CHRISTMAS AT THE CARDWELL RANCH

by B. J Daniels

  More silence. He heard her grunt a couple of times, then argue that she was coming to get what was hers.

  “Fine. I’ll wait until dark, and then I’ll drive up...Why do you say that?...Stop being so paranoid. So your name is on some list. What does that prove?...Stop yelling at me. You’re the one who got us into this.” She sighed and he heard the creak and groan of her footfalls as she moved away.

  He held his breath, thinking what the marshal had said to him on their way back into town earlier. “You’re not trained for this. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, just how dangerous it is.”

  Tag had mentally argued that he did know. But at this moment, he had to admit, he was just starting to realize how out of his league he really was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hud had planned to wait around and see if Wilma Emery made a move. He figured if she knew where her husband was, she might go to him. Or at least contact him.

  But as he drove away down the road and pulled over, he got a call from his father-in-law.

  “I’ve got some news,” Angus said. “Can you meet me at your house?”

  Hud figured if Angus talked to Harlan, he knew about the list, knew that his son-in-law’s name was on it. “I’ll be right there.”

  He drove home, ready to pack up his family and send them anywhere that might be safe. He wasn’t running because he knew there was no place he would ever feel safe. He felt more alive than he had in months.

  When he walked into his house, he saw that Angus hadn’t said anything to his daughter about what was going on. No doubt he was waiting for Hud to tell her about the murder list and about his name being on it.

  “Dad is back from his business trip,” Dana said when he came through the door.

  “I can see that. Honey, I need to talk to your dad....”

  “I should check on the kids,” Dana said, getting to her feet.

  Hud was surprised she would leave them alone so quickly. It wasn’t like her. He saw her send a curious glance toward them as she climbed the stairs, but she said nothing more. Nor did he and Angus until they heard her close the upstairs bedroom door.

  He turned on his father-in-law. “If this is about the list—”

  Angus was on his feet, finger to his lips, head cocked toward the kitchen.

  Hud followed him. “Lily McCabe is missing. Tag has taken off looking for her only God knows where,” he whispered once they were in the kitchen. “I’m sure Harlan told you about the list.” He pulled the paper from his pocket and shoved it at his father-in-law. “Lily McCabe was decoding it.”

  He couldn’t help being angry because he’d come into this so late. Until Mia Duncan had died, he thought both Angus and Harlan were out of this business. He’d had no idea that they were still involved in these kinds of things. Like Dana, he didn’t pay much attention when either came or went. Until now.

  “You should have trusted me,” he said as he watched Angus take in the names on the paper. He didn’t seem surprised—not even that his son-in-law’s name was there.

  Paul Brown was dead. Hud hadn’t wanted to believe these lists even existed. But now he was staring the truth in the face. Worse, he didn’t know who would be coming after him.

  After a moment, Angus turned on the water, just letting it run into the sink, before he answered. “Where did you get this list?”

  Hud told him what Tag had told him.

  “Do you have the thumb drive?”

  “Yes, but Tag has a copy. He plans to trade it for Lily.”

  Angus nodded. “This list,” he said, wadding up the paper in his hand and tossing it into the garbage, “isn’t the right one.”

  “What?”

  “Lily McCabe must have decoded it wrong or Mia passed the wrong one.”

  Hud raked a hand through his hair. “Then my name isn’t on the list?” He saw the answer in his father-in-law’s expression and swore under his breath.

  “Harlan’s in Billings at the women’s prison.”

  Hud felt his stomach roil. “You’re telling me Camilla is the one who put the hit out on me?” He knew that shouldn’t have come as a surprise, not after what had happened the day Camilla was sentenced.

  As she was being taken from the room, she was led past him. She stopped just inches from him.

  “I will get you if it’s the last thing I do,” she whispered through one of her innocent smiles. “You and your family.” Then she’d laughed as they’d dragged her away. He’d been hearing that laugh in his sleep for months.

  Angus met his gaze. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  There was both compassion and fear in the older man’s gaze. Hud didn’t even need to hear the rest. He knew. He’d known deep in his soul that this wasn’t over. That it wouldn’t be over until that crazy woman was dead.

  “Camilla Northland has been taken to the hospital,” Angus said. “She got into an altercation with two other inmates in the laundry room. Harlan hasn’t been able to talk to her yet. But with this hit out on you, we need to get Dana and the kids out of here.”

  * * *

  TUGGING OFF HIS Stetson, Hud ran a hand through his hair. The sun had set, and deep shadows had filled in under the pines.

  “How do you suggest we get your wife and children away from here two days before Christmas?” Angus asked.

  He knew his wife. “We have to tell her the truth. She has a right to know. She’s strong. She’ll—”

  “She won’t leave you, you should know that.”

  “Yes, he should know that,” Dana said from the kitchen doorway.

  * * *

  DARKNESS CAME ON quickly in the canyon. From a silky gray as the sun passed behind Lone Mountain, the canyon took on a chill even in the summer.

  In the winter once the sun was gone, the canyon became an icebox. Even if the snow on the roads had thawed during a warm December day, the melt now froze solid, the roads suddenly becoming ice-skating rinks.

