High-Caliber Cowboy

by B. J Daniels

  The Shady Rest Motor Inn wasn’t an inn. It was barely a motel anymore. The place was on the old highway, too far off the Interstate to get much business other than overflow.

  As Brandon walked into the office, though, he was delighted to see that he knew the clerk behind the desk. He’d met her at a party one of those times he’d come to Sheridan to get away and have some fun.

  “Hannah, right?”

  She grinned, obviously pleased he’d remembered.

  They talked for a few minutes about everything but what he’d come for. When she mentioned that the motel owner had gone into town and wouldn’t be back for a while, Brandon told her about the woman he’d been looking for.

  “Yep, she was here. But she left before I came on this morning.”

  “I need to find her.”

  “You know I’m not supposed to do this,” Hannah said.

  “I wouldn’t ask you, but it really is important,” he told her. “She’s in trouble and I’m trying to help her.”

  Hannah looked a little skeptical but called up the information on the computer. “She didn’t check out, it looks like. She was registered as Anna Austin.” Address? A post-office box in Richmond, Virginia. Virginia. That could account for the slight accent he’d picked up. No phone number. Nothing under a business.

  “What’s with you McCalls? Your brother called here this morning, too, looking for a woman,” Hannah said.

  “Cash?”

  She nodded. “He was looking for another guest from Virginia. Lenore Johnson?”

  The name didn’t ring any bells. “They weren’t in the same room, were they?”

  Hannah shook her head. “They weren’t even here at the same time.” She shrugged. “Probably just a coincidence.”

  He rubbed his throbbing temples. Right now, there was only one woman he cared about. “Do you remember what Anna Austin was driving?”

  “A black Ford pickup with Montana plates,” Hannah said.

  Why would the woman from last night have rented a pickup truck? She’d looked like a fancy-sedan kind of woman.

  He thanked Hannah and left before her boss got back. The more he thought about the black pickup, the more sense it made. If you wanted to blend in in this part of the country, a pickup would be the way to do it. Especially if your mission was vandalizing coalbed methane wells on the VanHorn Ranch. A pickup wouldn’t have raised suspicion like a car, if seen on the ranch.

  The fact that she’d probably left the motel in the wee hours without checking out convinced him that she knew he would be looking for her. In fact, she probably figured all of the VanHorn ranch hands and the sheriff’s department were searching for her, as well. She wouldn’t know that he couldn’t go to Mason VanHorn.

  So she would try to find some place to hide. In this part of the country, that could be anywhere. Or she’d give up and leave.

  His instincts told him she wouldn’t give up. Not her.

  He had the feeling that she hadn’t gotten what she’d broken into the ranch house for last night. The safe had been empty by the time he’d come around. Completely empty. What thief took everything in the safe? A thief in a hurry. Or one who found nothing but bundles of money.

  Except she hadn’t had any kind of a bag with her. He would have seen it as skintight as that Lycra outfit had been. She hadn’t planned on taking much with her.

  He wondered what exactly she’d been looking for, then. Or if she was even a reporter. He didn’t know any reporters who committed vandalism and breaking and entering for a story.

  What he tried not to think about was how she’d hoodwinked him. She’d seemed so scared, so vulnerable, so caught. And all the time she’d just been playing him until she could get her hands on that lamp to throw at him.

  She’d played him for a fool.

  He drove back to Antelope Flats, tired, head aching, thinking only of a hot bath. He knew her name and what she was driving. He’d see her again. He was sure of it. Tonight.

  One of the VanHorn Ranch pickups was just pulling out of the Longhorn Café. The ranch hand flagged him down.

  “Red asked me to find you. He wants you to stop by the ranch to talk about surveillance tonight.”

  “Sure. Did something happen?” he asked, worried that the break-in had been discovered.

  “Not that I know of. I think Red just wants to catch that damned vandal before the boss gets back.”

  That damned vandal, Brandon thought as he drove out of town again, headed for the VanHorn Ranch.

