Smoketree

by Jennifer Roberson

  “I’ll take you,” he said indifferently. “After breakfast?”

  I felt Cass stiffen instantly. But it had been his invitation, not mine. And I couldn’t think of a polite way to refuse, since I had initiated the request in the first place.

  “Fine,” I agreed lamely, and Cass slammed the door behind her as she went in.

  Harper mounted the steps and stood next to me on the porch. He wore a denim Western-style work shirt that had once been deep indigo and was now soft and faded into a pastel blue. It made his eyes even bluer and showed off the tanned column of his throat. A huge oval buckle gleamed on his belt, heavy silver embossed with a gold shield and letters. I couldn’t read it because I didn’t want to be rude or obvious, but I recalled his mention of competing in rodeos the night before and wondered if the buckle was a trophy. Cass wore a similar one.

  “After breakfast?” he repeated. “Or have you got something else planned?”

  “I said it was fine.” I thrust the vest at him. “Here. I forgot to give it back to you last night.”

  He took it. “So you did.”

  I stuffed my hands into tight jean pockets and lifted my chin to challenge him. “What will you tell Nathan about my cabin being searched? Or will you tell him?”

  He smiled briefly and opened the screen door for me. “I told him your lock got broken. ”

  “You lied to him?” Somehow it incriminated him further.

  He shrugged and followed me in. “I took a crowbar to it a couple of minutes ago.”

  “Harper!”

  He nearly tripped over me as I stopped dead. “I just made sure the catch doesn’t work,” he explained dryly. “So now we need a locksmith out to replace the whole shebang. I thought it was easier than concocting a story.” He started to walk around me.

  I stared at him consideringly. “Somehow,” I began finally, “I think if you really wanted to get into my cabin, a new lock would never stop you.”

  “You’re absolutely right.” He tipped his hat dismissively and went ahead of me into the dining room.

  After breakfast I met Harper down by the tack room. He handed me the reins to a saddled palomino mare and told me to mount. “Her name’s Hornet. Mostly she’s got a good walk.”

  I smiled at him. “I have ridden before. Alone, in a saddle. And at a faster pace.”

  He sighed and resettled his hat. “That wasn’t what I meant. Quit putting words in my mouth. You’ll see what I’m talking about when you ride her.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  He shook his head and turned away, untying Sunny from the hitching rail. As he turned the horse I saw a rifle in its scabbard hanging from the saddle.

  He was right about Hornet. I saw instantly why people treasured a good walking horse. Harper hadn’t concluded I couldn’t ride; he had meant me to have a horse who could stretch out and cover the miles effortlessly, comfortably. I very nearly apologized.

  He took me up into the trees, following a twisting trail full of switchbacks. Patches of snow lay under clustered branches, melting into the trail and forming tiny streamlets. I found myself lulled into a sense of well-being as we climbed higher into the Peaks, and hardly thought about the consequences of my questions. I was just making conversation.

  “Why did you buy into the ranch?”

  Harper, ahead of me on the trail, stiffened perceptibly. Then he twisted in the saddle to scowl at me. “Are we back to that?”

  I shrugged. “You must have been a good cowboy if you nearly won the-what was it?—All-Around title?” I saw the nod. “Did your injuries force you to give up the rodeo for Smoketree? You don’t really seem the type to enjoy hustling dudes.”

  His back was to me again. After a long moment he said something, but he said it to Sunny’s ears and I couldn’t hear anything except a muttered comment. I reminded him I was behind him, not ahead of him, and he twisted around once again. There was color in his lean face. “It’s my business.”

  “And it all sounds very suspicious.” I smiled at him. “Look out for that branch.”

  He swung around just in time to have the branch swipe the hat right off his head. Cursing softly, Harper pulled up and started to step off Sunny. The hat rolled down to Hornet, who instantly stopped and dropped her head to inspect it.

  I dismounted, captured the wayward hat and walked up the trail with Hornet following.

  Harper accepted it and carefully brushed away the dirt and pine needles. I grinned up at him, amused by his proprietary manner.

