by B. J Daniels
He saw that she didn’t believe that. “Look, it’s clear that they are very organized. No fly-by-night bunch. They move fast and efficiently. They know what they’re doing, where they’re going to go next.”
“So?” she asked.
“If you think I can predict their movements, then you wasted your time and your money getting me an early release. You might as well drive me back to prison right now.”
“Don’t tempt me. You said you think they want me to assume they’re going to hit Waters’s ranch. What does that mean?”
“They wouldn’t be that obvious. Sorry, but isn’t the reason this bunch has been so hard to catch the fact that they don’t do what you expect them to? That gives them the upper hand.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Mr. Savage.”
He sighed and looked at the map again. “Are these the number of cattle stolen per ranch?” he asked, pointing to the notations she’d made beside the red x’s.
She gave him an exasperated look, her jaw still tight.
He could see why she thought the ring would be looking for a big score. The rustlers were being cautious, taking only about fifty head at a time, mostly not-yet-branded calves that would be hard to trace. Smart, but not where the big money was.
Jacklyn got up from the table as if too nervous to sit still, and started clearing up their dinner.
“It’s not about the money,” he said to her back.
She turned as she tossed an empty Chinese food box into the trash. “Stop trying to con me.”
“I’m not. You’re looking at this rationally. Rustling isn’t always rational—at least the motive behind it isn’t. Hell, there are a lot of better ways to make a living.”
“I thought you said it was simple math, quick bucks, little risk,” she said, an edge to her voice.
So she had been listening. “Yeah, but it’s too hit-or-miss. With a real job you get to wear a better wardrobe, have nicer living conditions. Not to mention a 401 K salary, vacation and sick pay, plus hardly anyone ever shoots at you.”
“Your point?” she said, obviously not appreciating his sense of humor.
She started to scoop up the map, but he grabbed her hand, more to get her attention than to stop her. He could feel her pulse hammering against the pad of his thumb, which he moved slowly in a circle across the warm flesh. His heart kicked up a beat as her eyes met his.
What the hell was he doing? He let go and she pulled back, her gaze locked with his, a clear warning in all that gunmetal-gray.
“All I’m saying is that you have to think like they think,” he said.
She shook her head. “That’s your job.”
“The only way I can do that is if I know what they really want,” he said.
“They want cattle.”
He laughed. “No. Trust me, it’s not about cattle. It’s always about the end result. The cattle are just a means to an end. What we need to know is what they’re getting out of this. It isn’t the money. They aren’t making enough for it to be about money. So what do they really want?”
“The money will come from a big score. Waters’s W Bar Ranch.”
“After they’ve telegraphed what they are going to do so clearly that it’s what you’re expecting?” He snorted. “No, they have something else in mind.”
She shook her head as if he was talking in riddles. “I won’t know what they want until I catch them.”
He grinned. “Catching them is one thing. Finding out who they are is another.”
She was glaring at him again.
“You’ve been trying to catch an unnamed ring of cattle rustlers,” he said patiently. “What do these men do when they aren’t rustling cattle? You can bet they work on these ranches,” he said, pointing at the map.
She sat back down very slowly. He could tell she was trying to control her temper. She thought he was messing with her.
“Look,” he said softly. “You already know a lot about these guys.” He ticked items off on his fingers. “One, someone smart is running this operation. That’s why these characters seem to know what they’re doing and why they haven’t made any mistakes. Two, they know the country.” He nodded. “We’re talking some inside jobs here. They know not only where to find the cattle, but which ones to take and when. They either work on the ranches or have a connection of some kind.”
She crossed her arms, scowling but listening.
“Three, they’re cowboys. They’re too good at working with cattle not to be, and they’ve used horses for most of their raids. I’ll bet you these guys can ride better at midnight on a moonless night in rough terrain than most men can ride in a corral in broad daylight.”
She actually smiled at that.
He smiled back, then asked, “What’s so humorous?”
“You. You just described yourself,” she said, her gaze locking with his. “We’re looking for someone just like you. How about that.”
WHEN THE CALL CAME hours later, Jacklyn was in the middle of a nightmare. She jerked awake, dragging the bad dream into the room with her as she fumbled for her cell phone beside the bed.
“Tom Robinson’s in the hospital,” Stratton said without preamble. “He’s unconscious. The doctors aren’t sure he’s going to make it.”
Jacklyn fought to wake up, to make sense of what he was saying and what this had to do with her. Although she couldn’t remember any specifics of the nightmare, she knew it had been about the leader of the rustling ring. He’d been trying to kill her, stalking her among some trees. She could still feel him out there, feel the danger, the fear, sense him so close that if she looked over her shoulder… It had been Dillon, hadn’t it?
“It seems like he might have stumbled across the rustlers,” Stratton said. “His hired hand found him near a spot where someone had cut the fence.”
She glanced at the clock next to the bed. It was just after midnight.
“Are you there?” Stratton asked irritably. Like her, he’d obviously been awakened by the call about Tom. “When Tom didn’t return home for dinner, his hired hand tracked him down, and got him to the hospital. You know what this means, don’t you?”
