Czytaj książkę: «Forsaken»
Danger runs high and passions burn hot in Montana’s wild country
Big-city detective Bentley Jamison is a long way from home in the Beartooth wilderness when one of local rancher Maddie Conner’s ranch hands goes missing. Towering mountains and a small, tight community are as unfamiliar to Jamison as herding sheep, but he’s never shied away from a challenge. As the new deputy sheriff, he’s sworn to protect every inch of this rough terrain—starting with unraveling a mystery that has left Maddie a wide-open target.
Maddie’s as beautiful—and untamable—as the land around them. Like Jamison, she won’t back down from danger. But desire that flares hotter than their tempers only raises the stakes when a fierce storm traps them in the high mountains. Caught in a killer’s sights, Jamison and Maddie must trust one another, because now survival…and love…are all that matter.
Dear Reader,
When I worked as a features writer for the newspaper, I did a story about a sheepherder and his “tender” who’d spent three months back in the Beartooths—only them and a huge band of sheep.
It was the tender, a young man whose job it was to keep camp, that gave me the idea for Forsaken. The teen was so glad to be out of the mountains and told harrowing stories about his summer that included grizzly bears, storms and rough dangerous terrain.
What would it take to send a young man like that racing out of those mountains in absolute terror? And what about the widowed sheep rancher who must go into the remote area to check on not only her sheep—but her sheepherder? That was when my story was born.
I hope you enjoy the trip back into the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains.
B.J. Daniels
Forsaken
B.J. Daniels
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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This book is dedicated to the Western ranchers, sheepherders and tenders who used to trail sheep to summer pastures in the “Beartooths.”
In 2003, after three months and 150 miles, the last band of sheep made the round trip for summer range in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, ending an era that dates back to the late 19th century.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER ONE
THE HORSE STUMBLED under him as he plunged down the steep mountainside, but he spurred on the mare. Around him, the dark pines swayed and sighed in the wind as he crashed down through them, his only thought to reach the ranch alive.
Terror quilled the hair on the back of his neck, but he didn’t dare turn around. Fighting to stay in the saddle, he raced along the creek before charging into the fast-running stream. The clear water showered up in an icy wave that soaked him to the skin and stole his breath.
His horse bolted up the other side, forcing him to cling to the saddle horn to stay on his mount. A pine bough caught him in the face, a sharp twig scraping across his cheek and cutting into his flesh.
Behind him, he heard a familiar sound over the roar of his pulse and the howling wind and the thundering hooves of his horse echoing through the timber. Behind him was that unearthly silence that had chased him out of the Beartooth Mountains.
Even as he rode the horse harder, he knew he’d never be able to outrun it—or the smell of death lingering on his skin.
* * *
DEPUTY SHERIFF BENTLEY JAMISON was the only one in the office when the call came in.
“That you, Frank?” a grating elderly male voice asked when the dispatcher put the call through.
“Sheriff Frank Curry is out of the office. This is Deputy Sheriff Bentley Jamison. What can I do for you?”
“Bentley Jamison? Never heard of you.”
Jamison must have said the next words a dozen times a day since he’d recently joined the force. “I’m new.”
“Huh,” the man said with a chuckle. “Bet you ain’t from around here, either.”
That was a bet the man would win. At least he hadn’t asked what most people did on meeting the new deputy. “What the devil are you doing way out here?”
“What can I do for you?” Jamison asked.
“Well, this is Fuzz Carpenter. You don’t know me, but I just run across a kid comin’ out of the Beartooths. He was a-ridin’ hell-bent for leather like the devil was chasin’ him. Had blood all over him. I flagged him down to try to find out what was wrong, but he wasn’t makin’ an ounce of sense. All I could get out of him was that he worked for the Diamond C sheep ranch. That’s ’bout all I can tell ya, exceptin’ I didn’t like the look in his eyes. Somethin’ bad happened back up in those mountains, sure as hell.”
Jamison wrote the words Diamond C Ranch on the pad next to his phone. “How long ago was this and where exactly?”
“Not ten minutes ago up the Boulder Road. He was a-headin’ back to the ranch, I’m supposing, since he was ridin’ in that direction last I saw of him.”
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll check it out.”
The man grunted in response and hung up.
Jamison asked directions to the Diamond C from the dispatcher then climbed into his patrol SUV and headed toward what the locals called the Boulder. It was actually the Boulder River valley. As he left Big Timber, Montana, he followed the river, the tall thick cottonwoods only giving him glimpses of the clear, green water.
The valley was wide, broken up by plowed fields and creeks that ran down to the river in a winding trail of pines and cottonwoods. With breathtaking beauty, mountains soared up around him, snowcapped and covered in dark pines.
The nearer he got to the Diamond C, the more the valley narrowed. Sheer rock cliffs towered a thousand feet over the two-lane paved road, and ranches became fewer and farther between.
He passed the Natural Bridge and waterfalls up into the Absaroka mountain range, or the Beartooths as locals called them because of one jagged crag that looked like a bear’s tooth.
Not far after that, the pavement ran out and he found himself in a tight canyon with nothing but the roaring river still full from spring runoff and high mountains hemming him in.
The Diamond C was snuggled in a coulee back off an even narrower dirt road and across a private rickety bridge spanning the river. It was early June in Montana and the snow-fed creeks were all running high.
As he came over a small rise, he saw the house and low sheep barns. Wind buffeted his patrol SUV, letting out a low howl. Nearer to the house, he saw a lone wooden weather-grayed rocker teetering back and forth in the blustery wind at the edge of a wide porch. Freshly hung sheets billowed and snapped on the clothesline nearby.
He’d had his share of premonitions before. Several of them had saved his life. But none had ever been as strong as the feeling of dread that washed over him as he drove toward the white clapboard two-story farmhouse.
