A Cowboy's Love

by J. M. Bronston

Then he stopped skimming and, while they all sat silently he carefully read Jamie’s and Cal’s affidavits concerning everything that had happened in the last few days, including what Mandy had told Jamie about Ray and Tina, and what Cal had found in Ray’s trailer.

  Finally, he stopped reading and looked at Cal for a long minute, while he pinched at his chin thoughtfully. At last, tilting himself way back in his big swivel arm chair, he spoke.

  “I want to go off the record,” he said, and immediately Betty stopped transcribing. Jamie felt her heart drop.

  The judge continued to study Cal intently, looking him up and down, as though he was measuring him. He said, “Calvin Cameron. Cal Cameron.” He repeated the words a couple of times, obviously trying to place the name. Cal was rotating his hat nervously in his hands and the judge had a sudden image of a handsome young man in the bright sunlight, raising his hat triumphantly to a cheering crowd.

  “Didn’t I see you maybe a couple of summers ago? Up in Cheyenne, at the big Frontier Days rodeo?”

  “Yes, sir. That was probably me, sir.”

  “I remember. You had one hell of a day. As I recall, you went home a big winner that day.”

  “I guess I did, sir. Yes, sir.” Cal was beginning to squirm in his chair, embarrassed. He was spinning the hat still more nervously.

  “I’ve always had a lot of respect for rodeo cowboys,” Judge Prescott said. “I did a little rodeo myself back in high school.”

  He said nothing more for a while, and the silence in the room became intense. He was apparently thinking long and hard.

  “Young man,” he said to Cal, peering intently at him. “I’m satisfied that the information contained in your affidavit is accurate and will be supported by the evidence. And I’m not going to make a fuss and ask how you got it. In a case like this, where the safety of a young child is concerned and where the possibility of serious harm is very genuine, I’m inclined to look the other way, so long as the evidence satisfies me. I presume you are prepared to face the consequences of a possible charge of trespass.” He paused momentarily and chuckled. “Trespass, at the very least.”

  Cal only nodded and said, “Yes, sir. I am.”

  “Okay,” Judge Prescott said. Without turning to look at his reporter, he said, “Let’s go back on the record.” Betty’s fingers began to whirr again, and the judge turned to Elaine.

  “Counsel, as far as I’m concerned, this evidence is adequate, pending a search pursuant to a duly executed warrant. It is my understanding that you will also subpoena the medical records for the civil action.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  They talked some more technical talk and finally, while Jamie’s heart raced excitedly, the judge unscrewed the top from his fountain pen.

  “All right,” he said, “I have no problem with this order.”

  He leaned forward again and put his signature on the precious piece of paper that Elaine had prepared for him.

  “Here you are, Ms. Sundstrom.” He passed the paper across the desk to Jamie, whose hand was still shaking as she took it from him. She hadn’t spoken a word since they’d walked in, and she wondered if the whole proceeding could have been conducted without her.

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” She was surprised that any words at all came out of her nerve-choked throat. “Thank you.”

  For the first time, the judge smiled at her. “That’s all there is to it, ma’am. Now, you go on home,” he said, “and get your little girl.”

  Outside, in the parking lot, Elaine took the temporary restraining order out of Jamie’s fingers, folded it and slipped it into an envelope that she took from her attaché case, and handed it back to Jamie.

  Jamie was still looking a little stunned by how it had all turned out. She wanted to say thank you, but Elaine saw it coming and headed her off.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it,” she said, “when the legal system works the way it should?”

  No one had a chance to say anything. She put a quick kiss on Jamie’s cheek, another on Cal’s, gave them each a hearty handshake, and was back in her big Lexus.

  “Go get ’em, kids,” she called out, waving happily at them, and she was away down Main Street, raising a cloud of dust as she went.

  Cal watched her speed off toward the interstate and shook his head, laughing.

  “Just like the Lone Ranger,” he said. “Hi-ho Silver, and away.”

  “That’s just what I was thinking,” Jamie said as she climbed into his truck.

