Cowboy Under Cover

by Marilyn Tracy

  “No? I know he has my children and he’s probably the reason there’s a dead man lying on my ranch and a wounded one in the barn. And I found out he’s behind the stolen cattle, the fires and the cut fences. It seems to me he’s capable of just about anything. It would have been nice had someone clued me in on all this a little sooner. Chance, for example.”

  “I think it’s a good idea if you stick around and talk to him about that, ma’am. You can tell him off real good. Ma’am. Jeannie. Now wait. Just think about this for a minute.” He edged toward the front of her car.

  She put the car in gear. “Move out of the way, Mr. Johnson. I’m a lot more desperate than I might look.”

  “If you’ll just wait.”

  She honked her horn. Dell Johnson jumped as if she’d shot him but didn’t move from in front of her car. She honked the horn a second time, a long, determined blast.

  “Cut that out, damn it,” he yelled. “I already have a hearing loss.”

  “Then you’d better move,” she called back. “Or you’re going to have a leg loss, as well.” She felt a hysterical bubble of laughter trying to break free at her unexpectedly brazen words. At the same time, she wanted to scream at him to get out of her way. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I don’t care if this lunatic El Puko wants the deed to my ranch and titles to everything else I own. I’ll give it to him and more just to get those children back. They’re my family and mean more than heaven and earth to me. And you can tell Mr. Lying-through-his-teeth Chance Salazar that for me when you see him.” She honked again and revved the motor as she slowly released the clutch.

  Dell apparently read her intentions with accuracy, for he finally jumped out of the way. It was only as she passed him, hearing him yell something about safety, that she wondered if she really would have hit him with the car. And decided that yes, even as the notion sickened her, she probably could have done exactly that to get Dulce and José back.

  She heard his voice yelling something after her and glanced in the rearview mirror. Instead of waving her back, he had his gun out, pointed away from her, and was madly pantomiming something over the top of it.

  She glanced from him to the gun on the seat. And understood the deputy marshal’s message. He hadn’t been yelling about her safety or anyone else’s, he’d been trying to warn her that the safety catch was still locked on Pablo’s gun. She felt her lips curve in a grim, fierce smile and reached over to flick it off.

  As she straightened, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and, suspecting it was Chance, didn’t turn to look. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and hurled down the ranch road, an angry mama bear ready to ford anything on earth to save her cubs.

  It didn’t take Chance three seconds to put the picture together when he saw the cloud of road dust billowing behind the Jeep Cherokee and Dell Johnson standing in the center of the road, weapon in his hand, a look of frustration on his flat features.

  “Jeannie?” Chance asked, reining Jezebel in.

  “El Patron has the kids. Pablo’s been shot—it’s okay. He’s alive. She says she patched him up before she called an ambulance.”

  Chance felt the blood draining from his face. Jeannie wouldn’t understand a man like El Patron. Who could? The man lived outside conventional rules and accepted behavior. Jeannie, with her every emotion on her beautiful face, would be more likely to fuel El Patron’s cruelty than to dissuade him. “And you let her go?”

  “Short of shooting her, what did you want me to do?”

  “Shoot her damn tires out.”

  Dell shook his head. “She had that crazy snub-nosed thing of Pablo’s trained on me. It wasn’t till she put it down that I realized she didn’t have the safety off.”

  “I’ve got to go stop her,” Chance said, whirling Jezebel toward the ranch.

  “Rudy told Pablo she was to come alone to Las Golondrinas, to beg for the children herself.”

  Chance reined Jezebel in. The blood he’d felt drain earlier surged back in his fury. “That sick bastard. I’ll kill him myself.”

  “She said she’d give up everything for her family. She said to tell you that, along with a couple of other things.”

  “Like how much she loves me?”

  “No… I don’t recollect her saying anything even a little bit like that.”

  Chance snorted, held his hand out and kicked a stirrup free. “She knows I’m a Fed, then. Pablo must have told her. Get up here, Dell. We gotta go.”

