Remember Me, Cowboy

by Caroline Burnes

  “Who would…?”

  “Exactly,” Cassidy said. “Who would do such a thing? When we answer that, if we can, then we’ll also know who set you up for the bank robbery.”

  “You still believe I’m innocent?” Slate asked, hardly daring to wait for her answer.

  “More than ever,” Cassidy said. “Slate, everyone in town must have known about that gun. It was your father’s pride. Mary told me stories, showed me pictures…Anyone could have seen them.”

  “Sla—Daddy is going to stay at the ranch, isn’t he?” Lindsey asked.

  “Come hell or high water,” Cassidy answered. She looked at Slate for confirmation. “Right?”

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

  “Because it seems to me that both of us are being used. If I’m wrong, then you can pack up and leave. But if I’m right, then we have some scores to settle. We can do this, together.”

  Slate reached across the seat and touched her face. Her belief in him was such an intense experience that Slate could only stare into her eyes.

  It seemed his vision clouded and yet somehow cleared, and he saw something else—Cassidy sitting on the back of a striking paint. Even as it was happening, Slate knew that it was a memory, not a dream. He saw his hand on Cassidy’s thigh as she gazed down at him, excitement and challenge in her eyes.

  He remembered the moment, the discussion they were having about the horse. Rocketman. The black-and-white horse had been seriously ill, but he and Cassidy had saved him. They had worked night and day. Together.

  Slate felt a rush of pure elation as he held on to the memory that Cassidy’s words had triggered. He remembered.

  The memory faded, and Slate refocused back to the present. He found that both Cassidy and Lindsey were staring at him. “Rocketman,” he said slowly. “A four-year-old paint. I remember him.”

  Cassidy slowed the truck and then finally stopped. “Rocketman,” she said, shaking her head. “You remember.”

  Her voice was husky, and Slate thought he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  “The doctors said you might regain your memory. They said it could come back in tiny fragments, or in big chunks.” She blinked rapidly a few times to clear her eyes. “We’ll settle for fragments. And Rocketman is a good one.” Her expression shifted from one of happiness to concern.

  “What?” Slate asked, almost afraid of what she might tell him. The treacherous thing about selective memory was that it could lead him directly to knowledge he didn’t want to have.

  Cassidy squeezed his hand. “The one thing we can’t allow anyone to know is that your memory is coming back to you.” Her blue eyes darkened with worry. “If you remember what actually happened at the bank, you could be very dangerous to them. Dangerous enough that they might try to kill you.”

  THEY SAT ON THE PORCH and sipped the cool lemonade that Nita had made them. Slate had absolutely refused to go to the doctor, so Kip had closed the wound with a series of butterfly bandages.

  Though Lindsey protested, Nita, looking at Slate and Cassidy, insisted that the little girl needed a bath and a nap.

  “Talk,” she advised Cassidy in a stage whisper. “When the two of you were together, there wasn’t anything you couldn’t overcome. Talk,” she said as she led Lindsey into the house.

  It seemed like the best advice in the world, but as the silence between them grew, Cassidy didn’t know how to begin. At last she thought of something. “I have some photos,” she said. She heard the emotion in her voice and remembered the day she’d sat for eight hours organizing the images of her past into an album. It was right before Lindsey’s birth, and she’d wanted to make a record for her child—a history of the past.

  Slate stood up and walked to the end of the porch. Cassidy knew that he could see the weanling barn, and possibly Joker. She couldn’t know what he was thinking, but it occurred to her that he might be viewing all of the things he’d lost because he couldn’t remember. She thought of the photo album and bit her bottom lip. Perhaps she was pushing him too hard.

  “Slate, we don’t have to do this,” she said.

  He turned and looked at her. “Yes, we do. So let’s get on with it.”

  Cassidy went inside and returned with the thick album. She’d begun with their childhood, photos of the two of them. Mary had given her the pictures of Slate. She’d wondered, as she organized the album, if her child would be a boy or a girl. If it would look like Slate or her. She’d been relieved when Lindsey was born, so obviously her daughter. It had delayed the time when she would have to answer questions.