  Harper held the hat in his hands. His face was solemn as he looked down on me, and I saw an odd regret in his eyes. But also wariness, and the faintest tinge of suspicion.

  Suspicion, again. Of me. But why on earth—

  “Mount up,” he said. “And listen to me, okay?”

  I stayed where I was a moment longer, filled with conflicting emotions. Who was he to order me around? Why didn’t I just stay where I was and listen to what he had to say? Why didn’t I tell him what I thought of his proprietary manner?

  Probably because I was too chicken. And too curious. So I mounted my horse and urged Hornet up the trail toward Sunny.

  We could not ride abreast because the trail was not wide enough for two horses. Harper, compensating, rode half-turned in the saddle, facing me over one shoulder as Sunny walked calmly on. Such grace in horse and rider; such unacknowledged expertise.

  “I bought into Smoketree simply because Nathan needed money,” he told me. “Without going into a bunch of details—none of which are your business, anyway”—he softened it with a wry smile—“let me just say that things have been tough the past few years. More than tough. The heyday of the dude ranch is pretty well past, which leaves us on the short end of the stick.” He shrugged. “Inflation, then those funny incidents… anyway, he needed money, but he didn’t dare go to the banks because of other loans. So I came in as a partner. And on top of everything else, Nathan wants Cassie to go on to college.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I’m not against education,” he said dryly. “Do you really think I’m some dumb old cowboy who can barely read and write?” He grinned; a genuine grin, half-delighted, half-amused. “People judge people too quick—” Then he waved a hand in a brief, eloquently dismissive gesture. “I went to college myself. Got the old sheepskin; the whole works.” He shrugged. “Don’t do anything with it, of course—most people don’t—but I got out of college what I wanted. A chance to hit the college rodeos. Good training nowadays.” One big hand smoothed the slick red hair of Sunny’s wide rump. “Anyhow, Cassie’s meant for college. Her parents left her some money to see that a couple of years are paid for. But right now she wants to rodeo, and they made certain the schooling would come first.”

  “I don’t quite understand—”

  “They tied up the money in a trust. If she goes to school, she can use it for tuition and such. If she turns pro now and hits the road, she has to do it all on her own, until she’s twenty-one.”

  “And Nathan?”

  Harper smiled. “He’s sort of stuck between two worlds. He never rodeoed himself, but he knows what it can do to a man’s soul. Or a woman’s.” He grinned a moment as he stuck the qualification in, anticipating my protest. “He wants Cassie to go to school, but he wants her to be happy. Still, he has to abide by the terms of his nephew’s will. So right now he’s scraping together what money he can to send her to school, and trying to keep Smoketree alive.”

  “If he sold it—if you both sold it—Cass would have money enough to do what she wanted, wouldn’t she?”

  “No. Cassie only gets what Nathan leaves her on his own death, and what it costs for her upkeep. She earns her keep here. But it’s not enough to subsidize a rodeo career.”

  That explained why the developers would offer her money. If she talked Nathan into selling, she’d profit by it. So would Harper. Only Nathan would lose. Perhaps not monetarily, but Smoketree would be gone. It was no wonder the man was tight as a woun
d watch-spring lately.

  “If you don’t sell,” I suggested, “if you go on as you are, all of you, here at Smoketree, what happens in the end?”

  “Cassie’s Nathan’s heir,” he said. “His wife died in the same plane crash that killed her folks; there’s no one else. What Nathan has goes to her.”

  “But only half of Smoketree, now that you’re a partner.” Harper smiled. “Painting a picture of my guilt?”

  I felt the heat in my face at once. “Not really,” I said, “but now that you mention it—”

  He nodded. “Looks bad, doesn’t it? Something happens to Nathan, Cass inherits, and then it’s up to her and me to decide what happens to Smoketree. Since she wants to hit the circuit—” He trailed off purposely, painting the picture more vividly than I could.

