“They’re all alike! Each and every one. ! tom you how it is!”
“Not Tate!” she contradicted stubbornly. “Rio, I’ve talked to every ranch but one that I have a listing for. The Joe-Bob we’re trying to find doesn’t work at any of them. I don’t know what else to do! If we tell Tate, he can contact each and every ranch in this section of
the state. Even the ones pot listed with the ranching association. And just in case someone I talked to brushed me off, he can m,kc them tell the truth. Then you’ll have Joe-Bob to back up your story. “
Rio shook his head, his long blond curls jerking. “They’ll kill me! They’ll kill me before anyone here can draw two breaths!”
“Tate won’t let them!”
His pale eyes pinned her. “What is this?” he demanded. “Who is he to you? You seem to think he’s some kind of”
“I’ve known him for years. Longer than I’ve known you. I know what he’s like, and he won’t”
“He’s young and good lookin’, ain’t he?” Rio challenged. “Are you sleepin’ with him?”
Even at such a tense moment Rio had picked up on something in her voice when she spoke of Tate. But this wasn’t the time to be defensive. She had to get Rio to see reason. She issued her own challenge. “Would it make a difference if I was? Don’t you think, if it’s true, it might go a long way to making everything better for you? If I tell him I believe you, it’ll carry some weight!”
“Uh-uh. No way. Not this time. Not when it involves the Hammonds.”
“He’s going to stop the Hammonds!”
“You don’t know them,” Rio muttered, and started to pace the dirt floor.
“Then what are you going to do?” Jodie demanded.
He stopped to look at her. “You say they’re on their way. They’re not here yet?”
“Not at ranch headquarters. At least, not when I left.”
His lips thinned. “I still have time to get away.”
“Where to?” If you run now, you’re going to be running for the rest of your life—from the law, from the Hammonds. Is that what you want? Do you want to go on like you have these past few days? You were complaining a few minutes ago because you couldn’t talk to your friends. “
“Tn make new friends.”
“Where? Across the border? That might stop sheriffs like Tare, but it’s not going to stop the Hammonds. If they’re so terrible and so determined, don’t you think they’ll find you eventually? Then what will you do? You won’t have anyone to help you.”
His lips curved into a tight smile. “I didn’t know you still cared.”
Jodie ignored that. “If you’ve told the troth, you have nothing to worry about. We’ll find this Joe-Bob.”
“I thought you said” — “Leave that to me.”
“I can’t stay here!” he asserted. “It’s too close. Someone’s liable to come up on me when I’m sleepin’ or something’.”
Jodie racked her brain. “I agree,” she said. “You have to get farther away. What do you think-out in the rough country, in the foothills? I won’t be able to contact you as easily, but that’s not something we’ll need to do again until everything’s settled.”
“I’m not waitin’ around forever. Not even in the foothills. I’d rather take my chances in Mexico than
?
have the Hammonds find me off in some lonely canyon. “
“Give me until sunset ” Vednesday. If I haven’t contacted you by then, leave. I don’t know exactly what I’ll do yet, but I promise—I won’t tell anyone where you are. “
He considered her proposal, obviously torn between the desire to run away and the desire to have his name cleared. For the old Rio there’d have been no question. He’d already have hopped on her horse and ridden away to the pickup truck he had stashed, then been off to Mexico, leaving her to find her way back to the compound as best she could. The new Rio, though, the one who claimed to be innocent of murder, the one who claimed to have truly loved the murdered girl, stayed firm.
“All right,” he said. “Wednesday, sunset. You know the canyon with the old trapper’s shack in Big Spur?”
Jodie nodded. She knew it vaguely. Big Spur was one of the outer ranch divisions, very remote, with only one cowboy living in a trailer assigned to tend stock. The trapper’s shack, remote even within the remote division, had been used years ago by an employee of the federal government who trapped coyotes and bobcats.
“That’s where I’ll be, and I’ll keep an eye out for you,” Rio said.
Just then Tony let loose with a high piercing whinny, as if he’d seen another horse. Rio instantly ducked, hiding himself again in the shadows.
Jodie cautiously went to check if someone had come
upon them. In the distance she saw several horses, grazing wild and free on a hillside. She patted Tony. “You want to be with them, boy?” she murmured.