  She sat beside Slate on the steps as he flipped slowly through the pages, pausing at certain pictures. He touched a photo of his mother when she was a young woman holding an infant in her arms.

  “That’s you,” Cassidy said softly.

  Slate nodded and turned the page. He went through childhood without comment. He was about to turn the page when Cassidy stopped him.

  “There.” She pointed to a picture. Cassidy felt a surge of adrenaline. “Look, Slate. Look what you’re holding.” She pointed to the pistol. “It’s your father’s gun.”

  Slate bent closer to examine the photo. “So it is.”

  Cassidy took the album from him and opened the sleeve to withdraw the photo. It was dated on the back. “June 1974. You were twelve.”

  The look he gave her was bleak.

  “Keep looking.” Cassidy said, returning the album. “I want to get something.” She hurried into the house and went to the safe where she’d locked the gun. As she worked the combination, her heartbeat accelerated. If the real gun was at the bottom of the pond, as she suspected, then they might be able to detect a difference between the gun Slate had given her and the one in the photo. She gingerly retrieved the pistol and also a magnifying glass. She looked at the glass and felt a pang of loss. It had been Mary Walker’s, one she’d used for reading as her illness had robbed her of her vision. Even if Slate had full use of his memory, he wouldn’t recognize it, and this was one fact she would keep to herself. She could spare him that.

  When she walked back out to the porch, she found that he was absorbed in a photo of them together. She saw that the picture had been taken at one of the rodeos, and Slate had just won a trophy for bronc riding.

  “You were the best,” she said as she sat down, the pistol held inconspicuously at her side.

  “I didn’t realize that Dray Tyree rode.”

  “He was pretty good, but not as good as you.” She bent closer to the picture. “There’s Amanda,” she said, pointing to a pretty young girl hanging on to a fence in the background. “She was crazy about Dray even then.”

  Slate glanced down the page but returned to the rodeo picture. “You and Amanda were close, I gather.”

  Cassidy nodded. “We were.”

  “And it was my trial that came between you?”

  “Not completely.” Cassidy tried to sum up the past five years. “I was so busy working here that I didn’t have time for friends. And Amanda and Dray married. I guess our lives went in different directions.” She thought of Amanda’s recent visit. “She felt guilty about the trial, though I told her then that I understood.”

  “Understood that she had to tell what she saw?”

  Cassidy knew where he was going. It was a place she didn’t like, but she’d already come to the conclusion that someone in that bank had lied about Slate. The most likely person was Amanda. “I honestly couldn’t bring myself to believe that she’d lied,” she said softly. She felt Slate shift beside her, and she reached out to put a hand on his knee. “But someone lied. Someone had to have, Slate. And now that you’re out and we’re together, we can figure out what really happened.”

  “Even if it means finding out that people you’ve known most of your life lied?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that they could go to prison?”

  Cassidy knew that was true. “You lost five years of your life over something neither of
us believe you did. I lost having you as my husband. Lindsey lost her father. Whoever lied did a terrible thing to us. I’m not out for revenge, but if they have to be punished, then so be it.”

  Slate’s arm slipped around her shoulders, and she yielded to the comfort he offered. “Are you sure you want to pursue this?” he asked.

  Cassidy leaned against his strong shoulder. “I thought at first that the best thing would be to forget the last five years. I thought if we could put it behind us, we might have a chance. But not…”

  “Now?” Slate pressed.

  She knew he would do whatever she asked, and it was that knowledge that gave her the courage. “Now I know we can’t simply let it go. You were framed. Someone did this deliberately, and that person can’t get away with it.”

  “Cassidy, this could be dangerous.”

  She’d thought about this, too. “Someone has already shot at us. Someone took Lindsey, and though they didn’t hurt her, they could have. Someone has been on my property, meddling in my business. And we haven’t done anything except try to mind our own affairs. I think it’s time now to pursue this with everything we have in us. Let’s put it to rest once and for all.”

