Cowboy Accomplice

Chapter Two

Later that evening as J.T. rode his horse up to the cow camp high in the Bighorn Mountains, he decided to check out the dead cow Bob Humphries had told him about. Mostly, he hoped to put his mind to rest.

He’d left his new puppy Jennie at home. The other two older ranch dogs had gone with his sister Dusty and his dad to round up the smaller herd of longhorn cattle they kept on another range. He missed having at least one dog with him on the roundup but the new puppy wasn’t trained to round up cattle and he’d have had to be watching Jennie all the time to make sure she didn’t get into trouble.

He had enough to worry about. He’d had to leave the hiring of the roundup cow hands and cook up to ranch foreman Buck Brannigan.

Buck had assured him he had it covered. J.T. should have been relieved to hear this but something in Buck’s tone had caused him concern. Finding good hands this late in the fall was tough and finding a good cook was next to impossible, especially around Antelope Flats.

J.T. hated to think what men Buck had come up with given that most of the hands he normally used for roundup from summer range had already moved on by now.

He should have had the cattle down weeks ago. But his brother Rourke hadn’t just fallen in love with Longhorn Café owner Cassidy Miller. The two had gotten married. If it hadn’t been for the wedding, J.T. would have gotten the cattle down from the high country earlier. But Rourke had asked him to be his best man and the wedding had been only last week.

As he rode higher into the mountains, he saw his breath and swore he could almost smell snow in the air. In this country, the weather could change in a heartbeat and often did. Once the snow started in the fall, it often stayed in the high mountains until spring. With luck he could get the six hundred head of cattle rounded up and down before winter set in.

But as he neared the spot where Bob had seen the dead cow, J.T. wasn’t feeling particularly lucky.

The late-afternoon sun felt warm on his back as it bled through the pines. He caught the scent of burned grass on the breeze before he saw the edge of the charred area.

He drew his horse up and dismounted. Over the years, there’d been days he had pushed what had happened that fall at the cow camp out of his mind. Murder was hard to forget. But this had been more horrifying than murder. Much more.

And it had started with one dead cow.

He ground tied his horse and walked through the deep golden grass. On the ride up, he’d convinced himself that lightning had killed the cow. Although rare, it happened sometimes, especially in an open area like this high on a mountainside. Much better to believe it was just a freak occurrence of nature than the work of some deranged man.

But as he neared the burned grass, he saw that the cow was gone. There were tracks where it had been dragged off. He shuddered, remembering the burned man who had also been dragged off into the woods and the grizzly tracks they’d found nearby.

J.T. glanced toward the dense pines. It was too late to go looking for the cow, even if he’d been so inclined. He turned and walked back to his horse, anxious to get to the line camp before dark.

As he rode deeper into the Bighorns, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something—or someone—was watching him. Maybe even tracking him. An animal? Or a man?

He didn’t relax until he glimpsed the light of the campfire through the pines. The men had built a fire in the pit in an open area between the wall tents and the line shack. Shadows pooled black under the cool dark pines and the familiar scent of the crackling fire drifted on the breeze, beckoning him with warmth and light.

Everything looked just as it had for years. The two wall tents were pitched a good distance to the right of the fire pit. The cook’s cabin, a log structure almost hidden by the pines, sat back some off to the right. The ranch hands slept on cots in the tents. The boss and foreman took the bunks in the cabin with the cook.

Past the campfire and down the hillside sat the hulking outline of the old stock truck. He was glad to see that the truck had made it up the rough trail. It would probably be its last year. He’d put off buying another truck because this one had been doing roundups almost as long as he had and there was something about that that he liked.

As he turned his horse toward the corrals, he felt his earlier unease settle over him like a chill. Something was very wrong. The camp was too quiet. Usually the hands would be standing around the campfire, talking about cattle or horses, telling tales and arguing about something. And typically, his foreman would be right in the middle of it, Buck’s big deep bellow carrying out over the pines like a welcoming greeting.

Instead, the men were whispering among themselves and Buck was nowhere to be seen.

Riding over to the corral, he dismounted. Something had happened and whatever it was, it must not be good. The cowhands’ horses milled in the corral. Eight horses, six the hands had ridden up individually during the day from the trailhead. The two extra horses Buck had brought up in the stock truck.

As J.T. began to unsaddle his horse, Buck came out of the line shack and headed toward him as if he’d been waiting anxiously for his arrival. Not a good sign. J.T. tried to read the look on the elderly foreman’s weathered face. Worry? Guilt? Or a little of both? Whatever it was, J.T. feared it spelled trouble.

