The Cowboy Steals a Lady

by Anne McAllister

  Her father looked pointedly at his watch. "Right on time."

  "Ah." Poppy finished the desperate jamming of her blouse and raked her fingers through her hair. "Of course. Time … must have got away from me."

  "No doubt," her father said stonily.

  But he barely glanced at her.

  His gaze was focused entirely on Shane, and he was looking just short of murderous. His normally pale complexion was florid. His fingers were balled into fists.

  And Shane didn't look much better. Rather like an animal trapped in a hunter's sights—desperate, determined. And wild.

  Poppy wondered if they would battle it out right here.

  "Shane?" An unexpected unknown voice broke in. "Nichols? What the hell are you doing here?"

  Shane jerked. He looked past her father at the man who'd come in behind him. A man who was looking at Shane, not with murderous intent, but surprise and—pleasure?

  Shane's eyes widened. He looked, if possible, even more stricken. "Rance?"

  "Hey, buddy, George didn't tell me you'd be here." The man came forward to pump Shane's hand eagerly. "But then," he added with a grin and a wink, "I guess maybe he didn't know."

  Color burned now in Shane's cheeks. He gave himself a little shake, like a dog shedding water. Poppy saw him swallow, then steady himself. A mask seemed to come over his face. He looked composed now, expressionless, except for the wry smile that fleetingly touched his mouth.

  "Rance," he said again, gripping the other man's hand. There was something new in his voice now—a sort of quiet resignation. "I might have known it would be you."

  * * *

  Judge Hamilton, his nemesis. Rance Phillips, his savior.

  Shane supposed there was a certain ironic symmetry to this. He supposed maybe God was trying to tell him something.

  He was afraid he knew what…

  It had begun fourteen years ago during his senior year of high school on the day before the football game between the Murray High Hawks and the Elmer Eagles.

  The trans-mountain rivalry between the schools had always been intense, having gone back to an actual gunfight between an Elmer ne'er-do-well and a Murray scapegrace eighty-odd years before.

  Each side had blamed the other. And when it wasn't acceptable to go gunning for each other anymore, the animosity had found its outlet in football.

  Murray had won the last three years running. Shane thought the streak had gone on far too long. The way to turn the tide, he told his friend Jake, was to use psychology.

  "Take away their pride," he had said.

  "What pride?" the literal-minded Jake had replied.

  "Their hawk."

  The Eagles didn't have an eagle because eagles were endangered. But this year at least, the Murray High School Red Hawks had not only a human-sized hawk mascot but also a real live one. There had been an article about it in the paper Shane had seen last week.

  It was a young hawk, almost recovered from a broken wing, nearly ready to be set free again. But in the meantime, some enterprising student had persuaded the wildlife service to let the school biology department care for it.

  All of Murray was thrilled with their hawk. And the high school football coach, no fool when it came to motivation, used it to great advantage. His team was going to give the hawk a great send-off at the end of the season. In the meantime, they were going to show the hawk their spirit.

  "We'll steal the hawk," Shane had said, eyes alight with the prospect of the caper. "Steal their pride."

  "Steal? We can't steal," Jake protested. "It's illegal."

  Shane had given him a long-suffering look. "Not forever. Just for the week. Just so's they don't have him for the game. We'll put him back after. And—" he grinned "—in the meantime, we'll give them another mascot."

  "What mascot?" Jake asked.

  The grin spread all over Shane's face. "We'll give 'em a chicken."

  Jake had gone along for moral support—and because he had a truck. But all the while he kept saying he wasn't sure about this.

  What if they got caught?

  "We won't get caught," Shane assured him. "You think they keep a guard at Murray High, for crying out loud?"

  But they did have an overzealous history teacher. One who happened to be coming into the building to do a little late-night preparation just as Shane was sneaking out—with the hawk in a pillowcase under his arm.

  There was a raft of potential charges: breaking and entering. Theft. Malicious mischief.

  "The door wasn't locked," Shane protested.

  But the cage had been.