* * *
MADISON “MADDIE” CONNER felt the change in the air just a moment before she heard the vehicle approaching. The wind had been blowing all night and morning, screaming down out of the mountains, sending anything not nailed down cartwheeling across the yard.
She’d awakened in the middle of the night when one of the big metal garbage cans had taken off, banging across the wide expanse between house and barn before crashing into the side of the shed. It had been difficult getting back to sleep. Everything was always darkest at that hour—especially her worrying thoughts.
Since rising, she’d kept busy. But a feeling of unease had burrowed under her skin like a splinter, festering as the day progressed. Finally at midmorning and unable to shake off her dismal mood, she’d tried to reach her sheepherder by radio. So far she hadn’t been able to raise him or his tender, who were both back in the mountains.
Branch Murdock often purposely forgot to take his radio with him when he was out checking the sheep. He refused to carry a cell phone, not that she blamed him. There was little coverage back in the mountains anyway. She’d told herself she’d try him later.
Stepping out on the porch now, she leaned against the railing and watched the patrol SUV pull to a stop in front of the house. She’d expected to see Sheriff Frank Curry, a handsome fiftysomething big man with a drooping handlebar mustache, climb out.
The man who emerged after the dust settled wasn’t Frank—but he was as large and broad-shouldered.
Maddie squinted with both curiosity and an inkling of concern as a man in what she estimated as his thirties tilted back his Stetson on his thick head of brown hair to look in her direction. His eyes were pale and hooded. She could make out enough of his features under the shaded brim of his cowboy hat to realize she’d never seen him before.
He wore the entire sheriff’s deputy uniform from the tan shirt to the creased-front slacks and dress boots. She’d never seen any of the local law enforcement in anything but the tan shirt, jeans and well-worn cowboy boots.
Even before he opened his mouth, she knew he wasn’t from anywhere around here.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly low and soft. The accent, though, was all “back East.” He removed his hat and turned the brim in his fingers, and she got her first good look at him. His face was more lined than she’d originally thought, and his hair was graying at his temples. She realized he was closer to her own age, mid-forties.
His eyes were a haunting pale gray. It reminded her of the wolves that had been reintroduced just over the mountains in Yellowstone Park. The wolves that often killed her sheep.
“I’m Deputy Sheriff Bentley Jamison and I’m looking for Madison Conner,” he said, squinting up at her.
“Well, you found her.” She saw his surprise and couldn’t help smiling to herself. He wasn’t the first man who had just assumed the ranch owner was male.
“I’m here about one of your employees,” he said. “A neighbor of yours saw a young man come out of the mountains a little while ago.... The man who called thought your employee might have been in trouble.”
His words brought back the full force of the unease she’d awakened with last night. “What kind of trouble? I don’t know anything about—” She took a step to the edge of the porch stairs then stopped as her gaze slid past him to the faded red barn in need of fresh paint.
Her breath caught as she recognized the lathered-up horse standing next to it. The horse was still saddled, but there was no sign of its rider. Even from the distance she could see that the mare needed tending to at once.
She shoved off the porch steps and sprinted toward the barn. When she got hold of Dewey Putman she’d tan his hide for treating a horse like that. Even as she thought it, though, she felt that sliver of worry dig in deeper.
What was her tender doing back at the ranch? And what had a neighbor seen that would make him call a deputy instead of her?
Maddie reached the horse, her heart breaking at the shape it was in. The mare had been ridden hard. Her fingers brushed over a four-inch cut along one flank, and she saw that the mare was favoring one leg.
She dug her cell phone from her jeans pocket and tapped in the veterinarian’s number, then shoved open the barn door and called Dewey’s name.
Behind her, she was only vaguely aware that the sheriff’s deputy had followed her. In the dim light of the barn, dust motes twirled in the early-morning light as she called Dewey’s name again before the vet came on the line.
“I’ve got a horse that needs attention right away,” she said into the phone. “If you can’t come out...” She let out a relieved sigh. “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”
As she disconnected, she heard a rustling sound deeper in the barn, then a whimper and what sounded like sobbing. She felt her chest tighten. Stuffing her cell phone back into her jeans pocket, she grabbed up a pitchfork as she followed the sound to a back stall.
A few feet from the muffled noise she felt the deputy’s large hand drop to her shoulder. He’d unsnapped his weapon and now motioned for her to stand back and let him handle it.
As a groan came from inside the stall, Maddie gave a shake of her head and banged the stall door open with the pitchfork.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Dewey Putman?” she demanded then froze as she saw her sheep tender cowering in the corner. Her gaze took in his bloodstained clothing, the scratches on his face and the terror in his eyes before he dropped his head into his folded arms again and wept.
“Come out of there, son,” the deputy said as he pushed past her.
She let out the breath that had caught in her throat at the sight of Dewey like this and slowly lowered the pitchfork. “You heard him. Come out.”
Dewey looked up. A lock of his dark hair had fallen over one bloodshot brown eye. She felt her stomach roil.
“Come on,” she said, gentling her voice the way she would have for a spooked horse. She dropped the pitchfork over the partial wall into the next stall and held out her hand.
But before Dewey could take it, the deputy stepped between them.
“I’m going to have to handle this,” he said to her then turned to Dewey. “What’s your name?”
“His name is Dewey Putman. He’s my sheep tender.” Then turning to Dewey, she said, “What I need to know is what you’re doing here, and where are Branch and my sheep?”
The deputy shot her a look that said he’d prefer to do this his way.
Before she could remind him that he was on her ranch or that she had two thousand sheep and possibly no herder, he said, “Could you please make some tea?”
Bristling, Maddie raised a brow. “Tea?”
