The heat of the burning street seemed a welcome relief from the damp cool of the sheriff’s office. And seeing Chance Salazar patiently waiting in her Jeep made the last few minutes seem surreal. He pushed her door open and smiled at her as she climbed into the driver’s seat.
“All fixed?” he asked.
She shook her head and found, to her disgust, her hand was shaking as she tried inserting the key into the ignition. The nervous reaction was as much about her disgust with the sheriff as it was proximity to one good-looking cowboy taking up far too much room in the front of her Jeep.
“Newspaper office next?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Definitely.”
“It’s a good paper, but I’ve never heard anyone want to get hold of it with quite that passion.”
She chuckled. “I need to place an ad.”
“In that case, go left, left again at the next corner, and it’ll be on your right about three blocks from there.”
“We’ll end up at the theater again.”
“Trust me,” he said.
She looked at him and found him gazing directly at her. He wasn’t smiling.
“Trust me,” he said again. His voice was a caress, and his eyes held a fathomless depth.
Her heart fumbled a beat. How could she trust him? Even on such a small thing as directions? She couldn’t trust anything anymore. Her days of trust were buried in a cemetery in Virginia.
“Please?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said, “On directions, I think I will.” He’d never know what an admission even that small concession was, nor how frightening.
Chapter 3
“G et a load of this, man,” Pablo Garcia said, rattling the newspaper as he folded it to the classified section. “It’s here, just like Annie over at the café said. ‘Cowboys needed.’ I’ll bet it’s that Rancho Milagro.”
Chance grunted and slapped at a fly made slow by the coolness of the early August morning. He didn’t look up from his mountain of paperwork. The hours between five and eight in the morning were the only time he could tackle the onerous job. The rest of the time he was busy playacting the rodeo king.
He grinned when one of his men asked Pablo, “You have a hankering to work all of a sudden?”
Two of the other men in the federal marshal’s office chuckled, but Pablo ignored the gibe. A valuable informant, quasi-private investigator and sometime chauffeur, Pablo was the general man Friday at the marshal’s outpost in Carlsbad. The fact that he was related to a good half of the Carlsbad district’s population—including Chance Salazar—made him near priceless.
“No, guys, listen,” Pablo said, his Hispanic accent thickening in his interest. “Says here, ‘cowboys needed. Room, board—what’s that, food?—salary and a horse provided. Experience with all facets of ranching required. Background with children a plus. Position to begin immediately.’ And there’s a phone number and a box number at the paper.”
One of the other men, Dell Johnson, a tall drink of water with a blond moustache, chuckled. “Translated that means sleeping on the floor, eating a bowl of beans and some dried-out tortillas and riding the worst old range horse this side of the Pecos.”
“Probably has mange,” Ted Peters, another deputy, agreed. He was as dark as Dell Johnson was fair and was built like a football player. At least, that was what Doreen claimed.
Chance continued his paperwork, not joining in the other men’s chiding of Pablo for believing the advertisement. He believed it, too. He’d been with Jeannie McMunn when she placed the ridiculous thing. He’d seen the rough draft of the ad in her notebook, the receipt for the ad when she paid for it and a printout of what was, in his opinion, an invitation for certain disaster.
He’d spent that night with a bottle of eighty-proof guilt for not telling the truth and for having let her spill her troubles to Nando Gallegos. Chance was dead certain the duly elected sheriff wouldn’t have done a thing to help the pretty woman with the long red hair and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
The things he’d read in Jeannie McMunn’s notebook, the hints Doreen had offered, the few tidbits Jeannie had let drop that day he’d squired her around town and several days of gossiping since let him know the new rancher had several serious problems worrying her. She had a herd of missing cattle, cut fences—which might or might not explain the lost cows—and someone was setting grass fires. Lightning might often strike twice, but it seldom created systematic fires.
And Chance would lay good money on the odds that El Patron was behind her woes. A self-made emperor, the man answered to no one, least of all the law. In fact, it was widely known that at least part of the law in Carlsbad, one Sheriff Fernando Gallegos, worked for El Patron.
