by Kim McMahill
“I forgot how long the drive from Sheridan to the ranch can take, especially when you run into road construction. And then once I left the pavement it became rough and slow¾you really need to do some work on the road. It’s all washboardy and rutted. But if I’m keeping you from something important I can find my own way to Papa’s camp all by my helpless self.”
Deuce stepped out of the shadows and with a half a dozen long strides he stood towering over her. Neither his surly attitude nor his height surprised her, but his clean shaven chin, new-looking pressed clothes and the smell of cologne did. He always worked hard and usually looked like it. She had seldom seen him without dark stubble on his face, which she liked, or without worn and dirty clothes on his impressive frame. She wondered what the occasion was, but decided it wouldn’t be prudent to ask, since his mood was just as foul as she predicted.
Niki squinted up at him and gave him her best smile, but his expression didn’t soften. Her charms usually worked on most men, but never seemed to have much effect on Deuce. She couldn’t resist trying every now and then to break down his defenses, but at the moment a smile was as much effort as she felt like expending on her moody childhood friend.
“Where’s your dad? I can’t ride out of here until I say hi.”
“If you wanted to socialize maybe you should’ve gotten here early instead of late.”
“We’ll get on the trail quicker if you tell me where Bob is than if I have to search every building on this ranch. Besides, this is my vacation and I made it perfectly clear when I called that I didn’t need a babysitter.”
Niki could barely see the expression in his squinted eyes with the brim of his hat pulled down low, but she knew he was studying her. She had known him most of her life and it killed her that he had grown so distant these past five years. At one time she wouldn’t have hesitated to tuck the errant lock of dark brown hair back under his hat, but now she wasn’t sure how he would react.
“Fine. He’s in the house. You have ten minutes.”
“Thanks, boss. Here’s my saddlebags and the rest of my stuff’s in the car. Try not to smash the chocolate chip cookies I made for Papa. They’re in the tin on top. If you’re a good boy and don’t crush them, you can even have a few since I remember they’re your favorite too,” Niki said with a wink as she held out the saddlebags.
Deuce hesitated before grabbing the leather bags from her outstretched hand. He stared at the monogram on the side for several moments.
“You need new bags.”
“These work just fine.” She turned and strode for the house.
Niki shook her head as she thought back to her sixteenth birthday. Deuce had made her the saddlebags and had engraved her initials on the side. She had always cherished the gift. The workmanship was flawless, but he had seemed shy about giving her the present, and despite what he just said, the bags were still in perfect condition and she had no intention of ever replacing them.
“There’s the prettiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Bob bellowed from the front porch, interrupting her thoughts. “Boy, I’ve missed you. When I see your huge smile and the gleam in those big blue eyes, it just makes me plain happy.”
As she reached the towering man, Niki threw her arms around him and enjoyed being in his firm embrace. Bob had been like a father to her ever since she and her mom first stepped foot on the ranch after leaving Texas when she was just five years old. He had a little more gray around the temples and scattered through his long sideburns and bushy mustache since the last time she had seen him, but otherwise he seemed as virile and strong as ever. His skin had always been tanned and leathery from all the time he spent outside, but his weathered look and strong jawline only made him appear indestructible. She doubted anyone had ever dared to cross Bob Blackburn.
“Come have a cup of coffee with me before you head out,” he said as he led her into the house with his arm still draped over her shoulders.
“Only if we can drink it in ten minutes or less,” she replied with a smirk.
Bob laughed as he pulled out a chair for her at the small dinette in the corner of the kitchen. “So Deuce is already giving orders and showing off his sunny disposition, I take it.”
“Apparently I’m late, but no matter what time I arrived here I’m sure he still would’ve been unhappy to see me. I wish I knew what I did to turn him against me and maybe I could fix it.”
“Have you ever asked him?”
“Like he’d tell me. We both know what a conversationalist he is and there’s nothing he loves more than sharing his feelings.”
