The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

by Kathleen Creighton

  In the darkness of the sweat lodge Bronco’s mind drifted with the rise and fall of his uncle’s voice singing the traditional songs. He no longer understood the words, but it was his hope, his prayer, that the soothing familiarity of the chants might cover his troubled spirit as the steamy heat enveloped his body, and cleanse it of confusion, doubt and fear as the sweat cleansed his body.

  But as the ancient songs filled his ears, it was only im ages of the past that filled his mind, while his path through the present and into the future remained clouded, lost in darkness.

  “You look troubled, nephew,” his uncle Frank said to him as they were emerging from their revitalizing dip in the flooding creek. “Your sweat did not restore you to peace and harmony?” He spoke sardonically, smiling a little; he knew very well that it had been many years since Bronco had participated in the traditions of his father’s people.

  Bronco’s reply was equally ironic. “Peace and harmony?” he said. “What’s that?”

  “Anything I can do to help?” They were walking back toward the brush corral now, leaving Roger to put the lodge to rights.

  Bronco threw him a glance. His uncle’s broad face was serene, smooth and unlined-very little there to remind him of the father whose face he could barely recall. He drew a deep breath and was surprised to hear himself say on its exhalation, “I work for the government, Frank. Did you know that? The same government that hunted and slaughtered our ancestors and tried its best to destroy us. I guess…I’m having a little trouble with that.”

  “I can understand that,” his uncle said with a hitch of his broad shoulders. After a moment he went on in a conversational tone, “My dad-your Grandpa George-he fought in Korea, did you know that?”

  “Yeah,” said Bronco, “I guess I did.”

  “Got killed over there. They gave him the Medal of Honor-Mama went back there to Washington, to the White House, to get it, shook hands with the president and everything.”

  Bronco nodded; he’d heard the story many times. He thought it might have been one of the factors that had induced the army time and time again to give him yet one more chance.

  They paused in the shade of the cottonwoods and looked out across the sun-blasted landscape. After a while his uncle said softly, “This land has seen a lot of changes since it was given to our ancestors by Changing Woman. Yes, people have tried to destroy us. Destroy our ways. But they haven’t succeeded.” He nodded his head toward the summer shed, where the bright dresses of the women stood out like flowers in a shady garden. “Our ways, our traditions, our language still survive. At the same time our people are learning to thrive in the white man’s world. We have our own industries-cattle and lumber, ski resorts and tourism. We have hospitals, stores and computers in our schools. The other stuff-” he hitched his shoulders as if throwing off a burden “-that’s the past. We don’t live in the past. We live in this world. It is this world we must live in harmony with.” He stopped and looked at Bronco with a smile. “That’s how I see it. For what it’s worth-if it helps you any.”

  “It does,” said Bronco, and meant it. He gathered his damp hair in his two hands and swiftly twisted it into a knot, then untied the bandanna he’d knotted around his forehead. “Tell you what,” he muttered, embarrassed now, “right now I could use another kind of help.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “I need to borrow your truck for a few days. I’ll reimburse you for it.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Frank, his eyes twinkling as he jerked his head toward the brush corral. “I’ve got a mare comin’ in heat pretty soon. You leave that big red stud here for two-three weeks and you can have my truck-free of charge.”

  “Deal,” Bronco said, laughing as they shook on it.

  A moment later, though, as Bronco’s gaze drifted once again to the summer shed, his uncle said in a teasing voice, “Son, something tells me the U.S. government’s not the only thing that’s troubling you.”

  Bronco’s reply was a gust of dry laughter. What could he say? He didn’t even know what to think about what had happened to him today. His mind had been in a turmoil ever since that moment of truth out there in the middle of the flood, when he’d realized he’d rather take a chance on losing his own life than let Lauren give up hers. And that it had nothing to do with duty, responsibility or honor.

  His uncle Frank didn’t have anything more to say, either; both of them knew that kind of trouble was something a man had to work out for himself.

