Midnight Prey

by Caroline Burnes

  “Well, come on in, Billy,” Hoss urged.

  “I’ve got some official business here.” Billy looked angry, too. He finally stepped aside. Hank Emrich entered behind Billy and the gathering of ranchers fell instantly silent.

  “You obviously didn’t see the news, Billy. Hank’s not welcome here.” Hoss put down his sandwich and stood up.

  “He has something to say.” Billy’s voice was calm, but meant to be obeyed. He nodded to Hank. “Go on, tell ‘em.”

  “Late this evening someone took some bolt cutters and snapped the lock on the cage of the large male wolf. He was set free about five o’clock today.”

  For three beats of her heart, Shadoe heard absolutely nothing but the ticking of the clock in the hallway. Then a babble of voices broke. There were questions and threats in equal measure.

  “The wolf is alone. Without the others he doesn’t stand much of a chance to survive. But he will get hungry, and I want to urge you to bring your stock in to closer pastures. We’re setting traps for him now and I feel certain he’ll be captured shortly.”

  “You feel certain! Can you guarantee me that he won’t go after my sheep?” Gerald Pritchett was furious.

  “I can’t make any rash promises, Gerald. Except one.” Hank looked around the room slowly. “Someone deliberately set that animal free. I do promise you that I will find the person responsible for this, and when I do, he or she will pay the most severe penalty the law will allow me to extract.”

  Before anyone could respond, Hank stepped back through the doorway and slammed the door behind him.

  Billy surveyed the room, settling on Shadoe’s shocked face. He waited until he had her attention, then nodded. “I’m going to make myself an old-fashioned shot of whiskey,” Billy said loud enough for several people to hear. A moment later he left the crowded room and went to the bar near the patio.

  Shadoe followed him, slipping through the ranchers as they argued the best course of action to take in this latest development of the wolves.

  She found him alone, one boot propped up on the bronze bar rail. “What Kathy Lemon said, is it true?” She couldn’t wait for formalities.

  Billy turned to her. His face showed his concern. “He wouldn’t deny it” He lifted the glass and swallowed half of the amber liquid.

  “What about the pocketknife?”

  Billy finished the whiskey before he answered. “He said it had been stolen from his tent.” He finished the drink. “He was like stone while he listened to me. Then he said, and I quote, ‘Facts don’t seem to matter here. If Shadoe believes it, then it must be true.’ Then he walked away.”

  Shadoe recognized his words as those of hurt and anger. But he hadn’t denied the serious charges Kathy Lemon had made against him. She saw that Billy had the same worry she did. Was it possible Hank was guilty?

  “What about the wolf?”

  “That was a shock to Hank. One of the other agents came to tell him right about the time I said I needed to hear him deny it. Instead of answering me, he went up to the cages to see what had happened.”

  “Someone cut the bolt?”

  “Clean as a whistle. And they knew which one they were releasing. The biggest, the leader. The pack may not survive without him.”

  Shadoe stepped up to the bar and poured Billy another drink, taking a half measure for herself. “Billy, is it possible that one of the agents released that wolf?”

  Billy sipped the whiskey this time. “I’d say it’s more than possible. I’d say it’s probable. That place is hard to get to. Someone could have come up through the woods, but the terrain is treacherous. I’d say whoever did it walked straight up the trail from the camp to the cages.”

  Shadoe concentrated on the bite of the whiskey as she took a tiny swallow. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but the burn helped calm her. “Then it could have been Hank?”

  “It could have been.” Billy wasn’t willing to give her that. “It could have been someone else up there, too. Someone who doesn’t care about those wolves the way Hank does.”

  “What’s going to happen to the wolf?” Shadoe knew that if he came on any of the ranchers’ property, he’d be dead. But the federal agents were trying to trap him. Were they using live traps or the lethal leg holds that could cripple or kill him?