  If things went as he thought they would, he’d catch the vandal tonight. He tried not to think about turning Anna Austin over to VanHorn as he drove south to the ranch.

  * * *

  SHERIFF CASH MCCALL dug the sides of his boots into the steep hillside, sliding in the loose rocks. Below him, coroner Raymond Winters stood next to the river’s edge, his hands in his pockets, his eyes averted from the body.

  “A trucker saw her from the road and called it in to the Wyoming Highway Patrol,” Winters said when Cash reached him. Winters was fiftysomething, a quiet, solemn man who, along with being coroner for Cash’s county, owned Winters Funeral Home in Sheridan, Wyoming.

  “Thanks for staying at the scene until I could get here,” Cash said.

  “No problem. She hasn’t been in the water long,” Winters said. “Twelve hours, tops.”

  “Cause of death?” Cash asked as he photographed the scene and the body of the overweight woman lying faceup in the water.

  “At this point? I’d say a blow to the head.”

  “Any sign of a struggle?” Cash asked.

  “Won’t know for certain until I get her back to the lab, but you can see there is some bruising on the fleshy part of her upper arms.”

  “As if someone had grabbed her, maybe pushed her?”

  Winters shrugged. “Women that age bruise easily.”

  “I heard her car is up the road, locked, keys in the ignition, a half-empty fifth of vodka lying on the floor.”

  Winters nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find her blood alcohol elevated.”

  Cash looked back up the steep embankment to the highway. “You think she fell?”

  “Looks that way. Stopped to relieve herself beside the road, locked the keys in her car, started walking home—she just lives up the road a couple of miles—got too close to the edge, slipped and fell. If she was drunk, it could explain it. She worked the night shift at Brookside and was probably coming from work.”

  “Brookside? I thought that place had been closed for years.”

  “The state took it over back in the eighties, closed the hospital, but has to have someone up there at night because of the darned kids until it sells,” Winters said.

  “You know kids.”

  Cash nodded, remembering a night he and his brother Rourke went up there. An old haunted-looking huge building that sat dark and foreboding against the horizon about halfway between Antelope Flats, Montana, and Sheridan, Wyoming. The place scared the hell out of him, partly because of all the stories he’d heard about it. And partly because of the bad vibes he’d felt there that night.

  He finished shooting the scene and put his camera away. “Next of kin?”

  Winters shook his head. “Widowed. No kids. Lives alone.”

  “You knew her pretty well?” Cash asked.

  “Not really. Just in passing.” Winters rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay to go ahead and get her out of the water?”

  Cash nodded. “A boyfriend?” he asked, thinking of the bruises.

  Winters shook his head. “Highly doubt it.”

  “Problems with neighbors, work?” Cash asked, still worried about the bruises.

  “None that I know of.”

  Cash glanced again up the embankment. He could see where she had fallen. There were indentations in the loose gravel and blood on the rocks along the river.

  “Let me know when you have her blood alcohol levels.” Cash figured he knew what would come back. Emma
Ingles had drank too much, gotten out of her car for some reason and just lost her footing and fell, her body coming to rest in the water at the edge of the Tongue River.

  But it nagged him that she would stop this close to home.

  It was a sad end, but no reason to think of foul play. At least not at this point.

  Still, Cash decided to put in a call to her boss at the former mental hospital and maybe her co-workers or neighbors. Wouldn’t hurt while he waited for the autopsy report.

  * * *

  RED DIDN’T GET UP when Brandon walked into his office on the VanHorn Ranch. The first time he’d seen Red had been outside the Longhorn Café. Red had approached him, having overheard him say he needed another job if he hoped to go to law school on his own—which was the only way he was going.

  Brandon wasn’t asking his father for money. Because then Asa would ask him about the money he’d been left by his grandfather and he’d have to admit that he’d blown it all. No way.

  That day on the sidewalk, he’d known the new VanHorn Ranch manager hadn’t realized he shouldn’t be hiring him. Red obviously either didn’t know about the feud or didn’t realize its magnitude.