He waited for his foreman to bring him the bad news as he busied himself unsaddling his horse. His first thought was that Buck had lied about finding a camp cook. Their regular one had broken his leg riding some fool mechanical bull. Without a camp cook, they’d be forced to eat Buck’s cooking, which was no option at all. Ranch hands worked better on a full stomach and there was a lot less grumbling.

Buck’s cooking was so bad that the men would want to lynch J.T. from the nearest tree within a day, so Buck damned sure better have gotten them a cook.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” he asked as Buck sidled up to the corral fence.

A mountain of a man, large, gruff and more capable than any hand J.T. had ever known, Buck had been with the Sundown Ranch since before J.T. was born. Buck was family and family meant everything to a McCall.

But J.T. swore that if Buck hadn’t found a cook he’d shoot him.

“What makes you think somethin’s wrong?” Buck asked, taking the defensive, another bad sign.

J.T. wished he didn’t know Buck so well as he studied the older man in the dim light that spilled through the trees from the campfire. He would have sworn that the men over by the fire were straining to hear what was being said. Oh yeah, J.T. didn’t like this at all.

He stepped closer to Buck, not wanting to be overheard, and realized he’d been mistaken. The look on the foreman’s face wasn’t worry. Nor guilt. Buck looked sheepish.

J.T. swore. He couldn’t help but remember Buck’s cockiness a few days earlier: “I’ll find you a camp cook or eat my hat.”

“Tell me you found a cook,” J.T. demanded, trying to keep his voice down.

“Well, I need to talk to you about that,” Buck said.

If it came down to a choice, he’d rather eat Buck’s hat than Buck’s cooking. “What’s to talk about? You either hired a cook or you didn’t.”

“Have I ever not done something I said I would?” Buck demanded.

J.T. shot him a let’s-not-go-there look and counted heads around the campfire. Six men sitting on up-ended logs around the fire, all as silent as falling snow. An owl hooted in a treetop close by. Behind him, one of the horses in the corral whinnied in answer.

“Do I know any of the men you hired?” he asked Buck, that earlier uneasiness turning to dread as he let his horse loose in the corral with the others.

“A couple. I was lucky to find any. Hell, I had one lined up but he got hurt in a bar fight and another one—”

“I wish I hadn’t asked.” He could tell by the foreman’s excuses that he’d had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get six hands together for this roundup. He hated to think how bad the six might be.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said, hefting his saddle and saddlebag with his gear in it, as he headed for the campfire.

The men all got to their feet as J.T. approached with Buck trailing along behind him.

“Evenin’,” he said to the assortment of men standing around the campfire resting his saddle and saddlebag on a log by the fire. “I’m J. T. McCall.” At a glance, he’d seen the men ranged from late twenties to late thirties. They seemed to study him with interest.

“Luke Adams.” A thirty-something, slim cowboy held out his hand.

J.T. took it, feeling that he knew the man. At thirty-six, J.T. had been doing roundups for thirty years so the faces of past cowhands sometimes blurred in his memory as did most of the cattle drives. But something about this man…. “You worked for us before?”

Luke seemed surprised he would remember. “Almost ten years ago.”

The memory fell into place, dropping like his heart in his chest. Luke Adams had been one of the cowhands who’d left camp after the first trouble nine years ago. Luke had been one of the smart ones.

While J.T. had never been superstitious, it still gave him an odd feeling that one of the cowhands from that tragic cattle roundup had signed on for this year’s.

“I haven’t seen you around Antelope Flats,” J.T. said, wondering where Luke had been all these years.

Luke shook his head. “Went down to New Mexico for a while.”

He nodded, feeling uneasy as he studied him in the firelight before moving to the next man.

“Roy Shields,” the man next to Luke said quietly, then awkwardly pulled off his hat before sticking out his hand. Roy was slim and wiry-looking with thin red hair, early to late thirties, one of those people it was hard to tell his age.

His grip was strong but not callused. He looked like a cowhand, one of the quiet ones that seldom gave him any trouble. But how did the saying go, still waters run deep? Roy could have been familiar. The man hurriedly shook his hand, keeping his eyes downcast. J.T. made a note to watch him.

“Cotton Heywood,” the next man said eagerly reaching to shake J.T.’s hand. He was one of the local ranch hands who worked in the area. He had a full head of white-blond hair, which explained his nickname.