  Billy gazed into the back of the bar and his voice took on a pensive note when he finally spoke. “Hank called the wolf Thor.” He looked at Shadoe. “He let it slip before he thought. He knows how much danger the animal is in now. From us, and from the other agents. They can’t afford to have him do something, like kill some cattle or sheep. If they have to, they’ll kill him before the ranchers do.”

  For a split second Shadoe was caught again in the golden gaze as the wolf stared out of the television and directly into her.

  “Shadoe!” Billy’s hand caught her elbow and steadied her. “That fall you took must have done more damage than you thought.” He eased her up on a bar stool.

  “No,” she shook her head, clearing away the last vestiges of the wolf. “I’m fine.” She gave him a wry grin. “Thinking too hard. It made me dizzy.”

  “I’m going back to the office. There are some facts I want to check out.”

  “About Hank?”

  He nodded. “About this Kathy Lemon. Don’t you think the timing of her call was a little fortuitous?”

  “She said she saw a news clip about me. And my mother did see one in West Palm Beach.”

  “It’s possible. It’s also likely this woman was notified by someone here in Lakota County. Someone who wants to cause trouble for Hank.” He pushed back from the bar. “Or the ranchers.”

  “How?”

  “If anything goes wrong and the ranchers are blamed, this won’t end with a clean victory. You can count on that. If this goes badly because of an act of violence against those wolves, there’ll be major repercussions. You have to understand, the federal boys are in a bad position on this.” Shadoe hadn’t considered that scenario. “You’re right.”

  “I’ll give you a call when I have something definite.” He straightened his hat and headed out.

  Shadoe swirled the barely touched liquor in her glass. Her mother found solace in drinking. Easing the glass to the countertop, she walked back into the den where the ranchers were taking a vote.

  “Shadoe!” Jill cried. “You’ve just been unanimously elected as the Coalition of Lakota County Ranchers spokesperson. I’m going to try to get the Billings station to give us some rebuttal time. But we’re going to have to get lots of facts and figures about wolf kills and all of that.” Jill was excited, and the rest of the ranchers looked at her with expectancy. “You will do it, won’t you?”

  “Sure.” Shadoe couldn’t back out now, even though she kept seeing little mental movie clips of the male wolf slipping through the trees, a flash of silver in the deep green gloom. “I’ve got to head home.” She smiled at them all. “I took a fall and I’m not feeling as good as I thought I was.”

  John instantly appeared at her elbow. “Let me drive you.”

  She started to decline, but the idea of going home alone to her doubts and fears was daunting. John was good company, and he wouldn’t consider her foolish if she asked him to check the barns with her. “Thanks.”

  Lost in her own swirl of thoughts, Shadoe realized they were halfway home before John spoke. She’d been ignoring him, and felt a twinge of guilt until she caught the tension in his voice.

  “I don’t mean to be pushy, Shadoe, but Jill told me about the rest of what happened today.”

  Shadoe had a fleeting moment of pure aggravation with her big-mouthed friend. “I don’t want to talk about this until I have a chance to find out the facts.”

  “Worried about Hank’s reputation?” John’s tone was sarcastic.

  “As a matter of fact, I am.” Shadoe’s temper ignited. “You don’t know the whole story, and the last thing I want to do is damage Hank again, without cause. If he’s guilty, that’s on
e thing. If he isn’t, to spread rumors or make accusations could do irreparable damage. I don’t want to be a part of that.”

  “And if he’s guilty and decides to take action against you again, you could be dead.”

  “How would Hank know I was going to ride up to that particular area of my ranch? I’ve been home longer than six months and haven’t been near Silver Flash Creek. I didn’t tell him, or anyone who might have told him.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  Shadoe hesitated. “Jill. Maybe I mentioned it to Doc Adams. And I told you that I’d been wanting to explore that area.” She looked over at him. “And I don’t suspect any of the three of you.”

  His grin was visible in the lights of the dash. “That’s a good thing. At least I’m that far ahead of Mr. Emrich.”