  Brandon wondered now if Red was wiser, if somehow Mason VanHorn had found out he had a McCall working for him. Or if Red just wanted to see him about security tonight like the ranch hand had said.

  On the way into the VanHorn Ranch compound, Brandon had been relieved to see that Mason VanHorn’s big expensive car hadn’t been parked in front of the ranch house. VanHorn was still in Gillette, so that meant he didn’t know about the break-in, right?

  The last thing Brandon wanted to do was run into the man, so he hoped to make this meeting with Red as short as possible. That’s why working nights had been so ideal. No chance of seeing the big boss.

  “Thanks for coming, Brandon. Sit down,” Red said, and at once Brandon knew something was wrong. Before he could get seated, Red asked, “Run into any trouble last night?”

  Was it possible someone had seen where the bathroom window had been pried open? Or had someone gone into the house and found the broken lamp in Mason’s office?

  Red pointed at the bandage on Brandon’s head.

  He’d forgotten about the injury and since he’d been taught to remove his hat when entering a room, he’d taken if off and now held it in his lap. “Accident after work. Wasn’t paying attention. Took a fall.”

  Red nodded, measuring him, his gaze saying he knew Brandon was lying. “When I hired you, you didn’t mention that your family doesn’t get along with the VanHorns.”

  “I didn’t think it was relevant,” Brandon said truthfully. “I’ve never had anything against the VanHorns. It’s just some old feud that no one seems to know how it got started. Is there a problem with my work?”

  “Someone broke into the ranch house last night. Since it falls within your section of the ranch, I thought you might have seen something.”

  Brandon liked Red—would have liked to tell him the truth. But if he did, he could kiss off any chance of catching the woman. It wasn’t just his pride. He owed her.

  Before he could answer Red’s question a side office door banged open.

  Brandon turned, unable to hide his shock as Mason VanHorn stormed into the room. He was a big man, much like Brandon’s father, Asa. But where Asa was blue-eyed and blond, Mason was dark.

  Over the years, his once coal-black hair had gone from salt-and-pepper to white. Having seen Mason only in passing in town, Brandon couldn’t hide his shock at how much Mason had aged—or the fact that he was here—and the ruse was up.

  “He asked you why you didn’t see this mysterious person who broke into my house,” Mason shouted towering over him.

  That wasn’t exactly what Red had asked him, but Brandon didn’t point that out. He could see that he was toast no matter what he said. Surprisingly, his first instinct was to tell the truth. But when he thought of Anna Austin, he knew he couldn’t do that. He did his sheepish look. “I fell asleep.”

  “Like hell,” Mason raged. “You were one of the vandals. Who was the other person?”

  Brandon shook his head. “I didn’t break into your house. I was guarding your wells.”

  Mason let out a curse that rattled the windows. “What the hell were you doing working on my ranch, anyway?”

  “I need the money to go to law school,” he said truthfully.

  “Why wouldn’t you just ask your father for the money? It isn’t like Asa couldn’t afford to send you to law school.”

  Brandon rose from his chair, refusing to let Mason VanHorn intimidate him. “It’s something I wanted to do on my own, okay? I’m thirty-three. Isn’t it possible I want to be my own man?”

  “You should have been your own man when you were eighteen,” Mason snapped.

  Brandon smiled and nodded. “I guess I’m a late bloomer.” He was eye-level with VanHorn, matched him in size and had youth on his side. And yet he felt a small tremor when he looked into the man’s dark eyes.

  If half the rumors about VanHorn were true, Brandon had every reason to be concerned he might never get off this ranch alive.

  “You’re spoiled rotten, like all the McCalls.”

  Brandon said nothing, seeing how this could escalate. Also, he had been spoiled. And wild. And foolish. And he should have grown up a long time ago.

  Also, Mason was spoiling for a fight. “If I find out that’s your blood in my house, that you vandalized my wells and broke into my house—”

  “I’m not a vandal or a thief. Whatever the deal is between you and my father, it has nothing to do with me.” He gingerly put his hat back on his head.

