by Jodi Thomas
From the size of the fat cat Sam, she’d probably carried out that threat a few times lately. No wonder the Davis girls weren’t married.
When he was finally alone, Blade looked around the spacious room, now his recovery home. Tiled floors, low ceilings, long windows facing east. The bedroom was neat and clean but had nothing personal in it except a picture of two little girls who had to be Maria and Dakota. Maria was obviously teaching Dakota to ride a bike, and both were smiling.
He knew without asking that this had been their mother’s room. The third bedroom in a home where a mother had lived with her two children.
He sat on the bed and slowly cradled his injured arm, then stretched out atop the covers. This was what home should feel like, he thought, as he drifted off to sleep.
Someone covered him with a fuzzy blanket, but he didn’t open his eyes. Hours later he was aware that the room had grown dark. When Grandmother came in to turn on a lamp, he asked if he could have a glass of water and a rope. If she thought the request strange, she didn’t comment.
When she returned with Dice, they watched Blade drink the entire glass of water, and then he asked Dice to tie the rope to the center of the footboard while he looped the other end. Now he could pull himself up with his good arm without straining the muscles along his bandaged side.
“You’ve been knocked out of the saddle before, haven’t you, kid.”
“A few times, old man.” After Dice left, with no one else in the room Blade asked, “What’s new in the investigation?”
“Which one? We got several going on. I had to declare myself a temporary deputy just to help Pearly. Everyone in town thinks they know something, but most of them don’t know nothing. Sheriff knows the second body found at the Bar W was Coffer Coldman, but the coroner still hasn’t ID’d the first one who was burned.”
Dice sat down on the room’s only chair and continued, “Something is going on at the Bar W. Everyone hinted that Reid was selling the place when he loaded all the cattle and sold off back pastures, but I’m not so sure. I’ve seen some heavy equipment headed out that way. Town’s got a wagonload of questions and not an answer in sight.”
Blade’s head began to pound. “How about starting with who shot me and we’ll work backward? I’m interested in what the sheriff might have found out.”
“Oh, we don’t know nothing about that. Sheriff found a few shells, but it was so late when you were shot, nobody saw a thing. One neighbor heard the gunfire but he thought it was a car backfiring. A couple of guys from the firehouse said there are boys who hunt rabbits out in the field behind the office. Maybe they thought you were a jackrabbit.” Dice grinned and put one finger up on either side of his head.
“Very funny.” Blade rubbed his forehead. “No leads at all? Any hunches as to why? Surely the sheriff has learned something.”
Dice shook his head. “Other than some random fellow who just hates strangers, I can’t think of anyone. There’s a group that meets now and then to practice shooting. Call themselves a midnight militia. They think it was terrorists. Said it was just a matter of time before they hit Crossroads.”
Blade thought that the chances of ISIS even finding this town, when FedEx couldn’t, probably ranked about even with a zombie attack, but he didn’t say anything. Right now, Dice was ahead of him, even in guessing.
“What about the bodies at the burn sites? Any news there?”
“All I know is Coffer Coldman is still dead. Nothing else to report.”
“Any leads on who did that crime?”
“Nope.” Dice raised his voice. “Oh, we did find Coffer’s dog. He showed up back at the bunkhouse. I told him he inherited two hundred and ninety dollars, but he didn’t seem all that interested.”
“What about your friend LeRoy?”
“Someone said they thought they saw him in one of the bars in Amarillo. Like I figured he would, he was spending his pay. I’d like to be out looking just to be sure, but since you’ve been shot I’d better volunteer to be your bodyguard.”
Blade grinned. “You’d take a bullet for me, Dice?”
“Well, no. I’m smart enough to step out of the way, but once I knew someone was shooting at you, I’d return fire. You wouldn’t have to worry. If someone killed you, they’d be DRT.”
“DRT?”
“Dead right there.”
“That’s comforting. Downright considerate. You should put that on a greeting card, Dice.”
“You’re a strange one, Hamilton. Half the time you don’t make a lick of sense. I’ll go get your supper.”
Blade wasn’t hungry, but the food was too good to ignore. As soon as he thanked Maria, he lowered into bed using the rope and went back to sleep.
When someone touched his forehead an hour later, he awoke. “Dakota?”
“I’m just making sure you don’t have a fever.” She sounded concerned.
“I’m fine. Just sleepy. You didn’t make it home by dark.”
She sat on the edge of his bed. “I had a late showing. Also talked to the sheriff. He wants to know when you’re coming back to work.”
“Tomorrow, maybe. I could probably help out at the office for a while.”
“Do you remember talking to Dan at the hospital? He asked you a dozen questions about the shooting.”
“Did I make any sense?” He took her small hand in his. It felt good to be touching her. The woman was like an addiction. Every time he touched her, he wanted more.
“Not much. You said a shadow shot you. The sheriff told me if you remember anything that will help, call him. Otherwise, he’ll let you rest.”
“I’d rest a lot better if you’d lie down next to me.”
She laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”
“Maybe I am. Walking out in a dark parking lot behind the sheriff’s office didn’t work out too well for me last night.”