“Or coffee if you prefer. Something to warm him up. Also, he’ll need a change of clothing. His clothes are soaked. If he isn’t suffering from hypothermia, he will be.”
Ready to do what came naturally and take care of things herself, she had to bite her tongue as she shot another look at Dewey. He was trembling like a dog cornered by a grizzly and in as bad shape or worse than his horse.
Something had happened in the sheep camp back in the Beartooth Mountains. Even before she’d seen the blood on his clothing, she’d known by the look in the young man’s eyes that he was in trouble. The deputy knew it, too.
Dewey was her employee, her responsibility. While her first instinct was to help him, she knew from the warning look the deputy had given her that Dewey’s welfare was now out of her hands.
“I’ll see to his horse,” she said. “There’s a pot of coffee on the stove. Help yourself.”
CHAPTER TWO
DEPUTY SHERIFF BENTLEY JAMISON watched the ranch woman stride off, before turning back to the young man cowering in the corner of the stall. He’d seen his share of young men with blood on their hands. None, though, had looked as terrified as this one.
“Son, I’m going to have to ask you to stand up now,” he said.
As Dewey Putman stumbled to his feet, Jamison searched him for a weapon or any sign of an injury that could account for the blood on the boy’s clothing. The tender was little more than a kid, late teens at most. He had no weapon and had no visible wounds. So there was a good chance the blood on his clothing wasn’t his.
“Let’s go up to the house,” Jamison said. “I’m going to need to call your parents. Can you tell me that number?”
The boy shook his head.
He figured Mrs. Conner must have it as he led the young man through the dimly lit barn.
As they neared the open barn door, Dewey balked. He shook his head, hugging himself and moaning under his breath as he looked toward the bright daylight outside.
It was one of those beautiful early June days in southwest Montana. A blinding sun hung in a cloudless blue sky. The breeze smelled of spring, but its cold bite was a reminder that summer in these parts was weeks off.
“It’s all right,” he told the boy. “It’s not that far to the house. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Still, he had to take Dewey’s trembling arm to get him to cross the patch of sunlit earth to the house. What, he wondered as an icy chill settled over him, had frightened this kid so badly?
At his patrol SUV, he took out the investigation kit he’d been given when he’d started as deputy. So far, he’d had no use for it. Crime in this part of the world was barking dogs, an occasional barroom brawl and traffic control when a semi blew over on the pass. It was a far cry from his job as a homicide detective in New York City.
On the porch, he had the boy strip off his wet, soiled clothing down to his underwear. He led him into the house and was looking for the bathroom when he heard Madison Conner come up the porch steps.
“Don’t touch those,” he said through the screen door as she knelt to pick up the boy’s dirty clothing.
She rose with an indignant sigh, took one glance at her half-naked tender then pulled open the screen door and walked past them. “The bathroom is the second door on the left,” she said, pointing down a short hallway without turning to look at them.
“I need to contact this boy’s parents or guardian,” he said to her retreating back.
“You’re looking at his guardian,” she said before disappearing into the kitchen.
In the green-and-white-tiled 1950s-style bathroom, Jamison turned on the shower and quickly ran the necessary forensics tests, scraping under the boy’s fingernails and swabbing his hands and wrists for gunshot residue, before he let him climb into the hot shower.
He left Dewey long enough to bag the boy’s clothing and load it and the specimens he’d taken into the patrol SUV before he returned to the house.
When he walked in, he found Madison Conner putting clothing outside the bathroom door. She gave him a look that made it clear she didn’t like him interfering with what she considered her business.
Since arriving in the state a few weeks ago, Jamison had learned how independent Montanans were—especially ranch women. Behind the often weathered suntanned skin he’d glimpsed an iron-strong will. He’d never seen more capable women.
Whether hauling trucks loaded with ranch supplies, feeding dozens of ranchers at brandings or jumping in to help with every chore on the spread, there was little these women didn’t know how to do—and well.
This was the first ranch woman, though, that he was about to butt heads with.
He took note of Maddie Conner’s clothing from her loose-fitting large flannel shirt and jeans. Her boots were as worn as her hands, and both were a sign of a hardworking rancher. There were fine lines around her cornflower-blue eyes. The set of her jaw bespoke of a stubbornness born of living in a man’s world. But while she might hide her femininity under a lot of attitude and loose clothing, there was kindness in her face that the years and her lifestyle hadn’t yet eroded.
As she straightened the stack of clothing she’d left for the boy he glimpsed a deep sadness in her expression, which she quickly masked. She made a swipe at an errant lock of her hair. It was long, the dark red of cherrywood with a few streaks of silver woven through. It surprised him to realize she was probably close to his own age.
As if sensing him watching her, she checked her expression and gathered up her thick mane. With nimble fingers she trapped it again in the large clip that held her hair off her neck. He couldn’t help noticing how pale and soft the exposed skin appeared.
“Yes?” she asked, irritation in her tone as her gaze met his.
“I need to ask you a few questions,” he said, embarrassed that she’d caught him staring at her. “You’re Dewey’s legal guardian?”
She gave him a grave nod. “Come into the kitchen,” she said, turning her back on him. She appeared reconciled to the questions and his being there, but definitely not happy about it. “The sooner you get your answers, the sooner I can see to my shepherd and flock.”
Jamison followed her into a sunlit yellow kitchen that looked as if it, like the bathroom, hadn’t been remodeled since the early fifties. The table was large and long with curved metal legs and a yellow checked top that matched the counter. The cabinets were knotty pine and the floor was a familiar linoleum pattern reminiscent of another era.
“How do you take your coffee?” she asked as she pulled down several mugs from the cabinet.
