Gun-Shy Bride

by B. J Daniels

  Luke parked next to the fresh truck tracks. Past the tall old cottonwoods, down the slow-moving river, he could make out a small cabin tucked in the trees.

  Just the sight of McCall Winchester’s home stirred up all the old feelings. Luke cursed himself that he couldn’t let go, never had been able to. Now that he was back in town as the new game warden, there was no way they weren’t going to cross paths.

  He could just imagine how that would sit with McCall.

  Over the years, he’d followed her career with the sheriff’s department and had heard she’d bought a place on the river. He’d also heard that she seldom dated and as far as anyone knew there was no man in her life.

  That shouldn’t have made him as relieved as it did.

  He noticed now that her sheriff’s department pickup wasn’t parked next to the cabin. Had she worked the night shift last night or the early-morning one?

  With a curse, he realized she might have heard the shots the rancher had reported or seen someone coming up the river road. He had no choice but to stop by and ask her, he told himself.

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to avoid her when it appeared there was a poaching ring operating in the river bottom. This was the second call he’d gotten in two weeks.

  The thought of seeing her again came with a rush of mixed emotions and did nothing to improve his morning. He could just imagine the kind of reception he’d get, given their past. But now that he was back, there would be no avoiding each other—not in a town the size of Whitehorse.

  Luke swore and got out, telling himself he had more to worry about than McCall Winchester as he saw the bloody drag trail in the mud. Taking his gear, he followed it.

  RUBY WINCHESTER HAD JUST finished with the lunch crowd when McCall came into the Whitehorse Diner.

  McCall felt light-headed after the morning she’d had. She’d come back into town, boxed up the bones and the other evidence, along with a request to compare the DNA of the bones with that of the DNA sample she’d taken from swabbing the inside of her mouth.

  Even though the sheriff had told her to wait until her shift tomorrow, she’d mailed off the package to the crime lab without telling anyone. She was now shaking inside, shocked by what she’d done. Withholding evidence was one thing. Requesting the DNA test without proper clearance was another. She was more than jeopardizing her job.

  But she couldn’t wait months to know the truth. She’d bought herself some time before the report came back, and she knew exactly how she was going to use it.

  “You want somethin’ to eat?” her mother asked as McCall took one of the stools at the counter. “I could get you the special. It’s tuna casserole. I’m sure there’s some left.”

  McCall shook her head. “I’m good.”

  Ruby leaned her hip against the counter, eyeing her daughter. “Somethin’ wrong?”

  McCall glanced around the small empty café. Ruby hadn’t cleaned off all of the tables yet. The café smelled like a school cafeteria.

  “I’ve been thinking about my father. You’ve never really told me much about him.”

  Ruby let out a snort. “You already know about him.”

  “All you’ve ever told me is that he left. What was he like?” And the real question, who would want to kill him?

  “What’s brought this on?” Ruby asked irritably.

  “I’m curious about him. What’s wrong with that? He was my father, right?”

  Ruby narrowed her gaze. “Trace Winchester was your father, no matter what anyone says, okay? But do we have to do this now? I’m dead on my feet.”

  “Mom, you’re always dead on your feet, and you’re the only one I can ask.”

  Ruby sighed, then checked to make sure Leo, the cook, wasn’t watching before reaching under the counter to drag out an ashtray. She furtively lit a cigarette from the pack hidden in her pocket.

  McCall watched her take a long drag, blow out smoke, then wave a hand to dissipate the smoke as she glanced back toward the kitchen again.

  According to Montana law, Ruby wasn’t supposed to be smoking in the café, but then laws and rules had never been something Ruby gave a damn about.

  She picked nervously at the cigarette, still stalling.

  “It’s a simple enough question, Mom.”

  “Don’t get on your high horse with me,” Ruby snapped.

  “I want to know about my father. Why is that so tough?”