  Slate reached down to catch her chin. His hands, so gentle and sensitive, tilted her face up so that he could look into her eyes. “I don’t believe I could ever have loved you more than I do right at this moment.”

  Cassidy slipped an arm around his neck and pulled his head down so that she could kiss him. It was a long kiss, filled with banked passion and more than a little sadness.

  When they ended the kiss, she lifted the gun and magnifying glass she’d laid by her thigh. “We have to find out if this is your father’s gun or a replica.” She reached for the photo album.

  With the album nestled on her knees, she examined the photo with the magnifying glass as Slate held the gun.

  “I can’t tell,” she said in exasperation. “The picture is too small.”

  “We could have it blown up,” Slate suggested.

  “Your hand is covering most of the handle. I don’t think it would make a difference.”

  He took the magnifying glass from her and looked. “You’re right.” He hefted the weight of the gun in his hand. “It’s been such a long time.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Cassidy said with grim determination. “We’re going to have to sneak back onto Blue Vista property and dive into that pond.”

  “Tonight?” Slate asked.

  “The sooner the better. Whoever took Lindsey knows I was diving in that pond. They’re bound to wonder why.”

  “You’re right. If the gun is there, it could disappear.”

  Cassidy sighed. “That’s one piece of bad luck we can’t afford.”

  “Tonight, then.”

  “Tonight,” Cassidy said, rising to her feet. “I’ll gather the equipment.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Slate shot an arm out and caught Cassidy’s elbow as she slipped in the darkness on the loose rocks. They were both overburdened with equipment He hefted an air tank and gear while Cassidy carried a heavy-duty underwater flashlight and a gun. She had not wanted to bring the gun along, but Slate insisted. He had no intention of leaving her alone on the bank of the pond without some way to protect herself.

  They were both panting as they topped the last incline. The small pond glimmered like a large black pearl in the moonlight. Several white-tailed deer, startled as they took a drink, bounded away. The sight made Slate feel better. In the back of his mind had been the terrible suspicion that someone might be waiting in ambush for them at the pond.

  Perhaps whoever had taken Lindsey had thought Cassidy was simply taking a swim. Perhaps. But Slate really didn’t believe that. Cassidy had her own swimming hole on Raging Creek. There was no good reason for her to be on Blue Vista property.

  “Wait,” he whispered as Cassidy started forward.

  They’d left the truck in the cedar stand. It was the closest cover for the vehicle, and it had been a long walk. If they found the gun, Slate had already determined that he would leave the air tank in the pond.

  “It looks okay,” Cassidy whispered.

  Slate curbed the impulse to reach out and touch her hair, as silvery as spun fairy silk in the moonlight. His heart seemed to twist, and his carefully controlled fear broke free. He could not risk her. He could not. “Cassidy, please go back to the truck,” he said. “It’s on your property. You’ll be safer waiting for me there.”

  “And you? What if someone comes up on you in the water? They could knock you in the head—again!—and sink you like a rock.”

  “And if you’re there, they’ll drown you, too,” he noted dryly.

  “Or maybe I’ll shoot them.”

  He knew she didn’t make the threat lightly. Cassidy would never deliberately hurt anyone. Not even someone who’d hurt her. But she wasn’t a pushover. He’d come to appreciate that fact. She would fight—to protect those she loved.

  “I hate this. I hate putting you in danger.”

  “Think about this. If whoever is behind this begins to think that I suspect them, they’ll kill me, anyway. This way, at least we’re together. We’re a united front.”

  Slate accepted her argument in silence. She was right, but that didn’t make it less dangerous.

  “Okay,” he said, taking the lead. “I’ll go down and be back as quickly as I can.”

  “Just be careful,” Cassidy said, as they halted once more on the bank of the pond. The cottonwood tree rustled softly in the summer night breeze, and the whir of the crickets made them seem safe and isolated. “The old tractor is down there, but it’s rusty and a real hazard. Luckily the bottom of the pond looks like it’s limestone, so there’s not a great amount of sediment.”

