Eric groaned. “How the hell are we going to get around him?”
The sound of hooves trotting through gravel crunched behind them. A tiny boy bounced past them on the back of a towering quarter horse, well over sixteen hands.
Sarah glanced at Eric. “Slow down and follow my lead.”
Plastering a proud-parent smile on her face, Sarah took Eric’s arm and they followed the boy through the gate. “Now remember, just relax. You’ve got this,” she called to the boy.
The man in the hat gave the kid a grin, then focused on Sarah and Eric. “Good luck.”
“Thanks!” Sarah said.
Eric gave the guy a friendly tip of the hat. As soon as they cleared the gate, he turned to Sarah. “Pretty slick.”
She couldn’t help turning a genuine smile on him. In the past day and a half, she’d had to lean on Eric more than she had leaned on anyone since she was a child. It felt good to have a venue where she could put her expertise to use. And it felt better than she wanted to acknowledge to have Eric notice. “I’m glad he didn’t know the boy. That would have been dicey.”
“You’d have come up with something.”
She’d like to think so, but she wasn’t so sure. Her mind felt as fuzzy as her muscles were tired. Along with the fatigue, she couldn’t shake the constant sense that tears were pressing at the corners of her eyes and longing poised to uncurl in her chest—emotion waiting for the slightest excuse to push to the surface. She normally went by what her gut told her, but fighting through all she had in addition to having Eric again at her side was overwhelming. She prayed she could hold it all together.
And that they wouldn’t run in to Keith or Glenn or someone else who would know who they were.
Finding the track that circled the opposite end of the arena from where the competitors congregated, they headed for the grandstand. They fell into the light stream of foot traffic behind a young family. Sarah plastered a smile to her face and tried to look like she was here to enjoy a fun night at the rodeo instead of hoping to identify a murder victim.
In front of her, a toddler girl looked over her daddy’s shoulder and gave her a smile. Wrapping her little arms around his neck, she whispered something in his ear, and he laughed. Her older brother held both mom and dad’s hands. Picking up his legs, he swung between them like they were human monkey bars.
Sarah’s throat felt thick, her chest painfully empty. What she wouldn’t have given for a happy family scene like that when she was a child. Her parents rarely took them to the rodeo, only Layton had bothered to do that. Even when one of them did trailer her barrel horse to the grounds, usually their mom, she seemed distant, more inclined to hang out with adults than help her daughter saddle up or cheer for her son to stay on his steer for the required eight seconds.
The worst part was that Sarah had always vowed her kids would have it different. That their rodeo experiences would be all about family. A mom and a dad…together. A mom and a dad who loved each other. She wanted to give her own children those moments she’d never had. Precious moments the family in front of them probably took for granted.
She blinked back the mist of tears and gave the little girl a wave as the family split off to take a seat in the stands and she and Eric continued on the same path.
In the concession area behind the grandstand, people milled around, buying raffle tickets to win a bedroom set handcrafted out of knotty pine. The crowd seemed bigger than the number of vehicles in the parking lot suggested. The scent of popcorn teased the air, making Sarah’s stomach growl. She looked up at the back of the grandstand.
Plain, white walls greeted her, broken only by a few sponsors signs.
Her stomach dropped. “It’s not here. The list of champions.”
From the arena, the announcer boomed his introductions. Boots shuffled in the stands above them. Flags flapped in the wind as riders paraded them around the arena at a lope.
“There are seats on the other side,” Eric said. “Maybe it’s there.”
Sarah thought of the small section of grandstand overlooking the bucking chutes, where cowboys mounted horses and bulls, and shook her head. “I got a glimpse of The Buzzard’s Roost when we pulled in. It wasn’t there either. I must be remembering the wall of champions from a different rodeo grounds. I have so many memories of this place, I guess I just assumed…”
Eric rubbed a hand over her back. “It’s okay. We’ll find his name another way.”