  Tag didn’t see the dark coming, but he felt it. Wilma Emery had been moving restlessly around the cabin. He thought he heard her packing, the closet door in the bedroom across the hall opening, the ting of metal hangers as clothes were pulled off them, then the sound of dresser drawers being opened and closed.

  She dragged something heavy from the bedroom and down the hall toward the front door. He knew he would have to move fast once she left. Not the river route he’d taken to get here. He would have to reach his father’s pickup quickly if he hoped to tail her. He couldn’t lose her.

  He heard the front door open, followed by a series of grunts and groans and bumps and scrapes; then the door slammed shut.

  Tag counted to five and opened the storeroom door. No sound came from the front of the cabin. Hurriedly he moved to the living room and peeked out of a crack in the curtains.

  A solid-looking woman was shoving a huge duffel bag into the back of an older dark-colored large Suburban.

  He hurried out through the back, the way he’d come in, and worked his way along the side of the cabin in time to see her go back into the cabin. He knew he was taking a chance, but he rushed down the road toward where he’d left his father’s truck.

  Behind him he heard the sound of an engine kick over. The dual golden beams of headlights shot across the frozen expanse to his left. He rushed into the pines and hurriedly climbed behind the wheel of the old pickup. As he slid down in the seat, the lights of the Suburban washed through the cab.

  He held his breath, listening, half expecting the Suburban to slow, and then stop. There was no doubt in his mind that Wilma Emery was armed and dangerous. Or that he was in over his head.

  But she didn’t slow, didn’t stop and a moment later the cab of the pickup went dark again. He sat up, heart pounding. As the Suburban headed out
the narrow snowy unpaved road, he noticed that the right taillight had burned out.

  Tag doubted that the woman would check her rearview mirror, but he couldn’t take the chance. He waited until Wilma was almost to the highway.

  He’d purposely left the key in the ignition, afraid he might lose it on his hike along the river to the cabin.

  Now he pressed down on the clutch and brake and turned the key as he watched the Suburban turn onto the highway. The engine groaned but didn’t turn over.

  “Don’t do this,” he said to the truck. “Not now.” He tried again. The engine groaned. “No!” He could see Wilma getting away. She was headed to meet her husband—and Ray Emery had Lily. He was sure of it.

  He prayed that the pickup would start and tried it again. The engine groaned, but sparked and turned over. It was feeble. The cold engine vibrated the whole pickup as it rumbled.

  Tag feared it would die and not start again, but when he put it in gear and let his foot off the clutch, it lurched forward out of the pines. He didn’t turn on his headlights, following the darker shadows of the ruts through the snow, until he reached the highway.

  He’d seen Wilma turn left onto the highway—away from Big Sky. Tag did the same. He couldn’t go too fast. The highway was shiny in his headlights when he turned them on and he could feel the tires slipping on the glaze of ice on the pavement.

  The highway was a crooked snake that wriggled through the Gallatin Canyon. This far south of Big Sky, there was little traffic. Skiers would have made their way home by now.

  By the second bend in the road and no sign of Wilma Emery, he was starting to panic. Had she turned off? He had been watching, but there were few side roads along here.

  Another curve and he saw the one red taillight shining in the distance. His pulse began to drop back to normal. I’m coming, Lily. Hang on.

  * * *

  LILY PRAYED FOR darkness, hoping that whoever was upstairs would need sleep. She didn’t dare try anything as long as they were moving around up there.

  Earlier she’d heard a male voice and figured he must be talking on the phone, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her stomach churned at the thought of them talking about her. Talking about what to do with her.

  She felt confused. She’d thought they wanted the thumb drive. It was the only thing that made sense. But if that were the case, why hadn’t they taken the papers from her purse with the names on them?

  And if they didn’t want the thumb drive, then why were they still keeping her alive? It didn’t make any sense.

  She moved to the door again and peered through at the tiny spots of light around the key. She was so tempted to try to get out that if it hadn’t been for the sound of footfalls upstairs, she would have tried to get the key.

  Hurrying back to the mattress, she curled against the cold pine wall and stared at the door, fearing one or both of them would come down at any moment and kill her.

  At the sound of a door slamming upstairs, she froze. Had he left? She waited, praying that he’d left her here alone, because from what she could tell, there was only one man upstairs. She’d seen only one man since she’d been grabbed in the parking lot of the motel.

  She heard a door open and close again, then the creak of the floorboards over her head, and knew she wasn’t alone. She hugged herself and waited for the darkness outside the window to settle in and hopefully lull her abductor to sleep.

  * * *

  “TELL ME,” DANA said as she stepped into the kitchen.

  Hud saw her grab the edge of the kitchen table as if she knew she was going to need to hang on to something. He looked at his father-in-law, then at his wife. Dana was strong. She’d weathered many storms on this ranch. She’d single-handedly fought her siblings for the land that was her legacy.

  “Someone has put a hit out on me,” he said simply.