  Ruby met her gaze, her eyes shiny. “Because the bastard ran out on us and because I—” Her voice broke. “I never loved anyone the way I loved Trace.”

  That surprised her, since there’d been a string of men woven through their lives as far back as McCall could remember.

  Ruby bit her lip and looked away. “Trace broke my heart, all right? And you know damned well that his mother knows where he is. She’s been giving him money all these years, keeping him away from here, away from me and you.”

  “You don’t know that,” McCall said.

  “I know,” Ruby said, getting worked up as she always did when she talked about Pepper Winchester. “That old witch had a coronary when she found out Trace and I had eloped.”

  More than likely Pepper Winchester had been upset when she’d heard that her nineteen-year-old son had gotten Ruby pregnant. McCall said as much.

  “You’re her own flesh and blood. What kind of grandmother rejects her own granddaughter? You tell me that,” Ruby demanded.

  “Was my father in any trouble other than for poaching? I’ve always heard that Game Warden Buzz Crawford was after him for something he did the day before he disappeared,” McCall said, hoping to get her mother off the subject of Pepper Winchester.

  Ruby finished her cigarette, stubbing it out angrily and then cleaning the ashtray before hiding it again under the counter. “Your father didn’t leave because of that stupid poaching charge.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Trace had gotten off on all the other tickets Buzz had written him. He wasn’t afraid of Buzz Crawford. In fact…”

  “In fact?”

  Ruby looked away. “Everyone in town knew that Buzz was gunning for your father. But Trace said he wasn’t worried. He said he knew something about Buzz….”

  “Blackmail?” McCall uttered. Something like that could get a man killed.

  LUKE CRAWFORD FOLLOWED the drag trail through the thick cottonwoods. Back in here, the soft earth hadn’t dried yet. The wind groaned in the branches and weak rays of sunlight sliced down through them.

  The air smelled damp from last night’s storm, the muddy ground making tracking easier, even without the bloody trail to follow.

  It was chilly and dark deep in the trees and underbrush, the dampness making the April day seem colder. Patches of snow had turned to ice crystals on the shady side of fallen trees and along the north side of the riverbank.

  Luke hadn’t gone far when he found the kill site. He stopped and squatted down, the familiar smell of death filling his nostrils. The gut pile was still fresh, not even glazed over yet. A fine layer of hair from the hide carpeted the ground.

  Using science to help him if he found the poachers, he took a DNA sample. Poachers had been relatively safe in the past if they could get the meat wrapped and in the freezer and the carcass dumped in the woods somewhere.

  Now though, if Luke found the alleged poacher, he could compare any meat found in a freezer and tell through DNA if it was the same illegally killed animal.

  In the meantime, he’d be looking for a pickup with mud on it and trying to match the tire tracks to the vehicle the poachers had been driving.

  Pushing himself to his feet, Luke considered who might be behind the poaching. It generally wasn’t a hungry Whitehorse family desperate enough to kill a doe out of season. In this part of Montana, ranchers donated beef to needy families, and most families preferred beef over venison.

  Nor did Luke believe the shooters were teenagers out killing game for fun. They usually took potshots from across t
he hood of their pickups at something with antlers after a night of boozing—and left the meat to rot.

  As he followed the drag trail to where the poacher had loaded the doe into the back of his truck, he studied the tire tracks, then set about making a plaster cast.

  While it dried he considered the footprints in the soft mud where the poachers’ truck had been parked. Two men.

  After taking photos and updating his log book, he packed up, and glancing once more toward McCall’s cabin, went to give the rancher his assessment of the situation before filing his report.

  Luke knew his chances of catching the poachers were slim. Not that his Uncle Buzz would have seen it that way. Buzz Crawford had built a reputation on being the toughest game warden Montana had ever seen.

  But Luke tended to write more warnings than tickets and knew he couldn’t solve every crime in the huge area he covered. He didn’t have the “kill gene,” as his uncle often told him, and that explained the problem between him and Buzz.

