With her practical eye, Sister Hilaria observed the tillable acreage along the Yucca River and the river itself, which could be partially diverted for irrigation. While she had enormous faith in the long-term productivity of prayer, she also believed in the short-term rewards of work. If the nuns wanted to eat, they could get their hands dirty.
    Following visits from the Reverend Mother General, correspondence with Rome, and enough red tape to stretch from here to the Pearly Gates, the final arrangements were blessed by the order's lawyers. After the initial fuss, however, nobody paid a lot of attention to the details of the transaction. The Laney land wasn't oil or coastal property, and it had no real value except to Sister Hilaria and her new community. Helen Laney deeded the ranch house and eight hundred acres to the Sisters of the Holy Heart, and constructed several necessary facilities-a small chapel, a dormitorylike building with individual cells for sisters, and additional residential cottages. In return, the nuns cared for Mrs. Laney until she died, five years later. In her will, she created a foundation to be managed by Sister Hilaria-now Mother Hilaria. She endowed it to the tune of some seven million dollars.
    "Seven million dollars!" Ruby exclaimed.
    I gave a long, low whistle. "That's a lot of garlic. The nuns obviously don't have to work for a living. Why didn't they give up their garlic farm long ago?''
    "Because in monastic life, work is a kind of prayer," Maggie said. "You do it for love, not for money." Her voice thinned. "And because Bert Laney's nephew-Carl Townsend-challenged the will in court."
    "Did Mrs. Laney leave him anything?" I asked. Relatives who aren't mentioned in a will often feel neglected. Sometimes they decide to take the matter to court. To forestall such a challenge, most lawyers suggest that you leave a dollar to any relative you're not fond of.
    "She gave the Townsends twelve hundred acres when she split the property. And she left them a hundred thousand dollars in her will."
    "Only a hundred thousand?" Ruby clucked her tongue against her teeth. "Some people are never satisfied."
    Maggie shifted her position, as if talking about the Townsends made her itchy. "The trouble is that they didn't get access to the river. They apparently expected to get the bulk of the estate, too. They were Bert Laney's only relatives and the money came from his side of the family in the first place."
    We were miles out of town by now, still heading west. Outside the window, a pale sun flirted with the dark clouds. The gray light gleamed on an arid landscape of scraggly cedar and bare mesquite, the rocky hillsides studded with patches of gray-green prickly pear. The annual rainfall in this area is only twenty inches a year, and surface water is at a premium. If I were a rancher in Carr County, I'd want access to that river. It didn't surprise me that the Town-sends had challenged Mrs. Laney's will.
    "Has