by B. J Daniels
“Let’s take some cookies to the hospital for the nurses,” Laney said as she brought the plate and lemonade glasses into the kitchen to find her sister deep in an old cookbook. “I want to go visit Gramma.”
Laci looked up. “Do you mind going without me? I hate seeing Gram like that and I really need to get to work on this party. I’m thinking it should be next Saturday. I’m sure we can use the community center.”
Laney knew how hard it was for her sister to see their grandmother Pearl after her stroke. Gramma’s eyes were open, but she was unresponsive. It was questionable if she could even understand what they said to her. Or if she recognized her granddaughters at all.
Gramma Pearl had been in the hospital with pneumonia when she’d suddenly had a stroke. Gramps said she’d been upset about some things that had been going on in Old Town Whitehorse.
“I think we both should go see Gramma,” Laney said. “As it is, Gramps won’t be happy with us since we didn’t attend his church service this morning at the center. Maybe we can bribe him with some of your cookies because you know he’ll be with Gramma.”
Laci nodded although with obvious reluctance. “As long as you keep him from talking about Mother. I can’t bear it. He really believes Geneva will just come home one day as if nothing happened. Why can’t he accept that she’s gone and won’t ever be back? For all we know she’s dead.”
“He has to believe he’ll see her again,” Laney said although she agreed with her sister. Wherever Geneva Cavanaugh Cherry was, this was the last place she’d ever return.
* * *
DEPUTY SHERIFF NICK ROGERS had never been to Old Town Whitehorse before. He would have missed it entirely, if he hadn’t slowed down to let a dog cross in front of his patrol car and seen the sign barely sticking up out of the weeds beside the road.
Whitehorse. Population 50.
He truly doubted that, given the age of the sign.
Nick had driven five miles through rolling grassland and open sky. He’d heard this land called the Big Open. He could well understand why.
And after all that way, he’d arrived in Old Town Whitehorse. Well, what was left of the original Whitehorse. There were a few buildings. No store. No gas station. No bar. Just what appeared to be a community center, an ancient abandoned gas station and a few houses still standing.
He could make out the trees and roofs of a few farms or ranches not far from town, but this whole place felt more like a ghost town than anything else.
One big old house in particular reminded him of a haunted house he and his friends used to throw rocks at when he was a kid. He stared at the two-story house. It sat apart from the others. The paint had peeled and it appeared kids had broken out most of the upstairs windows. The lower ones were boarded up. The mailbox out front had fallen over, but he made out the word Cherry as he drove past.
He rolled his window down and breathed in the smell of fresh-cut hay. He couldn’t help but laugh at himself. He’d been looking for a place to escape. Literally. And he’d found it in Montana. No one would ever look for him here—let alone find him. At least if he hoped to stay alive.
If Whitehorse wasn’t the end of the earth, then Old Town definitely was. He’d heard someone joke the first night he’d gotten into town that “Whitehorse isn’t the end of the earth, but you can see the fires of hell on a clear night.”
Nick had been to hell. Maybe that was why he’d felt at home here right off.
Alice Miller lived in a big white ranch house west of town. As he pulled into the yard, two blue heelers with spooky white eyes came out to bite at his tires.
The house was sheltered by rows of trees that had to stand over fifteen feet tall. Past the house and trees, the country ran south through open prairie to what appeared to be a thin line of green. The Missouri Breaks.
He could understand why Old West outlaws had made this isolated, underpopulated country their hideouts. It had worked for Kid Curry and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. At least for a while.
Nick was counting on it working for him.
At least for a while.
He eyed the barking dogs. He had a healthy respect for ranch dogs since arriving in Montana and waited until an elderly woman in a housedress and apron opened the front door and called off the dogs before he got out.
Alice Miller was petite with serious blue eyes and bobbed gray hair. She led him around the back of the house to a chicken coop.
“There you are,” she said as if that should clear things up for him.
He looked into the empty coop. Yep, things were clear as mud. “How many chickens did you have?”
“A dozen layers, four roosters and three old stewing hens.”
“Nineteen chickens and they were all gone this morning,” he said.
She nodded and waited as if she expected him to produce them like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.
“That’s a lot of chickens to disappear,” he remarked. When he’d found this job, he’d been amazed at the kind of calls a deputy sheriff in Whitehorse, Montana, had to deal with. Dog at large, owner warned. Drunken disturbance at rodeo, citizen given ride home. Missing resident, found two doors down.
As a big-city cop, he’d dealt with every crime imaginable. At least he thought he had. But he’d never been called out to investigate nineteen missing chickens.
He was out of his league and he knew it.
“What do you think happened to them?” he asked Mrs. Miller.
She cocked her head and looked up at him as if he might be pulling her leg. “Clearly someone stole them.”
“How do you know a coyote or something didn’t come in and eat them all?”
“You see any feathers?”
