Cowboy Under Cover

by Marilyn Tracy

  El Patron strolled to stand behind the children. He tossed his whip onto a broad marble desk then placed a hand on each of the two straight-backed chairs holding the children.

  “Oh, please,” Jeannie said. The gun she’d been holding with such bravado seemed to gain ten pounds, and her trembling hands could barely hold it aloft.

  “Now, what do you say, my dear? Will you set that ridiculous gun down before it accidentally goes off and hurts someone?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to fire the gun. She wasn’t trained in weapons. If she fired at the man, she could easily miss and hit one of the kids. And if by some miracle she did manage to shoot him, he might pull the chairs down with him, hanging the children.

  Her breath snagged in her throat. Everything in her screamed not to put down her weapon. But his hands tightened on the chairs, and he gave them a little rock.

  Dulce screamed. José choked.

  Jeannie tossed the gun to the plush carpet and mildly wondered that it didn’t fire.

  He stopped rocking the chairs. “Very good. I like a woman who understands me so quickly.”

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Ah, and a woman who likes to get straight to the point. Even better.”

  “What do you want from me?” she asked. Every fiber of her being ached to snatch the children from his grasp, to pull them into her arms.

  “Your ranch,” he said. “That’s all I want.”

  “Fine. It’s yours.”

  “You see, children. I told you she would see things my way.”

  “Now let them go,” she said.

  He chuckled. “Not so fast, my dear. You take some of the pleasure out of the deal.”

  “What deal?”

  “Why, our deal, of course.”

  “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just buy the ranch when it was up for sale?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “You’re right. You don’t understand, my dear. So few do. I don’t buy things, señora. People give them to me.”

  “You said you wanted my ranch. I’m giving it to you. Now let the children get down from those chairs!”

  Jeannie watched him, saw the feral enjoyment of her predicament in his eyes, and her heart filled with despair. Until she’d voiced the demand, she’d truly believed there was some way to get the children safely away from him. But her statement let her know how incredibly naive she’d been to think so. He would take the ranch and kill them anyway, all of them.

  “It’s my ranch by rights,” he said. “My great-grandfather on my mother’s side was given all the land you can see from the top of the Guadalupes to the border of Mexico.”

  “Then how—”

  “How was it taken from my family? It’s very simple, señora. When the New Mexico Land Office opened, they claimed most of the grants null and void and stole the land from me. Now the government is paying attention to some of the old grants. I had the original deed, you see.”

  She didn’t, but nodded anyway.

  “Did you notice that I used the past tense?” He gave her a swift smile. “You’re very perceptive. Yes, I said I had the deed. Tomás stole it from me. He was supposed to light fires, to scare you away, you see, but instead he steals from El Patron and lights an heirloom on fire. And do you want to know why he did it?”

  He rocked the chairs again, and the children cried out as they struggled for footing.

  “Stop it!” Adrenaline coursed through her body, making her feel ill from enforced inaction. She’d never felt so helpless. Just standing there, watching a madman torture two innocent children, was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But he could kill one or both with a single movement of his manicured hands.

  He set the chairs to the floor. “He did it because he liked you, señora. And because he liked the children. He didn’t mind lighting the fires or cutting your fences when Rudy told him to do so, but he didn’t want you to leave such a noble project. So you see why I was angry with Tomás. It made Juanita sad, but it couldn’t be helped.”

  “You can have the ranch,” Jeannie said.

  “No!” Dulce cried. “You can’t do it. He’s lying, anyway.” She cursed at him as her chair was rocked again.

  “I thank you, señora. I accept your kind offer. I have a contract for deed right over here.”

  She would sign away her soul if it would get him away from those chairs and the lives so dangerously teetering on them. It didn’t matter that it wouldn’t be legal without Leeza and Corrie’s signatures, anyway.

