Rocky Mountain Lawman (11 page)

“So you’re thinking about looking after dark?”

Craig looked at him again. “You know me too well.”

“Well, it’s your job. Kind of my job, too.”

“You’re not law enforcement.”

“So? You’re not a firefighter either. That didn’t keep you out of Spruce Valley last summer. Where are you headed?”

“To the cabin. My artist friend is probably already there. You should probably hear us both out.”

Don nodded. “Fair enough. Some of the others are hanging out around here now. I wish we had more manpower.”

“Take it up with Congress.”

Don laughed. “Yeah, that works so well. I think we’re at the bottom of the list anyway with the department.”

“Can’t blame ’em. We’re not the busiest of forests, and we’re relatively new.”

“Keeping an eye on the loggers is practically a full-time job. I caught them trying to cut some untagged trees yesterday. It’s always fun to have a shouting match with a bunch of guys armed with chain saws.”

Now Craig laughed. “How’d it go?”

“Well, the threat of losing their contract had to come up. But they got to spew and cuss, and just generally vent. They calmed down, but I’m going to need to check on them again soon.”

“Gotta love it. We spend months figuring out which trees need to go, and how many to preserve for the health of the ecology, and they
still
want to clear-cut.”

“Hey, those are publically owned trees. Surely you’ve heard that.”

“More times than I can count. They seem to forget they’re not the entire public.”

Don laughed, too. “I’m sure they’re cutting more than they should. They always do.”

“That’s what happens when you go with the lowest bidder.”

“You mean like us?”

They were still laughing and joking when they reached the cabin, acting like they hadn’t a care in the world. When Craig saw that Sky’s car was already there, parked beside his forest service truck, he felt his spirits rise.

Damn, he shouldn’t let a woman who was passing through make him feel this way. He didn’t want to feel loss when she left, didn’t want his love of the forest’s solitude to be dimmed by the transition of a single person through his life. But already it was feeling too late.

He sighed as he and Don took their mounts to the corral and cared for them. All too soon he heard a voice that he had become attached to.

“Hi,” Sky called.

Saddle in his hands, he turned. Don, who had been checking his horse’s hooves, straightened and looked around.

“You’ve been keeping a secret,” Don said under his breath. “She’s gorgeous.”

“I’m surprised Lucy didn’t tell you.”

Don cracked a laugh as the two of them walked over to the fence rail. Craig balanced his saddle on it and brushed his hands on his pants.

“Sky, this is Don Capehart. Don, Sky Jamison, the artist you’ve been hearing about.”

Sky put out her hand across the rail. “Nice to meet you. Will you stay for dinner?”

Don’s smile was a bit too wide and warm for Craig’s comfort. Yet he had no right to be bothered by it. That might have galled him most of all.

“I’d be delighted,” Don answered. “In fact, I’ll even help if you can wait to start until after I finish taking care of Tragic over there.”

Sky’s brow lifted. “Tragic? What a name!”

“He’s Dusty’s twin and I guess he got the name because he was so small as a foal that nobody expected him to survive. At least that’s the story they gave me.”

“You couldn’t guess that now,” Sky said.

“Not every runt is lost.”

Feeling slightly disgruntled, knowing he had no right and that it was therefore stupid, Craig headed back to continue caring for Dusty. “How was your day?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Very interesting. I almost radioed you, then thought better of it.”

He paused midstride and turned to face her. “What happened?”

“Nothing serious, but enough. Let’s talk about it when you fellows are done out here.”

He expected her to head back inside, but instead she put a hiking-boot-encased foot on the lower rail, leaned her elbows on the upper rail and watched them finish. Don didn’t unsaddle Tragic, however, so at least he didn’t intend to spend the night here. Small blessings, Craig thought sourly.

Then he wondered why he should care. If Don took her attention, his problems were over, right?

At last the horses were fed and watered. Stopping at the outside pump, the two men rinsed quickly in icy water, then accompanied Sky inside.

She had lit enough oil lamps to make the interior feel cozy as twilight deepened, and the fire was going strong. She had made coffee, too, and poured some for them. Then they gathered at the small table, the only place to sit other than the single armchair.