Bob laughed as he set a chipped cup in front of her and slowly poured the coffee. “Still like it black?”
Niki nodded, even though Bob’s coffee was so strong that she would have made an exception to her purist coffee beliefs and diluted the deadly brew if the milk had been out.
He sat down across from her and reached for her hand. His hands were rough and scarred from years of hard work, but all Niki could feel was strength and warmth in his gentle touch.
“Try to remember when his change in attitude occurred. I think you were about twenty-one when his mother died. She was my soul mate and I was so devastated by her passing that I started drinking pretty heavy and I didn’t give my son the support he needed. I neglected the ranch and probably would have lost it if Deuce hadn’t stepped up to the plate and taken charge. After rolling the truck at the tail end of a particularly destructive drinking binge and nearly killing myself, I finally realized I’d been so selfish, but the damage to my son was already done. It’s taken a long time to get his trust and respect back, but I’m not sure if he’ll ever believe it’s worth loving someone with all your heart if it gives them the power to destroy you.”
Niki squeezed his hand, but didn’t interrupt. Bob didn’t talk much about his feelings or his wife’s death and she wanted to better understand what had happened in her self-imposed absence from the Blackburn family.
“Anyway, Deuce didn’t take the loss of his mother much better and blamed both himself and me for her death. When she took sick he thought we should have forced her to a big city with better doctors, but she didn’t want to leave the ranch since there was nothing the doctors could do for her by the time she was diagnosed. His mother was stronger than he gave her credit for, but she was from the city and pretty and petite like you, so he thought ranch life was too tough for her and a delicate woman shouldn’t be so far from doctors and such. He believed if she had been in the city, maybe she would have lived.”
“I’m sorry. You must miss her so much—I know I do—but I don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“My obstinate son worries himself sick when you go out and stay with old Bernardo each summer. Since you’re such a pretty little thing, just like his mama, and you live in the city, just like she did before I married her and brought her to the ranch, he doesn’t think you’re hardy enough to be out in the mountains.”
“That’s ridiculous. Even though I’ve had to live much of my life in large cities, I’ve never felt at home in any of them. I’m much more comfortable in the mountains. But, most importantly, I’m with Papa and no one’s tougher, except maybe you, and I’m certainly not helpless or fragile.”
“I know that and you know that, but Deuce is stubborn. He thinks his mother should have gone to the city and he thinks you should stay there. He just wants the people he cares about to be safe. The more someone means to him the more stubborn he gets.”
“Well then I must mean the world to him,” she mumbled sarcastically.
Bob nearly choked on his coffee. Recovering quickly, he tipped the cup to his lips to hide his smile and waited for Niki to continue.
“If he thinks it’s safer in the city than out there,” Niki said as she nodded toward the mountains out the window, “I’d better take him for a stroll through one of Denver’s less-inviting neighborhoods after dark sometime, and Denver’s fairly safe as far as big cities go.”
Niki leane
d back in her chair and took a sip of coffee, trying not to wince as the thick black liquid oozed down her throat. She glanced around the small kitchen. Not much had changed in the twenty-plus years since she saw the ranch for the first time. She would always remember that night as clearly as if it were yesterday. Her grandfather and the Blackburns took her and her mother in with no questions asked. Their kindness and unconditional generosity had touched Niki deeply and from that night on she had thought of Bob as a father.
She missed seeing Mrs. Blackburn in the kitchen. The woman was a fabulous wonderful cliché. The kitchen always smelled of spice, homemade pies and cookies fresh out of the oven. Whenever Niki made her own chocolate chip cookies it reminded her of the dear woman and the aroma always took her back to her childhood. Deuce’s mom was the mother of stories, but unfortunately for the Blackburn family, the tale had a premature and unhappy ending.