Unlike the other men in the marshal’s office, Chance had spent the Friday evening before at a barbecue celebrating his rodeo and contractor buddy’s successful completion of the renovations at Rancho Milagro. After a few Tecates, his friend had waxed ecstatic about the amount of money the rich women from back East had shelled out trying to turn the ranch headquarters into a working children’s home.
Chance was fairly certain his friend, Charlie Budacher, hadn’t abused the women’s trust, but at the same time, Chance would have to have been blindly loyal not to see that his friend had offered no discounts whatsoever. Still, according to Charlie, renovation of the old historic if broken down ranch headquarters hadn’t been any picnic. A couple more beers, and his friend had revealed that he suspected somebody of nasty shenanigans at Rancho Milagro.
“You ask me, it’s no miracle ranch, but a cursed one. Poor thing, out there all by her lonesome. She’s a real looker, too—don’t tell Annie I said that, she’d close up the café and move to Florida or somewhere and then where would I get breakfast and a date on Saturday nights? Something sad about her, though. That Jeannie McMunn, I mean. Anyway, I’d sure hate to see El Patron and his lowlifes drive that redhead out of there.”
Chance would hate to see that, too, though he suspected it might be better if the woman packed up and moved home. The trouble was, he didn’t want to see her leave. He liked the way she smiled, as if not real sure the expression belonged on her face. He liked the way she jotted stuff down in that silly little notebook then left it lying around for anyone to read. And he admired what she was trying to do out there. If more people took an interest in the lost kids of the world, maybe the world would be a better place.
Or maybe he was just attracted to her.
“Hell, I’m outta here pretty soon,” said Jack Dawson, the oldest of the marshal’s crew, who was slated for retirement in a matter of weeks and current acting marshal in the office. “Gimme that ad, maybe I’ll apply. Supplement the dinky bit the government calls a pension.”
“You on a horse? This I gotta see,” Ted quipped before grabbing a pen to simulate a microphone and lowering his voice to mimic a golf announcer’s near murmur. “We see Jack Dawson stepping up to the saddle now, folks. He’s never touched a creature this big before and he pauses for a moment to take in the sheer awesome size of the horse. Ah, he knows what he needs now and is bringing out the airplane ramp. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a pro here today.”
Chance grinned over his papers as the entire crew, including Jack, laughed at the jab on Jack’s passion for golf.
But Pablo wasn’t finished. The only one of the federal marshal’s crew without a master’s degree in criminal justice, he never lost sight of the fact that the growth potential for a general man Friday wasn’t great. “I could be a cowboy. I can vaquero with the best of them. Hell, I was practically weaned on a horse. You tell them, Chance,” he said, then chuckled. “Besides, you all have to admit, I’m pretty good with a mustang.”
“As long as it has four on the floor and six little ponies under the hood,” Dell quipped.
“You think this is for real, boss?” Pablo asked.
Chance mumbled an assent and signed the last of his papers. “Quit calling me boss. And yeah, it’s
for real. It’s nuts, but it’s for real.”
Ted said, “They’ll have every damned macho outlaw for seventeen counties showing up at their door. What the heck were they thinking, placing such an ad?”
Chance put the papers into his out box for Jack’s secretary to deal with when she came in later that morning. She thought the rodeo rider, Chance Salazar, only came around for coffee, doughnuts and some lighthearted flirting with her. By the time she came to work, he’d be lounging against the wall, looking for all the world as if he’d just arrived. “It’s a ranch, they need hands,” he said.
“Phones must be ringing off the hook.”
Chance smiled. “After she placed the ad the other day, I dropped in on Pete Griego over at the phone company. He said his boys had the poles ready, but after we chatted, I don’t think they’re in any big rush to get them strung. The ranch won’t be getting very many calls.”
Dell gave a low whistle. “I’d hate to have you on my bad side, buddy. You know half the damned county. You gotta tell me, what made Pete think an itinerant rodeo cowboy should be telling him what to do?”
