Lone Rider

by B. J Daniels

  By the time she’d realized the buzzing she was hearing was an approaching plane, so had Ray. He stopped walking and turned to look back at her. His frown was accusing as if he thought she was responsible for it. The plane was getting closer, flying low. Looking for her? Or just sightseeing?

  “They’re lookin’ for someone,” he said, still frowning at her.

  Did he really think he could abduct her and no one would ever look for her? She swallowed at the hateful look in his face. “They’re probably looking for you.”

  He shook his head, blue eyes boring into her like lasers. “They gave up looking for me over a week ago. That plane’s lookin’ for you.”

  She couldn’t believe he was blaming her because someone was searching for her. Then she reminded herself who had taken her captive. She couldn’t expect rational thought from a man like him. More than likely he’d blamed his situation on bad luck or someone else all of his life. He wasn’t a man who could be reasoned with. She’d be smart to remember that.

  Hope filled her at the thought that the plane really was a sign someone was looking for her.

  “Well, they ain’t gonna find ya,” he said with a sneer as he glanced around. She hoped he was searching for a place to keep them out of sight of whoever was in the plane and not one to kill her. Fear coiled in her stomach. Just because rescuers might be looking for her didn’t mean they would find her in time.

  As he tugged hard on the rope around her neck, she nearly fell from the horse. She clung to the saddle horn with her hands still duct-taped together and said nothing as he led her over to a wall of rock. The trees were thick, the branches woven together over their heads. The chance of anyone in the plane seeing them was slim to none. But still Ray seemed worried.

  The rock wall cantilevered out, leaving a space just large enough for the two of them sans her horse. He dragged her off the horse and shoved her back into the hole. She saw that the rope was still tied to the horse. If for any reason her horse spooked, she could be dragged to death.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered her.

  She was desperate to remove the tightening rope from her neck as he tied the reins to a branch in the dense pocket of pines. If she walked toward him and the horse, the rope would loosen. She could pry it off her neck and then... She looked around for an opening in the trees where she could run to before the plane reached them. If she could get the pilot to see her...

  The roar of the engine filled her ears. It was flying so low, it had to be someone looking for her, just as Ray suspected.

  She took a step toward Ray and her horse, her fingers already reaching for the noose, when she realized the pilot couldn’t save her. Even if he saw her and realized by the way she was bound that she was in trouble, no one could reach her before Ray threw her to the ground. When he was finished with her, she doubted even the search and rescue people would ever find her body.

  Bo stepped back, her arms dropping. Ray shoved back into the tight space, driving her against the rock cliff with his body, as the plane flew over. It was so close that Bo felt she could reach out and touch it. The sound echoed against the rocks, the loud drone echoing in her chest. A sob of frustration rose in her throat. She choked it back as the rumble of the plane’s engine grew fainter and fainter until it was gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FRANK DROVE UP to the ranch’s main house, and Senator Hamilton came out before he could exit his patrol SUV.

  “Bo?” Buckmaster asked, his voice filled with hope.

  Frank shook his head. “Someone from the search and rescue team is flying up to see if they can spot her right now. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear.”

  Buckmaster looked relieved but said, “If she isn’t back soon, I’m going to take some men and go look for both her and Calder.” He seemed to realize that the sheriff wouldn’t have driven all this way just to tell him again about the search and rescue flyover. “If this isn’t about my daughter...”

  “I need to talk to you about your...about Sarah. Is there somewhere we could talk in private?”

  The senator glanced back at the house. Frank saw the man’s wife standing at the window, watching. “Why don’t we walk down by the creek?” Buckmaster suggested.

  They hadn’t gone far when he asked, “What’s this about Sarah?”

  Frank turned to face the man. He’d known Buckmaster for years, but they didn’t travel in the same social circle and never had. “I need you to know that Sarah has been under investigation since she returned.”

  “Under investigation? For what? If you know something more about where she’s been—”

  “Did she tell you how she happened to be on that road in the middle of nowhere?” the sheriff asked.

  His question seemed to catch the senator flat-footed. “No. She told me that she can’t remember anything except waking up lying on the road after Russell Murdock apparently ran her down with his pickup.”

  Frank thought about correcting him, but realized it probably wouldn’t do any good. When Sarah had come stumbling out of the trees, Russell had managed to get his pickup stopped in time.

  “Russell took me to the spot where she came out of the woods,” he told the senator as they walked a little farther along the path. He could hear the creek, smell the sweet scent of the water and the cottonwoods that grew up around it. “I followed Sarah’s trail back into the trees for a good quarter mile.” Buckmaster was frowning. He knew the area. Nothing was back in there. “I found the spot where she’d landed.”

  Buckmaster stopped walking. Behind him, the clear stream burbled as it snaked its way through the trees and rocks. “Landed?”

  “She was dropped from a plane. I found her parachute caught in a tree.”

  The senator staggered back. “What? That’s not possible.”

  “Her DNA and blood were found on the parachute’s harness.”