Actually, he did. There were feathers all over the chicken coop.
“You see any blood, any bones?” she asked with growing impatience. “Where are you from anyway?”
“Houston.”
“Where’s your Texas accent?” she asked.
“I wasn’t born there. My father was in the military. We traveled all over.” It was the story he’d come up with. It made things simpler. And safer.
Mrs. Miller let out a little huff sound and put her hands on her hips. “Aren’t you going to look for fingerprints? Tracks? Something?”
Fingerprints? She couldn’t be serious. As for tracks, it had rained the night before. There were lots of tracks, all appearing to have been made by her dogs.
“I got wash to do,” she said and headed for the side yard.
He circled the chicken coop, feeling like a fool. He’d never tracked anything in his life. This was nothing like chasing a convenience-store robber down an alley and over a couple of fences.
To his surprise, he found some tracks that looked out of place. He squatted down next to one of the prints. The sun had already baked the surface of the yard. The print was that of a boot. A small one. A kid’s.
Nick walked around to where Mrs. Miller was hanging sheets and towels on a clothesline.
“Who all lives here?” he asked.
“Me and my husband. He’s out cutting hay. Why?”
“You have any grandchildren, any children who have been over to visit in the last day or so?”
“No. What does that have to do with my chickens?”
“No neighbors with kids?” he asked.
Alice Miller wrinkled her brow. “There is that boy, his aunt and uncle are renting the farm next door.”
Nick pulled out his notebook and pencil. “What do these chickens look like?” He glanced up when she didn’t answer and saw her expression. “Okay, would you be able to recognize them if you saw them again?”
“Just find my chickens,” she said and went back to hanging up her wash.
Nick followed the boy’s tracks, wondering how the kid had pulled it off. Nineteen chickens were a lot. Wouldn’t they have caused a ruckus that could be heard up at the house?
He could envision Mrs. Miller with a shotgun coming out in her flannel nightgown, blood in her eye. So why hadn’t that happened?
He glanced up at the sound of a dog growling and realized he’d reached the farm closest to the Millers’.
“Hello!” he called and eyed the dog. It wasn’t a blue heeler, but some kind of mutt, large and hairy. “Hello!” He feared the dog would key on the fear in his voice and attack. Easy, Cujo.
“The chickens aren’t hurt,” said a young voice from the back steps of the house. The kid was twelve tops, lanky with sandy-blond hair and big ears.
“That’s good,” Nick said. “Could you call off your dog?”
“Prince, no,” the boy said. The dog eyed Nick for a moment, then ambled over to the kid and sat down.
“I’m Deputy Sheriff Nick Rogers.” He’d taken the Rogers from an old western he’d seen on television the night he’d left town. “What’s your name?”
“Chaz. It’s actually Charles, but that’s what everyone calls me,” the boy said. “My aunt and uncle are in town if you’re going to arrest me. I’m not sure when they’ll be back.”
“Where are Mrs. Miller’s chickens?”
He pointed toward a shed at the back of the property. “I was going to return them. Really.”
“Why’d you take them in the first place?” Nick asked, glancing toward the house. “You need the food?”
“No,” Chaz said indignantly as they walked back to the shed. A ruckus was coming from inside. “I got plenty to eat and I didn’t take anyone’s chickens.”
Right. That was why Nick had just followed the kid’s boot prints to his house straight from the chicken coop.
At the shed, Chaz opened the door a crack so Nick could see that all nineteen chickens were there. The chickens looked a little funny to him, their feathers kind of glued to them, but what did he know about chickens other than buying cut-up fryers in plastic wrap at the grocery?
“We need to get the chickens back to Mrs. Miller,” Nick said.
“I know. I was thinking about how to get them to her,” the boy said.
“Why not take them back the same way you stole them?”
“I told you, I didn’t steal them.”
“Right.”
Just then one of the chickens made a beeline for the door, slipping through to take off at a run across the yard.
Before Nick could react, Prince darted after the chicken. “No!” Nick called to the dog. Too late. In an instant, Prince had the chicken clutched in his jaws and was prancing back toward them looking like the cat that ate the canary.
To Nick’s astonishment, the dog dropped the slobber-coated bird at Chaz’s feet, the chicken jerking to its feet unhurt. The boy grabbed the bird and tossed it back in the shed.
“See the problem?” Chaz said. “I took one back when Prince brought it home. I didn’t know he was going back last night to get them all.”
Nick stared at the dog. “Are you trying to tell me that Prince stole the chickens?”
Chaz nodded. “I told him not to, but Prince likes to collect things.” The boy shrugged. “It’s his only bad habit. Other than that, he’s a really good dog.”
Prince was leaning against the boy’s leg, looking up at him. Chaz patted the dog’s big head. The dog’s tongue lolled. He could have been smiling.