“So what happened?” Craig asked.

“It wasn’t exactly a happening,” she said. “I found this great ravine I want to paint, but while I was sitting there I got the distinct feeling I was being watched. So I headed back to the place where I’ve been painting, and found that someone had been through my stuff. I could even see where they had followed me from there to the ravine.”

Don spoke. “Sure it wasn’t an animal?”

“An animal would have knocked my things around, not simply moved my palette to a different place. Everything was disturbed, but only a little. If I weren’t such a creature of habit in how I lay out my painting gear, I’d never have noticed.”

Craig nodded. “I take it you drew a conclusion?”

She nodded. “If they’re paranoid enough to follow a mere artist, those guys are up to something not good.”

Craig looked at Don, whose eyes had narrowed. “I agree,” he said.

Craig nodded. “I agree.” He turned his attention back to Sky. “You shouldn’t be out there alone.”

“I doubt they’ve got more than one guy looking, and trust me, they don’t know what they’re bargaining for if they bother me. I went through advanced infantry training and I had the opportunity to use a lot of it in Iraq.”

He watched her eyes grow distant, and felt his chest tighten. He hoped she wasn’t about to pull back into that place inside her, but then her gaze cleared. “They don’t want to know what I can do with a simple palette knife.”

He felt Don shift a little beside him, probably with discomfort. Don had never been in the military. But Craig looked at Sky with perfect understanding. These were the things that set combat vets apart: they
knew
what they were capable of. It wasn’t always easy to live with, but they
knew.

“Anyway,” she said, brushing it aside, “I’m not worried about one of them.”

“Probably no reason to be,” Craig said. “They think you’re out there just painting.”

“They should believe it now that they looked through my gear.”

He left it at that, although he wasn’t as sanguine about it as he appeared. The whole idea that they were following her this way was problematic. Too much interest in someone they thought was just painting. Maybe having her stay at the cabin wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe hanging out with her so much wasn’t a good idea. What if he’d put her at risk?

He didn’t say any more about it, but instead got busy with dinner. Sky wanted to help, but he and Don made a big show of waiting on her, which at least made her laugh at their foolishness. It was good to hear her laugh.

All the while he wrestled with telling her to clear out. Go to town, paint somewhere else. He doubted she’d listen, but he had to be able to live with his conscience.

That moment when she had made the remark about the palette knife troubled him, though. Not because it wasn’t true, but because this situation had cast her back to a time she probably didn’t want to relive anymore than he did.

There were times in life when you did what you had to, but you didn’t have to feel good about it. You made some kind of peace, if you could, and moved on. And now she was moving back because of that jackass and his prepper fantasies about standing alone against a world gone mad. A man who’d been relatively quiet and harmless about it until this new crowd showed up.

Who was Cap and how many men had he brought with him? It sure didn’t look as if another family had joined Buddy, but rather a small—very small—army. In which case there might well be trouble of some kind.

Problem was, as the man had said, when the only tool you had was a hammer, everything looked like a nail. Some militia types could easily have that problem. All that firepower and paranoia induced a built-in response. Even to solitary artists on the wrong hillside. Had it gone that far?

He ruminated about ways he could approach Buddy again without setting off alarms, but didn’t immediately come up with one. Gage had been out there just a few days ago. Another visit so soon would ring alarm bells.

“You going out tonight?” Don suddenly asked.

They were done with dinner now and having coffee at the table. “Not tonight,” Craig said. “Tomorrow. Maybe. I’m still trying to think of a reason to approach Buddy again without making him nervous.”

“Better to talk if we can. Did you ever find why the river is so low?”

“No, damn it, not yet. And I can’t exactly prove it’s too dry.”

“It’s too dry,” Don said flatly. “We know that. But you’re right, proving it is tough.”

“I’ve used the flow meter a few times, in a couple of different places, but I need to compare it with past readings.”

“It would be interesting to know if there’s some place where the flow is normal.”