“Black.” He heard the shower shut off. “You said your tender’s name is Dewey Putman?” he asked as he produced his notebook and pen.
Maddie could tell by the way he said “tender” that he had no idea what that was. She put a cup of hot coffee in front of him. A pot was always on at most ranches. Hers was no different since she never knew who might stop by. Not that she got much company anymore. Her own fault for being so contrary, her husband would have said and would have been right.
She was too worried to sit, so she leaned against the counter, cradling her coffee mug, soaking in its warmth. She tried to remember the deputy’s name—something odd, she thought. All she could recall was his last name. Jamison.
“Dewey worked as the tender,” she said. “His job was to take care of the camp while Branch, that’s my sheepherder, took care of the sheep up in the high country for three months this summer.”
“The high country?”
“Back in the Beartooth Mountains—that’s where I graze a couple thousand sheep. The tender moves camp as needed. He cooks, comes down for supplies when they run low—”
“Would they have been running low?”
She shook her head. “Branch just took the sheep up to the grazing area four days ago.”
“And that’s where this boy has been?”
She nodded.
“When was the last time you heard from your sheepherder?”
“Four days ago when I helped take the sheep up. That was the last time I saw either of them until...” An image of Dewey’s horse, then the boy flashed into her mind. She gripped her mug tighter as she lifted it to her lips.
“Your sheepherder is named Branch?”
“Branch Murdock.”
Jamison looked up from his notebook. “His parents named him Branch?”
She gave a shrug. “That’s the name I’ve been putting on his paycheck for almost twenty-five years. Before that my mother wrote the checks.”
“Did everything appear normal when you left them up in the mountains?”
Maddie hated to admit she’d had misgivings about giving the boy the job. “Dewey’s a little green, I’ll admit, but I figured he’d learn well enough from Branch.”
“So the boy hadn’t been a tender before?”
“No.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixteen.” She saw the deputy’s eyes widen. “Plenty of men his age are doing a lot harder ranch work than being a sheep tender.” She knew she sounded defensive, but the deputy unnerved her with his intent silver gaze.
“If you’re his legal guardian, then where are his parents?”
“Divorced. I don’t know where his mother is off to. His father works odd jobs that take him north to the Bakken oil fields for long periods of time. That’s why Chester asked me to give the boy a job and made me his guardian.”
The deputy studied her for a long moment before he asked, “Has Dewey been in trouble before?”
“Who says he’s in trouble now?” she snapped, and looked away, angry with herself, Dewey and the situation. If this man would just let her talk to Dewey and find out what had happened up in those mountains, she could get this cleared up before Deputy Jamison jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“You might as well tell me if the boy’s been in trouble,” Jamison said. “I’ll find out soon enough.”
Silence stretched between them until she finally broke it. “Dewey got into some dustup at school. His father thought spending the summer in the mountains, away from his friends...”
“What kind of...dustup?”
“Boy stuff, I would imagine.” She glanced toward the sound of footfalls in the hallway. “I don’t really know,” she said quietly then turned as Dewey filled the open kitchen doorway. “Come have some coffee,” she called, moving to get him a mug.
Dewey came meekly into the kitchen, wearing her son’s clothing. He looked enough like her Matthew that it felt like being kicked by a horse. She already felt sick at heart as it was for Dewey, for his horse, for whatever had frightened him and maybe worse, whatever he might have done.
“Sit,” she ordered, and turned away to cut the chocolate cake she’d made only that morning. She’d planned to take the cake to the stock-growers’ meeting she had later in the afternoon, but all her plans would change now.
Dewey pulled out a chair at the end of the table, and she placed a slice of cake and a mug of coffee in front of him. She automatically reached for the sugar and cream because that was the way Matthew had always taken his coffee. Dewey ignored both and began to slurp up the hot coffee as if dying of thirst.
The deputy was watching the boy closely. She felt her chest tighten at the thought of what kind of trouble Dewey might be in. “Dewey—”
Jamison cut her off. “That cake looks awfully good, Mrs. Conner. Mind if I have a piece?”
Maddie tried to still her impatience as she sliced the deputy a large portion and topped off his coffee even though he hadn’t touched it. She desperately needed to know what had happened and what she was going to have to do about it.
“Mrs. Conner here was just telling me—”
“Maddie,” she interrupted.
Jamison shot her an annoyed look before turning back to the boy again. “Maddie was just telling me you were hired on as the sheepherder’s tender.”
Dewey nodded but kept his eyes on the cake he was in the process of devouring. He acted as if he hadn’t eaten in days. She realized with a start that Branch wouldn’t have let the boy go hungry—that was, if he’d been able to take care of the two of them.
Did that mean something had happened to Branch? Her stomach dropped at the thought. What of her sheep? She’d been hanging on to the ranch by a thread for so long...
“Son, can you tell me what happened?” the deputy asked.
The fork froze in Dewey’s hand, and then slowly he began to scrape the crumbs from the plate, never taking his eyes off the table, before dropping his fork and washing the cake down with the rest of his coffee.
“How about we start at the beginning?” Jamison said. “For the past four days, you’ve been up in the mountains with the sheepherder, is that right?”
Dewey nodded.
“Where is Branch now?” Maddie asked, ignoring the warning look the deputy shot her.
“I don’t know,” the boy said, dropping his voice and his head.
The deputy cleared his throat. “When did you last see him?”
“Just before bed last night. He said he’d been having trouble sleeping. The noises were keeping him up.”
“The noises? You mean the sheep?” the deputy asked.
Dewey lifted his head and frowned at the silly question. “Branch was used to the sheep. He said he could tell if they were happy or scared just by the sounds they made at night.”
“Then what was keeping him up at night?” the deputy asked.
“The strange sounds...” Dewey glanced back down at the table “...the...crying.”