Nick swore, pulled off his hat and raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve got to tell you. I don’t know much about transporting chickens. I’d consider any idea you might have on how to get them back in Mrs. Miller’s chicken coop.”
“I’ve been thinking on it,” Chaz said. “I might have an idea.”
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER, ALL NINETEEN chickens were safely back in Mrs. Miller’s chicken coop. Nick left Chaz on the Millers’ porch eating fresh-baked apple pie and sipping a large glass of milk, Prince at his feet. Chaz had promised to keep a closer eye on his dog.
Nick was feeling good. He’d solved his first mystery in Montana. With a little help from a kid and a dog.
Back at his office, he was hoping the rest of his shift would be as uneventful when he looked up and saw a young reddish-blond woman get out of her car. As she started toward his office, another car raced up, tires screeching as the driver came to a stop and rolled down his window.
The woman turned. Clearly, the two knew each other. Nick watched from his window, not liking the change in the woman’s demeanor when she saw the young man behind the wheel. Nick had covered enough domestic-violence cases to recognize one on the street.
The woman said something to the man, who appeared to be about her age, no more than twenty, then she turned and started walking toward the sheriff’s department again.
The man threw open his door and went after her, grabbing her arm and swinging her around to face him.
Nick shot out of his chair, hitting the door at a run. As he exited the courthouse building, he heard the raised voices.
“Let go of her,” Nick said in his calm cop voice.
“This isn’t any of your business,” the young man said. He had brown hair, brown eyes, classic good looks.
“Let go of her,” Nick repeated.
The young man did, but with obvious reluctance and definitely an attitude. “I’m not breaking any law.”
“Domestic abuse is against the law,” Nick said.
“Domestic abuse?” The young man scoffed at that. “My girlfri—fiancée and I were just having a little private disagreement.”
The young woman was rubbing her arm where the man had grabbed her. “He’s right. It’s nothing.”
“Why don’t you step inside and we can talk about it,” Nick said to the woman.
She shook her head, eyes wide. “It’s nothing, really.”
“You were headed for my office. There must be something you wanted.”
“I wasn’t. That is, I was going up to the treasury department upstairs. I got turned around.” She was lying and Nick could see that she was afraid.
“What’s your name?” he asked the young man.
“Bo Evans.” He said it as if it should mean something. It didn’t to Nick.
“You live around here?”
“Old Town Whitehorse.” Bo was giving him an are-you-stupid look. “You’re not from around here, huh?”
“What’s your name?” Nick asked the woman.
She hesitated. “Maddie Cavanaugh.”
She was edging toward her car. “I have to get to work,” she said.
“Where do you work?” Nick asked.
Maddie Cavanaugh looked around as if searching for an answer. “In Old Town Whitehorse. I just help Geraldine Shaw out.”
Nick nodded and turned to Bo Evans. “Disagreements are one thing, but you were scaring your fiancée. Keep your hands off her when you’re angry, okay?”
Bo Evans shook his head as if in disbelief. “I wouldn’t hurt Maddie. I love her. We’re getting married. What is wrong with you, man?”
Nick watched them leav
e in separate cars, worried about the young woman. Whatever she’d been planning to tell someone at the sheriff’s office, her fiancé had done a good job of changing her mind.
Chapter Three
Laney Cavanaugh saw him as she came out of the hospital. He stood across the street talking to her grandfather Titus.
She wasn’t sure what it was about the man that caught her attention let alone held it as she crossed the street. He wore jeans and boots, a tan short-sleeved shirt and a cowboy hat. Nothing unusual about that in Whitehorse, Montana.
He had one boot sole resting on the bumper of Titus’s pickup truck and was leaning forward, listening intently. She tried to imagine what her grandfather might be saying that would require that kind of attention as she crossed the street.
It wasn’t until she was almost to the pair that the sun glinted off the man’s silver star and she realized that the tan shirt was actually part of a uniform.
“Laney, I want you to meet the town’s new deputy sheriff, Nick Rogers,” Titus said. “This is my granddaughter Laney Cavanaugh.”
She smiled and extended her hand, which quickly disappeared into the lawman’s large sun-browned one. His handshake was firm, his skin warm and dry. His dark-eyed gaze made the already hot day sizzle. She sensed that odd expectation in the air that she’d felt earlier as if she wasn’t the only one holding her breath.
“I was just telling Nick that you and your sister are staying out at my daughter’s place,” Titus said. “Nick’s new to the area. I’m sure it’s all a bit strange after Houston.”
“I’m adjusting,” he said, never taking his eyes off Laney. He had the kind of face that she’d thought only existed in the movies. Rugged and yet as handsome as any she’d ever seen, with dark hair and eyes. But it was the way he stood, his head cocked to one side, an air of confidence about him, that drew her like a moth to a flame.
“I told Nick we’d have to get him back down our way for dinner sometime,” Titus said.