  Shadoe felt her anger ease. So it was a jealousy thing with John. Well, she’d been bitten by that devil and knew the pain. If John was worried that she had something going with Hank, she could at least put those demons to rest. “John, as far as I’m concerned, Hank is the past. I just don’t want to hurt him again.” She sighed. “He lost Copperwood because of me. Not something I did deliberately, but something I did without thinking, without considering anyone except myself. I don’t want to add another injury.”

  “But he’s the past?”

  The hope in John’s question made her hesitate before she answered. Was Hank really the past? What they had dreamed was gone, dust blown by a fierce wind, but her feelings for him were complicated, and now wasn’t the time to try to explain that. “There’s not a chance of anything between me and Hank.” She reached across the seat and touched John’s arm. “I don’t think we can go back in time. Not any of us.”

  John stared into the Montana night. “I think that’s a message directed at me.”

  “I wish things could be different.”

  “If Emrich hadn’t shown up, they might be.” There was anger in John’s voice. “I saw the way you looked at him when he walked in at Hoss’s. You looked like a starving woman at a buffet.”

  “That’s not true.” Shadoe felt the heat rise to her cheeks at even the thought.

  “It’s true.” John’s foot pressed harder on the gas.

  “Slow down, John. Please.” Shadoe saw that the speedometer was climbing past seventy, and the road was narrow and winding.

  “I moved here and bought that ranch, thinking we could make a life together.”

  “I never implied that was something I wanted.” Shadoe tried to walk a thin line between brutal truth and an effort to spare John’s feelings. “I didn’t even know you’d bought Copperwood.”

  “You talked about that ranch all the time. About the plans you’d made.”

  “And I left that life behind me, John.”

  “You’re here. Back in Montana.”

  Shadoe threw up her hands. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You wanted to settle down, to raise horses. That was part of what we shared. The two of us together, we can breed some fine quarter horses.”

  “Except you never wanted to settle down. That was one of the things I loved about you. You were so damn free. I wanted to be that way, but I couldn’t.”

  “I’ve changed. I’ve been trying to tell you that.” He pulled down the drive to her house.

  Shadoe opened the door before the truck stopped. This was too much. After the day she’d had, she didn’t have enough patience to deal with John without saying something she’d regret. “I asked you not to make me feel cornered. That’s the only thing I wanted. Apparently it was asking too much.” She slammed the truck door and started running toward the house.

  John kept the engine idling and opened his door to step out. “The past isn’t so easy for me to put behind, Shadoe,” he called out. “I came here to be with you, and I’ve gotten in neck deep. Jill helped me get a good price, but I’m in debt up to my ears.”

  At the front porch, Shadoe stopped Her heart was pounding in her ears and she felt sick. “I didn’t ask you to do anything,” she said, but it was only a whisper. As she watched, John got in his truck and drove away.

  A dark figure materialized from behind a fir tree on the lawn. “Do you make it a habit of driving all of your men into debt and then abandoning them?” Hank stepped closer.

  Shadoe managed to stop the scream. Hank had startled her, but she’d never give him the pleasure of letting him know it. “What are you doing here?”

  “Who set the wolf free?” He stepped so close that his breath was warm on her face.

  Shadoe’s eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, and she stared up at him without wavering. “Maybe you should use your much-touted investigative skills to find that out. I thought you federal agents got some kind of high-level training. Or maybe you should just call Billy in. He is a real lawman, after all.”

  “Why go to all that trouble when you can simply tell me?” His voice was lazy but there was a current of danger in it.

  “Go to hell.” She turned to the door, key in hand.

  Hank’s hand on her shoulder was sudden, harsh. He clamped down hard enough to make her wince.

  “That wolf is out there, alone and lost. He’s my responsibility, Shadoe. I don’t know if that means anything to you, but it means a helluva lot to me. I brought him here, and I’m going to protect him. And I want to know who cut the lock on his cage.” He pulled her closer, so that she could feel his heart beating through the light jacket she wore.