  She nodded, glanced toward the kitchen window. A nervous laugh escaped her lips. She quickly quelled it. “Dee. I mean Camilla.” Camilla had come to them pretending to be Dee Ann Justice, a long-lost cousin. “She’s the one who put the hit on you, isn’t she?”

  When Hud didn’t answer, she glanced at her father.

  “We think it’s a possibility,” Angus said. His cell phone rang. “I have to take this.” He stepped out of the room.

  “Do you know who?”

  “Apparently some inmates have gotten together and started a co-op type of murder list,” Hud said, ignoring the disapproving look Angus gave him from just outside the kitchen. “It will probably be an ex-inmate coming for me. That’s why you need to take the kids and leave. Go to my father’s. I can call Brick—”

  Dana shook her head. “We’re safer here, especially if Camilla is involved. She knows everything about us, remember? The first place she would look for us would be Brick’s—if she didn’t have someone lying in wait for us along the way to West Yellowstone.”

  Angus stepped back into the room. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  Hud nodded. Dana studied her father, and then quickly moved to plant a kiss on his check.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  “Will you two be—”

  “We’ll manage,” Hud snapped, then softened his tone with his father-in-law as he said, “Go. We’ll be fine.”

  “We will be fine,” Dana said, and stepped into her husband’s arms. Hud held her tight, more afraid than he wanted to admit that they wouldn’t be fine. Far from it.

  * * *

  TAG’S PULSE POUNDED in his ears as he stayed back just enough that he would catch sight of the one red taillight every few turns.

  At the mouth of the canyon, Wilma slowed, crossed the bridge and turned onto the old river road.

  Tag pulled off just before the bridge in a wide spot and waited. He could see her taillight for some distance now. He waited until he couldn’t stand it anymore, then crossed the bridge and turned down the narrow old road.

  Out of the canyon now, he could see stars in the clear night sky. They glittered from the midnight-blue canopy overhead. As he drove, the moon came up from behind the mountains to the east, a bright white orb that lit the fallen snow.

  Ahead, Wilma’s taillight blinked as she braked and turned down a road that led toward the river. He lost sight of her in the thick cottonwoods, but he knew she couldn’t go far before she ran into the river.

  He found a place up the road to pull over, then started to climb out of the pickup. Hud’s words came back to him again. He had no idea what he was going to find down that road.

  On a hunch, he reached under the pickup’s seat. He found an ax handle. All kinds of other junk. No old pistol. He was disappointed in his father. Nor was there a shotgun or even a .22 rifle hanging from the rack behind the seat.

  He tried the glove box and was about to give up and see if he could find at least a tire iron, when he noticed something interesting about the passenger-side floorboard.

  He lifted a flap in the rubber mat and saw the handle. When he lifted it, he found more than he’d hoped for.

  Until that moment, he hadn’t really believed his father was an agent of any kind.

  But as he pulled out a Glock handgun, then a sawed-off shotgun—both loaded—he became a believer. Sticking the Glock into the back waistband of his jeans, he hoisted the shotgun, grabbed a pocketful of shells and headed down the road.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There were two things Tag’s father had taught his older sons before they left Montana—to swim and to shoot a gun.

  “I’m not having one of my boys drowning in the river because he can’t swim,” Harlan had told their mother. “And they’re going to learn to shoot.”

  “They’re too young,” she’d cried as he loaded them into the pickup.

  They’d learned to
swim in a small deep eddy down in the Gallatin on a warm summer day. Not that the water had been warm. Rivers and lakes in most of Montana never warmed up that much.

  But each of them had learned. His father’s method hadn’t been exactly mother approved. He’d tossed them in one at a time. Sink or swim. They’d learned to swim, kicking and screaming.

  With shooting that hadn’t been the case. They were boys, after all. Harlan had been strict about safety as well as learning how to load, clean and shoot a gun.

  Now as Tag approached the 1940s-looking cabin, he snapped off the safety on the shotgun.

  The snow crunched under his feet as he walked. He thought about calling the marshal. Not until he knew for certain that Lily was down here. He still wasn’t sure he could trust Hud. The man had been ready to put him on a plane.

  Without a cloud in the night sky, the temperature had dropped. His breath came out frosty and white. The moon lit the land, making the snow look like white marble. In the cottonwoods, deep shadows filled the road’s ruts. It was hard to see where he was walking. A couple of times he slipped in the icy tracks and almost fell but managed to catch himself.

  Tag thought of his brothers. They wouldn’t believe it if they saw him, armed and tromping through a dark, snowy night to save a woman. He’d had relationships. He’d just never met a woman who he would have been tromping through a dark and snowy night to save.

  Worse, he and Lily didn’t even have a relationship. Hell, for all he knew she was planning to go back to her former fiancé. Jealousy dug under his skin at the thought.

  Either way, he had to find her.

  Ahead, he spotted Wilma’s SUV parked in front of the cabin, only this one had a basement. One lone light burned in a window close to the ground at the other end of the building. Inside the house proper, lights blazed.

  Tag glanced around. There was no other vehicle. That bothered him. Had someone left but was planning to be back at any time? That seemed more likely than that whoever Wilma had talked to was staying here without transportation.