  “It was very distasteful to me to take matters into my own hands, but you made the mistake of hiring a federal marshal as a ranch hand. That we had one in the area I knew. I just didn’t know who it was until Tomás told me, the night he saw equally pathetic Jorge die right in front of him. Then he was willing to tell me many things he overheard on your ranch.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said carefully. “If you’ll just let me sign the deed, we can go.”

  “Now wait a minute,” he said, as if he’d thought of something almost impossible to contemplate. “What is to stop you from going to the police the minute you leave here?”

  “My promise,” she said.

  “Ah, yes. A woman’s promise. That is very important, is it not? But I think these dear children could tell you that women often break their promises, no? Still, if I did believe you, how would I trust you?”

  Jeannie thought of what she’d said to Chance, that she trusted him. He’d said to write it down in her notebook. She hadn’t trusted him, though. The very hour she’d uttered the words, after she learned he had lied to her, she hadn’t waited for his advice on how to get the children back safely. She hadn’t trusted him to do what was right. They might all die because of her lack of faith.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly, wearily.

  “I can’t think of a single way, either.”

  “I can.” Dulce spoke unexpectedly.

  El Patron chuckled. “What’s that, dear girl?”

  “Chance comes and kills you for all the bad things you’ve done to people and then we don’t have to worry about who you will and won’t trust, now will we, pendejo?”

  “Dulce!” Jeannie cried, afraid the girl would goad El Patron into pulling over her chair.

  Instead, the monster laughed. “She has spirit, this one. I have a place in Mexico that can use her.”

  When Rudy stopped him, calling him marshal, he fully expected a bullet in his back. El Patron’s chief henchman, a notch higher than Nando, Rudy could easily be considered a psychopath. He had no feelings for human suffering.

  But Rudy Martinez was also a coward. The only feelings he did suffer from were fear-related. Chance knew this from long experience with Rudy, and all the Rudies of the world. Without his buddies to help him bully others, Rudy might easily be subdued.

  So when the bullet didn’t plow through his back, Chance whipped around and slammed his .357 across Rudy’s face. The man went down like a sack of moldy oats.

  “That was for Pablo,” he said, bending over the man.

  He dragged him to the pickup’s rear bumper and shoved him roughly to the ground. “That was for Jorge.”

  He pulled a set of handcuffs from a small satchel in his pickup and wasn’t gentle as he snapped them around Rudy’s wrists. “That was for taking the kids.”

  He tore off a strip of duct tape and covered Rudy’s mouth with it, making sure the thug’s moustache was good and covered. “And that’s for scaring Jeannie.”

  Feeling much better and with a slight smile on his face despite his worry, Chance again headed for El Patron’s heavy wooden gates.

  He didn’t feel quite as confident when he approached a wide-open front gate. The setting sun provided enough light for him to see inside the gates easily. It was a riot of flowers and trees and shadows broad enough to hide an army in.

  He abandoned the bold approach and slid into the shadows, drawing his gun and moving slo
wly across the courtyard to an open glass door.

  He nearly shot Juanita when she stepped from behind a huge potted plant and put her finger to her lips. She leaned close to whisper in Spanish in his ear. “The others are all asleep. I put something in their soup. Except for Rudy. He wouldn’t eat and I can’t find him. El Patron has the señora and los niños in a room down the hall.”

  “You don’t have to worry about Rudy. I met him down below. Are they okay?” Chance whispered in English.

  Juanita shook her head. “He has the children on chairs and ropes around their necks. He holds the señora in place when he rocks the chairs.”

  Horrified at the mental image she created and mystified by her presence, he peered at her more closely. She’d obviously been crying, and when he patted her shoulder, she flinched in pain.

  “You might want to hide,” he said. “In case one of the others comes back.”

  “No, I stay for the señora.”

  “Then wait outside the gate. My men will be coming soon. Stay away from the pickup. Rudy’s handcuffed to the bumper.”

  Tears welled in Juanita’s eyes. “Dios Mio.”

  He frowned. Was this a trap of some kind?

  She shook her head as if he’d asked the question aloud. “El Patron killed Tomás.”

  Chance winced. He hadn’t liked the man, but he certainly hadn’t wished him dead.