  Dell sprang up behind Chance, his thin frame fitting easily behind the saddle. He barely had time to take hold of Chance’s belt before Chance urged Jezebel to a full gallop.

  “What did she mean, her family?” Dell yelled, struggling to keep his grip on the belt and not grab Chance around the middle. “Thought this was an orphan’s ranch.”

  “She’s made them a family,” Chance yelled. He heard his words at the same time Dell must have. But for him they had meaning Dell would never understand, not having shared the meals in her loving home, not having watched her struggle to overcome Dulce’s prickly ways or encourage little José to join in an activity. Dell hadn’t overheard her heart-wrenching story of her tragic past, nor would he ever know how utterly disarming she could be when she blurted whatever happened to be on her mind. And, if Chance had anything to say about it, Dell would never know how beautiful she was when all her clothes and guards were cast aside. As if she’d been blessed with an unusual twist on the Midas touch, everything Jeannie laid her hands upon turned to family.

  Chance was off the horse only half a second behind Dell, landing a mere two feet from the bunkhouse door. He tossed his deputy the reins and barked orders to secure Pablo and get everyone to El Patron’s ranch as soon as possible. He was out of the bunkhouse in seconds, his .357 Magnum in hand. “Hell, call in the state cops. They can buzz the place with their helicopters, and El Patron sure can’t own a piece of any of them.”

  “How do you suppose he made you?” Dell asked.

  “I figure it has to be that Tomás. Twerp probably listened at keyholes. I should have gotten rid of him when I found him in the barn. Or maybe the place was bugged.”

  “I think we did a bunch of underestimating about this situation.”

  Chance couldn’t agree more. A pair of blue eyes and roan-colored silk skin had made him reckless, so content to be in her presence that he’d ignored every warning sign.

  “Dell, I want you to have the state guys and the local cops round up any and all of El Patron’s henchmen they can lay their hands on and lock them up separately so they can be broken down more easily. I don’t care what excuse they manufacture to hold them. Stick every one with murder, for all I care. Until lawyers can be brought in to sort out the mess, they can be held for hours, maybe days. Short of physical abuse, use any means to make at least one of those idiots talk. You can start with the boys they collected out at the potash plant the other day.”

  “I’ll have them tell the thugs all about Pablo. One of them is bound to be related to him somehow.”

  Chance hesitated, meeting his deputy’s solemn eyes, then he leaped into his truck. “I just want to take the creep out once and for all.”

  “You know what your pretty lady called him? El Puko.”

  Worried as he was, Chance gave a bark of laughter. Leave it to Jeannie, he thought, to say exactly what she was thinking. He was wryly grateful to Dell for lightening his dark fury and more than a little relieved when the engine turned over mightily and purred sweetly. Another thing Jeannie had touched.

  “Chance,” Dell called.

  “What is it?”

  “You better watch out for her. She’s ready to die for those kids.”

  “Well, that makes two of us,” Chance said grimly. “Because I’m sure as hell ready to die for her.”

  Jeannie entered the gates of Las Golondrinas slowly, easing the Jeep across the metal cattle guard as if anticipating the pipes would spring loose and drop her into the earth.

>   The high wrought-iron arch she passed beneath held ornate metal swallows crafted by a master artist. Someone had planted bright red geraniums in the large planters flanking the gate, and the road leading to the ranch was not only graded but layered with asphalt, as well.

  This El Patron obviously had more money than he needed and was fond of creature comforts and beauty, so what could he possibly want with her? What could he hope to achieve by kidnapping her children and making her beg to have them back?

  Far from the highway, after several broad, rolling hills, she arrived at a massive, two-story adobe structure. It more closely resembled a large hotel than a ranch house, and the grounds were exquisite with flowers, shrubs and tall graceful desert willows in full bloom.

  Jeannie put the Jeep into park and gathered her cell phone and Pablo’s gun. The phone she slipped into a pocket, the gun she held on to, after first studying it to discover how to cock it. Like a toy gun, it was simple—pull back the cock, squeeze the trigger. The first she practiced, the latter would have to wait. She hoped forever.

