Cowboy Trouble

by Joanne Kennedy

  Libby looked closer. Penny was pure white, with a perfect brown circle over each eye. She was sitting up in a classic begging stance, paws clasped, head cocked, studying Libby with an intensity that was different from the other dogs. She swiveled her ears and Libby won dered if the dog could hear her heart thumping out the bassline to some corny country love song.

  Of course she could. Heck, she could probably hear Russian satellite transmissions with those ears.

  "I can get her out for you," Glenda said.

  "No, that's okay." Libby sighed. "I really wanted a big dog."

  Penny wavered unsteadily on her haunches, but her eyes never left Libby's face.

  "Jack Russells think they're big," Glenda said. "And they make great watchdogs."

  "Come on, that's not a dog. That's an overgrown lab rat." Libby struggled to break eye contact with the ridiculous animal so she could move on.

  She failed.

  "You'd be surprised what Jack Russells can do." As Glenda spoke, she opened the kennel door. Penny sat back on her haunches for a half-second, then launched herself upward like a miniature torpedo. Next thing Libby knew, she was drowning in dog slurp.

  "Oh my gosh. She loves you!" Glenda laughed as Penny hooked her paws over Libby's shoulders and continued her onslaught of affection. "She's not usually like that. She's really laid back. She just really, really likes you."

  Libby grasped Penny around her middle and gently extricated her from her face. The dog's stubby legs pedaled the air frantically. "Really?"

  "Really." The shelter manager nodded somberly. "She's kind of stand-offish."

  Libby looked down as Penny gave up pedaling and settled quietly into her arms. The dog gazed into her eyes adoringly, and Libby's heart thumped its way to a pulsating crescendo, drowning out whatever sense she had left.

  She was lost.

  Penny was hers.

  Minutes later, she was signing papers and ponying up sixty dollars, promising to spay her new dog, and swearing to have and to hold, forever and always.

  "Now I need just a few more signatures." Glenda slid a stack of forms across the counter.

  Libby had heard how tough it was to get an animal out of most shelters. She was prepared for a brutal interrogation on every aspect of her life, but Glenda was jumping through administrative hoops like a saluki in an agility trial.

  "You'll love Penny. She's such a sweet dog," she said. "Yeah, she's got a lot of energy, but you live in the country. She'll love it there. Room to run, that's what these dogs need. Room to run."

  ***

  Penny needed room to run, all right. The living room, the bedroom, and most of the kitchen. After ten min utes of non-stop action, Libby was worried her new pet would wear a racetrack into the carpet.

  They'd finished the twenty-seventh round of an end lessly repetitive game of fetch when Penny pricked up her ears and stalked stiff-legged toward the door, a low growl emanating from her tiny chest. Straining her ears, Libby heard a car door slam.

  Footsteps crossed the porch. Loud footsteps. It had to be a man. The fur on Penny's back lifted into a make shift Mohawk and the growl turned into a snarl.

  That was helpful. Libby's so-called guard dog was scaring the crap out of her. The dog, and the fact that she was living miles from any other human habita tion with no more protection than an animal the size of a housecat.

  Knuckles rapped hard on the door.

  "Libby? It's me. Luke."

  Libby felt relief flood every cell of her body, then looked down at Penny and froze. There was no way she could explain how Ivan the Terrible had become Penny the Terribly Cute. Scooping the dog up in one hand, she chucked the animal into the pantry, slammed the door, and rearranged her panicked face into a welcoming smile.

  Chapter 5

  LUKE GRINNED AS LIBBY SWUNG THE DOOR OPEN. SHE smiled back, but it was a pasted-on grin that never quite made it to her eyes.

  "Luke," she said. Her voice was flat. He tried not to take it personally.

  "Hi. I brought you something." He handed her the folder he'd brought and stood back with his arms folded to watch her reaction. "A present," he said.

  She flipped through the contents, which were Xeroxed and filed neatly in chronological order. The headlines flashed by: "Wyoming Teen Missing, Feared Dead." "Search Continues for Wyoming Teen." "Teen's Parents Suspect Foul Play."

  "Wow," she said. "Thanks." This time the smile seemed genuine, and she stepped back to let him in.

  "See? You're definitely not like other girls," he said, stepping inside. "You get excited about farming and murder." He eased a little closer and caught the fresh scent of new-mown hay coming from her hair. She must have been working outside. Either that, or she used some sweet-scented girly shampoo.

  Taking off his Stetson, he spun it in his hands and glanced around the front room. She'd cleaned the place up, hung some pictures on the wall. It looked better—almost homey, despite the evil sofa lurking in the far corner.

  He was still fooling with his hat, trying to come up with some polite conversation, when a loud crash sounded from the pantry.

  He spun to face the sound. "What was that?"

  "Uh… rats," Libby said.

  "Yikes." He cringed. The vermin had to be huge to make a racket like that. "That's awful."

  "You have no idea," she said, but a smile tweaked the corners of her mouth. Well, at least she wasn't afraid of animals, like some women.