  He waited for me to speak. I could see it in his face. What had begun as a lame excuse for a game had taken on greater proportions. He seemed to think I had some stake in the answers I got from him, when I didn’t even know what the questions were.

  “Well,” I said finally, “it does seem as though you’d profit more than anyone else if Smoketree were sold.”

  “No doubt,” he agreed. “But then I’ve never said I wanted to sell, have I?”

  I looked straight at him. “I imagine you would, if the price were right.”

  Sunny walked on. Harper still stared at me, twisted in the saddle so that he faced me, the hat pulled low over his face. We were close enough for me to sense an unexpected intensity; too far for me to see much of his expression.

  He smiled a little. “Maybe so.”

  I turned the topic at once, for he seemed unsurprised by my statement. “Why did you leave rodeo? You could have bought your half of Smoketree as an investment and stayed on the circuit. Or weren’t you making a living?”

  He laughed once, almost a hoot of astonished amusement. “Making a living?” he asked incredulously. “Hell, I made so much money I couldn’t spend it all if I tried.”

  I had never considered rodeo a sport—or even a profession—that paid very well. I’d never considered rodeo at all. "Really?” I asked in surprise. “Then why—”

  “Had to.” The words overrode mine. Something flared briefly in his eyes and I saw a harsh shape twist his mouth. “The doctors flat told me—ordered me—to quit. That or risk never walking again. The leg was bad enough, but the busted back finished it.” His eyes were bitter. “I decided I’d rather stay whole, so I came to Smoketree to wrangle.”

  I thought it over. “If you made that much money during your rodeo career, you could have ignored wrangling altogether.”

  “Could have,” he agreed blandly, “but Nathan needed the help.” The moustache moved a little. “And I had a wife who didn’t think much of settling down on a dude ranch. Divorces are expensive.”

  “If you made that much money riding broncs,” I asserted yet again, “you don’t need the money selling Smoketree would get you.”

  “Don’t I?” He was unsmiling. “Arizona’s a community property state, you see. Legally, she got half of everything I had. But then I hadn’t reckoned on her figuring out the game so quick.” This time there was a smile, a small, grim smile.

  “She didn’t leave me a whole hell of a lot. ” He ducked another low branch. “So there you have it. Makes more sense, now, doesn’t it? All that suspicion of yours.”

  “You wouldn’t admit it outright, not like this,” I protested. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”

  “I know you’re not stupid,” he agreed. “Maybe too smart for your own good.”

  The horses tapped their way across a fall of granite and shale, knocking stones off the edge of the trail. The mountain fell away on my left, dropping in a craggy, earthen waterfall to the forest below.

  Before I could say anything to Harper’s unexpected observation, he pulled up Sunny and cursed.

  “What is it?” I stopped Hornet instantly.

  He gestured. “The fence. Notice anything?”

  I noticed. The Forest Service fence skirting the winding trail had been cut cleanly and bent back to provide easy access to government land.

  Or easy access to Smoketree.

  The sound of a firing engine jerked our heads around. It came through the trees, distorted by distance, echoing in the clear mountain air.

  Harper spun Sunny and faced me, one hand drawing the rifle free of its scabbard. “Ride up the trail about two hundred feet,” he ordered tersely. “You’ll see a pine broken and blasted by lightning, and a stone cairn on your left. Wait for me there.”

  “Harper—”

  “Wait for me. I’ll come for you. ” He put Sunny into the opening in the fence and sent him crashing through the deadfall and needle-carpeted ground.

  I found the shattered tree and cairn right where he said it would be, and then saw a faint trail. It traced its way down the cragged shoulder of the mountain, steep and treacherous. Chipped, hollowed scars in stone marked where horses had gone before, but I didn’t see how.

  I patted Hornet’s yellow neck to reassure myself as much as the horse. “You couldn’t get me down there with a crane,” I told her firmly. “Much less on a horse.”

  “Go home,” said a voice from behind.

  I jerked around in the saddle, staring wide-eyed at a man on the other side of the fence. Hornet side-stepped uneasily.