  A dog barked nearby, but no beast ran to challenge her as she walked to the front door on shaking legs. She hoped her extreme nervousness didn’t show as she raised the large knocker on the huge double doors.

  Within a few seconds, a small wooden window in the right-hand door opened, and a teary-eyed Juanita gazed at her.

  Jeannie gaped. She hadn’t believed Pablo when he’d told her Tomás and Juanita had been involved. Jeannie was certain Juanita, at least, would never have harmed her or the children.

  “I’m so sorry, señora. I didn’t want to. I promise you that. I—” She cried out and jumped as if slapped, then turned her head to look behind her. She gave a half sob and closed the little window.

  Jeannie raised her hand to the clangor but before she could release it a second time, she heard the sound of a lock being turned and a bar being lifted. One of the doors swung outward, nearly hitting her.

  Jeannie felt dazed by what she saw inside. A wonderland of an interior courtyard was behind the door, populated with so many different varieties of flowers and low flowering shrubs that she felt dizzy from the visual splendor and the overwhelming aromas. A three-tiered fountain gurgled in the center of the courtyard, and an enormous, long-haired Persian cat lounged beneath the fountain’s pedestal.

  If Juanita hadn’t been in tears, Pablo not bloodied and wounded in her barn, she would have imagined she’d been invited for the Spanish equivalent of high tea.

  But a tearful Juanita was standing back from the entrance to the courtyard. Not trusting that the woman was alone in this amazing garden, Jeannie raised Pablo’s gun and held it with both hands. Surprised at how natural the gun felt in her grip, she pointed it at Juanita’s torso. “Where are Dulce and José?”

  Though her eyes widened at the sight of the gun, Juanita didn’t move from her post at the door. “They are inside, señora. They are safe enough for now. You are to come in.”

  Jeannie barked at her. “Move away from the door, Juanita. And whoever’s behind the other one, come out, too.”

  “There’s no one there,” Juanita said. She looked at the house.

  Only then did Jeannie see the man standing in the shadows of a leafy tree at the far end of the garden. If he hadn’t moved, she wouldn’t have seen him, for the nearly setting sun striking the wall of glass reflected nothing but itself and portions of the garden. He wore a gray suit that exactly matched the cat beneath the pedestal and the trunk of the tree he stood beneath. He was a short man, and stocky, built along powerful lines. He looked as though he were ready to attend the theater. Except for the coiled whip in his hand.

  “Thank you, Juanita. Now step back and let the señora come inside my lovely garden,” he said. Although his voice was warm enough, a chill worked down Jeannie’s arms. She willed herself not to think of that whip in his hands, of what he must have done to Juanita, or worse, to the children. Mostly she concentrated on keeping her hands from shaking.

  “Please, Señora McMunn. There is no one hiding behind my door. Juanita, if you would be so kind, open it for her so that she can see for herself.”

  Jeannie’s housekeeper stepped to the side without looking behind her. Her eyes were locked on Jeannie’s, and she seemed to be trying to convey half a dozen messages at once. All of them spelled danger. She released some mechanism behind the door and gave it a push. It swung wide and revealed more of the wonderful garden.

  “So you see, señora, you have nothing to fear. Besides, I see you came armed, no?” He stepped closer and waved his free hand at the pathway that would lead her into the garden.

  She raised her gun—how swiftly it had ceased belonging to Pablo—and pointed it at the man. “Are you El Patron?” she asked.

  The man chuckled, and the chill that claimed Jeannie’s body transformed to ice and threatened to weaken her. “Some people call me that, my dear. But come. We must talk, you and I.”

  Chapter 13

  C hance spent most of the twenty flagrantly speeding miles to Las Golondrinas on his cell phone organizing an impromptu raid on the ranch. His superiors in Washington had agreed to obtain a blanket warrant to be immediately filed on the man calling himself El Patron. It would list state and federal criminal activities as the cause for search, seizure and arrest.

  The state cops told him they could be there with helicopters in just under a half an hour and to wait for them.

