Bucking Bronc Lodge 04(34)

Timmy was quiet and helped pick up sticks although he stayed close to Jordan, remnants of his nightmare still evident in the frightened look in his eyes. He also kept glancing around the trees and woods as if he expected to see a monster rush out to grab him any minute.

No child should have to live with that kind of terror.

Jordan took his hand and knelt to point out the animal tracks along the riverbank. “See those footprints? That means that a deer has been here.”

Timmy narrowed his eyes to study them, then pointed to a spot a few feet away. Jordan frowned and noticed that the prints were larger and belonged to a boot. In fact, they were so large they had to be a man’s footprint.

She gathered Timmy close then joined the group again. Crane Haddock, Brody’s security guard, had been walking along the riverbank as the group sat and skimmed rocks across the surface, so she assumed it belonged to him. If not, there were other ranch hands who could have been out here.

An hour later, they set up camp and roasted hot dogs over the fire. Eight-year-old Rory showed Timmy how to poke the stick into the hot dog while Malcolm and Wayling grilled their own. Carlos, the sixteen-year-old counselor, told a story about the Indians who used to live on this stretch of land, then showed the boys arrowheads he had collected, and told them that they would hunt for some in the morning.

Finally they roasted marshmallows and Carlos played the guitar and taught the boys a couple of songs about cowboys. Malcolm yawned and Timmy looked sleepy, so she suggested they all get into their sleeping bags.

“We’ll probably wake up as soon as the sun rises,” she said. “That’s the way men on the ranch live. They rise with the sun and go to bed at dark because they’re so tired from working the ranch all day.”

“Come on, Timmy,” Rory said as he tugged him toward his sleeping bag. “We’re real ranch hands now.”

Timmy looked over at Jordan and she gave him a reassuring smile. “Go on, buddy. I’ll be right here to watch over everyone.”

Carlos and Justin checked on the campfire then settled down themselves. Crane Haddock, the security guard Miles had insisted come along, lit a cigarette and took a drag.

Jordan frowned, remembering the way her father had chain-smoked himself into emphysema. The man’s habits weren’t any of her business, but still, she wanted everyone at the ranch to serve as good role models, so she walked over to him. “Do you mind not smoking in front of the kids?”

Haddock’s craggy face sharpened with irritation. “The kids are going to sleep.”

“Maybe so, but I’d rather you didn’t.”

He grunted, then shook his head as if he was disgusted. He obviously hadn’t expected babysitting to be part of his job when Brody had hired him.

“Fine, I gotta take a whiz anyway.” Then he stalked off into the wooded area.

Jordan walked back to the fire, then spread out her sleeping bag and sat down to watch the flames. The boys, exhausted from the hike, had already fallen asleep.

Suddenly a noise behind her startled her. Trees rustling? A twig snapping?

Then another noise, louder. Like a man or animal crashing into the leaves.

She swirled around, searching the darkness, hoping to see the pinprick of light from Haddock’s cigarette, but it wasn’t there. Nerves on edge, she stood and scanned the woods.

“Crane?”

Only the whisper of the leaves rustling in the wind sounded. Then another crack. A gunshot. Muffled.

Fear choked her, and she inched deeper into the woods, weaving between the trees toward the area where Crane had disappeared. On instinct, she slid her derringer from her coat pocket, praying she didn’t have to use it. A faint sliver of moonlight lit her path as she took another step, her hand shaking at every tiny sound echoing around her.

Scrub brush and weeds clawed at the leg of her jeans, then she spotted the glow of the cigarette on the ground behind a clump of rocks.

Her heart jumped as she stepped around the rocks and found Crane Haddock lying facedown in the dirt. Had he fallen?

She knelt slowly to check his pulse, her eyes tracking the property and trailing back to the boys who were still nestled around the campfire.

But she didn’t feel a pulse.

“Haddock,” she whispered as she slowly rolled him over. “Come on, don’t do this to me....”

But the blood gushing from his chest told her it was too late.

Haddock was dead.





Chapter Ten




Miles relayed his suspicions to Blackpaw as soon as they left Roeder, and they went straight to the warden.

Warden Everett Case was a tall husky man who, judging from the photos on the wall of his office, had served in the military. But the years since he’d left had changed him from a fit man to one who needed to lose about fifty pounds. Muscle had turned to fat, the steely focus in his eyes in the picture filled now with cynicism.