  Not even rats.

  A high-pitched whine pierced the air, followed by a volley of yapping barks that clearly emanated from the supposedly rat-infested pantry.

  "That's a rat?" He lifted a doubting eyebrow.

  "I, um, I put Ivan in there. To catch them," she said.

  There was another crash, then a series of loud thumps. It sounded like all her canned goods were cascading to the floor. Another series of yaps pierced the air.

  "He sure doesn't sound big," Luke said. "He sounds like a poodle."

  "Oh, he's no poodle," Libby said. "Definitely not a poodle."

  Luke's curiosity was piqued. He couldn't picture those yapper-dog yelps coming from anything bigger than a shih tzu. "Maybe you'd better let him out."

  "No way." She shook her head. "Not with you here. He bites first, asks questions later."

  She turned away and flipped through the folder, pausing on a photo from the Cheyenne paper. It showed the sheriff leaning against his cruiser, talking to some other guy. "Sheriff Cash McIntyre leads the search for missing teen Della McCarthy," said the caption. Libby looked at the picture a little longer than the rest, then paged forward, then back again. Her tongue darted out and wetted her lips. She finally tore herself away from the photo and glanced up at Luke. He caught a flash of something like guilt in her eyes.

  A frantic flurry of scrabbling hit the pantry door. It sounded like it might be a rat, but then it let out one of those half-assed barks.

  "What kind of dog is he again?" Luke asked.

  "Not sure," Libby said. "Some bullmastiff, maybe a little mountain lion." She cleared her throat and waved the folder at him. "These pictures are great. I mean, these articles."

  Luke smiled weakly. "Yeah," he said. "I can tell it's all about the articles."

  ***

  Libby flipped through the folder, trying to concentrate on the headlines. She could feel Luke watching her, his gaze pleasant but penetrating. He hadn't shaved for a day or two.

  Stubble suited him.

  "So," he said. "Farming, murder—what else gets you excited?"

  She started to say "stubble," then thought better of it and shrugged.

  "Maybe rat traps?" he asked. "You've got a real problem there."

  He was right. But the problem wasn't rats. The prob lem was that she was a psycho fibber, and she couldn't seem to stop. She kept digging her grave of lies deeper and deeper, and it was past time to find a way out.

  Maybe she could convince Luke that Penny was a rat. The little dog looked kind of like a rat, and w
as about the same size. Then she could act really surprised and say Ivan must have disappeared somehow. She could tell him the pantry was the new door to Narnia.

  Or she could just change the subject.

  She pulled the first article out of the folder and scanned it. Someone had written "Cheyenne Eagle Tribune" and a date at the top in neat block printing. The article was a short one—probably the first official notice of Della's disappearance. The next page was from the same paper, a day later. The research involved in putting together a collection like this would take the skills and dedication of an experienced journalist—or the single minded obsession of a bona fide nutcase.

  Libby knew Luke was no journalist. All of a sudden, he was starting to look like a Bundy brother again—tall, dark, and dangerously handsome, with an intense gaze that made her a touch uneasy. She thought of the se rial killer characteristics she'd learned from one of her criminology books and realized she didn't know much about his childhood or home life.

  "So," she said casually. "How's your mother?"

  "Oh, she's driving me nuts today, like usual. She took all the curtains down and put 'em in the refrigerator. Thought she was washing them. I got that bit straight ened out, but who knows what I'm going home to."

  "You, um, live with her?"

  He nodded and she glanced at his ring finger. Bingo. Single and living with his mother at the age of… well, he was definitely over thirty. And his mother was obviously insane. The screeching violins from Psycho started sawing away in her head.

  She cleared her throat. "Have you been, um, collect ing these articles long?"

  "All morning," he said. "At the library."

  "Oh," she said. "The library." She hacked out a phony little laugh. There was no way someone could put together a collection like this in a single day. Or a single week. No, this was a long-term project.

  "Wow," she said. "Thanks."

  Luke nodded. "I promised you background on the case, remember? And I always keep my promises."

  Libby eyed the folder again. Maybe it wasn't so extraordinary. Maybe he was just a good researcher. A hard worker.

  She hoped so.

  Because it had been a long time since she'd met a man who kept his promises. It would be a darn shame if the guy turned out to be a serial killer.

  ***

  Libby couldn't sleep.

  That wasn't unusual. Her old job at a big-city news paper came with a wide range of anxieties, and sleepless nights were part of the package. This time was different, though. She was in a new place, with new sounds: the house creaking, the jackalopes singing…

  Wait a minute. There were no such things as jackalopes.

  She got up to investigate. It didn't take her long to figure out where the bloodcurdling howls were coming from. Penny crouched by the front door, nose raised high, keening. Libby had taken her to bed, letting her curl up near her feet, but the dog had paced all night, clicking her toenails up and down the hardwood floor until Libby finally let her out of the bedroom.

  "What's wrong, baby?"