  The problem between him and McCall Winchester, his first love—hell, the only woman he’d ever truly loved—was a whole lot more complicated.

  MCCALL WAS STILL CONSIDERING the ramifications of her father possibly blackmailing the former game warden. “If Trace had something on Buzz—”

  “I don’t know that for sure,” Ruby hedged. “Your father really didn’t need to blackmail anyone. His mother and the Winchester money would have gotten him out of any trouble he got into.”

  Not this kind of trouble, McCall thought.

  But she knew what her mother was getting at. Whitehorse was a small town and deals were made between local judges and some families. McCall also knew the legendary Buzz Crawford. He wouldn’t have taken well to blackmail.

  “So if my father wasn’t worried about this poaching charge…” And apparently he hadn’t been, if he’d gone hunting the next morning on that ridge. “Then why did you think he ran off?”

  Ruby waved a hand through the air. “I was pregnant and crazy with hormones, out of my mind half the time, and Trace…”

  “You fought a lot,” McCall guessed after having seen how her mother’s other relationships had gone over the years. “Did you have a fight the morning before he…disappeared?”

  Ruby looked away. “Why do you we have to talk about this? Trace and I were both young and hotheaded. We fought, we made up.” She shrugged. “There was no one like Trace.” She smiled as if lost for a moment in the past.

  And for that moment, Ruby looked like the pregnant young woman in love that she’d been in the few photographs McCall had of her—usually in uniform, alone, at the café.

  The moment passed. Ruby frowned. “No matter what you’ve heard, Trace didn’t leave because of you.”

  “So did he take anything when he left—clothes, belongings?”

  “Just his pickup and his rifle. He would have made a good father and husband if his mother had stayed out of it. Pepper Winchester has a fortune, but she wouldn’t give him a dime unless he got out of the marriage to me and made me say my baby was someone else’s. What kind of mother puts that kind of pressure on her son?”

  McCall didn’t want her mother to take off on Pepper Winchester again. Nor was she ready to tell her mother what she’d found up on the ravine south of town without conclusive evidence.

  She got to her feet. “I need to get going.”

  “You sure you don’t want some tuna casserole? I could get Leo to dish you up some for later. You have to eat and it’s just going to get thrown out.”

  “Naw, thanks anyway.” She hugged her mother, surprised how frail Ruby was and feeling guilty for upsetting her. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “All that was a long time ago. I survived it.”

  “Still, I know it wasn’t easy.” McCall could imagine how hurt her mother must have been, how humiliated in front of the whole town, that her husband had left her pregnant, broke and alone. McCall knew how it was to have the whole town talking about you.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” Ruby said with a smile. “Within a couple of weeks, I had you.”

  McCall smiled, feeling tears burn her eyes as she left, her hand in her pocket holding tight to the hunting license—the only definite thing she had of her father’s—unless she counted his bad genes.

  WORD ABOUT THE BONES FOUND south of town had traveled the speed of a wildfire through Whitehorse. McCall heard several versions of the story when she stopped for gas.

  Apparently most everyone thought the bones were a good hundred years old and belonged to some outlaw or ancestor.

  By the time McCall left Whitehorse, the sun and wind had dried the muddy unpaved roads to the southeast. The gumbo, as the locals called the mud, made the roads often impassible.

  McCall headed south into no-man’s-land on one of the few roads into the Missouri Breaks. Yesterday she’d driven down Highway 191 south to meet Rocky. But there were no roads from the ridge where she’d stood looking across the deep gorge to the Winchester Ranch.

  Getting to the isolated ranch meant taking back roads that seldom saw traffic and driving through miles and miles of empty rolling wild prairie.

  Over the years McCall had thought about just showing up at her grandmother’s door. But she’d heard enough horror stories from her mother—and others in town—that she’d never gotten up the courage.

  The truth was, she didn’t have the heart to drive all the way out there and have her grandmother slam the door in her face.