  Buckmaster walked down to sit on one of the large boulders at water’s edge. “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do we.”

  “We?” he asked as Frank joined him, taking a seat on an adjacent boulder.

  “I called in the FBI.” The senator couldn’t have looked more surprised. “With you running for the presidency...”

  Buckmaster let out a curse and rubbed his hand over his face. “You think Sarah...”

  “We don’t know what to think. The chute she wore was the kind used for undercover operations.”

  “You think she’s some kind of special ops...what?”

  “That’s just it, Senator. We don’t know. We don’t know where she’s been or why she’s back, but the timing makes us suspicious.”

  Buckmaster let out a bark of a laugh. “Sarah? You know her. Do you really think—”

  “Does she have a tattoo?”

  The question stopped the senator cold. “A tattoo?”

  “Did she have one before she disappeared?”

  “Don’t you mean before she drove her vehicle into the Yellowstone River trying to kill herself? Or maybe that was just a ruse and she just wanted us all to believe she was dead?” Buckmaster shook his head, visibly upset now. “No, she didn’t have a tattoo. Are you telling me she does now?”

  “I need to show you something in confidence. I’d like as few people knowing about this as possible.”

  Immediately the senator looked worried. Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out the drawing Lynette had given him. “Do you recognize this?”

  Buckmaster stared at the drawing. “This is a tattoo? A tattoo that you say Sarah has now?”

  Frank nodded. “Do you have any idea what it is or what it might mean?”

  “No,” Buckmaster said, handing the paper back as if he didn’t want to touch it any longer than he had to. “Sarah has this tattoo?”

  “I haven’t
seen it, but a witness did.”

  “And you think it means something. Like what?” Buckmaster demanded. “That she’s joined some militia or some cult or some mercenary group that dropped her from a plane to take over the government?”

  Frank said nothing as he watched the senator absorb what he’d told him.

  After a moment, Buckmaster let out a curse.

  “We still don’t know who picked her up that night after Lester Halverson fished her out of the Yellowstone River,” the sheriff said. “But it explains why we couldn’t find her body. You have any idea who she would have called?”

  The senator shook his head angrily. “I only know it wasn’t me.” He raked a hand through his graying hair. “You said you’ve been investigating her. What have you learned, or is it beyond my pay grade?”

  Frank knew he had to be honest. The senator had friends in high places. It wouldn’t take much for him to find out that the FBI didn’t see Sarah as a threat to Buckmaster or to national security. He told him as much.

  “So why are you asking me about some tattoo?” Buckmaster demanded.

  “Because I don’t agree with the FBI.” The senator raised a brow at that. “It’s too much of a coincidence that she shows up now.”

  “You sound like Angelina.” He cursed under his breath. “But if the FBI doesn’t think she’s dangerous—”

  “What if you get the Republican presidential nomination? What if you get elected?”

  Buckmaster stared at him. “What is it you think she’ll do?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. But she had help coming back here. Someone was flying that plane. Someone wanted her back in Beartooth, Montana.”

  “She said she came back to see her daughters.”

  “Then why didn’t she take a bus? Why did she leave them in the first place?”

  The senator rubbed a hand over his face again. “She swears she doesn’t remember. That she doesn’t know how she got here, that her first memory is waking up on the ground in front of Russell Murdock’s pickup. Is it possible he’s involved in all this? Maybe he picked her up that night after she went into the river.”

  “I don’t think so, but of course we’re looking into that, too.”

  Appearing dazed, Buckmaster said, “She really was dropped from a plane by parachute?”

  Frank nodded. “Other than the lawmen who were at the site, no one else knows about this. I haven’t even told Sarah.”

  “I know Sarah,” Buckmaster said, even though the sheriff wondered if it were still true after twenty-two years. “Let me ask her about all of this. If I think she’s lying, I’ll let you know.”

  He knew he couldn’t keep the senator from telling Sarah. “All right. But I’d appreciate it if Sarah is the only person you tell.”

  Buckmaster scratched the back of his neck. “This tattoo. Where exactly is it on her? I didn’t see one when I talked to her.”

  “You probably wouldn’t have. According to the witness, it was on her right buttock like a brand.”

  * * *

  JACE HEARD THE plane long before he saw it. He knew even before he recognized the county search and rescue emblem on the side that the pilot was looking for Bo Hamilton. Buckmaster had promised to wait twenty-four hours. He hadn’t. Not that Jace could blame him. It was definitely time to call in reinforcements.

  The pilot spotted him riding along the ridgeline and tipped a wing at him. Jace waved back and kept riding to the north. He heard the plane continue along the same path he was headed. He was looking for Bo.

  Jace stayed on her trail as the sound of the plane died away. Had the pilot seen her somewhere ahead? He had no way of knowing since he didn’t see the plane again. How long would it be before the senator sent some of his men into the mountains to search for her? Or would he talk the sheriff into sending search and rescue ground teams before the required forty-eight hours?

