Texas Free

by Janet Dailey

  “And if they’re up to no good, that’s for me to deal with, not you,” Bull added. Tanner caught the cold glimmer in Bull’s blue eyes. At that moment he realized, with chilling certainty, that the legends he’d heard about the man were true.

  “So I’m outnumbered three to one,” Rose said.

  “Don’t go up there,” Jasper said. “If you want anybody to check on those boys, we’ll do it.”

  “When?” Rose demanded.

  “Tomorrow,” Bull said. “It shouldn’t take that long. Satisfied?”

  Rose sighed. “All right. Take me home, Tanner. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  At her trailer, he walked her to the door and took her in his arms. She came to him without resistance, nestling against his chest. “Are we good?” he asked. “Are you sure you’re not mad at me?”

  “I’m fine. Bull and Jasper are probably right,” she said, stretching on tiptoe to kiss him. “Let’s relax and have a good day tomorrow.”

  As always, he checked around the yard and gave a wave toward the other side of the creek, in case Reuben was watching—which he likely wasn’t, since they’d seen him in town tonight.

  Driving back to the ranger post, Tanner realized that his earlier unease hadn’t gone away. His worry about visiting the line shack had come to nothing. He was looking forward to a day with Rose tomorrow. So what could go wrong?

  In his law enforcement work, he’d learned to trust his gut instincts. But maybe this time he was just overthinking. Take it easy, he told himself. Everything is going to be fine.

  * * *

  Rose was waiting when Tanner came for her at seven-thirty in the pickup with the TSCRA logo on the sides. The sky was clear, the weather mild with a light breeze, perfect for a long drive through beautiful canyon country. As she climbed into Tanner’s truck and fastened her seat belt, Rose was glad she’d been overruled last night. This was a rare day to relax and enjoy being with Tanner, not to worry about what might be happening at the line shack.

  Leaving the Rimrock far behind, they drove north along a narrow paved road while Tanner watched for the unmarked turnoff to the Jacobsen Ranch.

  “It’s more of a homestead than a ranch,” Tanner explained. “Families settled these canyons generations ago. They built houses, raised some stock, and pretty much lived off the land. We like to keep in touch with them. If they trust us, they can help by being our eyes and ears in this back country.”

  Tanner was dressed in his ranger uniform—white shirt and jeans, with his badge clipped to his belt. A holstered pistol rode his right hip. His Stetson hung behind the seat. “You look very handsome today, Mr. Special Ranger,” Rose teased him.

  “Today the outfit’s mostly for public relations,” Tanner said. “We want people to know who we are and that we’re here to help them when they need us. If there’s trouble, having met them ahead of time makes things easier on both sides—hey, here’s the road. We might have to eat some dust.”

  He swung the pickup onto a narrow dirt road that wound among ledges and knolls, and hoodoos of sandstone, laid down by water when the dinosaurs were on the earth. Prickly pear and cholla grew on the slopes. Tumbleweed and rabbit brush flourished along the roadside. Where springs bubbled out of the ground, cottonwood trees lent touches of fresh green.

  “This country is beautiful,” Rose said. “Thank you for bringing me along today.”

  “Would it make any difference if I told you that my inviting you was Joe’s idea?”

  “Really?” Rose laughed. “He’s a gem. I’ll have to bake him a batch of cookies when I get home. I might even save one or two for you.”

  “You’d better.” He touched her knee, his eyes on the winding road.

  “Is Wyoming this beautiful?” she asked. “I’ve never been there.”

  “It is,” he said, “but in a different way. There are high mountain peaks, covered with snow most of the year. Lots of pine trees and open, grassy plains with deer and elk and pronghorn antelope. Horses to ride and cattle to tend. The winters are pretty rough, and hard on the cattle. But even the snow is beautiful in its own way.”

  “Would you ever go back?”

  He hesitated. “Maybe someday. I like my job here, but sometimes I miss the family. It would depend on a lot of things, like whether my brother can manage our ranch without me.”

  “And the memories?” Rose had to ask the question.

  “I survived the memories when I was there for two weeks. Again, I guess it would depend.”