  “Me? I help to kill El Patron. Then maybe God will forgive me and let me go to heaven when I die.”

  “Wait down by the courtyard gates,” Chance said, unable to think of any words of solace for the widow of a man who would burn a woman’s ranchland and endanger children. Although her words had shocked him somewhat, he knew exactly how she felt. If anything happened to Jeannie or the kids, he’d kill El Patron personally. And with pleasure.

  He looked at the expanse of Saltillo tile and paused long enough to remove his boots before creeping down the hall, looking for his family.

  “Why are you doing this?” Jeannie asked the man. She fought tears of frustration and fear. She would not cry in front of this monster. She suspected this would be a man who would enjoy seeing someone cry and relish driving them to tears.

  “You ask me why I do this? Because I can, señora. Just because I can.”

  “Not this,” she said. “You can’t get away with this.”

  “I can get away with anything,” he said. “Did you notice my garden? How beautiful it is? It’s because I fertilize it with the bodies of my enemies. Look at these beautiful children, for example. No one but you will miss them. And no one would ever look for them here.”

  “I’ve already called the state police,” Jeannie said.

  “Oh, they are no trouble. I’ll have Nando steer them away. He’ll arrest someone for stealing your little orphans no one will find, and that someone will take the blame. Maybe even Nando himself. He’s been annoying me lately, anyway. Or no, I have a better idea. Let’s arrange things so that your cowboy, Chance Salazar, takes the credit. He’s a rodeo cowboy gone crazy with love for a pretty face, but he’s insane, so he kills everyone at the ranch. I like that story, don’t you? Of course, he might be a federal marshal, and in this play, he accidentally kills the children—and you, of course—to cover up his murder of Jorge and Tomás. Naturally, I will have tried so hard to rescue you. I will be inconsolable.” He sighed heavily. “And I would still have your ranch. You see, there are so many ways to take care of a garden, señora.”

  Dulce made a strangled sound, and Jeannie instinctively stepped forward. El Patron stopped her by placing his hand on Dulce’s chair and giving it a wiggle. Even as Dulce cried out and danced on the chair’s seat, Jeannie was, for the first time, aware the girl was grimacing not in pain, but as a warning of some kind.

  She was able to see something Jeannie could not. And El Patron, behind the girl, apparently couldn’t see it, either.

  Jeannie’s heart began to beat in a rapid, hopeful rhythm.

  El Patron stopped the chair torture.

  “Are you a gardener, señora?”

  “She’s a great gardener,” Dulce said. Her eyes rolled toward the door to the hallway. “Chance helped her.” Dulce’s eyes went from the door to Jeannie and back to the door. “He stood right behind her every day and told her where to plant stuff.”

  And Jeannie knew that somehow, miraculously, Chance was there. He’d come for them. She felt galvanized by hope, by faith in a future, by the exultant grin on Dulce’s face.

  “But no doubt he didn’t fertilize it with his enemies’ blood. Flowers are all carnivorous, you know.”

  “No, only pigs like you,” Dulce said, and kicked out at him.

  “No!” Jeannie screamed, lunging forward and pushing El Patron aside as he shoved Dulce’s chair over. She caught the girl around her legs before Dulce could reach the end of the rope, praying she didn’t accidentally knock into José’s chair as she staggered under the surprising weight.

  El Patron, angered and startled by the abrupt turn of events, regained his footing and grabbed his whip from the marble desk.

  “I don’t think so, pal,” Chance said, stepping out of the shadows into the room.

  “You can’t stop me,” the megalomaniac said.

  “Yeah? Watch this.” And with that, Chance fired his gun at El Patron’s whip hand. The whip flew out of it as El Patron screamed.

  Two more gunshots, and Dulce sagged into Jeannie’s arms and José collapsed on the chair. For half a second, she feared he’d shot them, too, but then she saw the ropes dangling from their shoulders. Her peripheral vision let her see Chance forcing a still screaming El Patron onto his desk.

