Rocky Mountain Lawman

by Rachel Lee

  The vehicle that eventually rounded the final bend of his driveway and emerged from the trees was a sheriff’s SUV. Buddy tensed immediately. The deputies stopped by occasionally, but rarely. Usually neighborly type calls to see if he needed anything.

  But coming so soon after his face-off with the artist, he was expecting no good. He grew even more tense as the vehicle crossed the clearing and he saw the sheriff himself at the wheel. Definitely not the usual call from a deputy.

  Gage parked and climbed out, crossing the remaining twenty feet. “Morning, Buddy,” he called out. “You all doing okay?”

  “Just fine, Sheriff,” Buddy answered. His heart had begun racing and his palms felt a little damp. He didn’t like this.

  Gage looked at Cap. “Howdy.”

  Cap as usual didn’t say anything, so Buddy filled the silence, trying to sound casual. “Gage, this is Cap, friend of mine.”

  “Pleasure,” Gage said easily enough, then returned his attention to Buddy. “Hate to bother you, but you know we found that hiker last month. Until we figure out what happened to him, we’re just checking on folks to make sure they’re not running into any trouble.”

  Buddy relaxed a hair. “Haven’t seen a damn thing unusual.” Then he decided that if the sheriff had heard about that painter lady, it might be stupid to ignore it. Might make him suspicious. “I got worried about some woman who was across the valley. Felt like she was keeping an eye on me. Craig Stone says she’s just a painter, though.”

  Gage nodded. “I heard. Just a painter. I can understand why you’d be uneasy after that hiker, though. We’re all uneasy.”

  Buddy relaxed even more. “So you guys are worried?”

  “Not exactly. Not yet. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t check around from time to time, not until we’re sure it was just an accident. There’s a lot of woods out there for a bad guy to hide.”

  “True.”

  Gage looked around. “You’re building a new cabin. Something wrong with yours?”

  “I need some place for friends to stay.”

  Gage cracked a smile. “I understand that. Sometimes I wish I had a guesthouse.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not that I can do much in town. Sometimes I wish I had a spread like yours, Buddy.”

  Buddy swelled with pride. “We can do a lot up here, Sheriff. Let me show you the garden.”

  It never occurred to Buddy that by walking Gage around to show off a few things he might be revealing more than he thought.

  Cap would have something to say about that later, but right now, Buddy just felt good. And proud.

  Chapter 4

  Sky returned to the hill overlooking the valley to paint. Her mood had changed dramatically, though, and she didn’t quite see anything the same way. The colors didn’t sparkle the same for her, and even the changing play of light didn’t capture her interest.

  She lay back on her tarp, staring up at the deep blue sky overhead, and realized that her desire to recenter herself with this trip had been interrupted. First by that Buddy guy, then by her dissociation the day before, and now by the memory of the way she had responded when Craig brushed her hand and squeezed her shoulder. Simple, meaningless touches, but they’d hit her like an emotional explosion.

  Too much had hit her. As an artist, she knew how easy it was to get blown out of the water sometimes. To lose touch with that creative spark inside her. She knew just as well that sometimes the only way to handle it was to make herself pick up a brush and smear color on canvas, even if it would never amount to anything.

  But she didn’t reach for her brushes or paints. Instead she lay there trying to sort her way through all that had happened, trying to figure out what had triggered her and why the hell she wanted to be attracted to a man, any man, so soon after her breakup.

  Rebound? Maybe. Looking for some reassurance that she was an attractive woman and a good lover? Most likely. But the rest of it?

  She closed her eyes, thinking over yesterday morning, trying to put herself back in the courthouse square and get in touch with what she had been feeling. It was the blank windows and closed doors, she decided. Craig had been right about it.

  Her awareness of those doors and windows should have alerted her to the fact that she was slipping in time. She hadn’t consciously lived with that fear in a long time. In Iraq it had been different. Covered windows and closed doors had become menacing to her. The need to know what was behind them had often been nerve-racking. She knew exactly what Craig had meant when he said that for a while he couldn’t stand closed doors even in his own apartment.

  It was an odd thing when she thought about it rationally. For most of her life, a closed door had been a protective thing that kept the world at bay. So much better with a lock, to keep threats out, not that she’d lived in fear. Still, a closed door had been comforting, a bulwark.

  Then Iraq. Walking and driving down streets where she couldn’t see what was happening in those secret interiors had taught her a whole new way of thinking and feeling. A way she had believed she was past.

  Apparently not.

  Sighing, she sat up and looked around the valley. Good sight lines. Even Buddy’s approach had been shocking only because she hadn’t been expecting it. Now that she was on higher alert, or REDCON Three as the military called it, she wouldn’t be caught unawares again.

  No, she wasn’t allowing herself to become entirely lost in thought, not now, not anymore. She heard every little sound, and her eyes moved restlessly, checking out every movement. Like in Iraq.

  Not good. She couldn’t live in this state again, not if it wasn’t necessary. But maybe it was.

  Craig certainly seemed to have some concerns about Buddy now, and after the way the guy had shouted at her and called her a spy, she shared them. Even if he was only slightly unhinged, it was best to take care.