Maddie couldn’t help herself. “Crying?”
“I’m not making it up,” the boy said, lifting his head to plead his case with her. Tears filled his eyes, and he began to tremble again. “I swear. We heard awful...crying on the wind.”
“You have heard the sound of wind or a coyote calling at night, haven’t you?” Maddie asked in exasperation.
“It weren’t no coyote,” the boy snapped. “It weren’t just the wind, either. It was...something else. Even old Branch was spooked by it.”
“Are you sure Branch didn’t just wander off?” the deputy asked.
“Maybe. His horse was missing this morning. I called for him and looked all over.”
Maddie doubted Dewey had done much searching for the sheepherder given how scared he was.
“How did you get the blood on you?” the deputy asked.
The boy wagged his head without looking up. “One of the lambs. She was hurt. I tried to help her.” He was close to tears again. Maddie remembered her son at that age, so tough and yet so tender, a boy on the edge of manhood doing his best to measure up. If only Matthew was here now, she thought with that unbearable grip at her heart.
“How did you and Branch get along?” Jamison asked.
“Fine,” he said to his empty plate.
Maddie took the plate and cut him another slice of cake. She could feel the deputy’s irritation with her, not that she gave a damn as she slid the second slice of cake in front of Dewey and refilled his mug. She noticed the deputy had hardly touched his cake or his coffee.
“I would imagine with only the two of you up there all alone, you might have had disagreements on occasion,” the deputy asked.
Dewey said nothing as he dived into the cake and coffee she’d set before him. She felt torn between wanting to shake the truth out of Dewey and wanting to protect him. All her instincts told her that the boy needed protecting.
“Branch hard to get along with, was he?” Jamison asked.
“Meaner than a rabid dog when he drank.” The kid, realizing he’d just spilled the beans, shot Maddie an alarmed look and quickly gulped out, “Not that he drank usually.”
Maddie groaned.
“If you had something to do with Branch going missing up there—”
“I didn’t!” he cried. “I swear. I don’t know what happened to him.”
She felt her stomach go tight with fear as a thought hit her. “Where’s Branch’s dog, Lucy? That dog would never have let him out of her sight.”
Dewey shook his head and began to cry.
“Son,” the deputy pressed. “If you know something, you have to tell me.”
“I don’t know. I’m telling you. I...I don’t know anything.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Maddie said as she shoved off the kitchen counter.
Dewey looked up, startled, as if he thought she planned to beat it out of him.
“I have two thousand sheep up in those mountains, and I can’t be sure anyone is watching them,” she said to Jamison.
“Right now, I have bigger concerns than your sheep,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’m going to have to hold the boy until I know what happened up there. I’m afraid this warrants investigating.”
“Then you see to your investigation, Deputy. I’m going to check on my sheep.” What she couldn’t bring herself to say, let alone admit to this Easterner, was that the future of her ranch was riding on this year’s sheep production.
Not that she wasn’t even more scared out of her wits that something bad had happened to Branch. He wasn’t just her sheepherder. He was as close to a grandfather as she’d ever had. He was also her closest friend.
But if she had tried to explain it to the deputy she would have been fighting tears. And she never cried. She’d done all her crying a long time ago.
As she started down the hallway toward her bedroom, she heard him coming after her. “Mrs. Conner—”
“Maddie,” she snapped without turning around. She had no idea what had happened back in those mountains, but she was scared, sick over the pain she saw in that boy sitting in her kitchen and worried as the devil about Branch, as well as her sheep.
She didn’t have the time or patience to deal with the law right now.
Jamison caught up to her halfway down the hall and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop and face him. “Maddie, I can’t let you go up there alone.”
“No offense, but a greenhorn like you would just slow me down.”
“I’ll do my best not to,” he said. “But I’m going with you.” His gaze softened as he seemed to notice the tears in her eyes. She wiped at them, as angry with herself as she was with him for noticing.
“Right now I’m concerned about my sheepherder. Branch has been with my family for years. He wouldn’t leave the sheep unattended. Either Dewey is wrong or—”
“Or your sheepherder met with some kind of accident.”
She connected with his gaze. “He’s my responsibility. I really don’t need your help.”
“Did you notice the kid’s knuckles?”
Maddie started. She hadn’t.
“He’s been in a recent fistfight. And that cut over his eye? He didn’t get that from falling down. On top of that, he’s lying about something.”
“You don’t know—”
“I might be a greenhorn in Montana, but I know when a suspect is lying. Before I took the job as deputy here, I was a homicide detective.”
A dark, cold lump formed in her chest. A suspect? Homicide?
“I’m sorry, Mrs.—Maddie, but I’m afraid under the circumstances, neither of us has a choice right now. You have a missing sheepherder and sheep you need to see to. But I can’t let you go up there alone and destroy what I suspect is going to be a crime scene.”
CHAPTER THREE
NOTHING MOVED FASTER in the near ghost town of Beartooth, Montana, than gossip. Even the powerful, fearful winds that blew down out of the Crazy Mountains were no match for the wagging tongues.
This morning the gossip was about Maddie Conner and the Diamond C Ranch’s young tender.
Every morning Lynette “Nettie” Benton crossed the street from her store to the Branding Iron Café to get a cinnamon roll and coffee and the latest gossip. She could always depend on the regulars to dish up tasty tidbits of news or scandal.
In fact, she prided herself on knowing everything that was going on in town. She spent much of her day at the front window of the Beartooth General Store watching the world go by. True, the world passed more like a glacier in Beartooth.
The town, in the shadow of the “Crazies,” as the locals called the Crazy Mountain range, had once been quite the wild mining town back in the late eighteen hundreds. Now, though, other than a bunch of deserted old buildings, there was only her general store, the post office, the Range Rider Bar, a community church and the café, which suited most folks in the area just fine since the larger town of Big Timber was only twenty-some miles away.