  He fell silent, leaving Rose to wonder whether he would want to take her if he went back north, and whether she would go. She could no longer imagine life without Tanner, but she had her own roots here in Texas.

  The country had opened up into a broad canyon surrounded by hills and buttes and dotted with stands of cedar. Above the Rimrock Ranch, the escarpment was high, steep and narrow. Except for the red soil and rocks, this place was very different—broad and open with massive formations. Until today, she hadn’t even known it was here.

  The road had straightened out but was still dusty and uneven. Far ahead, she could see tall, green cottonwood trees surrounding a sprawl of adobe buildings. “Is that the ranch?” she asked.

  “It looks that way. We’ll soon know.”

  A few more minutes brought them to the ranch, a pretty place with a windmill in the yard and laundry blowing from a clothesline. A few spotted, mixed-breed cattle ranged around the yard, grazing on the abundant spring grass. Chickens pecked grain in a wire coop.

  A tall man with an unkempt gray beard came around the house. Rose stayed in the pickup while Tanner climbed out to greet him. With the truck windows rolled down, she could hear most of their conversation.

  “Howdy,” the man said, extending a hand. “I can see who you are, but it’s been years since you fellers made it out here to visit me. I haven’t paid my TSCRA dues in a coon’s age. Hope you’re not here to collect. I haven’t got the cash, and anyway, who’d want to steal cows like these?”

  “You’re fine, Mr. Jacobsen.” Tanner shook the man’s hand and introduced himself. “We’ve set up a new post in Blanco Springs. For starters, we’re trying to get acquainted with the ranchers and homesteaders in the region. It can be helpful, knowing who our neighbors are.”

  “Well, you’re welcome to come on in. Bring your lady friend, too.” He glanced toward the truck. “I can’t offer you much in the way of hospitality, but I just took a batch of bread out of the oven. Tastes pretty good when it’s hot.”

  “We’ll take you up on that,” Tanner said, opening the door and giving Rose a hand to the ground. “Does anybody live here with you?”

  “Nope.” Jacobsen led the way inside to a primitive but clean kitchen. “My woman lit out and took the kids twenty-three years ago, and I’ve done for myself ever since.”

  He seated them at the kitchen table and gave them each a thick slice of warm, buttered bread. It was delicious. “Milked the cow and churned the butter myself,” he said. “Better than that store junk that’s full of Lord knows what.”

  “Don’t you get lonesome out here alone?” Rose asked. “You must not get many visitors.”

  “I do fine with my own company,” Jacobsen said. “But come to think of it, you’ve made this the second day I’ve had visitors. Yesterday I had some that left me shaking my head. Strange bunch. They were lost—and you have to be pretty damned lost to make it clear out here. They said they were looking for some kind of cattle camp with a shack. I said I couldn’t help them, and they left.”

  “What was strange about them?” Tanner asked.

  “They were Mexicans. Not the wetback kind that swim the Rio Grande. I get a few of those now and then. I feed ’em and send ’em on their way. But these were rich Mexicans—three men, driving some kind of big custom four-wheeler. They had nice clothes, fancy watches . . .”

  He trailed off, thinking. “The big one—the boss, I think—he had this gold ring. Real gold, I could tell. It was made to
look like an eagle’s foot, with the talons holding a ruby as big as my thumbnail. Can’t even imagine how much a ring like that might be worth.”

  The bread dropped from Rose’s fingers. She froze, feeling as if the blood were being drained from her body.

  Tanner gave her a worried look. “Are you all right, Rose? What is it?”

  She found her voice, barely. “Those men. They’re the Cabreras. The one with the ring is Refugio.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BULL SHIFTED INTO LOW GEAR AS THE PICKUP ROUNDED A HAIRPIN curve in the narrow dirt road. The rear tire on the right side slid off the crumbling shoulder, but a stomp on the gas pedal gave the truck a forward burst, pulling the big vehicle back onto solid ground.

  Beside Bull in the front seat, Jasper gave a low whistle of relief. “Want me to drive?” he asked, half teasing. “Like I’ve said before, we need to get a crew up here to fix this road.”

