Montana Blue

CHAPTER FOUR

“I TOLD GORDON instead of building that goddamn rehab center he oughtta put them boys to work,” Micah said. “That’ll cure ’em. Let ’em buck hay bales when it’s a hundred in the shade and then load ’em up again and haul ’em out on the ice and bust ’em for the cows when it’s twenty below and they’ll be too tired to go looking for dope or guns.”

Andie Lee didn’t answer.

Taking advantage of her silence to try to distract her, Micah said, “This here’s Blue Bowman, Andie. Blue, Andie Lee Hart, Gordon’s daughter.”

Blue took a breath that dragged her flowery woman-smell deeper into him. Gordon had a daughter? A daughter other than Dannie? Another daughter—one he was helping in her time of trouble.

It fit. She looked like a rich rancher’s daughter. She had that air of position and privilege. Her jeans were faded Wranglers and her boots were broken-in and battered, but there was nothing ordinary about her. The boots were fine and custom-made. That silver clip. Shiny hair, silky-looking skin.

Then it hit him as they both turned at the same time to look each other full in the face. This woman was his half sister.

“Stepdaughter,” she said, quick and hard. “Gordon’s not my father.”

She looked deep into his eyes to make sure that he got it. Then she gave him the barest nod and turned away to begin boring a hole with her gaze through the windshield again.

“I just hope they don’t shoot him, Micah,” she said, too quietly.

“They won’t,” he said. “You’re gonna talk him into giving up.”

Stepdaughter.

So. Gordon must’ve divorced the first wife he’d had back when he’d refused to marry Rose.

“Shane’s never done anything violent before,” Andie Lee said. “Never. You know that, Micah, as well as I do.”

“And he ain’t yet,” Micah said, with a forced calm in his voice.

He did drive even faster, however. Too fast around a curve in the winding road. The roan kicked the trailer again—so hard it rocked the old truck and Micah cursed, just under his breath.

They headed downhill again, toward another cluster of ranch buildings. A sign beside the road came into view.

GORDON CAMPBELL RECOVERY CENTER

Blue ran his eye over the neat, low buildings—bunkhouses, cottages, barns and pens—all built to seem rustic but they were fairly new. Good lord. Gordon was trying to work his way into heaven.

Did he build all this just because Andie Lee’s son had a drug problem?

“Shane’s in the recreation hall,” Andie Lee said, pointing it out.

Then she added sarcastically, “Naturally, he’s not in a classroom or a barn.”

“That’s what I mean— They want to straighten these kids out, they got to learn ’em what work is,” Micah said.

But now his voice sounded shaky. Micah was worried. Micah really cared for Andie Lee and her son so they must be worth liking.

They started driving past the first building, one with Gordon’s name on it.

“Tracie said Shane and the girl are in the game room,” Andie Lee said. “It’s on the back of the office.”

“I’m going with you,” Micah said.

She gave him a quick smile, the first smile Blue had ever seen on her.

“Park over there,” she said, pointing. “I want to surprise them and get in before they try to keep me out.”

Micah pulled into a paved area that held another patrol car and several more vehicles, mostly pickup trucks, and parked his rig parallel to one of the landscapings of bushes and small trees. He turned the key off and opened his door.

Andie Lee was out of the truck and around the front of it, reaching for his arm by the time he could get his stiff limbs out from behind the wheel, and they took off at a hobbling run up the little hill toward the rec hall. Blue watched them go.

So. Gordon’s stepgrandson was dealing drugs and holding girls hostage. Sins of the fathers visited, as usual, upon the children and the children’s children—because, judging from the way Andie Lee said Gordon wasn’t her father, he hadn’t tried to be a daddy to her, either.

He and Dannah weren’t the only ones. There had been other children Gordon had neglected. Knowing that made him angry for her, too.

The roan stamped and nickered. Blue looked around just in time to see him sit down and halfheartedly twist on his tie rope. That’d be trouble nobody needed right now.

Blue opened the door and got out.

“No sense in choking yourself again,” he said as he walked up to the trailer. “That will get you nowhere, buddy. You know that.”

The colt did it again.

“Aw, come on,” Blue crooned. “You’ll have to get over this hating to be tied. But later. I’m not set up for that lesson today.”

Still talking to the horse, he stepped up onto the running board near the roan’s head. The colt rolled an eye at him and listened as if he understood every word. But the stubborn look in his eye didn’t change any and that made Blue chuckle as he untied the rope and let it drop.

A sharp scream tore the air. The roan, loose in the trailer now, threw up his head and listened.

A second scream, this one closer. Blue leaned out backward to look toward the rec hall.

“No! Sha-a-ne! Stop!”