  Chapter Twenty

  He tried to get her to take a quick break for dinner as they returned through Jimson. “How about it, Jamie? You haven’t had any solid food in you all day.”

  “I can’t, Cal. I can’t stop.” The envelope with the restraining order was folded up inside her shirt pocket and she touched her fingertips to it repeatedly, as though it was a lucky charm. “I’m not hungry at all. I just want us to get back to Mandy as fast as we can. It’s been a whole day Ray’s had her, and I promised her, Cal. I promised her she wouldn’t have to be with him. And now it’s been since last night and God knows what he’s done with her. I know she’s scared and she’s counting on me to come and get her. I can’t stop to eat. I couldn’t eat anything anyway. I’m too nervous.”

  “Well, we’re just coming up on the Chevron station at the end of town, and I have to stop to fill up the tank. So why don’t you run the gas and I’ll hustle on inside and pick us up some candy bars and maybe some juice or something. Isn’t good for you to be going all day without any food. Never know when you need your strength. Won’t be but a minute.”

  As long as they needed gas, Jamie was willing to agree if it really didn’t take but a minute, so while Cal paid for a handful of granola bars, a couple of packets of beef jerky, and some cartons of juice, she filled up the tank. They were out of there and on their way in ten minutes.

  The sack of food was on the floor at her feet, and she pulled out a granola bar and showed him, for his approval, that she’d do the right thing and get some food into her. She peeled back the paper and took a bite. She kept it down, and she finished off some juice and stick of jerky.

  While she ate, Cal kept the truck moving fast and steady along the wide open road that ran, unbending, like a painted line, inside the bright walls of his headlights. Only once did Cal have to swerve wide—to avoid a fawn that sprinted down the center of the road ahead of them, too confused to run into the shrubbery, while its mother ran desperately along the opposite side. The moon appeared and disappeared as a new front of clouds, wind-driven and moving rapidly, was building above them, threatening the next storm’s arrival in a few hours. Cal switched on the radio to check the weather forecast, and then left it on, so music played a soft background as they talked, while the high country raced past them.

  “Things have been moving so fast,” Jamie said, “I haven’t even thought, where am I going to stay with Mandy after I get her?”

  “You don’t want to take her to your place, I guess.”

  “No way. Not even for one night. She doesn’t even know her grandfather, and I’m not going to have her meet him this way. But I just started looking for a place this week, and I didn’t expect to be needing it all this soon.”

  “Well, shoot, honey. I don’t even have to ask Ellie and Harv. I know you and Mandy can stay at their place. They’ve got a guest room, and I can bunk down anywhere at all, easy.”

  “Well, maybe for a couple of days, just till I get things worked out.”

  The shift in her life—all set in motion so quickly, much more quickly than she’d had time to plan for—began to present itself alarmingly, with demands and consequences she hadn’t thought to sort out yet.

  “Maybe for a couple of days anyway,” she said again. “Maybe I could take a little more time, maybe Gordie would understand, and maybe Ellie would be willing to keep an eye on Mandy while I look for a place. It’s just a couple of days.”

  “Why, sure she would. If I know my big sister, she�
�d just love to tuck another little one into her nest.”

  “Or maybe I can take Mandy with me. Might be fun for us to pick out our own new home together. Oh, God, Cal, I’m going to have Mandy with me.” Jamie closed her eyes and rested her head back against the seat behind her. “Every day. Get to tuck her in again at night and read to her. Dress her in the morning and brush her hair.” She opened her eyes and looked over at Cal. “That judge is going to make it permanent, isn’t he?”

  “I think you can count on it.” Without taking his eyes from the road, he reached over to her and put his arm around her, pulling her close to him.

  “Why don’t you come over here,” he said. “It’s been a real tough day. You ought to just close your eyes and rest a little bit. Do you good.”

  “I couldn’t. I’m too wound up.”

  But she did—she couldn’t help herself—and she snuggled up against him anyway, and in a minute or two the whisper of the road beneath them and the comfort of his arm and the cool night air on her face all worked their nighttime magic, and she did indeed doze off.

  * * *

  It was well after ten o’clock when they reached Sharperville. In another minute, they’d turned east on Eighth South and were heading for the trailer.