  There was silence in the dusty brown Ford pickup as they drove away from Grandmother Rose’s, until Lauren turned to look back through a haze of dust at the brush corral under the cottonwoods. She looked for a long time, until the dirt road dipped into a dry wash and even the tops of the trees disappeared from view.

  When she turned and faced forward again, Bronco cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be there when you can get back for him. Be well taken care of, too.”

  She nodded, and he could see her swallow a couple of times before she spoke. “I know. It’s just…hard to believe it’s really over.”

  Bronco laughed-one brief dry note. “It’s not over yet. We’re still a long way from Dallas.”

  Chapter 14

  A long way. And to Bronco, not nearly long enough.

  Can’t believe it’s over, she’d said. But for him, it wouldn’t really be over until Dallas, until he’d found a way to hand Lauren Brown over to her father or, at the very least, someone in authority who could get word to her father that she was safe, preferably in time to prevent the breakdown of the American political system. And then, if all went well, he’d never see her again. He’d slip away, reunite with SOL and continue his job of monitoring the country’s underground militia and forget he’d ever been so stupid as to fall in love with the daughter of the next president of the United States.

  The president’s daughter! Even in his mind the words sounded incredible. The problem was, the words didn’t seem to be getting through to his heart. All his heart remembered was the way she’d looked at him, standing in the spring, eyes drenched and dark with trust…the lush scent of her body, the warm ripe feel of her in his arms, her sobs of passion and joy.

  John Bracco had always believed he’d never know the joys of home, family and a lifelong mate. Loving a woman had seemed too great a risk. But now, all he could think about were this woman’s arms around him, the pounding of her heart against his ear, drowning out the rush and roar of the flood, and her voice, like a mantra of hope, I won’t leave you, Johnny. I won’t leave you.

  “How far is it to Dallas?” Lauren asked.

  Bronco’s heart gave a guilty leap as he glanced at her, though he knew there was no way she could know what he’d been thinking. His runaway pulse and singing senses would be invisible to her, safely hidden behind the impassive mask he’d carefully cultivated and conveniently blamed on his Apache heritage. “About a thousand miles,” he replied.

  “I suppose flying’s out of the question.” Her tone was dry, and he answered her the same way.

  “Without money, credit cards and picture ID, yeah, I’d say so.” And, he silently added, without the federal ID and ATF contact codes he’d kept safely hidden in a secret compartment in his electric shaver, now lost to the flood.

  There was a long pause while the pickup rattled over a section of corduroy. When the road’s surface evened out enough to allow conversation again, Lauren said without conviction, “You could drop me off at the nearest police station.”

  Bronco glanced at her. “Yeah, and you’d tell ’em what?” he asked quietly. “Some crazy story about being Rhett Brown’s daughter, and you were kidnapped recently by a secret militant antigovernment organization named SOL, but now you’ve managed to escape and survive a flash flood? You think they’re going to believe you? Unless this has leaked to the news media, which I doubt, how often has your picture been in the papers or on national TV recently? Even Gil didn’t know who you
were until he ran a routine check to see if that check of yours was good.”

  She made a soft sound and muttered, “So that was it.”

  “You’d probably convince somebody eventually, but no telling how long that might take. In case you’ve lost track of what day it is, time is something we don’t have much of.”

  He didn’t tell her that it might be worse for her if her story was believed. She had no idea, and neither did he, how many of these local law-enforcement people were either sympathetic to or outright members of SOL. He knew for a fact some were, and he wasn’t willing to take the risk. He hadn’t brought her this far only to dump her out of the frying pan and into the fire. She was his responsibility. He’d see her safely home-all the way home.

  All that was true. But only his heart knew about the cold little shiver of rejection that had gone through him at the thought of giving her up into someone else’s keeping. Once he did that, it was truly over. He’d never see her again, unless it was on the evening news. Whether it was wise or not, he wanted to postpone that inevitable moment as long as possible.

  He looks so bitter, so disappointed, Lauren thought. Because he’d failed in his purpose, the cause he believed in had been defeated, at least for the moment, and his compatriots were either dead, captured or scattered to the four winds.