To his surprise, she kicked off her shoes and stretched out on top of the covers. He didn’t let go of her hand. He’d planned to say something to let her know he wasn’t a jerk who just wanted to get her into bed. But, he didn’t know how to talk to a woman about much else.
Just before he fell asleep again, he realized that he’d had sex with a lot of women, but he’d never truly known one. He knew funny things to say, sexy things, but most of the women he’d known were hollow in his mind. A few he couldn’t recall their names, or what they did for a living, or where they were from.
He’d never wanted to really know, really understand a woman until now. Maybe it was the drawings on the barn wall she’d done, as if chasing a dream, or maybe it was the way she took care of her sister. A complicated woman. A woman worth knowing. A woman worth the effort.
Lifting her hand, he kissed her fingers. “Thanks for staying with me last night in the hospital.”
“You didn’t need me,” she answered.
“You’re wrong. I did.” To his surprise, he meant it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AS DAN PULLED onto the Lone Heart Pass, he still didn’t know if putting Charley Collins and Lucas Reyes together was a good idea or not. After all, Lucas had decked the last Collins he’d come across. Not that half the people in town hadn’t thought of punching Reid. He was destroying the ranching business that had made his family rich, and everyone was trying to figure out how he planned to make money. Some said he was smarter than he seemed and would be investing the profit. Others bet he’d gamble it all away within a year.
But Reid’s big brother was a very different man. Charley practically raised himself on a ranch where his father had a second wife and another son. Dan had noticed one year that Charley wasn’t even in the family Christmas picture. By the time Charley was old enough to help run the ranch, his father had married number three, a girl the same age as Charley.
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The Collins boys were about the same height and looked like brothers, but all that money had twisted Reid inside. He was one of those people who could never pass astronomy because of his firm belief that the planets revolved around him.
But the sheriff had seen Lucas and Charley talking a few times in years past. They had a healthy respect for each other. Charley was a few years older. Lucas had still been a kid when Charley left home for college, so even though they had been on the same ranch, they might not have spent much time together.
The sheriff watched them closely as they shook hands. They were friendly enough. Charley asked about Lucas’s father, and said he’d always thought Reyes was a fine foreman. “Him and a few of the cowhands taught me more about ranching than my father ever knew. Once my dad married number two, he didn’t care if I was around or not. I think I grew up eating more meals at the bunkhouse than at home. Lucas, your dad raised me as much as anyone did. How’s he taking the change?”
“Dad and Mom left on a long-overdue vacation.” Lucas kept his voice even. “He’s going to disappear for a while and rest. He told me he wants to be too far away to even hear what is happening at the Bar W.”
The sheriff read between the lines. Lucas had made sure his parents were out of danger. Lucas hadn’t said a word yesterday about his father leaving, he wanted to make sure they were miles away before anyone even knew they were gone.
It occurred to Dan that keeping his parents safe might have been why Lucas had insisted on being put in jail. He wanted the focus on him so they could slip away.
Charley, looking very much like the successful rancher, invited them in for coffee. He’d come a long way from the single father living over a bar he’d been a few years ago. His new wife had fixed up the old homestead beautifully, and he’d turned her run-down ranch into a profitable horse-breeding operation.
“Jubilee is in town buying more baby clothes. If our baby doesn’t come soon, I’ll have to sell the spring hay crop to pay the bills.” Charley grinned, which told Dan that he didn’t care about the money.
“How long till she’s due?”
“Less than a month. She wants to move to town the last few weeks of the pregnancy. I tried to explain that I’ve delivered a dozen horses already this year. Surely I can handle one baby.”
“What’d she say?” Lucas asked as he accepted a cup of coffee.
“She said if I even hinted at that idea again, I’d be sleeping in the barn with those horses. Turns out women don’t take to that kind of humor.”
Dan laughed. “I can see her side. You might as well start packing. Town would be an easier move than the barn.”
The men sat at the kitchen table and finally got down to the problem at hand. There was something going on at the Bar W, and between the three of them they might just find a hint of what that would be.
The sheriff went first. “Charley, I’m sure you are aware of what’s happening at your father’s ranch. The fires. The two bodies found. One was Coffer Coldman and the other one, we fear, might be an old cowhand named LeRoy Smith.”
“I’ve heard talk, but I’m not interested in getting involved. My family lives right here at Lone Heart Pass. I don’t really care how my father or Reid want to live their lives.”
“Would your father take a call from you?” Dan asked.
Charley shook his head. “I doubt it. We haven’t spoken in years. When he kicked me out, he also cut off all my college funds. I was already working part-time to cover day care. Suddenly, I had to drop out in the middle of my senior year and work two jobs just to keep a roof over my daughter’s head. He didn’t care about me or her.”
His voice bore no hint of anger or bitterness. “Reid is his only son now. I think he wanted it that way. My mother, his first wife, died on him and my dad hated that. Maybe that’s why he’s been the one to leave in all the other marriages.”
Looking up at Dan, Charley added, “He might take your call, Sheriff. When I was growing up he always spoke of you as his friend.”
The sheriff wasn’t finished asking questions. “Have you been in contact with Reid lately?”