His touch felt good, as it had in the trailer. Too good. She wanted to lean in to him. Let him hold her. Fill her up. She felt too weak to stand on her own a moment longer.
She shook her head and beat back the threat of tears. She supposed it was natural to have this reaction. Between the hormones and lack of sleep and losing her brother, it probably wasn’t surprising that she was now losing her mind. “We came here for nothing.”
“Pardon, but don’t I know you?” a man’s voice called from behind her.
Sarah’s heart stuttered in her chest.
CHAPTER TEN
ERIC’S PULSE THRUMMED IN HIS ears, drowning out the first strains of the national anthem. He glanced at the front gate. A good fifty feet lay between them and the parking lot. If this guy recognized them, they’d have to make a dash for it. Gathering himself, he turned toward the voice.
An older man stood grinning at Sarah, his face as round as the brim of the hat on his head. He raised a hand and stroked the corners of a nearly white mustache. “Didn’t you used to do some barrel racing around here a few years ago?”
Sarah glanced at Eric with wide eyes, then returned her focus to the man. Pink crept up her throat and touched her cheeks. She opened her mouth, as if to answer, then closed it without saying a word.
“I’m Joe. So you’ve been involved with the rodeo here for a while?” Eric thrust his hand toward the man. He’d learned a while ago that if you wanted to distract someone, get them talking about themselves. It worked every time.
The man enveloped his hand and gave it a firm shake. “They call me Smithy. Been coming here since I was a boy up in Powell.”
“Then you’re just the man we want to talk to, Smithy.” He knew it was risky, sticking around any longer than they had to. If the guy remembered Sarah’s name, he might just tie her to the story he’d heard about in the news. But without the list of champions, they had no answers.
He had to take the risk.
Eric pulled the belt buckle from the pack. “Found this out on the BLM. Wanted to return it to its owner. Problem is, we don’t know the name of the man who won it.”
The man took the buckle and held it out as far as he could reach. Hard muscle roped forearms spotted with age. “Bareback bronc riding?”
“1978.” Eric supplied.
“Long time ago.”
Sarah gave him a smile, this time looking more sweet than scared out of her wits. “Are there records of who won back then?”
“Of course.”
“Where could we find something like that?” She’d obviously recovered from the shock and was playing along as if they’d planned this course of action all along.
The man stroked his mustache once again, then trailed lower to rub his chin between fingers and thumb. “1978…I think I can tell you who won this. But if you want to check—”
“Really? Who?” Sarah jumped in a little too quickly.
Smithy narrowed his eyes on her as if once again trying to remember where he’d seen her before.
“We just need to get back to our children. You understand.” Eric motioned to the stands. The lie had slipped out so easily, and it suddenly struck him that in just a few months, it wouldn’t be a lie any longer.
“Rodeo’s fun for a family.” Smithy motioned to the arena and began telling them about an upcoming event where children in the audience tried to capture a ribbon from a calf’s tail and win prizes.
Eric didn’t hear a word.
A family. That’s what he and Sarah and the baby could be.
His throat constricted. He kept his focus on Smithy, smiling and nodding at the older man’s story, careful not to look in Sarah’s direction, careful to keep control of the emotion bubbling inside.
He’d never wanted a family. Never considered it. He told himself he liked his life as it was. Clear-cut and logical. Always in control. Being around Sarah was never that. He always felt like he was over his head, scaling a cliff solo with no harness. Just a slip away from a disastrous fall.
But right now, listening to Smithy, thinking about a life with her, a family with her…
“So if you’d like me to look up the winner of that buckle to be official…”
Eric forced his mind back to the conversation at hand. “Do you know off the top of your head? We don’t need anything official.”
Smithy handed the buckle back to Eric. “Larry Hodgeson’s the one you’re looking for.”
“You’re sure?” The man had come up with the name so easily, Eric was almost afraid to believe him.
“Sure, I’m sure. He beat me out for that buckle. I can still feel that last ride on rainy days.” He rubbed his hip to illustrate. “A man don’t forget something like that.”