  Thanks to Dell, the local cops had already collared two of El Patron’s boys at a local bar.

  The last call was the easiest to make, but the request was the hardest to satisfy. He asked for and was finally granted a warrant for the arrest of one Nando Gallegos, soon to be ex-sheriff of Eddy County.

  The trouble with all those lawful and legal calls was that he didn’t have time to wait for any of the paperwork before storming El Patron’s castle. Somewhere inside it, two innocent kids and a vulnerable woman were being held hostage, and knowing El Patron’s handiwork, Chance knew he had to get in there quickly and get them out fast.

  And the trouble with that was, how?

  He’d expected closed gates and guarded roads. No barrier prevented access to the ranch. And nothing slowed his progress to the parking area, either. His heart performed a slow flip when he saw Jeannie’s Jeep parked there, for all the world as if she were on a social call.

  He’d told her to trust him and he’d let her down.

  Not this time.

  He took his gun and the cell phone, tucking the former in his belt and the latter in a pocket of his jeans. He glanced at his watch. The state police would be there in twenty minutes, Ted and Jack in less than that.

  But five minutes of thinking about Jeannie and the kids alone in there with that madman seemed an eternity to Chance. He decided to brazen it out. Waltz in the front door and hope to hell he could stall things long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

  “And where do you think you’re going…marshal?” Rudy Martinez asked from directly behind him.

  Jeannie leveled her gun at El Patron’s broad chest. “Where are my children?”

  The urbane man raised graying eyebrows as if surprised at her rudeness. With only a trace of an accent, he said, “They are inside, as Juanita told you. She’s failed me in many ways, but she invariably tells the truth. Unlike her husband.”

  Juanita gave a choked cry and buried her face in her hands.

  “None of that, now,” the man said.

  Jeannie had believed she’d known evil before. She’d suffered the deaths of her husband and baby daughter and thought the early morning drunk who took their lives was evil. At El Patron’s silken voice, somehow more a threat than an admonition to Juanita, she realized she’d never encountered true evil before. She clearly was in the presence of it now.

  She wanted to demand that he get Dulce and José, but was afraid he would somehow melt into the false glass sunset and shadows and she would be left with no leverage.

  Obviously unafrai
d of her weapon, the man called El Patron turned his back on her and walked toward the glass walls. Before disappearing into the illusion, he reached out and slid aside one of the glass panels. “Juanita, please, the gates, if you will. And you, señora, you wished to see the children. Please, follow me. Come.”

  Despising herself for not having the courage to shoot the glass panel beside him and demand he give up her children, Jeannie followed him, keeping the gun in front of her. She heard Juanita closing and locking the gates behind her.

  The inside of his home was as incredible as the garden. Rich carpets covered highly polished red Saltillo tiled floors. Ornate furniture formed conversational areas brightened by cut flowers from the garden. An ebony grand piano nestled in a far corner of the massive room. Museum-quality artwork covered the walls.

  However, no matter how beautiful the garden or the house, Jeannie couldn’t help but feel that it was like decoration on a burned cake. No amount of confectioner’s sugar could mask the bad taste. All the beauty in the world couldn’t hide the evil in El Patron.

  He led the way down a broad hallway at least twice the size of her large living room and opened a set of double doors. He didn’t look behind him to see if she followed. He stepped inside the room and said, “Ah, children. I’ve brought that visitor I promised you.”

  “Jeannie?” she heard Dulce ask in a choked voice.

  Jeannie rushed into the room, her gun raised before her.

  Because he’d spoken to the children, because Dulce had replied, Jeannie had felt marginally foolish for thinking the man a creature of consummate evil. This delusion was destroyed immediately when she entered the room. He hadn’t lied about the children being there. But they were far from safe.

  Jeannie’s heart jerked painfully in her chest at the sight of them. Both were standing on stiff Mexican caned chairs, hands tied behind their backs, and both wore thick, rough nooses around their slender necks. The nooses were attached to a thick beam hanging below the ceiling as if placed there for that purpose.