  “You’re not the one who’ll have to pay for it,” Bull muttered, shifting again. “Remind me later.”

  They passed a few minutes in silence before Jasper spoke again. “Want to make a bet?”

  Bull paused at a fork in the road, which had many branches along the high escarpment. He shifted down again, then turned left. “What kind of bet?” he asked.

  “I’ll bet you a beer at the Blue Coyote that when we get to that line shack, we’ll find the horses gone and our two boys lit out.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” Bull said. “Why wouldn’t they be there? They’re scared of getting caught by the cartel, and they’ve got no place else to go.”

  “What if they’re not really scared? What if the cartel sent them to track down Rose and report back? They could ride the horses back to civilization, steal a car, and be out of here.”

  “In that case, you’d win your beer. But we’d have to go after them first, wouldn’t we?” Bull thought of the heavy Smith and Wesson .44 he kept under the seat of the truck, along with the 12-gauge shotgun that had belonged to Rose’s grandfather. He swore silently. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken a chance on the pair. If he’d assumed the worst from the beginning, he and Jasper wouldn’t be here now. He’d let himself go soft because he knew Rose cared about them. But hell, they were drug runners for the cartel. What had he been thinking?

  “Do you think Rose will be all right?” he asked, changing the subject.

  Jasper chuckled. “Sure. She’s with Tanner. He’s a tough man, and I’ve seen the way he looks at her, like he’d take on an army to keep her safe.”

  “But what if the cartel shows up?”

  “Then Tanner might need a little help from us.” Jasper’s reply said it all. A danger to Rose was a danger to the Rimrock family.

  The sun was descending the arc of the sky. Its rays made a filigree pattern through the leaves as the truck wound its way up the road. Now they could see the line shack, a simple clapboard cabin with a chimney for the iron stove inside and an outhouse around the back.

  “No sign of life,” Jasper observed. “Not even the horses.”

  “It’s early yet,” Bull said. “Maybe they’re out riding herd.” They pulled the truck off a wide spot in the road, climbed out of the truck, and hiked up the short, grassy slope to the line shack. “Anybody home?” Jasper called.

  There was no answer.

  When they rounded the corner of the shack, they saw that the door was open.

  “Something’s wrong.” Bull had taken his .44 out of the truck. He paused to check the chamber and cock the weapon before they moved forward, cautiously now.

  They had nearly reached the threshold of the shack when the smell hit them—a sickening odor they both recognized. “Oh, good Lord,” Jasper murmured as he stepped into the doorway.

  Raul and Joaquin lay sprawled faceup, their blood spreading around them in clotted pools. One had been shot in the chest, the other in the forehead. Black flies filled the awful silence with their buzzing.

  The sight of the dead men was shocking enough. But there was more. Scattered over, around, and even partway under the bodies were dozens of bloodstained fifty- and hundred-dollar bills, sticking to their hands and clothes and lying in the blood. The total, Bull estimated at a glance, amounted to several thousand dollars. And suddenly, chillingly, he understood.

  “What the devil . . .” Jasper swore, staring at the money.

  “It’s a message,” Bull said. “Those two weren’t running from the cartel. They were leading their boss to Rose, for a reward. Somehow—and I’m guessing they used a horse to get down the mountain to a phone—they got the word out about where they’d be. The cartel thugs showed up, learned what they needed to, handed over the reward, and then shot these two dead—as if to say that anybody who’d betray their own family would be just as likely to betray their bosses.”

  “Damn it, we’ve got to find Rose,” Jasper said

  Bull studied the death scene. “I’m guessing they were shot sometime late yesterday. That means the killers could be anywhere. Let’s go. We can call the sheriff when we get back to the ranch.”

  Jasper took a quick look around the outside of the cabin. “Saddles are in the shed,” he said. “But there’s no sign of the horses. They must’ve spooked and run off. Never mind, let’s get going.”

  Bull drove the hairpin road as fast as he dared, aware that a slip-off could delay his warning Rose—a delay that could be tragic. Rose was a fighter, but she’d have no chance against the people who were after her now.