  But looking at him now it was so hard-impossible-to believe he could have been part of the paramilitary conspiracy to kidnap her and blackmail her father into giving up the presidential nomination. Oh, his warrior’s features were hard enough, his glittering black eyes fierce enough to make him seem capable of almost any kind of cruelty or violence. But she no longer saw him only with her eyes. And what her heart saw was the incredible gentleness of his hands, the soul-stirring sweetness of his smile, the passion of self-sacrifice in the voice that shouted from the flood to leave him there and go.

  Her heart was pounding as she cleared her throat and asked hesitantly, “What about a phone?”

  He gave a shrug and his huff of laughter. “You can try.”

  Bronco leaned against the fender in the lengthening shade of his uncle’s pickup truck and glugged a grape soda while he watched Lauren feed quarters into a pay phone that teetered like a small forlorn tree on the edge of the dirt parking lot. The grape soda made him think of the past, the rare sweet indulgences of his childhood-the early years, the happy years, before. Watching Lauren made him think of the future, and how he was going to learn to survive all the bleak years…after.

  He saw her cradle the receiver yet again and knew from the way she stood without moving and the dejected slump of her shoulders that she’d run out of options. He wasn’t surprised; at this point her whole family was probably holed up in a hotel room somewhere in Dallas, ready to share Rhett Brown’s big night. Or ready to rally around when he dropped the bombshell.

  He’d tried to think who he might call, but without his ID numbers and contact codes, he’d never get through the security net to his contact at ATF. He felt a frustrating sense of failure at his own helplessness, cursed himself for not memorizing those damn codes. He’d had them memorized once upon a time, but they’d gotten more and more complex over the years, and he’d been undercover a long time.

  As she approached, he observed with pangs of guilt and regret how gaunt and heat-frazzled she looked in Rachel’s borrowed clothes, jeans that were too big for her and a faded flowered cotton blouse. Uncle Frank’s pickup truck wasn’t equipped with air-conditioning.

  “Any luck?” he asked gruffly, handing her a grape soda.

  She shook her head. “Everybody’s in Dallas.” She took the bottle from him, gave it a funny little “Huh!” look and tilted it to her lips. After the first gulp she lowered it with a surprised laugh. “I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid.”

  “Me, either.” He raised his bottle to her and she clinked hers against it. Then they both stood there while the sun went down behind the pickup truck, drinking grape soda and smiling at each other with their eyes. As far as Bronco was concerned, that grape soda was wasted money, because his mouth was bone-dry.

  “So,” Lauren said, “I guess we should just keep driving.” Her eyes were closed, face lifted to the dying wind, and she was moving the moisture-beaded bottle across her forehead, down the side of her face, into the V of her blouse…

  Bronco found that his throat had closed. He forced his voice through, but it was a hoarse and ragged remnant of the one he was used to. “Ah, I’ve been thinking about that. It’s late, it’s been a long day and we’re both tired.” He jerked his head toward the strip of blacktop highway and the forlorn row of tiny whitewashed cabins strung out along the other side under a faded sign that read Broken Arrow Motel. “I was thinking maybe we should get some rest-get an early start tomorrow morning.”

  She glanced at the motel, a relic of the days before interstates, then brought her eyes slowly back to him, a droll sideways look shielded by demurely lowered lashes. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Do you think they’d have a vacancy?”

  Bronco laughed, then grew serious again. “More important, can we afford it?” He reached into the pocket of his jeans-also too big for him, borrowed from his cousin Roger-and drew out the fistful of cash Grandmother Rose had given him from her cookie-jar stash. A quick tally told him he had forty-seven dollars and change left after filling the truck’s gas tank and buying the grape sodas. He held up the bills, fanned like a hand of cards. “We get a choice. What do you want to do-eat or sleep?”

  It might have been the blood pounding in his own head, but Lauren’s voice sounded oddly slurred and thickened as she replied, “A bed sounds awfully good.” And it seemed to him she swayed toward him just slightly.