  But she wasn’t going to cede ground, and she wasn’t going to turn tail, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to walk away while Craig dealt with this.

  Again, rationally, that seemed like an extreme reaction. It was his job, after all, not hers. She was supposed to be on vacation. Yet she saw how alone he was out here most of the time, and she wasn’t going to bow out. While he could probably get reinforcements if he needed them, the fact was he didn’t have them right now.

  So she was going to sit here, being an extra pair of eyes for him, keeping watch on things across the valley.

  Probably exaggerating her own importance, she thought wryly, but old training just wouldn’t lay down and die. Hadn’t she just faced it again yesterday?

  Call it sentry duty, she thought. Early warning system. Beside her on the tarp lay the radio, itself like a sudden arrival from a past she’d tried to completely leave behind.

  Though women weren’t supposed to be combatants, war had changed enough that it was unavoidable. Riding as part of a supply convoy, being shelled by RPGs at a base...women in uniform were as much a part of that as any man. Hell, they’d even given her a weapon to carry, and taught her how to use it. She’d been in a couple of firefights, certainly not as many as a scout patrol, but she’d been caught up in them anyway, in narrow streets with boarded windows and locked doors. She hadn’t been safe from improvised bombs on the roads, either. She’d been in two convoys that had been hit, and she’d lost more than one friend.

  So she had some scars. One of them had evidently been opened yesterday. Maybe the unexpected encounter with Buddy had softened her up in some way, lowered her guard against her own memories. Add to that talking to some of the vets at that meeting, which had dragged up a few memories, and then looking at those doors and nearly blank windows along the street had finished the job.

  That was probably it. She’d just better keep her guard up for a while. While it was just an unfortunate confluence, not likely to reoccur, she sure didn’t want to go away inside herself again. She needed to be able to trust that she wouldn’t do that. Absolutely needed to.

&nbs
p; Yeah, she had something to prove all right. To herself.

  She picked up her camera, pulled the lens cap off and used the telephoto lens to sweep the valley and Buddy Jackson’s place across the way. It was an act of defiance she needed to make. Spying? She’d show him.

  Unfortunately she didn’t see a damn thing. Not even anybody walking around Buddy’s property. Some spy. Almost laughing at herself, she trained her camera farther up the valley. She kept hoping she might spot a wolf, although she had been assured she probably wouldn’t even know they were around unless they howled. Still, she hoped.

  But her small act of defiance lifted her spirits. She capped her camera and set up her easel with the canvas she had daubed paint on a few days ago. Her spirits lifted even more as she looked at the colors she had chosen. Amazing, but when she looked out over the valley she saw those colors had changed in just a couple of days, some growing brighter, some darker.

  She was ready to paint again.

  * * *

  Craig was working his way slowly along Buddy’s side of the mountain, checking streams that ran down narrow gorges to the valley below, all the while trying to get closer to Buddy’s property. He wanted to see if those trip wires wound around the entire perimeter, and if so, what they were attached to.

  Seemed like a stupid thing to do for an alarm. In these woods those wires were apt to be bumped by a lot of things that weren’t human, not exactly what he figured Buddy was worrying about.

  Damn trip wires seemed extreme any way he looked at it. Hikers and hunters could read Buddy’s signs and wouldn’t misinterpret the barbed wire fencing.

  Giving a mental shrug, he kept Dusty heading slowly up the rugged slope beside the brook, although at this point he could fairly well say this brook wasn’t dammed. But it kept him riding within sight of Buddy’s property. Between the trees he glimpsed the fence and the trip wires when the sun reflected from them.

  A long time ago, the property had been cleared of trees right along the boundary on both sides. At least Buddy had let some of the brush grow back to stabilize the soil, but not so much that Craig couldn’t catch sight of the wires.

  He was just ambling along, checking his watch from time to time, thinking that soon he’d head on back and see if Sky had come out to paint and if she wanted to stay at the cabin again. He kind of hoped she would. She’d been easy, undemanding company, and it had been nice to share the place with her. A change.

  A snort from Dusty brought him out of his woolgathering and he looked around immediately. Some animal? Dusty rarely reacted to anything except wolves or bears, but he saw none.

  However, as he glanced toward Buddy’s place he saw two things that troubled him. That movement among the trees on Buddy’s property appeared to be a man in a camouflage. Maybe that Cap guy. Buddy ought to tell him that camouflage worked better when you held still.

  But then he saw something else, and drew rein. Dusty halted, shaking his head and pawing once.

  “Sh, sh...” He patted Dusty’s neck and slid back on the saddle just a bit, a cue to hold still.

  Something was being built just inside the fence. All the way out here, two-by-fours were rising in a skeletal shape.

  Damned if it didn’t look like a watchtower.

  His neck prickling with the awareness of being watched, Craig turned his attention away from the watchtower as if it didn’t interest him at all. He dismounted, holding Dusty’s reins, and walked away from Buddy’s property toward the gorge, pretending to look down into it for obstructions. Cover. Act like it didn’t matter what the hell Buddy was doing on his own property.

  But as he pretended to scan the gorge up and down and the tumbling stream below, his mind was totally focused on that structure behind him.

