Regina put the top up on the convertible and after locking it, headed toward the café entrance. Just as she started to open the door, a man came out, startling her.
Their gazes met. Something about him seemed familiar. He pushed past her, skipping out onto the sidewalk without even an “excuse me.”
She stared after him, trying to remember where she’d seen him before, and then it hit her. He was the man who’d driven right past her on the highway, the one she’d tried to flag down to help her with her flat tire. He hadn’t paid any more attention to her then than he did now as he disappeared into the general mercantile next door. How rude.
Fortunately not all Montana men were like him, she thought, as she stepped into the café and glanced around for the man she imagined would be driving the Sundown Ranch pickup outside.
The café was nearly empty except for one large round table at the back. Its half-dozen occupants had looked up as she’d entered and were still watching her with interest as she started toward the older man in western wear and a white cowboy hat sitting at the table with the younger cowboys.
“Am I correct in my presumption that you are the gentleman driving that vehicle?” Regina inquired.
He was a large man, strong-looking, his face weathered, heavy gray brow over kind brown eyes and his western clothing freshly laundered and ironed, distinguishing him from the other men at the table. He had a thick gray mustache that drooped at each end. He looked like someone’s grandfather.
He pushed back his cowboy hat and blinked at her before glancing out the window at the Sundown Ranch pickup. When he looked at her again, he blushed. “Ah…um that’s my truck if that’s what you’re asking, miss.”
The younger cowboys at the table were nudging each other and grinning as if they hadn’t seen a woman for a while.
She ignored them as she held out her hand to the distinguished elderly cowboy. “I’m Regina Holland and you’re…?”
“Buck Brannigan,” he stammered. “Foreman of the Sundown Ranch.”
She flashed him a smile. “Just the man I was looking for.”
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