  He said softly, “We can probably afford…one.”

  She nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from his face.

  After a moment he said brusquely, “Well. Okay.” He stuffed the cash back in his pocket and went into the gas station’s hot dim little convenience store, where he spent five of their meager dollars on a box of graham crackers, a quart of milk, a disposable razor, a pocket comb and an Albuquerque newspaper.

  Ten minutes later he had the key to the Broken Arrow Motel’s cabin number four in his hand.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t ask for any ID,” Lauren said in a low voice as she waited for Bronco to unlock the door. She smiled for the benefit of the manager, who was standing in the office doorway in his undershirt and overalls, watching them through black horn-rimmed glasses and rubbing dubiously at his quarter inch of gray beard stubble.

  Bronco gave a sardonic grunt as the key turned at last in the ancient lock. He gave a thumbs-up to the manager, who turned and went back to his grainy black-and-white TV and Wheel of Fortune.

  “He’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Bronco said dryly as he pushed the door open and waved her ahead of him.

  The room was dark, with the curtains drawn and the only light coming from the open doorway. But it didn’t matter- Lauren wasn’t really aware of her surroundings, anyway. Dimly she registered the worn rust-colored carpet, flowered bedspread and curtains in seventies colors-orange, yellow and avocado green. Then the door closed behind her and she heard the rustle of plastic as Bronco set the bag of groceries he’d just bought on the small wooden table near the door. She felt for the lamp on the nightstand and discovered that she was trembling.

  She couldn’t bring herself to turn around; uncertainty had made her too vulnerable. Yesterday-last night-seemed an age ago, the mountain spring and monsoon storm very far away. There’d been catastrophic events in her life since then, and life-altering revelations…

  Bronco stood with the key in his hand and stared at the back of her bowed head. Even with her body hidden in shapeless borrowed clothes and her winter-grass hair clumsily braided, dull and in need of washing, he still thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. So beautiful it made his eyes smart and his throat ache to look at her.

  He a
ched because things were so complicated now between them, so impossible. He ached for the way it had been for a brief time, there on the Sacred Mountain, reduced to the most primitive elements-man and woman, earth and sky and water, and the fire inside. How simple it had all been then. No pain, just joy. Pleasure in each other. A need and a fulfillment. But now he knew it wasn’t simple at all, that there was a reckoning, a cost to be counted. Once he’d been afraid of hurting her, he remembered, doing her damage. Now, though he couldn’t see how he might have avoided it, he knew the damage to himself was just as great-maybe even greater. His heart would never be the same.

  One of us has to end this, Lauren thought, or begin… It took every ounce of strength she had just to turn and face him.

  And she saw his eyes. Saw them as she’d never seen them before, beneath the sweep of warrior’s brows, glowing deep and dark with pain, with vulnerability, with all that she’d ever hoped to see in a man’s eyes gazing back into hers.

  She uttered a small cry-like a sob, except that she was smiling. Smiling through tears. And then somehow, without either of them seeming to move, she was in his arms and he was holding her-and she him-as if they’d never, either of them, let go. Then he was plunging his fingers into her hair, setting it free, filling his hands with it while his mouth scorched her eyelids, her mouth, the sides of her neck, her throat. And she was laughing and whispering his name, tugging and pulling at his shirt, wanting to feel his beautiful satiny skin and hard body against hers.

  She pulled away from him, gasping and desperate, suddenly filled with panic. “You won’t…you can’t…” she sobbed, dashing tears from her cheeks. “Please don’t deny me this time. I don’t care-I want to feel you inside me. Please let me feel you inside me. Just once. Please, Johnny…”

  He frowned-and how endearingly silly it looked with eyes so soft and gentle. “Just once?” he murmured, and she heard something hit the bedspread with a faint plop-plop. She tore her eyes from his face to stare at the two small packages lying on the bed. “There was a machine in the men’s room at the gas station,” he said in his warm bear-rug voice, stirring shivers over her whole body. “Wasn’t sure I should spend our food money on con-” Her kiss stopped him there.