  The accusations made by Kathy Lemon came back to her. She had said Hank had tricked her into meeting him alone and then attacked. She had said he was a man made violent by his anger and desire to seek revenge-because of her. According to Kathy Lemon, Hank carried a longtime grudge against Shadoe and intended to get even.

  Hank’s fingers bit deeper into her shoulder, sending a jolt of fear through her. And a lightning bolt of anger.

  “Or what, Hank? What will you do if I don’t tell you?” She knew it was worse than stupid to taunt him, but she’d never been one to back down.

  “What did Kathy say I did to her?” Hank knew he was doing the worst possible thing, but he couldn’t help himself. He sensed Shadoe’s fear-of him. Of someone she’d known better than she knew herself. “What exactly did Ms. Lemon accuse me of?”

  It was his tight smile that frightened Shadoe more than his question. “You tell me.” The racing of her pulse had become a constant, but she was also beginning to think instead of simply reacting. She was five miles from the nearest neighbor, and she was all alone with a man who was angry, and possibly capable of violence. He was also a man with a badge, which gave him a certain immunity from the law.

  “Tell me!”

  She kept her lips stubbornly closed.

  “Did she say I hit her? That I pushed her? That I.”

  Shadoe couldn’t stand it any longer. The Hank Emrich she had known would never bully anyone, much less a woman. “She said you raped her.” She hurled the information at him and he actually looked stunned.

  “That’s impossible.” His voice had lost its edge.

  “It’s possible, and it’s the truth.” She shook her shoulder free of his hand. “Based on your behavior tonight, I wouldn’t say it was out of the question.” With as much dignity as she could muster, she turned back to the door, inserted her key and pushed it open. “You’ve been warned Hank. I’m calling Billy right now to press charges against you for trespassing. And assault. I waited about the incident up on the mountain. Billy wanted to let you have a chance to give your side. Now I see clearly what your side is.” She slammed the door behind her as she went inside.

  Chapter Ten

  In the glow of the lantern, Harry Code’s face was eager. He sat with his hands folded on top of a card table and stared at Hank, not offering a chair.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour,” Code finally said. There was anticipation in his tone. “I thought you’d gone looking for that wolf.”

  Hank knew that Code
had something juicy going onhe was far too self-satisfied to have day-to-day business on his mind. The hour was late; the summons to Code’s tent completely out of the ordinary.

  “I was following some leads.” Hank kept it as noncommittal as possible. After his encounter with Shadoe, he’d camped out the remainder of the night and the next. Code had obviously been eagerly awaiting his return.

  “I didn’t realize those leads would take you to hide in the front of Shadoe Deerman’s lawn.”

  So Shadoe had called and reported him. He felt a sting of betrayal, and knew the emotion was completely out of line. He’d gone down there in the dark and all but accosted her. In fact, if she told about the grip he’d taken on her shoulder, it could be considered assault. Shadoe’s complaint, along with Kathy Lemon’s lies, could easily put his badge on the line.

  “I wanted to ask Ms. Deerman some questions.”

  “Weren’t you given a direct order to stay off the Double S Ranch?”

  “My first goal is to find the wolf. The second is to figure out who turned that wolf loose.” Hank tried to keep the anger out of his voice.

  “And that gives you the right to ignore an order?”

  “Listen, Code, I believe Shadoe knows more than she’s letting on. I had a few simple questions to ask her. I wanted to save some time so I took the direct route. Some of those ranchers may have the wolf.”

  “Do you know what I think?” Harry sat perfectly still, his hands calmly flat on the tabletop. “I think you’re personally involved in this case on several levels. None of them professional. I’m tempted to pull your badge right now, but because I understand the chain of command, I’m going to let the boys in Washington decide this one.”

  Hank wasn’t aware how tense he was until he felt the relief at Code’s statement. He’d expected Code to demand his badge on the spot. It would take weeks for the Washington office to process the complaint, and by then, Thor would be back in custody, or the wolf project would be scrapped. Hank realized Code was watching him closely.