In Montana traveling twenty miles was nothing. Many traveled much farther and often on dirt roads just to get to a store—let alone to catch a flight or shop at a big-box store.
Nettie liked to say that she knew more about the people in the area than they did about themselves. And she’d never been shy about spreading what she knew, either, which was why she’d become known as the county’s worst gossip.
She didn’t mind. Let them say what they would. Most days, the tidbits she picked up weren’t all that exciting. This morning, though, she’d hit the mother lode when she’d overheard Fuzz Carpenter.
Fuzz was sitting at the front table at the Branding Iron Café with the rest of the ranchers who gathered there every morning when she heard him mention the woman sheep rancher and her young tender.
Historically sheep ranchers, in what had originally been cattle country, weren’t all that popular. While cattle and sheep ranchers now got along, it was still rare for a woman to be running a sheep ranch. Not to mention the fact that Maddie Conner didn’t take any guff off anyone—especially male ranchers who thought she needed their advice.
“Covered with blood,” Fuzz was saying. “Didn’t take more than a look in that boy’s eyes. Somethin’ bad happened back in those mountains. Mark my words.”
Nettie’s first thought was to call Sheriff Frank Curry and find out what was going on. But then she heard Fuzz say that he’d talked to some new deputy because the sheriff was out of town.
“Bentley Jamison,” Fuzz mocked with the worst impression of a New York accent Nettie had ever heard. “What the hell kind of name is that?” The ranchers all laughed. “Wait until he meets Maddie Conner.” That brought on more laughter. “I wouldn’t even want to take her on.”
Nettie was thinking about the sheriff being out of town. No doubt Frank was visiting his daughter, she thought with a chill.
* * *
SHERIFF FRANK CURRY nervously turned the brim of his Stetson in his fingers as he waited. He was a big man, a throwback from another era with his thick handlebar mustache and longish hair. He could have been a sheriff from a hundred years ago.
The nurse had told him to sit down in one of the chairs in the glassed-in solarium, but he could no more sit than he could fly. He stood at the window, looking out at the rolling land and counting his regrets. They’d been few—before a seventeen-year-old young woman named Tiffany Chandler had shown up at his door. Actually the first time they’d met, he’d caught her in his house going through his bureau drawers as brazen as any thief he’d run across.
Now, at the sound of footfalls behind him, he braced himself and turned to see his daughter and a nurse come into the room.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said.
Tiffany looked paler than he remembered, thinner, too. She’d cut her long blond hair, hacking it short and choppy with a pair of scissors she’d somehow gotten her hands on.
“How the hell does a mental patient get hold of scissors?” he’d demanded when he’d received the call from the hospital.
“Your daughter is a very...determined young woman,” the nurse had told him. The woman meant sneaky, cunning, shrewd, manipulative—deadly. Determined was a kindness to him that sounded more like pity.
Frank knew what extremes Tiffany would go to once she set her mind to something. She’d almost killed him, after killing something he’d loved.
Looking at her now, he could see there was still a lot of hate and anger in her. He knew that defiant, hurt look too well and liked to believe it masked fear rather than soulless hatred.
Tiffany glared at him with huge blue eyes that dominated her waiflike features. She had refused to let anyone repair the damage she’d done to her hairdo. He’d always noticed a fragility about her, but now it was heightened.
He felt desperate to take her in his arms and protect her—just as he had last February when he’d learned who she was. Until then, he hadn’t known he had a daughter. Still didn’t, actually.
After she’d tried to kill him, the county attorney had sent her for a mental evaluation to see if she could stand trial. The state had also insisted on running a paternity test to see if the teenager actually was Frank’s birth daughter.
The report had come in a large brown envelope, but Frank had never opened it. He felt Tiffany was his responsibility no matter what blood ran through her veins because she was the creation of his vindictive ex-wife.
When he thought of his ex-wife, Pam, he often thought of killing her. That thought only lasted an instant because he wasn’t a killer—and because he had created Pam, just as she had created Tiffany. Pam had kept the pregnancy from him, raising the girl alone and programming her to ultimately take revenge against the man they both now hated.
“How are you doing?” he asked Tiffany, gripping the brim of his hat when he wanted more than anything to hold this poor child. But the nurse had warned him not to try.
“How do you think I’m doing in this crazy bin?” Tiffany spat.
Better than prison, he wanted to tell her. But he couldn’t be sure that prison wasn’t still in her future. It would be up to the state eventually. Right now, he was fighting to keep her from going before a judge on attempted-murder charges against an officer of the law. He feared she would be tried as an adult, and he couldn’t bear the thought of her in prison.
“Is there anything you need, anything I can get for you?” he asked.
“You’ve done quite enough. If that’s all...” She started to turn away.
“Tiffany, the doctor said you haven’t been cooperating.”
She raised one very pale blond brow at him as she let her blue eyes return to him.
“If you get well—”
“Is that what you’re telling them?” She crossed her skinny arms over her skinny chest. “That I’m unwell? Crazy? A lunatic just like my mother?” The nurse put a hand on her shoulder, but Tiffany shook it off. “I’m just fine. And so was my mother before she met you.”
He hated that she wouldn’t take responsibility for what she’d done any more than her mother had the one time he’d talked to her after he’d found out about Tiffany.
“You tried to kill me,” he said to the girl now.
Her eyes glittered an instant before she gave him a slow smile. “I’m just sorry I failed.”
“It’s talk like that that will end you up in prison. Don’t you understand I’m trying to help you?”
“By pressing charges against me?”