Jacklyn threw off the covers and sat up, trying to throw off the remnants of the dream and the chilling terror that still had her in its grip, too. Snapping on the light beside the bed, she asked, “Did they get any cattle?”
“No. He must have scared the rustlers away.”
More awake, she said, “You told everyone to stay out of the area, right? To wait until I got there before they fix the fence?”
“Sheriff McCray already went out to the scene tonight.”
She swore under her breath.
“I told Robinson’s hired man that you’d be there first thing in the morning. The rustlers have moved up a level on the criminal ladder. If Tom dies, they’ve gone from rustling to murder.” With that he hung up.
She closed her cell phone and, bleary-eyed, glanced again at the clock, then at the monitor. She’d turned it down so there was no steady beep indicating where Dillon Savage was at the moment.
But she could see that he was in the room next door. Probably sleeping like a baby, without a care in the world.
With both a real nightmare and a bad dream hanging over her, she fought the urge to wake him up and ruin his sleep, just as hers had been. She wondered what Dillon Savage’s reaction would be to the news.
She turned out the light and crawled back under the covers, even though she doubted she’d get back to sleep. Silently, she prayed that Tom Robinson would regain consciousness and be able to identify his assailants.
The rustlers had messed up this time. They’d been seen. It was their first mistake.
Chapter Five
The drive north the next morning was like going home again for Dillon Savage. Except for the fact that he had no home. Which made seeing the land he knew so well all that much harder to take.
Not to mention that Jack wasn’t talking to him. She’d broken the
news at breakfast.
“You all right?” he’d finally asked, over pancakes and bacon. She’d seemed angry with him all morning. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done recently that would have set her off, but then, given their past…
She’d looked up from her veggie omelet and leveled those icy gray eyes on him. “Tom Robinson was found near death yesterday evening on his ranch. Apparently, he stumbled across the rustlers. He’s in the hospital. His ranch hands found him—along with a spot in the fence where the barbed wire had been cut.” She’d stared at Dillon, waiting.
“I’m sorry to hear about Tom. I always liked him,” he had said, meaning it. But his words only seemed to make Jack’s mood more sour, if that was possible.
Tom Robinson was one of the few neighbors who still had his place. Dillon had often wondered how he’d managed to keep his spread when almost all the other ranchers around the W Bar had sold out to Shade Waters.
“If Tom was attacked by the rustlers, then they just went from felony theft to attempted murder,” Jack had pointed out. “But the good news is that when Tom regains consciousness, he’ll be able to identify them.”
“Good,” Dillon had said, seeing that she was bluffing. She had no way of knowing if Tom Robinson had gotten a good look at whoever had attacked him, let alone if it was the rustlers. “Sounds like you got a break.” She was staring at him, so he frowned at her. “What?”
“Come on, Dillon,” she’d said, dropping her voice. It was the first time she’d called him by his first name. “You and I both know you’re the leader of this rustling ring. Once Tom identifies who attacked him, your little house of cards is going to come tumbling down. Tell me the truth now and I will try to get you the best deal I can.”
He had laughed, shaking his head. “Jack, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m not your man.” He’d grinned and added, “At least not for that role, anyway. I told you. I’ve gone straight. No more iron bars for me.”
She hadn’t believed him.
He should have saved his breath, but he’d tried to assure her she was wrong. “There’s a lot of injustice in the world. I’m sorry Tom got hurt. But Jack, if you think I have anything to do with this—”
“Don’t even bother,” she’d snapped, throwing down her napkin. Breakfast was over.
Since then, she hadn’t said two words to him.
He stared out his window. The golden prairie was dotted with antelope, geese and cranes, and of course, cows. This was cattle country and had been for two hundred years. Ranch houses were miles apart and towns few and far between.
It amazed Dillon how little things had changed over the years. He kept up on the news and knew that places like Bozeman had been growing like crazy.
But this part of Montana had looked like this for decades, the landscape changing little as the population diminished. Kids left the farms and ranches for greener pastures in real towns or out of state.
But as isolated and unpopulated as this country was, there was a feeling of community. While there had been little traffic this morning, everyone they passed had waved, usually lifting just a couple of fingers from the steering wheel or giving a nod.
There was so much that he’d missed. Some people didn’t appreciate this land. It was fairly flat, with only the smudged, purple outline of mountains far in the distance. There was little but prairie, and a pencil-straight, two-lane road running for miles.
But to him it was beautiful. The grasses, a deep green, undulated like waves in the wind. The sky was bluer than any he’d ever seen. Willows had turned a bright gold, dogwood a brilliant red. Everywhere he looked there were birds.
God, how he’d missed this.
He’d known it would be hell coming back here. Especially after his four-year stint in prison. He’d never dreamed he’d return so soon—or with Jack—let alone have a microchip embedded behind his left ear. Life was just full of surprises.
The farther north Jacklyn drove, the more restless Dillon became. He’d hoped the years in prison had changed him, had at least taught him something about himself. But this place brought it all back. The betrayal. The anger. The aching need for vengeance.