“Thank you so much.” This was turning out better than Eric had dreamed. “Do you know where he lives?”
“Cheyenne. At least last I heard, that’s where he was. Worked for the state down there, I believe.”
Eric almost groaned. The capital of Wyoming, Cheyenne was in the opposite corner of the state from Cody. He didn’t relish the thought of that drive. Of course, driving wasn’t even possible unless they located some wheels.
“You want to return that buckle, you can give it to me. I’ll give it to his wife. She lives here in Cody.”
“His wife?” Sarah echoed.
“Ex-wife, I should have said. After they divorced a little while back, Joy moved home. She’s got family here, you know. She can probably make sure it gets back to him.”
“If you don’t mind, we’d like to return the buckle to Joy ourselves. I’d love to meet her.” Sarah gave the man a smile that could charm just about any man out of anything. “Do you know where we can find her?”
Once again the man studied her with narrowed eyes. “I ain’t in the habit of giving out ladies’ addresses to strangers.”
“Maybe she would meet us somewhere?” Eric asked. It was up to Eric to get the man’s attention away from Sarah and focused on him. Smithy obviously still felt he should know her, and judging from his expressions every time she spoke, he wasn’t about to give up until her remembered her name.
Sarah shifted her boots on the gravel under her feet. “If you think she’s too busy, that’s all right.”
“Too busy?” The man shook his head so hard his jowls flapped. “Joy would welcome a social call. Let me ask her. What section are you and the kids sitting in?”
“What section?” Sarah glanced at Eric.
To the man, it probably looked like she just couldn’t recall. Eric knew she was feeling the same jolt at being caught in a lie that rattled through his own stomach. But there was more implied in the man’s comment than a question they couldn’t answer. He grasped her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“Is Joy Hodgeson here at the rodeo?” he asked.
“She don’t miss a night. She’s up in the announcer’s booth. Acts as kind of a secretary up there, keeping track of the entrants and such.” Smithy pointed to the announcer’s booth across the arena in the top of the Buzzard’s Roost. “One of the reasons she moved back, I think. They have a grand rodeo in Cheyenne, but it ain’t Cody.”
Sarah nodded. “I can appreciate that. Is there any way we can pop in to talk to her? It’ll only take a second, and I’ve always wanted to see what everything looks like from up there.”
Those narrowed eyes again. “I knew you were from around here.”
Eric sucked in a breath. He groped for a distraction. Something he could say. A question he could ask. A way to take back control of the situation. This time, he came up empty.
“You know how people say they never forget a face? That’s me. At least my wife swears it.”
This time, Sarah gave him a relaxed smile that should have had her up for some kind of acting award. “I ran the barrels when I was a teenager. Lots of good memories. I’d love to talk to Mrs. Hodgeson.”
“Can I tell her your name?”
There it was. Eric hoped she could come up with something. Because even if Mr. Never-forget-a-face didn’t recognize them from photos on TV, he might have heard their names enough over the past two days that it all would click.
“Mary Ann Johnston was my maiden name. I didn’t win much, so I doubt you’d remember. I sure had a good time, though.” Emotion infused Sarah’s voice—too much real feeling for anyone to fake.
Eric almost did a double take.
“Mary Ann…Mary Ann…you’ve grown up a lot, young lady. And here I was thinking you looked like that Trask girl. Well, follow me, Joe and Mary Ann.” He started walking back around the track that curved the arena’s edge, motioning them to follow with a wave of his arm.
Sarah glanced at Eric, relief plain on her face.
Eric seconded that feeling. He’d been caught flat-footed that time. No telling how Sarah had come up with the name, but it had worked.