Chance grinned. “He volunteered.”
“And why would he do that?”
“Because we go way back.”
“I swear, Chance, you and everybody else in this whole blamed state go way back,” Dell said.
“If he’s not related to them,” Ted interjected. “Or Pablo here.”
“I happened to meet the new owner of Rancho Milagro the other day. Showed her around town a little bit,” Chance said.
Dell whistled again, “Pretty?”
Chance felt the back of his neck grow hot despite the air-conditioned office. “I’d say she is definitely that, yes.”
“And of course, you needed her phone number.”
The crew exchanged knowing grins, and Jack groaned. “And just like that, Pete blurted out all the information the phone company has on her.”
“Something along those lines.”
“You know, you’re wasted as a federal marshal, Chance. The CIA could use you,” Dell said in awed tones.
“What beats me is how every woman in town still loves you even when you move on to someone else,” Ted said.
Chance looked at Ted to see what ailed the young man. Surely he didn’t believe the rumors they had spread about Chance Salazar. His supposed success with women was a part of his cover and fit with his reputation way back in high school. He suspected the man’s note of rancor stemmed from desire for—and jealousy over—a certain little lady at the post office.
Dell answered, “Women love him because of his cover. They all know a rodeo cowboy won’t amount to a hill of beans, but they think he’s wild and dangerous. Women crave the adventure he represents.”
“You been reading those self-help books again, Dell?” Jack queried.
Chance grinned, standing and finishing the last of his nearly cold coffee. “According to Charlie Budacher, they’ve been having a little trouble out at the ranch.”
“Hell, that ranch is what, fourteen thousand acres, give or take, not to mention all the state land flanking it? They’re bound to have some kind of trouble.”
“Fence cutting, prairie fires, that sort of nonsense.”
“And you’re thinking it’s El Patron’s work,” Ted said astutely.
“I am,” Chance affirmed.
Ted said reflectively, “Even without the phones up, with this ad, she’ll be getting lots of applications through the newspaper box number, if they don’t just drive out there. Everybody around here knows the remodel job is finished at Milagro, and the ad gives it away by saying they’ll give preference to anyone with knowledge of kids.”
“Most of the folks who would want that job wouldn’t be able to write. Besides, most folks around here all know that El Patron considers that his personal playground,” Jack said.
Ted asked, “Why is that, anyway? The rangeland’s not that hot, it’s a fair distance from the border, with sinkholes that probably hook up with the caverns. He could have bought it when it was up for sale, anyhow. So why does he want to mess with it now?”
Pablo offered an answer. “He’s real superstitious, El Patron is. My grandfather used to tell a story about some kind of magic spring on Rancho Milagro.”
“I suppose it makes people live forever,” Jack murmured.
“No, it makes wishes come true.”
“So why didn’t El Patron buy the place? The creep is loaded.”
“That man don’t pay money for nothing,” Jack said. “He just takes what he wants. See, as long as nobody was on it, he just called it his. When the last people who had it died, the heirs put it up for sale without going to El Patron.”
“What about this magic spring?” Ted asked.
“Oh, maybe it dried up years ago. Anyway, nobody can find it. But me? I think the reason it dried up is that nobody believes in it anymore,” Pablo said.
“Maybe it’s hiding from El Patron,” Dell suggested.
Pablo nodded. “That could be true. I’ll bet it doesn’t work for people who do the bad things like El Patron does.”
Ted snorted. “If that were true, Pablo, we fellows in the white hats would be out of a job.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he didn’t buy the ranch if he wants to keep others off it,” Dell said.
“Pablo’s right about one thing. El Patron thinks he owns it anyway,” Chance said quietly. “Just like he thinks he owns the whole county.”
“He practically does. And if somebody bucks him, they just disappear,” Jack said bitterly. “Look at poor old Jorge. His wife, Lucinda, is going crazy worrying about him. Cora spent the afternoon with her yesterday, and she says Lucinda’s sure El Patron did something to him. All because he wouldn’t sell him that strip of land along the river.”