“I’m sorry, where did you say we were going?” he asked. Jack, of course, hadn’t said.
“Your old stompin’ grounds,” she said.
That’s what he was afraid of. They’d gone from the motel to pick up a horse trailer, two horses and tack. He couldn’t wait to get back in the saddle. He was just worried where that horse was going to take him. Maybe more to the point, what he would do once he and Jack were deep in this isolated country, just the two of them.
JACKLYN HAD HER OWN reasons for not wanting to go north that morning. The big one was that Sheriff Claude McCray had sent word he had to see her.
Claude was the last man she wanted to see. And with good reason. The last time she’d been with him they’d gotten into an argument after making love. She’d broken off their affair, knowing she’d been an idiot to get involved with him in the first place. She was embarrassed and ashamed.
When Dillon had asked her if she didn’t regret something she’d done, she’d thought of Sheriff McCray. Since the breakup, she’d made a point of staying out of his part of Montana.
But today she had no choice. And maybe, just maybe, the reason McCray wanted to see her had something to do with Tom Robinson and the men who had attacked him, given the fact that the sheriff had gone to her crime scene last night.
The day was beautiful as she drove out of Lewistown pulling the horse trailer. Behind her, in her rearview mirror, she could see the Big Snowy Mountains and the Little Belts. Once she made it over the Moccasins and the Judiths, the land stretched to the horizon, rolling fields broken only occasionally by rock outcroppings or a lone tree or two.
Jack stared at the straight stick of a road that ran north, away from the mountains, away from any town of any size, and dreaded seeing Sheriff Claude McCray again—especially with Dillon Savage along.
She’d never forgive herself for foolishly becoming involved with someone she occasionally worked with. Not a good idea. On top of that, she’d gotten involved with Claude for all the wrong reasons.
Jacklyn turned off the two-lane highway onto a narrow, rutted dirt road. As far as the eye could see there wasn’t a house or barn. Usually this open land comforted her, but not this morning, with everything she had on her mind. She felt antsy, as if she were waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She’d called the hospital before she’d left the motel. Tom Robinson was in critical condition. It was doubtful he would regain consciousness. She was angry and sickened. She liked Tom.
Selfishly, she’d wanted him to come to in the hopes that he could ID at least one of the rustlers. With just one name, she knew she could put pressure on that individual to identify the person running the ring. Dillon Savage.
She glanced over at him. She’d give him credit; he’d seemed genuinely upset over hearing about Tom. But was that because he’d known and liked the man, as he’d said? Or because his little gang of rustlers had gone too far this time and now might be found out?
He didn’t look too worried that he was going to be caught, she thought. He was slouched in the seat, gazing out the window, watching the world go by as if he didn’t have a care. Could she be wrong about him? Maybe. But there was something going on with him. She could feel it.
“So we’re heading to the Robinson place,” Dillon said, guessing that would be at least one of their stops today.
“After that we’re going to the W Bar.”
He could feel her probing gaze on him again, as if she was waiting for a reaction.
But he wasn’t about to give her one. He just nodded, determined not to let her see how he felt about even the thought of crossing Shade Waters’s path. He hadn’t seen Waters since the day Jack had arrested him.
The truth was she’d probably saved his life, given that Shade had had a shotgun—and every intention of killing Dillon on
the spot that day.
“Waters know you got me out of prison?” he asked.
“Probably the reason he wants to see me.”
Dillon chuckled. “This should be interesting then.”
“You’ll be staying in the pickup—and out of trouble. Your work with me has nothing to do with Shade Waters,” she said in that crisp, no-nonsense tone.
He smiled. “Just so I’m there to witness his reaction when you tell him that. Unless you want to leave me at the bar in Hilger and pick me up on your way back.”
She shot him a look. “Until this rustling ring is caught, you and I are attached at the hip.”
“I do like that image,” he said, and grinned over at her.
She scowled and went back to her driving. “Any animosity you have for Waters or any other ranchers, you’re to keep to yourself.”
“What animosity?” he asked with a straight face. “I’m a changed man. Any hard feelings I had about Shade Waters I left behind that razor wire fence you broke me out of.”
She gave him a look that said she’d believe that when hell froze over. “Just remember what I said. I don’t need any trouble out of you. I have enough with Waters.”
“Don’t worry, Jack, I’ll be good,” Dillon said, and pulled down the brim on his hat as he slid down in the seat again. He tried not to think about Tom Robinson or Shade Waters or even Jack.
Instead, he thought about lying in the bathtub last night at the motel, bubbles up to his neck. And later, sprawled on the big bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to convince himself he wasn’t going to blow his freedom. Not for anything. Even justice.
The bath had been pure heaven. The bed was huge and softer than anything he’d slept on in years. In prison, he’d had a pad spread on a concrete slab. A real bed had felt strange, and had made him wonder how long it would take to get used to being out.
How long did it take not to be angry that normal no longer felt normal? Maybe as long as getting over the fact that someone owed him for the past four years of his life.