A girl’s high voice, terrified. For an instant he couldn’t see her and then he did, her face bobbing out from behind the boy running toward him, brandishing a handgun over his head with one hand while he dragged the girl along with the other. Blue’s pulse leaped, his gaze fixed on the gun. Somebody could get killed right here, right now. For no reason.

Farther back, four or five men were jostling out through the doorway of the recreation building, rushing past Andie Lee and Micah who were both white-faced and wide-eyed. All of them were chasing after the kids.

Except for Gordon. Within the commotion, Blue saw him walk up to Andie Lee and take her arm.

“Hey! Stop! Stop where you are!” somebody yelled.

It was the man at the head of the pack, the other one besides Gordon who wasn’t dressed in a law-enforcement uniform. Unlike Gordon, though, the front-runner wasn’t dressed for the ranch—he wore slacks and a loose-fitting shirt.

Andie Lee’s Shane kept barreling toward Blue. His eyes, wilder than the roan’s, strained toward the vehicles parked down by the cedar trees. He actually thought he could take one of them and get out of here, that determination was in every line of his tall, coltish body.

Blue flattened himself against the side of the trailer, murmuring to the horse, who, in spite of the girl’s continued screams had become surprisingly calm. For Roanie. All he did was stand there and paw the floor.

“Turn loose of the girl and the law’ll go easier on you!” yelled one of the men who was chasing Shane.

Blue leaned out far enough to see where they were. The kid had his mouth open now as if to reply but instead he was using his breath to keep running. He had lowered the gun and was waving it back and forth in front of him, ready to aim at any second. When he reached the nose of Micah’s battered truck, not slowing, jerking the girl around like a puppet, Blue got ready.

Shane passed the bed of the truck.

Blue stepped down into his path.

“What’s your hurry, son?” he said.

Shocked, eyes rolling white, Shane slowed and tried to swerve away.

Blue grabbed the gun.

Shane came after it. The girl slammed into his back and they stumbled into Blue with Shane’s long, skinny arm still reaching for the weapon. Blue stuck it into the back of his own waistband and took hold of the boy.

The kid was wasted. His upper arm was nothing but a stick of bone, yet he was nearly as tall as Blue. He was just like Dannie when she’d lost so much weight her skull showed through her face.

The clutch of breathless men swarmed all over them. They separated the two kids, surrounded each one, and took the boy from Blue. Gordon parted the crowd as he brought Andie Lee to her son.

With her face pale as milk, she took the boy’s arm in both her hands as if to pull it away from the lawman who was cuffing his wrists behind his back. She was saying something to him but Shane ignored her completely.

“Thanks a lot, man!”

It took a second for Blue to realize that he was the target of the sarcastic remark, shouted over the buzz of voices and the girl’s loud sobs. The hateful, fearful look in the kid’s eyes was fixed on him.

“You’re right to thank me,” Blue said. “Kidnapping might be a charge even your grandpa can’t fix.”

“He’s not my grandpa! And I don’t want him to fix anything—I want him to throw me out. Then Andie Lee couldn’t keep me here.”

He turned the poison glare onto his mother. She stared back, anger tightening her face over the worry. She let go of him. Then he lifted his chin defiantly and moved his eyes to Gordon.

“You stupid little shit,” Gordon said. “You ought to be horsewhipped.”

Shane, even though he was trembling, didn’t look away from Gordon’s piercing blue glare.

“I’ll take that weapon,” one of the lawmen said, as he stepped up to Blue.

Blue took the gun in his hand, broke it open, and tilted it, but no rounds fell out into his palm. He spun the chamber. Nothing. The old gun was well oiled and in good condition but it wasn’t loaded.

Blue offered it and the lawman took it to perform the same ritual all over again.

“Empty!” Andie Lee cried. “Shane, you mean you used an empty gun to make Jason call out the highway patrol?”

“You want me to kill somebody? Shoot up the place?”

He looked away from Gordon to sneer at her. His curled lip reminded Blue of the roan colt.

“You don’t want me to embarrass Gordon, right? That’s more important than Jason listening to lies about me and me being falsely accused and deserted by my girl, right?”

He turned his malevolent stare on the weeping girl, who lifted her face from her hands to stare back.

“You’re an asshole, Shane Hart,” she screamed. “I hate you. In your dreams I’m your girl—and don’t you ever say that again!”

That hurt him but he covered it quickly.

“Shut up, stupid Lisa,” he said. “All I wanted you for was a hostage, don’t you know that?”

“Fine. And now you don’t have one anymore.”

“It’s all your fault, anyhow,” he said. “You started this with your lies.”

“They weren’t lies! I saw you, I heard you, I bought from you!”