  “That’s the only lucky break we’ve had lately,” Slate said.

  Cassidy put her hand on his shoulder and stood on tiptoe to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “I wouldn’t say that. We’re together.”

  Slate pulled her against him and kissed her once with such need that he felt dizzy after releasing her. “I love you, Cassidy.”

  She had thought it would be hard to commit to him, to risk her heart again. But in the darkness and danger of the night, she found her love far outweighed her fear. “I love you, Slate.” She bent to pick up the tank and hold it for him to slip into the harness. When she handed him his goggles and the flashlight, there was a smile on her face, though Slate could see the worry in her eyes.

  “I’ll be fine,” he promised as he stepped into the water.

  He was not wearing a wet suit, and the water was chilly, but his body adjusted quickly and he stepped in deeper, fixed his mask and dove.

  At first he could see nothing, so he turned on the flashlight and a narrow arc of brilliance illuminated the depths for several feet in front of him. He kicked rapidly toward the area where Cassidy said the tractor would be. He saw the old tractor, a 1948 model with a bush hog still attached. Slate wondered who had driven it into the middle of a pond and why. Perhaps that was a mystery that would never be solved. He moved forward.

  In the murky shadows of the pond, he clearly heard a soft voice. He did not panic, because he knew it was coming from his memory.

  “Old man Jarvis got mad at his brother, and in a fit of pique, he drove their very best tractor into the middle of my pond,” the voice said, filled with amusement Slate knew it was his mother’s voice, and in the humor and merriment, he suddenly missed her with a terrible aching need. In his mind, he saw her clearly, a woman with sun-wrinkled skin, green eyes and steel gray hair.

  Holding fast to the nugget of memory, he swam down to the old tractor. He’d remembered the story of the tractor, and now he knew that his father’s gun had been thrown into the pond. It was not a dream, it was a real memory that had been trying to surface for five years. It had taken Cassidy to believe in it.

  He would not leave until he found the gun.

  THE MOONLIGHT FILTERED through
the cottonwood tree and made shifting patterns in the grass where Cassidy sat. Though she tried to force herself to relax, she couldn’t At first she’d followed the trail of Slate’s air bubbles, but now she’d simply given herself to waiting. And keeping faith.

  The gun was in the pond. She knew it, but she wasn’t certain Slate would be able to find it. It had been down there for years. It would be rusted and hard to see, maybe covered by sand and debris. Several clandestine trips might be required—and that was not an idea she relished. But whatever it took, that’s what they’d do.

  The gun was the proof they had to have—the one thing that would make the authorities listen to them. Even if the metal was rusted, the handle would be intact.

  She held the automatic Slate had insisted that she bring. It was nothing like the revolver they sought. It was a very efficient nine millimeter. She knew how to use it, but she desperately hoped she wouldn’t have to.

  While she waited, she went over the possibilities of who had framed Slate. Amanda had to be involved. As she finally acknowledged that to herself, she felt the pain of betrayal. Her friendship with Amanda had cooled, but at one time they’d been very close. And Amanda’s sympathy toward her, the anguish she’d displayed at having to testify against Slate, had seemed so sincere. Cassidy felt a rush of strong anger at her old friend.

  Dray was undoubtedly involved, too. Dray was the one who’d shot Slate. If the bullet had been a fraction to the right, it would have killed him. Even as she sorted the facts, Cassidy found it hard to grasp that two of her friends had framed and almost killed Slate. Why? That was the question.

  Amanda had no real reason, as far as she could tell. Dray had been jealous of Slate’s rodeo abilities, but that seemed like such a foolish reason to frame a man for bank robbery—to shoot him. Although Dray was an excellent shot and the bullet only nicked Slate.

  An excellent shot. The phrase echoed in her mind. Whoever had been shooting at them was either an excellent shot or a bad one. Joker’s ear nicked. The near misses. Were they deliberate? She’d never considered that possibility. She’d assumed the shooter had simply missed. But what if he’d deliberately missed?