  Why had he let things go this far? He’d suspected that Raul and Joaquin were up to no good. Hell, Rose had even suspected them. They’d been like brothers to her; she’d said so herself. If he’d known they were here to betray her to the cartel, he would have shot them himself and buried their bodies, without a heartbeat of regret.

  Beside him, Jasper was mumbling something he could barely hear. “What is it, Jasper?” He swung the truck around a sharp curve. “Speak up so I can hear you.”

  “Ignore me,” Jasper said. “I haven’t prayed in a long time, but I’m praying now!”

  * * *

  “You can’t go home now, Rose.” Tanner swung the truck onto the asphalt road. “I’m taking you to the ranger post. You’ll be safe from the Cabreras there. Now that I can get a signal, I’ll radio Joe and have him call the Rimrock. They need to know what’s going on.”

  “But what about the trailer—and my truck, and even the chickens? How can I just leave everything I own? Can’t we go back just long enough to get—”

  “No, Rose!” It was the first time she’d heard anger in Tanner’s voice. “If those two Mexicans could find out where you live, so can the cartel. And you know even better than I do what they’re capable of. Now be still while I call in.”

  Rose slumped in the seat while Tanner radioed his partner. In spite of the warm afternoon sun, she was shivering. Only one thing could have brought Refugio Cabrera to Texas. Joaquin and Raul had somehow contacted the cartel and let them know where to find her. She had been betrayed by men she had once loved as brothers.

  What now? Tanner had gotten a detailed description of the vehicle and the men from Jacobsen. It would make sense to give it to the police and let them hunt the criminals down. But she knew that might not be enough. The men of the Cabrera cartel were expert at eluding the law. They would take care of the business they’d come for and disappear like morning fog, leaving scarcely a trace.

  She wondered briefly who Refugio had brought with him. Lucho had been his only brother. But he had several cousins in the cartel, all sworn by blood and fanatically loyal. Any of them would kill at a word from their boss. Women, children, it didn’t matter. She had seen it with her own horrified eyes.

  The radio crackled as Joe’s voice came back on. He had reached the housekeeper at the Rimrock. Bull and Jasper had driven up to the mountain pasture to check the line shack. They should be back anytime. Meanwhile, she was just leaving to meet the boys at the school bus stop. She would leave a note on the front
door.

  Tanner laid a hand on her shoulder. “Try not to worry too much,” he said. “I’m here, I’ll protect you, and this nightmare will soon be over.”

  “Yes,” Rose said. “And when it’s over, I’ll either be free or be dead.”

  * * *

  Bull drove into the ranch yard, tires spitting gravel as he pulled up to the house. Bernice’s station wagon was gone, but then, as he checked the time, he realized she would have left to pick up the boys when they got off the bus.

  “There’s a note on the front door,” Jasper said. “Hang on, I’ll get it.” He took the steps two at a time and was back in seconds. “Rose and Tanner know about the cartel,” he said. “Tanner’s taking her to the ranger post. He’ll call you when they get there.”

  “Thank goodness.” Bull breathed a sigh of relief. But he knew the danger was far from over.

  They could hear the ringing phone in the ranch office. Bull raced inside to answer it. Tanner was on the line.

  “I got your note,” Bull said.

  “We’re here,” Tanner said. “Rose is all right, and I’ve phoned a description of the men and their vehicle to the sheriff. They’ll have patrols out looking for them.”

  “Wait—you saw them?”

  “We talked to a rancher who did. They asked him for directions. He had a good memory. One of the men matches the description of Refugio Cabrera, the cartel boss.”

  “The one who’s after Rose.” It wasn’t a question.

  “It looks that way,” Tanner said. “Call us if you get any news, and we’ll do the same.”

  Bull was about to hang up when he remembered. “Oh—I don’t know how you’ll want to handle this with Rose, but we found Raul and Joaquin dead in the line shack. The cartel got to them before we did.”

  “The little bastards got what they deserved. I’ll tell her, but she won’t be surprised. She already knows they gave her up to Cabrera.”