Eric and Sarah followed Smithy up a steel staircase and onto a walkway. A day and a half had passed since Randy had been shot, but it seemed like they’d been on the run without sleep for a week. The setting sun glowed orange off the Absarokas to the west, its reflection making the Shoshone River look as if it were on fire. Below, horses, steers and bulls milled in steel-pipe pens, waiting for their turn in the arena. The announcer’s voice boomed out the name of the first bareback rider on the program, and a roar went up from the crowd.
They had one more person to talk to. One more role to play, and hopefully they’d get the answers they needed. He just prayed at least one of them was still sharp enough to get the job done.
______
Joy Hodgeson wasn’t anything like what Sarah had imagined. Shockingly white hair cropped short and stylish and dressed in Wranglers and a form-fitting western shirt with hot pink piping, the woman looked far younger than she had to be. And her energy…the way she was flying around, organizing entry forms, and feeding them to the announcer, made Sarah feel even more tired than she already was.
After making introductions, Smithy stepped to the side of the narrow staircase outside the booth’s door. “Go on in. There’s not enough room in there for me, too. Besides, that place gives me claustrophobia and vertigo. It’s like a damn tree house without the tree.”
Eric motioned for Sarah to go first and the two of them crammed in to the little room. The place smelled of new paint and cigarettes. Smithy closed the door behind them. The announcer didn’t even turn around, his ball cap pulled down to his brows, his attention glued to the action in the arena below.
“So what brings you two up to see me?” Joy managed to beam them a friendly smile at the same time as she organized entry forms for the next event and handed them to the announcer. Down in the arena, a man dressed as a ragged clown launched into a comedy routine.
Eric pulled out the belt buckle and handed it to the woman.
She stared at the tarnished silver and ran a fingertip over its gold lettering.
“Smithy said it might belong to your husband?” Sarah prodded.
“Yep. It’s Larry’s. Where did you get it?”
“Found it out on the BLM.”
“Careless fool.” Joy handed it back to Eric. “It’s nice of you to return it, don’t get me wrong. I just… I’ve put that part of my life behind me. If you give me your name and number, I’ll have him call.”
“When was the last time you saw your husband?”
“Oh, I threw him out over two years ago.”
Sarah was no forensics expert, but she’d guess the body in the crevasse probably hadn’t been there that long. After t
hat amount of time in the elements, she’d assume the bones would be clean and the smell gone.
And the smell had definitely not been gone.
“Smithy said you moved back to Cody not long ago. That you used to live in Cheyenne.”
The woman bobbed her head as she laid out the entrants on the table in front of the announcer. The man focused on his job, still not taking the time to spare them so much as a glance.
“I love Cheyenne, don’t get me wrong. But I only moved there because of Larry’s job. Cody is my home.”
“Where does Larry work?” Eric managed to make the question sound natural, as if they were merely having a casual conversation.
Joy waved her hands in front of her as if erasing words from the air. “He doesn’t work there anymore. Not long after our divorce, he up and quit his job. Here he just had to stay in Cheyenne instead of moving back with me, and yet he didn’t even wait to take advantage of the incentives for early retirement.”
She shook her head and clucked her tongue as if the illogic of it still bothered her.
“What did he do for a living?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, he worked for the state. In the crime lab.”
“The crime lab?” She exchanged a look with Eric. “What did he do there?”
“He looked at fingerprints. It was a good job. But sometimes I wish I’d never encouraged him to go back to school. I wish we’d stayed right here and worked my folks’ ranch.”
Sarah tilted her head. “Why is that? It seems like a pretty good job.”
“It was. Not great money, but steady, good hours and health insurance. But that was before all those shows started on TV. You know, CSI and the like.”
Now Sarah wasn’t following her at all. “What about CSI?”
“Nothing against the show, but Larry started thinking he was one of those TV stars or something. He started talking with a writer. Having lunch.” She made air quotes with her fingers around the word lunch. “Getting a bit of a swelled head, I think. That’s when I left. He didn’t even try to talk me out of it. Probably had visions of dating some television star in a low-cut blouse.”
Fugitive (A Rocky Mountain Thriller Book 2) Page 8