  It would have to grow a lot taller to see over the old-growth trees, but as that wouldn’t have done a lot of good anyway, unless you were expecting trouble from above, its only purpose could be to post a guard on the fence line.

  He’d known Buddy for three years now, and never before had the man gone to anything like this extreme. Something had changed, and Cap’s arrival seemed to be part of it. He had to find out who that guy was. Or Gage did. The balance had been changed somehow.

  What the hell were these guys up to? Why in the world would they think they might need an armed perimeter? The possible answers to that question didn’t settle Craig’s mind at all. Nothing was going on around here or anywhere nearby that constituted that kind of threat.

  Unless someone on Buddy’s side of the fence was doing something illegal or, worse, planning something illegal. It sure wouldn’t be the first time such things had happened.

  He remounted and rode farther up along the gorge, acting as if it were all he was interested in. He found a place to cross it, then came back down the other side, taking his time, acting as if he hadn’t a thought in the world except to check the water flow.

  But all the while he was turning possibilities around in his mind, none of them good.

  * * *

  Sky carefully placed her canvas in its carrying box as the afternoon faded, leaving the light flat and unattractive. She hadn’t seen Craig at all that day, or anything else for that matter. But she had hoped, foolishly, that Craig would show up.

  But why would he? she asked herself. After her withdrawal yesterday, he’d be wise to avoid her. No guy could possibly be interested in a woman with that kind of problem.

  But then she scolded herself for even thinking of it. Damn, she’d just been through an emotional wringer over a breakup, finding out her boyfriend thought she was a lousy lover and that he’d been cheating on her. Hadn’t she come out here trying to convince herself she wanted nothing to do with a man ever again?

  She could have laughed at herself for her inconsistency except right now it didn’t feel funny. What the heck was going on with her?

  She felt even more foolish because she had packed up enough of her things so she could accept his offer of spending the night at the cabin. But he’d have to show her where it was, and evidently he wasn’t going to.

  But why would he? She hardly knew the guy, but it was painful anyway. He hadn’t had to make the offer if he didn’t mean it. That seemed almost cruel.

  She wouldn’t have thought him the type, but as she’d amply proved, she was no judge of men. Apparently she couldn’t tell a nice one from a creep.

  Sighing, trying to buck herself up and convince herself not to take things so hard, she finished packing up and began her trek back to her car. The trail through the woods was quiet except for some birdsong and ordinarily soothing, but evidently nothing was going to soothe her today. Silly or not, she was feeling rejected.

  Of course, Craig could have just gotten busy with something he couldn’t just drop. He probably had all kinds of duties he needed to fulfill. Then she wondered why she was making excuses for him. He was just a near-stranger who had been nice to her a couple of times. She had no right to expect more from him.

  She was putting her supplies in her car when she heard a truck approaching. She straightened and watched as a forest service vehicle came around the bend in the road and pulled up behind her.

  It was Craig, and he climbed out with a smile. “I was afraid I’d miss you,” he said cheerfully. Evidently he didn’t begin to imagine the emotional loops she’d been running through as the day passed. Why would he? She was nobody special to him.

  “I was just leaving,” she said. She hated the way her spirits lifted at the sight of him as much as she hated the way they’d spent the day nose-diving because he hadn’t showed up.

  “Did you want to spend the night at the cabin?”

  “I’d been thinking about it.”

  “Good.” His smile broadened. “Let’s get going. Food will be slim pickings, though, since I didn’t get to town.”

  “I filled a cooler with enough for two,” she admitted, now that it seemed safe. Odd to realize that she hadn’t been feeling safe because she had thought he might be
avoiding her. That was over-the-top, surely.

  Maybe she ought to just get into her car right now and drive to another state before she grew any more foolish than she already had. But running from things wasn’t her style.

  She followed him a mile up the dirt road until they took a left turn into a narrower, bumpier track that she remembered from the other day. Vaguely. She had only been starting to emerge from her psychological isolation at that point and was certain she couldn’t have found her way back here.

  Dusty was already in his corral, grazing contentedly on rapidly thinning grasses. A water trough near the cabin had been filled, and some kind of feed had been poured into a concrete basin.

  “He looks happy,” Sky remarked as she climbed out of her car.

  “He’s always happy,” Craig answered. “He’s got a good life, plenty of exercise, open spaces and food. I’m kind of like him myself.”

  Maybe so, Sky thought as Craig insisted on carrying everything inside—her painting supplies, her suitcase and her cooler. As the evening crept up on them, it began to grow chilly. Sky grabbed her jacked off her backseat and pulled it on. Quite a contrast to Tampa at this time of year, she thought. You could have two or three seasons in just one day here.

  “Want me to start the fire?” Craig asked as he came out of the cabin yet again.

  “How fast is it going to cool down?”

  “Air’s thin here, so pretty fast. Let me get some more wood and kindling.”

  She walked around the cabin with him to help, and carried three split logs inside. “Don’t you guys keep food here?”

  “Not much. This cabin isn’t often used unless someone wants to be out here for a while studying something. So there’s not a whole lot beyond what I’d call an emergency kit. Survival stuff. I don’t like to use it before we’re ready to restock for another year.”

  That made sense to her.