“Lisa the liar,” he said scornfully.

It came out weak, though, because his voice broke on the last word. He was so young, Blue thought. Fifteen, maybe.

“What were you thinking, son? Where were you headed when you ran out of there?”

It was the lawman who had hold of his arm.

“To find my dad.”

He’d managed to recover his hateful tone, but it was sheer bravado. He wouldn’t even turn to see who had hold of him. His eyes filled with the panic of knowing he was trapped.

He lifted his head and stared his challenge at Blue again.

“It’s all your fault,” he said. “If you’d minded your own business I’d be on the road, headed to my dad right now.”

The look in Shane’s gray eyes was so raw Blue couldn’t look away. The wings of his collarbone stuck up through his T-shirt, sharp enough to poke through his skin.

“My dad would b-break your face if he was here,” he said to Blue.

“You don’t have a dad to do jack for you, boy,” Gordon boomed, scornful of Shane’s fantasy. “You haven’t noticed that yet?”

Andie Lee gasped. Shane flinched as if from a blow.

Gordon held him with a terrible glare.

“If you did have a daddy you’d be nothing but a disgrace to his name,” Gordon said. “It’s your mother who’s killing herself trying to help you.”

“Shut up!” Shane yelled, his voice panicky.

But Gordon was relentless.

“You haven’t got the sense God gave a wooden goose. Look at you—fooling with that stinking dope again, stealing guns and kidnapping girls like some little outlaw wanna-be.”

Gordon took a threatening step toward the boy.

“And telling me to shut up is another piece of stupidity. If you ever show disrespect like that to me again, I’ll hang your hide on the fence just like any other coyote’s.”

That took the sand out of Shane. His jaw sagged and tears sprang into his eyes. Helpless, he pulled at his hands anyway, but all he could do was stand there with his face naked in front of the world.

Blue stepped up closer, set himself between the kid and Gordon and all the rest of them. Gordon was one cold bastard.

The boy held his own, kept on trying to stare Blue down until his eyes were so full of tears he had to blink them away.

He was tough enough, though, that he never let them fall.

That gave him strength. He got a handle on himself and the tears went away but his gaze stayed on Blue’s.

Don’t get in my way again. I hate you. You can’t stop me next time. Nobody can stop me next time.

Those eyes held another message, too, though.

I’m scared. I’m caught and I’m handcuffed and I’m scared.

Not half as scared as he would be at the end of the road he was taking.

Gordon pushed in between them.

“You could be in jail for weeks—for years, maybe,” he said. “I’m gonna leave you there. I’m gonna decide when you get out. I’m gonna decide when and if you come back here. Think about it.”

“You think about this,” Shane said, his voice strengthening with each word. “Chase Lomax is my dad and he’d do anything for me. Insult him again and it’ll be the last time you insult anybody.”

Andie Lee cried out and grabbed his arm again. She talked to him some more. In a low tone that held a whole world of fury and sorrow.

Blue stepped away. He couldn’t bear to hear it.

Gordon made a gesture to the highway patrolman, who took Shane and started toward the patrol car. Andie Lee stuck right with them and so did Gordon, talking in a low voice to the lawman.

Shane’s shoulders sagged and he hung his head so far down he couldn’t see ahead of him while he walked. The guy in the slacks and silk shirt followed and touched Shane’s shoulder.

Shane threw his head up like a spooked deer and twisted toward him. “Jason,” he said, his voice louder than before. “Thanks for nothing, dude.”

“Get back,” the lawman said, motioning Jason away, keeping Shane moving.

Andie Lee kept her shoulders straight and her spine stiff, yet the way she looked at her wayward son reminded Blue of Rose again. Money didn’t always make a difference, after all. Not after the addiction took hold.

“Shane. Man. When you get back, we’ll talk about it,” Jason called. “We can adjust your…rewards, Shane. In your treatment program. And I’ll…”

The other three went on toward the patrol car, but Gordon turned and started back for Jason, his sardonic voice lashing out like a whip.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Jason. You’re gone, too. Hit the road.”

Jason’s head turned around fast. He stared at Gordon and backed up a couple of steps.

“Mr. Campbell, it isn’t my fault that Shane…”

Gordon grabbed hold of his collar at the back of his neck and shoved him forward into a stumbling stagger.

“Make tracks off this place and don’t ever let me see you again,” he yelled. “If you can’t keep drugs out of here you can’t get these kids off of ’em.”

He pointed at the office building with GORDON CAMPBELL TREATMENT CENTER written above the door.

“Get your stuff and get out. Ten minutes.”

Jason flushed bright red. He whirled around to face Gordon but he didn’t stop moving, walking backwards, glaring and pouting like a kid. He looked nearly as young as Shane, but Blue judged him to be in his late twenties, maybe.