Charley took a drink of his coffee. “We meet for breakfast now and then when Reid’s in town. The last few times he was too hungover to make much sense. He hates running the ranch, but loves spending the money. Last time I talked to him for a minute at the post office, he said he was tossing around another way to make money from the ranch other than ranching. Wouldn’t tell me what it was.
“I think he spends as much time in Vegas as he can get away with.” Charley shrugged. “Maybe he’ll become a poker pro.”
Dan set his cup down and leaned forward. “I got a theory, but it can’t go any further than this table. I don’t think Reid is running things out there. Not by himself. I’m guessing you both know more about what’s going on at the ranch than I do, but if one of us doesn’t start figuring it all out I’m afraid Reid may be the next body found.”
The sheriff studied them both and neither man looked surprised. Lucas hadn’t even spoken since they’d sat down, but he was taking in every word.
Dan had guessed right. Both men knew something they weren’t talking about. He could see it in their eyes.
Charley looked at Lucas and Dan didn’t miss the lawyer’s slight nod. “You might be right, Sheriff. I’ll step in to help my brother, but I want no part of the ranch or the trouble Reid has gotten himself into. I want that understood from the beginning. Tell my dad I don’t want one handful of dirt or one dollar from him if you get hold of him.”
“Fair enough. When we’re finished talking, I’ll call him. But first, I want to know what you two know, or even suspect.” In a big city, Dan might have brought them in for questioning, but not here. Ranch folks don’t talk about their troubles outside the boundaries of their own barbed wire. Big ranches, like the Bar W, were a world within their borders.
The lawyer and the rancher looked at each other. In an odd way they were brothers. Veterans of the same war.
The sheriff had their attention; now he had to get their help. “I have a feeling something illegal is happening and Reid is in over his head. I just don’t know what.”
Charley shrugged. “I’ve heard from the few friends I’ve kept up with that the new guy hired to help Reid close the ranch operation down is pushing everything along. He acts like he’s in charge. They say the men the cowboys call ‘the thugs’ work for him, not Reid.”
“Wish I could lock them up for a few days and find out what’s going on there,” the sheriff said more to himself than them. “When I was out investigating the fires, one of the new men was always within hearing distance. I felt like I was being watched.”
“So what are they hiding?” Charley said what the other two were already thinking.
“I may have an answer to that.” Lucas sighed. “I think it’s some kind of smuggling operation. The ranch would be a perfect stopover, distributing whatever illegal product they sell in four directions on the highways that cross here. All we have to do is find what they’re transporting and how they are hiding it.”
“Sounds easy enough.” Charley laughed, as if Lucas had just suggested they climb Mount Denali in cowboy boots. “Whatever they’re doing has nothing to do with ranching.”
The puzzle in Dan’s mind finally began to fit together. Reid wasn’t in charge of whatever operation was going on; he was just a pawn that someone else was moving around the board.
One thing about this case had been gnawing away in the back of his mind since the barn fire. Reid didn’t care about the fire and he only seemed irritated about the first body found. He wasn’t involved, but when the second body, Coffer Coldman, showed up, Reid went from irritated to afraid. He’d acted like a man who knew he’d already lost but was still holding his cards at the table.
Charley stared at Lucas. “Y
ou have the map of the ranch, Lucas?”
Lucas shook his head. “No, I only saw it once.”
Dan hadn’t been following the conversation. He was still thinking about what the bad guys were doing on the ranch. Some kind of smuggling operation made sense. “What map?”
Charley leaned back in his chair and stared at Lucas. The lawyer stared back. They seemed to be playing some kind of silent game. They both knew something and neither wanted to be the first to tell.
“This is not a standoff, boys. We’ve all got to share what we know if we have any chance at getting to the bottom of this.” Dan felt like a referee.
Charley broke first. “When I was a kid I heard my father say once there was a box canyon way back on the ranch where the breaks for Ransom Canyon start. He claimed he’d seen it once and it could hold a dozen cattle trucks. He had a hand-drawn map to the place on the back of an old painting in his study. I studied it a few times when no one was around but I couldn’t figure it out.
“I tried to get him to show me the little canyon tucked away, but he said he’d forgotten where it was. He claimed his father had walled the opening up with rocks so cattle wouldn’t wander in. I didn’t have any idea where to look. The map had no starting point but it was simple. I think I could draw it from memory, but that wouldn’t help if we didn’t know where to start.”
Lucas nodded. “I heard the old cowboys talk about it a few times. Some say there was Confederate gold buried in there. Others said it was the bodies of the real owners of the ranch. The first Collins was rumored to have ridden in and killed the whole family, then taken over the ranch.”
Dan had never heard this story. It wasn’t something D.R. Collins would want out. The idea of a box canyon was possible. They’d made great hideouts for outlaws years ago.
Charley refilled Lucas’s coffee. “Did your dad ever show it to you?”
“No. I’m not sure he believed the stories about the canyon but the day before he was fired, there were several cattle trucks moving down roads on the ranch as they rounded up cattle. He said LeRoy commented that he thought more went in than came out.”