  "I didn't enter the cage!"

  It didn't matter. The powers that were in Murray were furious. The wildlife service was going to get him for endangering an avian predator.

  "A what?" Shane had asked, mind reeling.

  "A bird."

  And that was before the two schools got into the act.

  The principal of Murray High was rightly incensed that his school's integrity had been violated. It wasn't just the removal of the hawk, he said in measured, but censorious tones, it was its replacement. There was the small matter of the chicken. There were "implications…" He let the word trail off.

  No one wondered what he meant.

  The principal of Elmer High wasn't exactly thrilled, either. Share's misguided larceny ("My what?" Shane had cried) reflected badly on the entire faculty and student body of Elmer High School, not to mention the town of Elmer itself.

  The principal drew himself up to his full height and looked down his not inconsiderable nose at the miscreant before him. He was, he said, entirely in agreement with the principal of Murray that something had to be done.

  The charges and possible consequences kept piling up. Shane was over eighteen. Officially an adult. He could go to prison, he was informed. The hawk was valuable. It might even be a federal crime. A felony.

  "You don't want a felony," Shane's court-appointed lawyer said quietly.

  Shane, poleaxed by the whole thing, didn't say anything at all.

  "Perhaps we can work out an alternative in a plea bargain," his lawyer said. "Judge Hamilton has been known to do some, shall we say, creative sentencing."

  Enter Judge Hamilton.

  And the chicken.

  "You were trying to take away their pride," the judge had said, when all the powers had met and discussed and bargained, and Shane was brought into his chambers later that week.

  He was articulating exactly what everyone else had wanted to call "larceny" or "theft" or "criminal mischief," and Shane, grateful at last to be understood—especially when it happened to be by the man who held his fate in his hands—nodded eagerly.

  "You were going to take the hawk, leave them the chicken and bask in the glory of your cleverness, weren't you?"

  Well, yes, he'd hoped to. But to say so seemed a little immodest. He didn't answer. But when he didn't, they all sat in silence—and probably would until doomsday—or until he admitted it. He nodded.

  "You were maybe a little proud yourself?" the judge suggested. "Maybe a little … cocky?"

  Shane shifted nervously at the judge's quiet, precise choice of words. He was fairly certain it hadn't been accidental.

  "Perhaps it's your pride that needs a little pruning, Mr. Nichols," the judge went on. "And not Murray High School's."

  The judge sentenced him to rent a chicken suit and appear in it at the Murray-Elmer game. He had to lead a cheer for Murray. He had to sit with the Murray cheerleaders.

  Shane was aghast.

  The judge wasn't through.

  He had to attend the rest of Murray's home games that season. As a chicken.

  It was an effective punishment. One that didn't end, as the judge had known it wouldn't, with the end of the games. There were plenty of scathing comments, behind-his-back and to-his-face chuckles, giggles and guffaws from both his own classmates and those at Murray.

  But he endured it. Stoically. Stubbornly. He paid the price and never shirke
d it.

  But it wasn't untrue to say he was desperate for the end of the season. As luck would have it, Murray had a good team that year, led by the best quarterback to come down the pike in a long, long time. His name was John Ransome Phillips, and he took them to the Montana state championship.

  Murray supporters from miles around came to the game. And J.R. Phillips rose to the occasion.

  He threw five touchdown passes that night. He ran the ball in for a sixth. Before the game was over, he had broken conference records for yardage and completions, cheered on by the entire student body, the whole town of Murray, the cheerleading squad, the Murray Red Hawk mascot—and a chicken.

  When the game was over, Shane waited until the entire Murray football team had showered and dressed and left the locker room before he went in to change. It was bad enough enduring their comments during the game while he had his feathered suit on and his chicken head in place. At least he didn't have to listen to them while he got out of it.

  But that night as he hurried to shed the miserable thing, the zipper stuck.

  He got the head off. He got the feet off. But the damn bird body wouldn't budge. Feathers were jammed in the zipper's teeth. At least he guessed they were. He couldn't see it because it was against his back.