“Yeah. Poor little thing. And we can’t find a thing to prove El Patron had a damn thing to do with his vanishing,” Ted corroborated. “He always has half a dozen of his henchmen doing his dirty work, so we can’t pin a thing on him. Hell, they don’t even mind going to prison for him.”
“Of course not,” Jack said. “He picks up the tab for their whole family while they sit in jail. You know, I heard he even sends some of their kids to college? How do you like that? Whack a guy and get your kid’s tuition free. It’s the new college savings plan.”
Chance allowed the swell of outrage to continue for a few minutes, then raised his hand. “That’s it exactly. El Patron operates as if the laws of this country don’t apply to him whatsoever. Yet he manages to hide from us behind a stone wall of attorneys. He doesn’t even screw up on his taxes. We know he’s behind it all, but even after six months of intense investigation, we’ve still got zip in the way of actual proof on the guy. As to this Rancho Milagro? To his way of thinking, why should he pay money for something that he can have for the simple taking?”
His friends nodded soberly.
“Those women at the ranch…they’re really hiring? Cowboys?” Jack said it as if it were a four-letter word.
“Cowboys,” Chance affirmed. “In addition to everything else, they’re missing two hundred some odd head of cattle.”
Ted whistled again. “Those the ones El Patron’s chief boy, Rudy, boasted of finding a month or so back?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me to find the brands have been modified,” Chance said placidly. He reached for his hat.
Jack sighed. “I suppose you want us to go and get them back.”
“No,” Chance said, dusting off his sleeves from the morning’s accumulated dry sand silt that blew in and settled on his desk when the August winds blew from the west. “Not yet. First, I want Pablo and I to go be cowboys for a while.”
As one, the group gaped at him. Dell finally chuckled. “You’re always out there, Chance, thinking up the next joke. We walk right into them every time.”
“No joke this time. The people who bought this ranch are women from back East. They have more dreams than
knowledge and more money than sense. In essence, boys, they don’t have the slightest notion of up or down in these parts. Personally, I don’t think it’s very neighborly of us to let El Patron run roughshod over them. So Pablo and I are going to hire on as cowboys.”
“And catch El Patron red-handed in the bargain?”
“If it’s him, I’d call that pretty fine icing on the cake, wouldn’t you?” Chance asked.
“You kidding? I’ve got a sweet tooth for nailing this guy.”
“What’s going to make them hire you? I’ll bet between the four of us—five, Pablo, sorry—we couldn’t figure out how to rope a cow, let alone how to drive one.”
“Me? I know cows,” Pablo said hotly. “My uncle, he has lots of cattle on his ranch. Branding, cutting, butchering, you name it, I’ve done it all.”
“See?” Chance asked. “We’re already a step ahead of the game.”
“But how are you gonna be the ones the women hire?” Jack asked again.
“Yeah, and even if they did hire you—which I doubt big time—how are you going to hide from El Patron out there? I can’t even get insurance on my car because he’s always got some flunky tearing mine up. One time it was keying the paint job, another time it was a broken windshield. Random vandalism, my good hat. The insurance companies want proof. I’d love to give them proof, all right.” Ted growled. “Fact is, El Patron eats us Feds for an after siesta snack, man. The only ones he doesn’t bother are you and Pablo. You, because he doesn’t even know you are a Fed, just some has-been rodeo jockey, and Pablo because he’s related to half the blamed county.”
“We could call my uncle,” Pablo suggested, as he often did when El Patron was mentioned. This particular uncle was spending fifteen years in the state penitentiary for having tried to kill El Patron several years before, following his discovery that the man had arranged the burning of his ranch and home and the slaughter of his animals. Pablo never seemed to find the fact that his uncle had not succeeded and was incarcerated for his failure a particular drawback to his suggestion.
“You’ve always got some uncle,” Dell muttered.
Cowboy Under Cover Page 3