  At least one question was answered. Bo Hamilton was deep in the Crazies. That alone concerned him more with each passing hour. He wasn’t sure how much food she’d brought. She could drink from one of the snow-fed streams safely enough, but she would need food to survive. She did hope to survive, didn’t she? She wasn’t fool enough to think that missing money at the foundation warranted taking her life?

  His concern deepened even before he’d ridden a little farther and saw her horse’s tracks drop down into a ravine. Reining in, he considered why she would have ridden there. He swore under his breath. Maybe her horse had spooked and taken off down the hill.

  He swung out of the saddle. Ground-tying his horse, he took his rifle and started down the mountainside. He could see that her horse hadn’t been running when it left the trail.

  Jace hadn’t gone far when he again saw the man’s boot tracks in the dust. Like before, they crossed the horse’s prints. A little farther, he saw the dirt disturbed as if there had been a scuffle. He looked closer, half expecting to find grizzly bear prints near the area. Because the Crazies were like a large island in the middle of civilization, they were crawling with grizzlies.

  But what he found instead was a fire ring where someone had camped. Next to it were the man’s boot prints and the distinct print of a hand in the dust. A woman’s.

  * * *

  AFTER WORK, EMILY picked up her daughter from day care and drove the few blocks home to the small house she’d rented on the east side of Big Timber. She’d been thinking about Alex all day but hadn’t contacted him. She was afraid she’d blurt out everything that was worrying her. He made her feel comfortable. Maybe too comfortable.

  The house she rented was small. Jace called it her dollhouse. Just the thought of her brother made her feel anxious. Why hadn’t she heard something from him? Surely he wasn’t still up in the mountains. But then again, as far as she knew, Bo hadn’t returned, either. Could they both still be up there?

  She tried not to worry. Jace was as capable as any man she’d ever known. He knew these mountains, and he was practically born on a horse.

  Jodie chattered away about her day as they walked from her car to the front door of the dollhouse. The door was painted bright red while the rest of the house was turquoise.

  “Did they let you decide on the colors?” Jace had joked.

  “I know you don’t mean that as a compliment,” Emily had said, “but I would have chosen these same colors if I’d been asked. It’s as if I was always supposed to rent this house.”

  He had laughed and shook his head. “I hate even to ask who your landlord is.”

  When she’d told him, he’d said, “Well, that explains it. She’s long been keeping the sixties alive. You two should get along fine.”

  Opening the door with her key, she and Jodie stepped inside. The first time she’d entered the tiny house, she’d been transfixed by the bright-colored walls, the built-in cubbyholes, the painted white wood floors. The house had smelled of patchouli oil, but that scent had faded.

  Now the house smelled more like the pepperoni pizza she and Jodie had eaten the night before. That and... She frowned. Cigarette smoke.

  Her landlady, a throwback to another era as Jace had said, didn’t smoke cigarettes. But Emily would have sworn someone who smoked had been in the house.

  “I want pizza,” Jodie said as Emily dropped her purse on a chair by the door and carried the groceries into the kitchen.

  “Not tonight. Tonight we’re having breakfast, remember? Waffles and bacon.”

  Jodie began to jump up and down as Emily put the bag of groceries on the counter. She sniffed the paper bag the clerk had filled for her. It smelled like produce. “You set the table, and I’ll change clothes and make us something to eat.” She stepped into the small bedroom, following the scent of cigarettes.

  She’d given them up when she was pregnant with Jodie and hadn’t had one sinc
e. But she knew the smell too well.

  The house had two small bedrooms, a galley kitchen with a breakfast nook, a miniature living room and one rather large bathroom.

  It had been perfect for the two of them, and Emily really had believed that the house, like the job, had been a gift from her higher power. That’s what they called it in the recovery program she’d attended.

  Now she pulled out her cell phone and called her landlady. “I was wondering if you came by the house today for repairs and maybe brought someone with you,” she said without preamble. “No? I only ask because the house smells like cigarette smoke. Okay. Probably just my imagination.”

  After she’d hung up, though, she realized maybe it was her imagination, because she really would have loved a cigarette right now. “It’s the stress of everything at work,” she said to herself as she changed clothes and headed for the kitchen, where Jodie hadn’t gotten any farther along than folding the napkins.

  “Better get busy setting the table, slowpoke,” she said as she put the bacon on to fry and her daughter got out the syrup and butter.

  “A bird made a mess in my room,” Jodie said.

  Emily had been distracted with worrying about Bo and Jace and the desire to have a cigarette. She’d seen too many addicts give up booze or drugs only to pick up some other addictive bad habit.

  “A bird?” she repeated, thinking she’d heard wrong. “A bird made a mess in your room?”

  “I guess it was a bird.”

  She pulled the bacon off the stove and headed for her daughter’s room with Jodie leading the way.

  “See. The bird came through the window and left dirt on my bed,” Jodie said.

  Emily stared at the open window and the torn screen flapping in the breeze, then at the dirty footprints on her daughter’s bed.