  Jamie took the restraining order from her pocket.

  When he opens that door and he sees me, and Cal is standing there next to me so that sonofabitch can’t pull anything funny on me, and when I show him that paper—

  She was breathing fast now as Cal pulled the truck up into the dirt at the front of the trailer. The light at the kitchen end of the trailer was on and behind the curtains of the living room window the intermittent gray light of the television was visible.

  “You’re coming with me, aren’t you, Cal?”

  “You bet I am. We’re just going to get her and leave. I’m not even turning off the motor.”

  They both got out of the truck and went to the door. Cal stood to one side, while Jamie knocked. She had the restraining order out of its envelope, unfolded and ready to show to Ray.

  Here, she could say, here, you sonofabitch, take a look at this.

  “What if he refuses?” she whispered.

  “Don’t worry, honey. If you have to, you just go back to the truck and call the deputy sheriff. Shouldn’t be any fuss. And as long as I’m here, Ray’s not going anywhere. Al Crosby’s a smart fellow and a good deputy. He’ll know how to make Ray listen to reason.”

  They waited another moment in the silence. She didn’t like it, how quiet everything was. She knocked again. Someone moved inside and the light in the kitchen went out. She looked at Cal, suddenly alarmed.

  The truck’s headlights were behind him and Cal’s face was shadowed, but she could see that his eyes had narrowed and that his expression had grown very serious. He set his hat forward, and then spoke to her, very quietly.

  “Get into the truck, Jamie. Back it away from here and turn off the lights. Keep the motor running and wait for me.”

  She didn’t ask any questions and she didn’t argue with him. She turned and ran for the truck, getting in behind the wheel. Quickly, she folded up the judge’s order, returned it to its envelope, and buttoned it into her shirt pocket. Then she backed the truck away, out of sight.

  * * *

  Cal didn’t like the feel of this. He’d given a quick thought to getting his Smith and Wesson out of the truck, but if Mandy was in there, there couldn’t be a gunfight. He flattened himself up against the front of the trailer, to the side of the door that would open away from him, and waited. He knew that Jamie’s knock must have provoked some curiosity, and in a little while someone would stick a head out that door to investigate. With a little luck, this would be his chance to meet up with Ray Nixon. He could feel all his reflexes getting set. He’d just have to remember that if the little girl was there, he’d have to keep it quiet. Wouldn’t do to scare her, and Jamie would never forgive him. But if Mandy wasn’t there—

  He kept his breathing slow, getting ready.

  Just have to be careful not to kill the sonofabitch.

  A minute passed and then, just as he’d expected, the door cracked and a man’s lanky figure filled in the narrow opening. The television’s light revealed his face.

  Damn it! Wrong man!

  Cal recognized Orrin Fletcher’s ragged face. With his left hand, Cal pushed the door fully open and with his right, he slammed hard against Fletcher’s chest, throwing him backward into the living room. Fletcher stumbled, landed awkwardly on the sofa, and sat there dumbly, like a man just looking up from his television program.

  Cal, standing in the doorway, lifted his hand to one side and flicked on the light switch. He looked around quickly. No sign of the little girl. The man on the sofa looked at him as though he couldn’t believe his bad luck.

  “Jeez, what are you doing? Following me around?”

  “Maybe I should be. What are you doing here? And where’s Nixon?” Cal watched him warily. The man didn’t appear to be armed, but there were a lot of weapons around this place.

  “I don’t know nothing about where Ray is. I’m just waiting here for him.” His voice had slid into a disgusting whine and Cal knew he was lying.

  “Don’t give me that crap, Fletcher. You know damned well where he is.” Cal’s voice was getting quieter, and he could feel a kind of slow, steady pulse growing stronger in him, like a bull pawing the ground, getting ready. He knew what was coming.

  “Where’s the little girl?” he asked. “Is she with him? Fletcher, don’t mess with me. Is the little girl with him?”

  “I told you, I don’t know nothing.” Fletcher’s pale eyes moved back and forth as though he was trying to think through something that was too difficult for him.