  Red handed him his paycheck and he took it.

  Mason was still seething. “You’re fired.”

  “I got that,” he said, folding the check and putting it into his shirt pocket.

  “So now you’ll run to Cash the way you ran to Rourke when you lost money gambling with my last ranch manager,” Mason said.

  So Mason knew that his former ranch manager, Ace, had been fleecing not just the hired hands in the valley, but one of the McCalls.

  Brandon felt his face heat. Not with anger but with embarrassment and shame. He’d lost a lot of money by being young and foolish. And now he knew that Mason VanHorn had known.

  “I learned my lesson,” Brandon said.

  “An expensive lesson,” VanHorn noted with no small satisfaction.

  Brandon smiled. “It certainly was. I’m glad to see at least you enjoyed it. But you know, your former ranch foreman ‘Ace’ Kelly taught me an invaluable lesson about men who deal off the bottom of the deck. Whatever happened to him anyway? He rip off the wrong cowhand?”

  Word in the county was that Kelly had just disappeared. A day later, Red Hudson had showed up and taken his place. Was it possible Kelly had gotten on Mason’s bad side? Mason was famous for always getting even for the most minor of slights. Brandon couldn’t help but wonder if Kelly wasn’t buried somewhere on the ranch.

  “I never want to see you on my property again,” VanHorn said as if Brandon had hit a sore spot at just the mention of Kelly.

  Brandon tipped his hat to Red, “Thanks for the job,” and headed for the door, figuring he got off a lot easier than Kelly.

  But now he had a major problem. How was he going to catch the woman? Worse, she had no idea about the trap she would be walking into with VanHorn back from Gillette.

  Brandon had no choice. He’d have to sneak back onto the ranch tonight. He couldn’t let her fall into VanHorn’s clutches. Better to catch her and turn her over to his brother, the sheriff.

  Only this time, if he got caught on the ranch, VanHorn could have him shot for trespassing. But what choice did he have? He knew what he was up against. No way did Anna Austin even have an inkling of how much trouble she was in.

  * * *

  ANNA CHANGED her clothing, putting on her swimsuit under a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She packed a small backpack with the c
lothing she would need.

  Her thoughts kept returning to Brandon McCall. He’d been the only man who’d ever interested her. She shook her head, smiling at how foolish that sounded.

  She’d only laid eyes on him one other time and he’d been years from being a man. But she’d fallen in love with him in an instant. Love at first sight. He’d stolen her heart. And since then, she’d measured every man she met against her idea of him—and they’d come up lacking.

  He’d had the cutest, sweetest little grin she’d ever seen. She wondered if he still had it. Now at thirty-three, he’d grown into a heart-stopping handsome cowboy.

  It had taken all of her control back at the ranch house last night to hide her surprise at seeing him again. Especially seeing him working for Mason VanHorn.

  She’d always pictured him as her hero. So much for that fantasy.

  As she walked past the phone on the table in the lake cabin, impulsively she picked it up and dialed the number she’d copied from Mason VanHorn’s caller ID screen in his office. Dr. Niles French’s number.

  She held her breath as the phone rang four times, expecting any moment that she would hear his voice and lose control. An answering machine picked up. An automated voice said, “Dr. French is unavailable. Leave a message and he will return your call at his earliest convenience.”

  Hang up! The answering system beeped. Silence. She was breathing hard, fighting back tears. “I’m going to get you, you son of a bitch. I’m going to nail you and Mason VanHorn. Do you hear me? My name is Anna Austin and I’m coming after you with everything I have.”

  She slammed down the phone on a sob and was shaking so violently she had to steady herself against the table. She took deep breaths, trying to hold back tears of anger and frustration. She had to get control. She couldn’t let Dr. French and Mason VanHorn get away with what they’d done.

  After a moment, her chest quit heaving, her pulse slowed and she straightened. She was still shaky. Knowing what Dr. French was capable of doing frightened her more than she wanted to admit. He was the boogeyman, the monster under the bed. He was her worst nightmare.