  He fought with it. Cursed it. Yanked it. Contemplated ripping it.

  He didn't, only because he'd paid a fifty-dollar deposit, and he still owed Mace half of the fifty. He had to get his deposit back, even if he had to drive all the way back to Elmer in the damned suit!

  He was just contemplating the misery of walking across the parking lot in all his feathered splendor when the door to the locker room opened.

  Murray's quarterback hero, dirty and sweaty and clearly as tired from local radio interviews and journalists' badgerings as from the football game, limped in. His brows lifted when he saw Shane.

  Trapped in the chicken suit, Shane stiffened, steeling himself for the smart remark.

  But Phillips just nodded. "Hey." And began to strip off his uniform shirt.

  Shane, nonplussed, didn't move.

  Phillips grabbed a towel and headed for the shower. "Need some help?"

  "No!"

  But he hadn't got it off by the time he heard Phillips flip-flopping his way back.

  Shane shoved his feet into his boots, stuffed his clothes in the chicken head, tucked the fowl's floppy feet under his arm and headed out into the night.

  There was no way on earth he was going to ask John Ransome Phillips, Murray High's greatest hero, to help him get out of his chicken suit!

  Almost everyone else had gone home. There were only a few cars left in the lot. A few boys who'd driven over from the western Montana school were yelling at some Murray boys who weren't ready to go home.

  Shane didn't have to walk anywhere near them. And if he'd been dressed in his jeans and jacket, no one would have noticed. Or cared.

  But even in the dim light of the parking lot a six-foot chicken was, to put it bluntly, a sitting duck.

  One of the western boys saw him, and suddenly they had something better to do than taunt the Murray boys.

  "Let's get the chicken!"

  Whooping and hollering, they surrounded him. There were three of them. One of Shane.

  The punching started before half a dozen insults had been exchanged.

  Shane fought hard, but the odds were bad. He was kicked and pounded. His nose was bloodied. His front tooth chipped. Then, in the midst of being ground into the dirt, he felt one of his attackers yanked off. Another was hauled away and punched hard.

  By the time Share scrambled up, fists flying, the outsiders had decided there was more valor in getting in their car and heading west than in pummeling the chicken.

  Panting, bleeding, Shane stumbled around, trying to discover who his rescuer was.

  J.R. Phillips.

  The Murray quarterback was wiping blood off his own lip. His right eye was beginning to swell.

  "Guess we showed them," J.R. Phillips said with a grin.

  Shane swiped a hand across his mouth. He wobbled a bit, then steadied himself. "Guess so," he said, light-headed, wondering if he was imagining this.

  J.R. Phillips had fought for him?

  "You must like trouble," Phillips was saying, "walkin' around in that."

  "No." Trouble, Shane was beginning to think, was highly over-rated.

  "Why the hell you wearin' that damn suit then?"

  "Zipper's stuck."

  Phillips gave a bark of laughter. "And you couldn't ask me to undo it?" He paused, thought about it, then said, "No, I reckon you couldn't."

  A moment of silent commiseration passed between them.

  Then the quarterback stuck out his hand. "I'm Phillips. J.R. Phillips."

  "I know," Shane said in a low voice. He took Phillips's hand. "Shane Nichols," he muttered.

  Phillips looped an arm over Shane's shoulder and started to lead him back to the locker room. "My friends call me Rance."

  Friends? Were they going to be friends? Shane wondered as he allowed himself to be led.

  "You got guts, Shane Nichols. I'll say that," Rance told him. "You really got guts comin' here week after week dressed like that. Come on. Let's get you out of that thing."

  "I owe you," Shane had said to him then.

  He still did.

  * * *

  There wasn't a better man in the universe than Rance Phillips, and no one knew it better than Shane.

  He wasn't some educated snob with a Harvard degree. He was a damn good bronc rider with a Harvard degree. He wasn't some snotty rancher's son who didn't know the first thing about earning a real living. He'd earned his own way since his father had cut him off when, determined to rodeo, Rance had decided to go down the road.