The horse hade a soft sound that might have been agreement.
Jodie returned to the schoolhouse. “It wasn’t any body,” she said. “everything’s clear.”
“This time,” Rio said ominously.
Jodie had nothing to offer in reply. She went back to the horse and remounted.
At first she’d thought she might have brought too many supplies. Now she was glad she had. As things turned out, Rio would at least have enough to eat and drink for the next three days.
She gave the schoolhouse one last look. All was quiet. No one would suspect that a wanted man was secreted inside, even if only for a short time longer.
WHEN JODIE RETURNED to the compound, it was to find Morgan Hughes camped out in a chair on Mae’s front porch, the rifle he normally carded with him when he rode the range resting across his lap.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked. “Tate called, told me I should get myself over here PDQ, to protect you and the ranch, and then I find you gone.”
Morgan had always been a favorite of Jodie’s, almost like another cousin.
“I had to go out,” she said.
“You know about these people who’re coming?” “Tate told me.”
“Then you picked a pretty strange time to disappear.”
Thatwas the only troubl with Morgan. As Tate had said, he was a trained lawnforcement officer, a commissioned Texas Ranger, ho’d once worked for a private state-wide organization of ranchers to combat cattle theft. He’d gone off active duty, though, since taking over the foreman’s job for his father. Yet his instincts were just as keen. She had to tread carefully.
He got up to stand at the porch railing, the rifle hanging casually from one hand, the muzzle pointed at the floor. At least that was something she could feel good about, Jodie thought. If the Hammonds did show up right away and try to cause trouble, Morgan was perfectly capable of holding them off.
“I had an errand to run,” she claimed. She knew a way to take his mind off where she’d been. “How’s Christine?” she asked. “Almost another week down. Any signs of the baby coming?”
Morgan’s chiseled features creased immediately into a smile. “She felt a little twinge this morning, but it turned out to be a false alarm. I don’t know who was more disappointed—Erin or her.”
Jodie tucked her fingers into the back pockets of her jeans and rocked on her boot heels. She smiled. “Or you, too, right?”
“I have to admit I’ll be relieved when it’s over. When little Elisabeth’s with us all safe and sound and Christine’s through the delivery.”
“Are you going to be in the delivery room?” she asked.
“You bet. Wild horses couldn’t keep me outta there.” A car engine
caught their attention. Both looked to ward the front of the compound to see who was turning into the long drive. It was Mae’s big black Cadillac, old but in perfect running condition, LeRoy at the wheel. With hlXm were most of his family and all of Rafe’s.
LeRoy stopped to let everyone out before taking the car to the garage at the side of the barn. Harriet and Shannon were laughing as they supervised the younger children’s exit. They’d just come from a pleasant afternoon of visiting, and neither seemed to have a care in the world.
Jodie glanced inquisitively at Morgan, who answered quietly, “I didn’t want Christine to worry, so I just said I was needed over here, not why.”
Shannon caught part of his explanation and looked from Jodie to him—and then down to Morgan’s rifle. Her eyes widened. “What’s up?” she asked.
Harriet, who’d just turned from waving her husband away, did a similar double take, her gray eyes on the rifle.
The children started to scamper off, but both women ordered them to stay put.
Morgan said easily, “We could have a little trouble come our direction in a bit. That girl Rio Walsh beat up in Colorado died this morning. And now Tate says her father and brothers are on their way here to find him. The Parker Ranch is where they’re gonna want to start lookin’.”
“We’d hand him over with bells on if we knew where he was,” Harriet said.
“I know that, you know that, but they don’t. It’s something’ we’ll have to get across to them.”
“Rare will never let them have free run of the ranch,” Shannon said.
;
Morgan patted the rifle. That what I’m gonna tell ‘em. Unless Rafe gets here first. Then he can. “
“She died!” Harriet exclaimed, shocked and looked at Jodie. It must have just hit solidly home with her that what had happened to the other young woman could just as easily have happened to Jodie.
Jodie tried to offer a reassuring smile, but her emotions were in such turmoil she failed. She was the only person who knew where to find Rio. She couldn’t betray him. Then again, didn’t she owe her family her first loyalty?
Rare and Mae walked up the pathway from the work area, and when they spotted the group clustered by the front of Mae’s house, their steps quickened. It took only a moment for them to receive an explanation.