Ever since Deuce’s mom passed away, the house seemed to deteriorate a little more each time Niki visited, but nothing ever changed. Things just looked more worn, faded and dated. The flowered wallpaper had lost so much color over the years that the oranges now looked pink and the greens looked gray and sad. And instead of the comforting scents of home-baked treats, the house now smelled of coffee, fried meat, hay, sweat, dirty cowboy boots and wet leather.
Niki’s gaze settled on the small television sitting on the corner of the yellow Formica kitchen countertop. A newswoman stood in front of the White House as she spoke, but the volume had been muted. Niki stared at the screen for a moment then refocused her attention on Bob.
“So what do you think? Is it as bad as they claim this time or is the media just blowing things out of proportion?” she asked as she nodded toward the television.
“It’s not good. I’ve heard rumors that foreign troops have breached some of the border entries to the north and if they have, I imagine they’re heading our general direction. I’m leaving for Washington D.C. in the morning with some ranchers who have missile silos or towers on their property. No one thought much about it when the silos were installed more than forty years ago during peaceful times, but now everyone’s a little nervous. We have an audience with the senators from Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas and we want answers. We need to know what the chance is of the missiles being deployed. What should we expect if one is fired? Is there any danger to our families from fallout? What’s the chance our enemies will try a preemptive strike to take out the silos and who will come to our aid if that happens?”
“There aren’t any missile silos on your ranch, are there?”
“No, but apparently the cell phone tower we’ve been receiving lease payments on for the last ten years isn’t a cell phone tower after all. As far as we can gather it’s some sort of back-up system capable of controlling some portion of the approximately five hundred nuclear missiles located throughout the upper Great Plains, in the event the satellite used to talk to the missiles is ever taken out or jammed. Most of the weapons are north or west of here and the exact locations are a pretty well-guarded secret. Anyway, soldiers from the Air Force base in Cheyenne arrived a couple weeks ago and the tower is now under guard. You’ll see the soldiers on your way out this morning.”
Niki had hoped to put the crisis out of her mind once she reached the remote Blackburn Ranch, but it seemed as if the effects were everywhere. She had purposely avoided turning on the radio during her drive from Denver the previous day or the television at the hotel to avoid worrying herself, but it seemed like she couldn’t escape. Suddenly she was more anxious than ever to reach her grandfather and get away from all the frightening and unsettling news.
“Well, be careful on your trip to D.C. I hope you get the answers you need and I pray this mess gets cleared up by the time I leave the mountains,” she said as she stood up to hug Bob.
“I’m sure it will be,” he said, but lacking his usual confident air.
The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes scared Niki more than any newscast she had viewed. She had never seen anything shake Bob Blackburn, but it was clear he was very uncomfortable with the current situation and the proximity of military weapons to his and his neighbors’ property.
“Do me a favor and take this.” He picked up the 30-06 rifle propped next to the door and handed it to her.
“Thanks, but I have my Lady Smith and Wesson you gave me for college graduation in my saddlebags,” she said with a smile.
Bob shook his head and chuckled. He knew it was an odd gift to give a young woman, but he couldn’t send her off to her first big job in a strange place unprotected and she had never been the type of female impressed by expensive jewelry or high-end clothes or perfumes, so what else could he have gotten her? He loved her like a daughter and if she had to live in Denver alone, he wanted her to be protected.
“It’s a good gun for self-defense in tight spots, but I’d feel better if you had a powerful long-range rifle with you, especially knowing what a crack shot you are. I’ve never seen anyone handle a rifle better. Between the growing number of black bears, rumored grizzly sightings and the military presence you won’t be as alone out there as you’ve been in the past. I don’t expect any trouble, but better safe than sorry. I’d appreciate it if you’d just humor this old man and take the gun.”
Niki could see the worry in Bob’s expression, so she decided not to argue. She took the gun, the leather scabbard and the box of shells from his outstretched hands, kissed him on the cheek and headed for the barn and her angry escort.