“That was the state because I am a county sheriff.” And Tiffany was dangerous, no matter how much he might want to argue otherwise. He sighed, his heart breaking with frustration. He wanted to help her. Why couldn’t she see that?
“Tiffany, I love you. You’re my daughter. I want time to make up for the past since I didn’t even know you existed. Give us that time by working with the doctor so you can get out of here.”
Tears suddenly filled her eyes. “You turned my mother against me.”
His fury at his ex-wife boiled to the surface. She’d sent her only child to seek revenge in the most deadly, destructive way for both him and Tiffany. And now she’d washed her hands of the girl. What mother could do such a thing?
Pam was the one who needed to be in a mental institution, he thought, tamping down his murderous rage. “You know I have no control over your mother. She wants to hurt us both. By making you think I’m responsible, it’s just another way for her to drive us apart.”
Tiffany shook her head, tears now streaming down her face. “She said you would blame her.”
Frank balled his fists at his sides. He didn’t know where Pam was, afraid sometimes of what he would do if he found her. He unclenched his fists, not wanting to give his daughter any more ammunition against him.
“This is your fault,” Tiffany cried. “If you had loved my mother and not that horrible Nettie Benton...”
Frank felt his heart clinch at his former lover’s name on his daughter’s lips. There was only one other person Tiffany and her mother hated more than him.
“None of this has anything to do with Lynette,” he said, using the name he’d always called Nettie. “She was married to Bob when your mother and I were together, and there was nothing going on between us.”
“Mother said you never got over the bitch.”
He would have loved arguing that, but he couldn’t. His daughter would have seen the truth. “I married your mother because I loved her.” That much at least was true. Pam’s jealousy had destroyed the marriage, but Tiffany wouldn’t believe that. He hated even thinking about those dark days, never knowing what mood Pam would be in when he returned home.
“Mother said you never tried to get her back.”
They’d had this discussion too many times, and nothing he could say weakened the venom Pam had injected into their daughter’s veins.
“I can’t change the past. Had I known about you, I would have gone after your mother and brought you both back. She never gave me that chance.”
The girl shook her head, her big blue eyes filling with tears. “If I had known that Nettie Benton was the woman you were in love with...” She didn’t have to continue. He knew. Tiffany had come to Beartooth with a gun and a heart full of hate.
She knew where to find him, but she’d been looking for Lynette Johnson. That had been Lynette’s name when the two of them were in their early twenties and lovers. Tiffany hadn’t known that Lynette went by the name Nettie Benton.
Frank wished more than anything that he and Lynette had married and had children of their own. Instead Lynette had married Bob Benton. And years later, he’d foolishly married Pam Chandler. Their marriage had been short and far from sweet.
It wasn’t enough that Pam and Tiffany had brought him to his knees. But he lived in fear that Tiffany, if released, would go after Lynette, the woman he’d loved and lost years ago and still loved now.
Or that Pam, realizing her daughter might never be free again, might decide to take matters into her own hands.
* * *
JAMISON CALLED HIS office in Big Timber and discussed the situation with the undersheriff in charge. They both agreed he should go up into the mountains with Mrs. Conner.
“At this point, it doesn’t warrant sending search and rescue up there,” Undersheriff Dillon Lawson said. “We don’t know that a crime has been committed or even if the sheepherder is actually missing.”
They wouldn’t know about the blood on the boy’s coat until the forensics came back from the state lab, and who knew how long that would take?
“The boy’s been in a fight,” Jamison said. “Something happened up there. Something bad enough that the boy is terrified. But you’re right—there’s no smoking gun.” Not yet anyway.
“Okay. This could take you a few days, though. You’re scheduled off this weekend. If this case runs over...”
“I doubt it will. If it does, it isn’t a problem.”
“Let me know what you find—if you can get cell-phone coverage from one of the higher peaks up there, call me. Coverage up there is sketchy at best. If it becomes a rescue operation or worse, we can send in a helicopter once we have the location. So it is just going to be you and Maddie Conner going up there?”
“She’s not keen on my going along.”
Dillon chuckled. “I’ll just bet. Good luck.”
Jamison hung up and went to check on Dewey Putman. He got the feeling that the undersheriff thought his going up into the mountains would be good for him. Knock some of the back-East off of him. Apparently Maddie’s reputation had also preceded her since the undersheriff found some humor in his going with her.
In the kitchen, he saw that Dewey had finished his cake and coffee, shoved his dirty dishes away and, with his head cradled on his arms, had fallen into an exhausted sleep on the table.
He knew Maddie Conner was holding out hope that Dewey hadn’t done anything wrong and that they would find nothing out of the ordinary back in her summer sheep camp. He wished he could share her optimism.
“For all you know that is lamb blood on that boy’s jacket, just like he said,” she’d argued before he’d gone out to make the call to the office.
“Maybe. I think you should call the boy’s father. Meanwhile, I’m afraid he’ll have to be held in custody at the jail since his guardian will be in the mountains with me.”
“I already called the oil company and left a message for his father. Since there is no one else, I guess that’s the best we can do for now.”
“We shouldn’t be gone that long,” Jamison had said.
She’d given him a disbelieving smile. “There is only one way to get back where we need to go, Deputy, and that’s by horseback, so it’s going to take a while. You ever ridden a horse? Never mind. I’ll saddle you a gentle one. But you’re going to need some boots and some practical clothes. I think some of my husband’s will fit you.”
Before he’d been able to ask about her husband, she’d disappeared down the hall. He remembered the way Maddie had been looking at the kid earlier, so much heartbreak in her eyes. It had made him wonder where she’d gotten the clothing she’d given Dewey. Did she have a son of her own?