Craig shrugged. “That’s just as hard as anything else. It
seems
normal upstream from Buddy’s place, but there’s always a whole lot less water there anyway. Nothing yet I can pin on him.”

“He might not even be responsible.” Don shook his head. “How about I go over there. I can act like we haven’t even discussed it and ask him if he’s noticed anything. Tell him I’ve been traveling from downstream because the water volume appears to be down.”

“I did that already. He claimed he didn’t know anything about it. But it made a good excuse for looking over a lot of streams around his place. I don’t think he’d go for it a second time. Would you?”

“Probably not. Okay, I’ll think on it and see you here tomorrow night. If you’re going over there, you’re not going alone.”

After Don said good-night and rode away, Craig found himself facing Sky, who appeared quite annoyed. “You’re absolutely
not
proposing a solo night recon over there.”

“Solo is the best way to go.”

She cussed a word he’d never heard pass her lips before and stormed into the cabin. Wow, that was some reaction. He kinda liked the fire in her eyes. Almost as if an invisible cord pulled him, he followed her inside. He found her tossing another split log on the fire, which really didn’t require it, but apparently she needed something to do.

He stood just inside the door, waiting for the thunder and lightning. He suspected she wasn’t the type to keep silent if she didn’t have to, and right now she didn’t have to.

“Are you an idiot?” she asked him eventually, her voice far too calm.

“Not that I’m aware of,” he answered easily, wondering where this was going and rather curious about it.

“You have the training to know better.”

“I also have the training. Don doesn’t. Good as he may be, I might as well take a rhinoceros over there with me.”

He caught the corner of her mouth twitching, as if humor had almost overcome her, but then it thinned out again. He realized he was enjoying this.

“Craig...you don’t know what those trip wires are attached to.”

“I need to find out.”

“For all you know they’re patrolling the boundary every night. You don’t even know how many of them there are.”

“I need to find that out, too.”

She slammed the stove door shut and twisted the lock. “Solo recon is a suicide mission. You know that. I shouldn’t even have to remind you.”

“Remind away.”

Her eyes sparked as she glared at him. “What if those trip wires are hooked up to explosives? Have you considered that?”

“Absolutely. That’s why I need to get close enough to look, and I can’t do that in broad daylight.”

“Doing it at night will get you turned into hamburger. What if those guys have C-4?”

“They could have dynamite for all the difference it will make. But I’ve got to find out more about what’s going on.”

“What made it so important? Water?”

“No. The fact they’re watching you. You said it yourself, if they’re worried about a painter, they’ve got something to hide, and people with something to hide are generally up to no good.
Somebody
has to find out.”

“Then call the damn ATF. That’s their job.”

“I would if I had any evidence for them. What have we got, Sky? A lot of supposition, and some guys who are apparently creeping around in the woods and just generally acting like people who creep. Creeping and being a creep aren’t illegal.”

She glared for another moment, then a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “That’s a lot of creep.”

He had to smile back. “I’m not a writer. So, okay, seriously, what do we really know? Not enough to call the ATF. A few guys running around in camouflage with apparently legal AR-15s isn’t going to make a case. Since I can hardly go up to them and ask if they’ve rigged those guns for automatic fire instead of semi-automatic, I’ve got to find something else. Or find out that they’re not doing anything wrong at all and we can just ignore them.”

“Ignoring them isn’t at the top of my list,” she admitted. “Not after today. Okay, I’ll go with you on recon.”

“No. You stay here.”

Her chin set visibly. “If I were standing here in uniform, would you say that? Cut the chauvinist protective stuff. I’m trained, too.”

He folded his arms. “You know, it was so much easier in the old days.”

“These aren’t the old days.”

“No kidding. I’m not trying to be chauvinistic. I know better. The thing is, protection is my
job.
It’s not yours. I’ve got no business dragging a visitor into any of this.”

“If I recall correctly, Buddy dragged me into this.”

Right then he had an overwhelming urge to drag her into his arms and kiss her until her lips were swollen, her body limp in his arms and her eyes hazy with desire. He didn’t need a neon sign, though, to warn him this was exactly the wrong time to play caveman.