CHAPTER THREE
The scene was familiar to Niki. Deuce stood impatiently between his green-broke three-year-old sorrel gelding named Traveler, an old sway-backed pack horse and Storm, the palomino gelding Bob had kept for her for the past eight years. Normally, Storm would have been sold as a yearling, but she had fallen in love with the feisty colt and Bob had kept him.
As a colt, he had been high-spirited and had a wild look about him, so Niki had named him Storm. She had also chosen the name in an attempt to conquer her fear of thunder and lightening by trivializing the violent weather events—it didn’t work. Storm was no longer a colt, but there was still something a bit untamed—or as Deuce would say, crazy and cocky—about the horse which made Niki love the animal even more. Storm had never bucked, not even when Deuce broke him, but the gelding never seemed totally domesticated either. Niki was sure he was a dependable wonderful horse simply because he chose to be and not because he had any fear of man.
Niki knew the horse was used year round at the ranch, but whenever she was in town everyone acted as if Storm had been waiting all year for her to return. And, despite Deuce’s constant grumbling about the horse, her grandfather had confessed that Deuce was the most frequent rider of Niki’s beloved pet.
“How’s my favorite handsome tough guy?” she asked as she nuzzled the palomino’s head.
Storm rubbed his large head up and down on the arm of her lightweight jacket and closed his eyes. Niki ran her hand down the length of his soft nose and continued to praise the horse. He lowered his head until he found her coat pocket and sniffed, searching for the treat she always carried.
“That horse may be crazy and cantankerous, not to mention his nasty sense of humor, but there’s nothing wrong with his memory,” Deuce grumbled as he watched horse and woman get reacquainted.
“He’s not mad or mean, he just doesn’t like men, not that I blame him,” she replied, trying to suppress the laughter.
Niki had no doubt Deuce’s comment about Storm’s sense of humor was based on the fact that few men could get a halter on the horse without bribing him with grain. She had watched Storm let Deuce get almost within reach then trot off. The horse would stop fifteen yards away and continue the process until Deuce was cursing and throwing things at the horse, who managed to always stay just out of any projectile’s reach. She was certain Storm derived a great deal of enjoyment at Deuce’s expense.
“Still can’t catch him without a bribe, huh?” Niki asked as
she pulled a carrot out of her pocket.
Deuce pretended not to hear the comment as he turned his back and walked over to where Traveler was tied to the hitch rail. He grabbed the reins and saddle horn, placed the toe of his well-worn boot into the stirrup and gracefully swung his long powerful leg over the horse’s back. She was always amazed how such a large man could be so smooth in his motions, especially where horses were involved.
He’s so gentle and patient with the animals he loves—too bad the skill hasn’t carried over to humans, she mused as her focus returned to Storm.
“Hope I brought enough carrots for a month,” she said as she checked her cinch, secured the gun scabbard to her saddle, slid the rifle into the scabbard and shoved the box of shells into her saddlebag.
“A month? I thought you were only staying two weeks like you usually do.”
“Business is slow at work with all the uncertainty the CCIS is causing, so my boss told me to take some extra time off. I bet you thought I brought an awful lot of groceries for two weeks.”
“Yep, I should have grabbed a younger pack horse,” Deuce mumbled as he nudged his gelding with the heels of his boots and headed out.
Niki managed to swing her leg over the saddle while Storm fidgeted, trying to ease after Traveler and the pack horse, not wanting to be left behind.
The least that arrogant jerk could do is wait until I’m in the saddle before riding off. He knows Storm hates to be at the back on the line.
They rode in silence for the first hour. As she watched Deuce’s broad shoulders sway to the rhythm of the horse’s gait she couldn’t help but think about what Bob had told her earlier that morning. If he was right, maybe she had been a little hard on Deuce these past years. Maybe he had shut her out of his life for fear of being abandoned by another city girl. But she wasn’t a city girl, not at heart. She belonged here and when she obtained enough experience to open her own graphics design business, she would leave Denver for good and move to a smaller town with mountains, preferably in Wyoming or South Dakota.