“Good to see you again, Cotton,” J.T. said, trying to remember the latest scuttlebutt he’d heard about the man. Cotton had gotten into some kind of trouble at another rancher’s cow camp, but for the life of him, J.T. couldn’t remember what. He seldom paid any attention to rancher gossip, but now he wished he had.

J.T. looked to the next man.

“Nevada Black,” said a strong-looking man with dark hair and eyes. His hand wasn’t callused either. He gave J.T. a knowing smirk. “That’s my real name. I was born at a blackjack table.”

“You have any experience on cattle roundups?” J.T. asked.

“I took a few years off, but I’ve been rounding up cattle since I was a boy,” Nevada said. He rattled off a series of ranches in Nevada and northern California where he’d worked.

J.T. nodded and looked to the next man.

“Slim Walker,” said the gangly cowboy. He held out his hand and when J.T. took it, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling back. Slim nodded, then stretched out both hands in the firelight for everyone to see. “Burned them. Got knocked into a campfire at a kegger.” He shrugged. “Gave up drinking after that.”

J.T. barely heard the man over his thundering pulse. He tried to hide his embarrassment and quickly looked to the last man.

The sixth cowhand stood back a little from the fire as if he’d been watching J.T. make his way around to him and waiting.

“Will Jarvis,” he said slowly stepping forward, removing his hat. He had thin brown hair and was the oldest of the bunch, late thirties like J.T. himself.

J.T. studied the man’s face as he shook his hand. Something about him was familiar but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The man’s hand was smooth and cool. He was no ranch hand. Buck really had been desperate.

“Glad you’re all here,” J.T. said, not sure of that at all as he tried to shake the bad feeling that had been with him from the moment Bob Humphries told him about the dead, burned cow. “We have a lot of cattle to round up over the next few days. I suggest you turn in right after supper. We start at first light.”

As he glanced toward the cabin, he realized he didn’t smell food cooking, just smoke, and shot a look at Buck before picking up his saddle and gear and heading in that direction.

Behind him, he had the strangest feeling that the men around the fire were not only watching him, but also waiting for something to happen.

“Maybe we should talk for a minute before you go into the cabin,” Buck said as he caught up to him.

“Why is that, Buck?” he asked without slowing his stride. J.T. had always liked to get whatever was waiting for him over with as quickly as possible. “If you got a cook, then what—” The rest of his words died on his lips as he saw the camp cook through the cabin window. “What the—”

“Now, boss—”

J.T. shoved his saddle and gear at Buck without a word and, with long purposeful strides, stormed across the porch and into the line shack. “What are you doing here?”

It was a stupid question since Reggie whatever-her-name-was stood at the cookstove with a pan in her hand. She was dressed in fancy western wear, all spanking new and all in that same shade of red that had blinded him on the road earlier today.

“You know each other?” Buck asked in surprise from the doorway.

J.T. swung around long enough to slam the door—with Buck on the other side of it. Slowly, trying to control his temper, he turned back to the woman standing in his line shack. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “I wanted to give you another chance to reconsider my offer so I hired on as your camp cook.” She held out her hand. “Regina Holland. I wasn’t sure you remembered from my card.”

He ignored her hand. He could not believe the woman’s nerve. Had she no sense at all? Coming up to his cow camp after him? And worse, signing on as the cook. Women didn’t belong in a cow camp. He was going to kill Buck.

“Listen, lady, it is one thing to be cute on the highway but not in my line camp,” he snapped. She really had no idea what she’d done. Or who she was dealing with.

“I’m not being cute,” she said, frowning as she lowered her hand. “I’m very serious.”

She couldn’t have looked less serious in that urban cowboy getup if she’d tried. “I already turned down your offer flat,” he ground out from between gritted teeth as he tried to keep his voice down. “All of your offers. How much more plain can I be?”

He knew the men outside were straining to hear what was going on. A woman in cow camp? Worse, a woman who looked like this? A woman with designs that had nothing to do with cooking. A recipe for disaster if there ever was one.

She lifted her chin, standing her ground as she looked up at him. Without her high heels, he towered over her. He also outweighed her by almost a hundred pounds. But she didn’t seem to notice—or care.

“You didn’t give me a chance back on the highway today,” she said, seemingly unconcerned by the ferocious angry scowl he was giving her. “If you’d just listen to what I’m willing to give you—”

“You listen to me, Reggie,” he said, biting off each word as he stepped closer. “I told you I’m—”

“This is an opportunity—”