“No-good cowboy’s still causin’ us trouble,” Mae snapped fiercely. She looked tired, as if spending most of the day out on the ranch had been hard on her, even from the relative comfort of a pickup truck.
“Tate say what time they might turn up?” Rafe asked.
“Probably not before six,” Morgan replied. Everyone who had a watch checked it. “It’s six now,” Rafe said. Morgan merely nodded.
Rafe lifted his younger son, who’d been trying to gain his attention, into his arms. Little Nate gurgled with three-year-old pleasure. “Ice cream! Ice cream!” he demanded shrilly, which provoked the other children to join his chant.
Rare turned the boy over to Shannon and robbed the top of his older son’s head as he hopped up and down at his elbow. “Why don’t you and Harriet take ‘em over to our place and give ‘em what they want?” he said to his wife. “Jodie, you help Aunt Mae.”
“Help me!” Mae exploded. “What’s she gonna do? Sit me down in my rocking chair and cover me with a lace shawl?” She looked around. “Where are Wesley and Gwen?”
“They’re staying the night at Little Springs,” Harriet said.
“Good. Now you keep those babies inside. Don’t let ‘em out unless you come with ‘em.” She was more direct with her orders than Rare had been. Her attention moved back to her great-nephew. “What do we know about these people?” she demanded.
While Rare gave his limited response—he knew very little about them, unlike Jodie who had Rio’s assess-mentBJodie edged away from the group, then escaped to her house. She had a lot to think about. She had to find a way to warn her family about the Hammonds without them learning how she knew. Also, there was her continuing problem with the elusive Joe-Bob. She’d promised Rio they’d find him. Now it was even more important!
She peeked through the curtain, to where Mae, Morgan and Rare still stood in a tight group in front of her great-aunt’s house.
Her only consolation at that moment was that her family weren’t good people to cross, either. They were Parkers, on Parker land. And the Hammonds would be wise to respect that.
T pounds P(atOL CAR’S powerful engine ate up the miles of the narrow two-lane highway as Tate raced to what he hoped would be a quiet setting. He’d decided that his best bet to prevent mayhem was not to try to intercept the Hammonds in town, but to be present himself at the Parker Ranch. And the sooner he got there, the better.
He doubted that the Hammonds had already arrived. It was a long hard drive south from the Colorado border—a twelve-to fourteen-hour undertaking that the men were performing in a highly emotional state. There was no way to tell how many unbroken hours they’d been awake before the girl died—she’d been hovering -near death for more than a week. No way to tell how much they’d eaten–or drunk. Their tempers would be raw, easy to provoke. They’d be like powder kegs, ready to explode in their quest for vengeance.
And at the Parker Ranch they’d hit resistance head-on. When they demanded to search every nook and cranny of the place, they’d be refused. Then. KABOOM.
Rafe Parker and Morgan Hughes were on Mae’s front porch when Tate arrived, their dries a hand’s reach away. Within seconds Mae and Jodie had joined them.
Tate parked his patrol car front and center before Mae’s house. He wanted it to be an emphatic statement to anyone who saw it that the law in Briggs County wasn’t to be taken lightly.
“Rafe, Morgan,” he said to the men, then turned to the women. “Hello, Mae Jodie.” Rafe and Morgan stepped to the porch railing. They
didn’t look especially glad to see him, but neither were they hostile. Both were imposing individuals. Strong of will, unified in their determination to protect what was theirs. ‘
“You have any new word on the Hammonds?” Rafe asked.
Tate shook his head. He’d left his hat on, content for the moment to let their business remain official. “Not a thing.”
“Then why are you here?”
He’d-known it wasn’t going to be easy. These big-time ranches were like feudal strongholds. They had their own rules and regulations, their own procedures, which usually boiled down to “Don’t bother us and we won’t bother you.” For an outsider to come onto their property, even someone they’d known for years, and try to tell them what to do wasn’t something they took to very well.
Tate kept his poker face. This was serious business. He was aware of Jodie on the fringe of the assemblage but couldn’t let his gaze wander toward her. “I think you know why. My job is to prevent trouble. They’re comin’ lookin’ for it, and you’ll give it to ‘em if they push you too hard, which they’ll probably do.”