  “Pretty good shooting, Tex,” Jeannie said mildly, working at the knots of Dulce’s and José’s bonds.

  “Yeah, all us federal marshals can do that.”

  He surprised a chuckle out of her, and she looked up to find Dulce, white-faced and wide-eyed, staring at Chance.

  The long arm of the law had the much shorter El Patron in a death grip against the marble desk. The man might be evil and able to avoid prosecution thus far, but he was no match for Chance. His face was turning purple.

  Jeannie watched in dazed detachment for a few seconds. She heard yelling from somewhere in the house and the sound of helicopters overhead. “Chance,” she said. Then, louder, “Chance.”

  Chance heard her saying his name, but between an overdose of adrenaline and a burning desire to rid the world of one of its worst monsters, he was having a difficult time answering her. He flicked a glance in her direction and realized, seeing her pallor, he wasn’t thinking like a marshal but rather like a distressed father upon finding his wife and children in jeopardy. As if something inside of him broke, he understood that a man—most men, in fact—could be both. Could have both.

  In that brief if intense revelation and the meeting of their gazes, Chance found he couldn’t read her expression. Slowly releasing the pressure on El Patron’s neck, he ached to be able to talk with her alone, to explain the reasons he didn’t tell her about his undercover mission and his desire to protect her without her knowing danger existed. He wanted to tell her how terrified he’d been for her, for the children. He wanted to tell her how brave he thought she was and how much he longed to hold her as tightly to his breast as she held the children to hers.

  “Chance, you have to stop now,” she said primly. “Think of the children.”

  “What?”

  “The children. You’re their role model, you know. Our hero. And heroes can’t go around killing people just because they tried to kill us.”

  Chance eased his hold on the purple-faced El Patron. “You can’t? You’re sure?”

  “No. It’s just not done. It’s against the undercover federal marshal’s code.”

  She saw the beginnings of a smile breaking through.

  “Ah, and what is done?” he asked, stepping back from the desk.

  Dell drawled from the doorway, “If it were me, boss, I’d let my deput
y cover the guy while I kissed the girl.”

  “Is that what you recommend?” Chance asked José. José giggled and nodded.

  “And how about you?” he asked Dulce. She grinned and shrugged.

  Chance turned to Jeannie. “Seems unanimous.”

  She grinned at him. “Then you better kiss me and get it over with.”

  “Oh, I’ll never be over this,” he said, drawing her into his arms and pulling her to his chest. “Never.” His lips lowered to hers, and he thought no kiss had ever been as sweet. But he was willing to try several more just to be certain.

  Chapter 14

  H uddled with the children on a sofa in El Patron’s huge living room, Jeannie told her story several times for various local, state and federal officers. She kept an arm around each child and was pleased beyond reason when Dulce sighed and laid her head on her guardian’s shoulder.

  Both children were pale and both wore rope-burn necklaces. Jeannie thought of the bruises on El Patron’s neck after Chance had choked him and thought the man’s collar was highly appropriate.

  Chance sat on the large coffee table facing them. He gave Jeannie a swift if somewhat tired smile before turning to Dulce. “I haven’t had much of an opportunity to tell you what an incredibly brave thing you did back there. You may want to consider a career in martial arts or even law enforcement.”

  “After art school,” Dulce said drowsily. “Jeannie thinks I can go to a good one.”

  “So do I,” he said. “But keep up the kickboxing.”

  He patted her leg and turned to José. “And you, kiddo, what about you? How did you manage to stay on that chair with all the scuffling going on?”

  José looked at him steadily for a long moment then lowered his eyes.

  Chance reached out and cupped the boy’s chin with his hand. “Mi hijo, are you going to be okay?”

  Jeannie could see Chance’s hand was shaking a little and his voice was rough and uneven. He’d called the boy his son. Mi hijo…

  José lifted his gaze to Chance, then lifted his little hand to the large calloused one still holding his face. And said clearly and with great dignity, “If you call me your son, can I call you mi papá?”