  “Go home,” the man repeated. “Today. Before you get hurt.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but something cracked loudly in the thin air and Hornet went plunging wildly down the mountainside.

  Chapter Nine

  I clung to the mare’s neck, half out of the saddle as she scrambled down the indistinct path. Footing was practically non-existent. I felt my grip sliding with every jarring step. My left stirrup was gone, slapping freely against Hornet’s side. My foot clamped helplessly against her flank; though I knew such pressure would encourage her flight, I couldn’t help myself.

  Fingernails snapped as I clawed at the saddle, trying to drag myself upright. My right hand still gripped the horn, but every sliding half-leap, half-step Hornet took loosened my grasp. I bit my lip and felt it tear, but the pain was hardly noticeable in all my fear.

  One rein dangled freely, snagging on brush and branches as Hornet plunged on heedlessly. The other one was twisted around my right hand, and as I pulled myself upright I realized it was my only chance. I began to reel in the slack, like a fisherman playing a tarpon.

  I called something to the mare, trying to stop her maddened flight. She slipped and slid, floundering in the loose shale and earth. My head snapped on my neck and I gritted my teeth, trying to ignore the wrenching of my spine. When at last the rein was taut I began to pull her into a circle.

  The pitch of the mountain was steep, too steep for the trick to work perfectly. But it slowed her. She stumbled again, scrabbling across a granite outcrop, and I loosened my grip and pushed off.

  I fell sideways, instinctively wrapping arms around my head and drawing up my legs. Something beneath me cracked; a dirtfall slid over my hands; a rock dug into my side. Then I was still.

  Hornet crashed and scrambled her way down the mountainside. I lay very quietly for a moment, marveling at the fact I was still alive, then slowly unwound my limbs. Everything hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken.

  I released a long, slow, hissing sigh and sat up. The sky was up and the ground down, so at least everything seemed to be in place. I tongued my split lip and felt the swelling, wiping gently at the blood that had spilled down my chin.

  I heard him arrive at the edge of the trail. Slowly I looked up. For a moment all I could see was the shape: a man on horseback, hat pulled low; he stood in the stirrups as he peered down the hazardous trail.

  “Kelly?” he called. “Kelly—”

  I heard the hissing slide of dirt and rock as it spilled over the edge of the trail. Carefully I perched myself on a rounded portion of a large granite boulder and waited.

  He muttered s
omething and flung himself off Sunny. He embarked on a clumsy, sliding course down the mountainside, arms thrust outward for balance. Sunny waited at the top, peering down curiously as his rider departed; soon enough his attention turned to succulent grass edging the trail, and we were both forgotten.

  Harper arrived rapidly, halting his noisy, graceless descent with a single braced leg. He winced, paled a little, and I realized the old injury interfered with more than rodeo.

  “Kelly,” he said again, fearfully, and I saw in his face emotions I’d never thought to see from him.

  For an odd moment all I desired was to reassure him, to say all the words that would erase the pain in his eyes and the strain of his face.

  I backed away from the moment at once, taking refuge in lightness. What I had seen in myself was something I could not yet comprehend. Not this soon…

  “I think I found the trail,” I said.

  An expression I couldn’t name crossed his face, leaching it of character. “Kelly—”

  I sat calmly on the boulder, aching in every bone, and yet more concerned with the inner me than the outer.

  “What’s broken?” he asked harshly.

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let me see.”

  I stretched out both arms for his inspection. They were bent; unbroken. But scarred. The sleeves of my sweater had ridden up so that my forearms were bared.

  He looked from my arms to my face. “How’s your head?”

  “Attached.”

  Some of his color was coming back. But not enough. “Stand up.”

  “Can’t I just—”

  “Stand up, dammit! I want to see if you can walk.”

  I pushed myself off my rock, standing upright before him. I felt fine—for an instant—and then I blinked as the sky spun slowly around.

  He sat me back down again on the rock. One hand pressed my head down against my knees. The hand remained on the back of my neck, fingers tangled in my hair. “Cry, if you want,” he said.