  Today though, she told herself she was on official business. Of course one call to the sheriff would blow that story and leave her in even more hot water with her boss.

  But already in over her head, McCall felt she’d been left little choice. Once the report came back from the crime lab—and she gave up the hunting license—it would become a murder investigation and she would be not only pulled off the case, but also locked out of any information the department gathered because of her personal connection to the deceased.

  Before that happened, she hoped to get the answers she so desperately needed about her father—and who had killed him.

  She knew it would be no easy task, finding out the truth after all these years. Her mother was little help. As for the Winchesters, well, she’d never met any of them. Trace had been the youngest child of Call and Pepper Winchester.

  His siblings and their children had all left the ranch after Trace disappeared and had never returned as far as McCall knew. Her grandmother had gone into seclusion.

  The Winchester Ranch had always been off-limits for McCall—a place she wasn’t welcome and had no real connection with other than sharing the same last name.

  The fact that her father had been buried within sight of the ranch gave her pause, though, as McCall slowed to turn under the carved wooden Winchester Ranch arch.

  In the distance she could see where the land broke and began to fall as the Missouri River carved its way through the south end of the county. Nothing was more isolated or wild than the Breaks and the Winchester Ranch sat on the edge of this untamed country.

  It gave her an eerie feeling just thinking of her grandmother out here on the ranch, alone except for the two elderly caretakers, Enid and Alfred Hoagland. Why had Pepper closed herself off from the rest of her family after Trace disappeared? Wouldn’t a mother be thankful she had other children?

  McCall drove slowly down the ranch road, suddenly afraid. She was taking a huge chance coming out here. Even if she wasn’t shot for a trespasser, she knew she would probably be run off without ever seeing her grandmother.

  Weeds had grown between the two tracks of the narrow, hardly used road. Enid and Alfred only came into Whitehorse for supplies once a month, but other than that were never seen around. Nor, McCall had heard, did Pepper have visitors.

  As she drove toward the massive log structure, she was treated to a different view of the ranch from that on the ridge across the ravine.

  The lodge had been built back in the 1940
s, designed after the famous Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park. According to the stories McCall had heard, her grandfather Call Winchester had amassed a fortune, tripling the size of his parents’ place.

  There had always been rumors around Whitehorse about Call Winchester—the man McCall has been named for. Some said he made his fortune in gold mining. Others in crime.

  The truth had remained a mystery—just like the man himself. Call had gone out for a horseback ride one day long before McCall was born, and as the story goes, his horse returned without him. His body was never to be found. Just like his youngest son, Trace. Until now.

  An old gray-muzzled heeler with one brown and one blue eye hobbled out to growl beside McCall’s patrol pickup.

  She turned off the engine, waiting as she watched the front door of the lodge. The place looked even larger up close. How many wings were there?

  When no one appeared, she eased open her vehicle door, forcing the dog back as she stepped out. The heeler stumbled away from her still growling. She kept an eye on him as she walked to the front door.

  She didn’t see any vehicles, but there was an old log building nearby that looked as if it was a garage, large enough to hold at least three rigs.

  While she’d never seen her grandmother, McCall had run across Pepper’s housekeeper, Enid—an ancient, broomstick-thin, brittle woman with an unpleasant face and an even worse disposition.

  McCall had heard a variety of stories about Enid Hoagland, none of them complimentary. The housekeeper and her husband apparently took care of Pepper. Enid did the cooking and cleaning. Her husband, Alfred, did upkeep on the isolated ranch.

  Some said the Hoaglands acted as guards to protect and care for Pepper. Others were of the opinion that the old couple kept Pepper Winchester hostage on the ranch to make sure they got the Winchester fortune when she died instead of her heirs.

  McCall knocked at the weathered door, glancing around as she waited. A quiet hung over the wind-scoured place as if everything here had withered up and died.

  She knocked harder and thought she heard a sound on the other side of the door. “Sheriff’s Department. Open up.”