  Penny answered with a deep moan that spiraled into yet another howl. Jackalopes had nothing on this baby.

  "Are you hurt? Are you lonesome?"

  Trotting to the front door, she tossed her head back for another howl.

  "You need to go out?" Libby opened the door. Stars blanketed the sky, casting a faint silver glow over the crooked outbuildings that made up her little empire. Penny stared out at the night-shrouded farm, her tail tucked between her legs, then curled up on the doormat and moaned. Then she moaned again.

  It was a long night.

  By the time it was over, Libby was convinced her new dog was deathly ill. No amount of stress or loneli ness could account for this kind of misery.

  It was definitely time for an introduction to Lackaduck's one and only veterinarian.

  ***

  Pale and doughy with a gap-toothed jack-o'-lantern grin, Ron Stangerson was hardly God's gift to women—but somehow, he'd missed that memo. After a brief speech proclaiming his eligibility as a bachelor, the vet flexed his biceps to show Libby the muscles he'd developed over the years yanking calves from reluctant Hereford mothers, and began recounting his many adventures in the bovine birth canal.

  "Yep, that heifer squeezed my arm until my fingers went numb, but I just reached in there and grabbed that sucker by the nose. The trick is to get your fingers up their nostrils, so you can pull 'em round and drag 'em out frontwards. It's hard work, but I'm the man for it." Suddenly, he doubled over and grimaced. Libby thought he'd been taken ill until she realized he was contort ing himself into a bodybuilder's stance to display the muscles obscured beneath his pallid flesh.

  She faked admiration to placate his ego, then turned the conversation to Penny's problems and described the dog's nocturnal agony. Stangerson looked down at the sad little pup that lay in her arms with a "take me now, Lord" expression on her furry face and nodded.

  "It's separation anxiety," he said.

  "But we're hardly ever separated. She follows me everywhere. This morning she tried to get in the shower with me. How can she have separation anxiety?"

  "It's not separation from you she has a problem with. She came from the shelter, right?"

  Libby nodded, setting Penny on the stainless steel table.

  "Had a litter of pups not too long ago, didn't she?"

  Libby was impressed. To her eye, Penny had shed her baby weight in record time, but evidently Ron could still spot the effects of her recent pregnancy.

  "Yeah." She sighed, holding Penny steady on the slippery table. "They said she had four of them."

  "Well, that's your trouble right there," Ron said. "She's missing her young 'uns. And you don't have any other dogs, right? You're living out there all by yourself."

  "Right," Libby said. She was tempted to resurrect the myth of Ivan the Terrible, but she told herself she was being paranoid. Then Ron stroked Penny's head and his fingers brushed against hers, pausing a beat too long. She felt a jolt of alarm and jerked her hand back.

  "Just making sure there's no physical cause," Ron said, continuing to run his hands over the dog's body. Libby relaxed as he examined Penny's eyes and teeth, convinced she'd misread his touch.

  "Yep, she's a healthy pup. I'd say it's just a severe case of empty nest syndrome," he concluded.

  "Will she get over it?" Libby stifled a yawn. "I sure can't go through another night like that."

  "She'll probably forget eventually. But it'll take a while. I'll give you some sedatives that'll help her out." Ron stroked Penny's head and made soft, consoling noises. In return, the dog jumped up and threw her front paws over his shoulders, making a concerted effort to stick her tongue up his nose as she showered him with smooches.

  "Wow. They said at the shelter she was a little stand offish. She sure does like you though—in spite of that bit with the thermometer."

  "I have a way with critters," he boasted. A leer creased his face. "Especially the female kind."

  Her skin crawled, and her estimate of Penny's intu ition about human nature took a dramatic nosedive and crashed to the ground. The guy was a creep.

  She wished she hadn't admitted to living alone.

  "How nice for you," she said. "Bill me, would you?" She snapped on Penny's leash and beat a rapid retreat out the door to her pickup.

  She needed to go home and wash her hands.

  ***

  Libby spent the rest of the day tidying up the house— shelving books, washing windows, and creating a cozy, homey nest for Penny and herself out of the skimpy leavings of her previous life. At the end of the day, the little farmhouse gleamed with cleanliness. She was start ing to feel like she'd come close to creating a real home, and Penny fit right in. Libby took her outside and threw a stick over and over, hoping to get the dog tired enough to sleep through the night.

  It didn't work. After another night of Penny's histrion ics, somewhat abated by one of Ron's Doggy Downers, Libby couldn't get t
o the shelter fast enough. Glenda was sympathetic when she explained her plight.

  "I was afraid of that," she said. "I almost suggested right off the bat you get more than one. But it's so hard to train multiple dogs."

  "I know. But she's losing her mind. What'll I do? It's bad enough dealing with one Jack Russell. I can't take on a whole herd."

  "Why not just foster them?"

  "Foster?"

  "Yeah, just take care of the puppies until we find homes for them. That way, they'll go one by one and she'll be more secure at your place by the time they're gone."