  Cal’s mind was crystal clear. Like in the minute before you give the signal and the gate is opened and the ride begins. And your breathing and your timing and your reflexes all come together and you know exactly what you’re doing. He reminded himself, be careful not to kill him.

  Then he took two long strides toward the sofa and before Fletcher could move, Cal brought up his arm and backhanded him, throwing him back into the sofa. Fletcher’s face twisted grotesquely, his mouth hung open, stupidly. He tried to come up off the sofa, and Cal hit him once more with the flat of his hand, hard, and then back again, a third blow. He saw the blood begin to run inside Fletcher’s mouth and the quiet part of Cal’s mind wondered how much would be enough to make up for what this stinking sonofabitch had done to Jamie.

  “I told you, Fletcher. Don’t mess with me.” He grabbed the man’s hair and twisted his head around so that he came off the sofa, one knee bent to the floor. “Where’s the little girl?”

  Fletcher was clawing at Cal’s hand, trying to make him let go. “I don’t know. Jeez, I don’t know!”

  Cal lifted him up from the floor, still holding him by the hair, and pulled his head back, his chin forward, a perfect target for Cal’s fist, which drove solidly up against Fletcher’s face, throwing him across the room. His body crashed into the door and he spun through it, stumbling into the dirt outside the trailer, with Cal right after him.

  Nearby, sheltered by a thick stand of juniper, Jamie was waiting in the truck. She saw the two men spill out of the trailer and, in the light that came through the open door, she saw that it was Orrin Fletcher and not Ray, and she saw him hit the ground and she saw Cal, following hard behind him, pull him up and turn him around to face him. Cal hit the man again, once in the belly, doubling him up, and a second time in the face, throwing him into one of the cars that was parked there, the resounding metallic noise reaching Jamie in the truck.

  Oh, God! Cal is going to kill him!

  There was blood messing up Fletcher’s face and splattering onto his shirt. Cal was straddling the slumping figure, with one hand holding him upright against the car and with the other smacking his face, back and forth, repeatedly, grimly timing the deliberate blows, putting his maximum strength int
o them. Gradually, as he continued to hit him, he let Fletcher slide slowly to the ground. Then, as he flattened out in the dirt, Fletcher rolled himself over, drawing up his knees and covering his head with his arms, trying to protect himself. Cal dropped to one knee beside him, pinning Fletcher’s hands to the ground, the heel of his boot digging painfully into Fletcher’s back. He spoke to him very quietly, his voice just barely above a whisper.

  “That’s just for openers, Fletcher. Now listen to me real close, you filthy piece of slime, before I kick your ribs into your dirty heart. I want to know where that no-good buddy of yours is and I want to know where his little girl is.”

  The heel of his boot dug in once, sharply. Cal was making sure he had Fletcher’s full attention.

  “All right! All right!”

  The blood from Fletcher’s face was running freely into the dry dirt, making an ugly mess beneath his head.

  “A plane’s coming in tonight, out in the desert. Ray went out to meet it. Him and his girlfriend. Tina.” He squirmed futilely under Cal’s boot. “They had the kid in the van when they left here. I don’t know what they did with her.”

  “Where? Tell me, you sonofabitch!” Cal’s rage made it hard for him to get the words out. Those freaking bastards had taken Mandy with them on this job! “Where’s the goddamned drop?” He ground his foot angrily into Fletcher’s back once more.

  Fletcher gasped, unable to speak, and Cal eased up, letting him catch his breath.

  “I got it written down,” Fletchers said, when he could talk. “I got it on a piece of paper. In my pocket.” He was still struggling to breathe. “Let me loose. Let me get up. I’ll give it to you.”

  Cal backed off him, ready to kick him down again at the first wrong move. Fletcher raised himself painfully on all fours, his head hanging, the blood and dirt smeared on his face. He dropped back against the car, sitting heavily against the front tire, and reached with a couple of fingers into the pocket of his bloodied shirt, pulling out a torn piece of note paper. With his other hand, he wiped at his nose and mouth, looking at his hand as though he was confused by what had happened to him.