  Shane knew he'd even gone to college on his rodeo money and hadn't given his father the satisfaction of sending him.

  After Rance had graduated, Shane saw less of him. Sometimes Rance turned up at big rodeos. But eventually he didn't come at all.

  Shane figured maybe he'd decided to go back to the ranch, settle down, make his peace with the old man. He hadn't known about Harvard Law.

  But it wouldn't have mattered if he had.

  What he did know was that Rance was a good man. A tough man. An educated man. And, doubtless now, a wealthy man.

  But mostly, Shane knew, Rance was his own man.

  The judge had done himself proud, whether Poppy wanted to admit it or not. He had found her the one man in the world worthy of her—and the only one that Shane would willingly step aside for.

  But he couldn't pretend it didn't hurt.

  * * *

  The evening was bittersweet.

  Shane sat through the meal—and it was the best one he could ever remember—thinking how much he could get used to living like this.

  He liked the low, rambling ranch house. He liked its pine-paneled walls and comfortable leather chairs. He liked the stone fireplace and the Navajo rugs on the wide plank floors. He liked the dining room table that was cozy enough for the four of them, but which could expand to feed a branding crew. He liked it all, but mostly he liked the thought of having Poppy every night across the dinner table.

  Every time he glanced her way, she smiled at him. Every time she spoke, she looked at him. Once her foot even connected with his ankle under the table. It might have been an accident, but it stayed, rubbing lightly and sending shivers of longing through him.

  He struggled to keep his mind on the conversation. He made himself respond carefully and seriously to the questions Rance and the judge put to him. He found that all his study of Mace's herd gave him some ground for discussion. And his brother's concerns about water rights and grazing leases informed his opinions. He spoke for the small-scale rancher. Rance spoke for the large-scale one. The judge listened, gave his own opinions, asked questions.

  He could never have imagined a time would come when he would be sitting at Judge Hamilton's table, making sensi
ble conversation with the man.

  Maybe he was growing up.

  But it was too late.

  He watched Rance charm Poppy without trying. He knew she intended to resist. It was what she'd wanted him here for, after all! But she couldn't. No one could.

  It was just Rance's nature to be personable, to be handsome, to be low-key and a little off-the-wall. It was Rance's nature to make people feel comfortable with him. It wasn't Poppy's fault.

  Shane didn't blame her.

  He couldn't blame anyone. For once not even himself.

  When the meal was over, she asked him to help her clear the table and he did.

  He remembered the nights they had done dishes together in the cabin. At first they'd been awkward together. Then they had talked. Laughed. Learned. Loved.

  He still loved her. Only tonight did he realize how much.

  But he couldn't tell her.

  Tonight Rance was here, helping too, while the judge went outside on the porch and smoked an after-dinner cigar.

  So instead of talking to Poppy, he explained to Rance how he'd torn off his thumb. Then he heard about Rance's last ride, which had ended with him in the hospital with a badly broken arm.

  "It made me stop and take stock," Rance said. "If I hadn't done it, I might still be goin' down the road. But it did, and I had to change my plans, play the new cards God dealt me."

  A man who had Harvard as an option had pretty good cards, the way Shane saw it. His own deck seemed made up mainly of jokers. But he knew Rance wouldn't see that.

  They talked about mutual friends, and Rance was surprised to hear Noah Tanner had moved into the valley.

  "I've lost touch with so many rodeo people," he said ruefully. "It's what happens when you leave the circuit."

  "You went on to bigger and better things," Shane pointed out.

  But Rance shook his head. "Not better," he said firmly. "Just different. Here, let me help you with that," he said as Poppy struggled to carve the rest of the meat off the turkey. "I'm an old hand at this."

  And while Shane watched, Rance did a creditable job of carving the rest of the bird. Was there anything Rance didn't do well?

  When the judge came back in, he and Rance talked law. Then they talked about people Poppy knew, too, and then they talked about land development in the valley. Rance had definite ideas. So did the judge. So did Poppy.