Leaving the sleeping boy, he stepped back in the living room and looked for family photographs. While he waited for Maddie, he couldn’t help being curious. To his surprise, he found no family photographs. That seemed strange. She’d mentioned a husband and she’d produced boys’ clothing, but there was no sign anyone lived here but her.
“I put some clothes out for you,” she said from behind, startling him. As he turned, she gave him an irritated look as if she knew he’d been snooping. “I put them in a room down the hall. I’ll get what we’ll need together and go load the horses.” Without another word, she disappeared out the front door.
Jamison found a flannel shirt, canvas jacket, a yellow slicker, jeans and several pairs of heavy socks along with a pair of cowboy boots waiting for him in what appeared to be a spare bedroom. He was surprised when everything fit fairly well.
Having changed quickly, he came out of the bedroom and listened for a moment to make sure Maddie had left the house before sticking his head in the other rooms. He found Maddie’s bedroom and the family photos he’d been looking for. In a wedding-day photograph, he studied an innocent-looking young Maddie standing next to a handsome young man.
She’d been beautiful. So fresh and sweet looking. She’d had that “I’m ready to conquer the world” look in those blue eyes of hers. She’d looked...happy.
There were later photos of the husband and Maddie and finally some of a son. So where were this son and husband now?
Stepping back out of the room, Jamison went into the kitchen to check on Dewey again. The boy still slept as if he hadn’t so much as dozed in days. In the living room, Jamison put in a call to the sheriff’s office again.
Lucille Brown, a good-natured older woman, was working dispatch today. She’d put through the earlier call from Fuzz Carpenter and had given him directions to the Diamond C.
“Can you provide me with some background information on Madison Conner?” he asked. Through the window, he could see Maddie talking to a man he suspected was the veterinarian she’d called earlier about Dewey’s horse.
“Maddie? What do you want to know? She raises sheep. She still sends her flock up into the high country every summer. Last of the ranches to do that. Gotta hand it to her. She’s tough as any woman I’ve ever met.”
Jamison could sure as hell attest to that. He’d probably met a more stubborn, headstrong woman in his life, but he couldn’t recall one.
“Does she have a son?” he asked just as Maddie turned and started back toward the house.
“Matthew. Lost him and her husband in a tragic accident four summers ago. Everyone thought she’d sell out and leave after that. But not Maddie. It’s her family’s place, but word around town is that it might not be for long. She’s had some tough breaks. If Fuzz is right and something has happened to Branch...”
“We don’t know that,” he said.
Just as Maddie reached the porch steps, a Sweetgrass County patrol car pulled in. “I’ve got to go,” Jamison told Lucille, and disconnected as Maddie came through the door.
“Ready?” She had a resigned look on her face as if braced for not only being forced to allow him to go along, but also for whatever she had to face up in those mountains.
Jamison had noticed the tall antenna on the roof when he was walking Dewey back to the house from the barn. He assumed it was for a radio and now saw the base unit on a table in the corner of the living room.
“Have you heard anything from Branch?” he asked, motioning to the two-way radio receiver.
“I haven’t talked to either of them since I left them four days ago. I already told you that.”
“But you tried to reach them.” She’d left an earlier coffee mug by the base unit. He was betting that the coffee was cold from this morning. So she had been worried, just as he suspected.
She swallowed and let out a sigh before she answered. “I tried to raise Branch this morning.”
“You couldn’t?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t like carrying the radio, so he often leaves it in camp.” She sounded defensive and not for the first time today.
“Why did you try to reach him this morning?”
“I was just checking—”
“You were worried because of Dewey.”
Her gaze came back to his, as determined as the set of her shoulders. “Are you trying to put words into my mouth, Deputy?”
“Sorry. What were you checking on?”
“Just to make sure they were doing all right.”
“You do that often?” He wondered if she’d lie and was glad when she didn’t.
“No. I was concerned that Dewey might be...homesick. His father was determined that sheep camp was just what his son needed. He wanted Dewey away from his friends, and with his father gone so much of the time...”
“But you had your doubts.”
She gave him an impatient look. “Not everyone can spend that much time alone.”
“But Branch was with him.”
She let out an amused snort. “Branch isn’t much of a talker. He could go for days without a single word, so yes, Dewey would have had a lot of time to himself. Just because he got scared and came out of the mountains, doesn’t mean—”
“Please try to reach Branch,” he said, motioning to the radio.
She did as he asked, though with apparently the same result as she’d had earlier. “Like I said, he probably doesn’t have the radio with him.”
“Or he’s unable to answer. Does he have a cell phone with him?”
“No, but they aren’t worth a hill of beans back where we’re going. Not really anywhere to plug it in, either, when it runs out of juice.” She turned and started out the door, clearly over his interrogation.
“So where exactly are we going?” he asked as he went after her. Even with his longer legs, he had to walk fast to keep up with her.
“Up there,” she said without slowing down as she descended the porch steps and strode across the yard toward the barn. She waved a hand past the low sheep barns to the snowcapped mountains rising to dizzying heights in the distance. “It’s a good day’s ride.” She shot him a look, assessing him, as he caught up to her. He could see that he came up lacking in her estimation.
“A whole day?” That surprised him. He looked again to the mountains. He’d come out here wanting to lose himself in this wild remote country, but he hadn’t meant literally.
“We’re getting a late start,” she said as if his questions were slowing them down even more. “We’ll be lucky to reach camp in two.”
Jamison had looked at a map of the area before he’d left New York and had been in awe at the way the mountains to the south of Big Timber ran all the way to Yellowstone Park with the only access from this area by foot or horseback.
As he stared at the snowcapped peaks, he couldn’t imagine what it must be like way back in such an isolated place, let alone how difficult it would be to survive in such unforgiving, wild country. It had to mess with a person’s mind. He wondered what it had done to Dewey Putman.
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