Only six or eight years younger than Blue, but it might as well be a hundred—one glance and a man could see that Jason’d had it soft all his life.

“You’re just angry,” he said, “because I called the police. That’s it, isn’t it, Mr. Campbell? You want to be the law and the judge and the jury all by yourself. But kidnapping and threatening someone with a gun is a serious matter, one for the authorities, and—”

“On this ranch I am the goddamned law,” Gordon roared. “And no judge or jury on earth can save your job, so shut your trap and do what I tell you, boy, before I stick my boot up your worthless ass and kick you into the next county.”

Jason was scared but he was as stubborn as Gordon. He, too, was accustomed to being the boss. He’d probably grown up a spoiled brat.

“There’s no need for you to use abusive language,” he said, his eyes blazing, his cheeks even redder with fury and embarrassment. “I’m afraid I’ll have to report this to the board and…”

Gordon went after him.

“I’ve been paying you big bucks and this kid’s still an addict, just like he was the first day you saw him,” Gordon yelled, pointing at Shane. “You’re worthless. Not get the hell out of here while you’re still able to walk.”

Jason turned around, fast, and started toward his office at a jog trot. Finally, everybody else moved, too.

The lawman opened the door to the back seat of his car and didn’t even bother to put his hand on Shane’s head, it was already bent so low. Shane got in and Andie Lee moved as if to get into the front seat, but the highway patrolman shook his head and Gordon went to talk to her. The other authorities started back up the hill to the recreation center.

Micah turned and walked slowly to Blue, heavily favoring his bad knee.

Once there, he stood looking back at Andie Lee. Blue looked at her, too.

She stood with her hand on the door handle, still trying to get a grip on the situation by talking to the patrolman across the top of his car. Gordon, scornful and fierce, was bent over to look in at Shane and berate him again.

“Damn shame,” Micah said. “It’s nothin’ but a goddamn shame. Andie Lee was the sweetest girl ever lived and she’s growed up to be a good, hardworking woman. She don’t deserve such hell.”

“Not many people do,” Blue said.

“No, and them that does don’t seem to catch it,” Micah said. “Leastways, not on this earth.”

Blue stared at Gordon. “Once in awhile they do,” he said.

“I figure we orter help each other through the rough patches,” Micah said. “No tellin’ when we’ll hit one of our own.”

Blue whipped his head around. Micah had him locked in his sharp sights.

“Helpin’ somebody else can take a man’s mind off his own trouble.”

“What’re you talking about?” Blue said. “I can’t help Andie Lee, if that’s what you mean.”

He tasted her name on his tongue.

“You can help that boy,” Micah said. “You seen that look he give you, and don’t try to tell me you didn’t. Shane has some respect for you when he don’t have none for nobody else.”

“You heard him,” Blue said. “He hates my guts for getting in his way.”

“Yeah, but he admires you for it, too,” Micah said. “Ever’body else chasin’ around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off and you put the kibosh on the whole deal in a heartbeat. He’s glad you done it, he just won’t admit it.”

Blue turned toward the truck.

Micah came along behind him. Blue could hear his boot-heel scrape against the dirt.

“Your horse is loose,” Micah said. “You know that?”

“I untied him to keep him from hanging himself again,” Blue said. He strode to the truck, jerked open the door, got in and slammed it shut.

Micah stopped at his window. “You’d do that fer a horse but not fer a boy?”

Blue ignored him.

Micah went around and got in on the driver’s side. He closed his door, reached for the key and fired up the old truck. Then he just sat there.

The roan kicked the tailgate of the trailer hard enough to knock it down.

“The horse is mine,” Blue said.

“Because you’re the one can handle him,” Micah said.

“Because I paid money for him.”

“No,” the old man said, shaking his head to lament Blue’s willful blindness, “it’s because you can bring him along to be all the horse he’s made to be. You’re the one he can connect with, so he is your horse.”

Blue turned and glared at him.

Micah met his look with one just as unyielding, shifted gears, and put the truck in motion.

“Ownership,” Micah said. “It’s a funny deal. Is it who holds the papers or who’s got the know-how to put a thing to use? Gordon holds the papers on this ranch. He uses a lot of it and he’s a top hand at breeding and raising cattle and horses and feed. Lots of jobs connected with them things he can do better than any other man on this place.”

He swung the truck around to head back to the road, pausing in his sermon only long enough to spit out the window.

“But there’s parts of this ranch Gordon don’t even know how to use. So who’s the real owners then? Jemmy in the machine shop. Toby in the show barn. Me in my wranglin’ pen and my garden spot.”