Stone Cold (15 page)

The shotgun blasts continued.

Finally, Joe grabbed his shotgun, told Daisy to stay, and got out of his pickup. He wished his request for a night-vision lens for his digital camera had been approved, but he'd been told at the time that an employee with his record of equipment wreckage couldn't be trusted with $7,000 surveillance hardware.

So he used the camera on his cell phone. He snapped photos of the pickup—it was the F-250 that had been outside the Bronco Bar—as well as the license plate, the boxes of shotgun shells inside the cab, and the muddy tracks of the ATVs from the pickup to the trees. Joe leaned over and got a good photo of the mangled pheasant that had dropped in the meadow after being shot from inside the
trees. The coloring on the ring-necked rooster was vibrant in the flash: gold, vermilion, beaded with droplets from the sleet.

Before he left, he placed one of his business cards under the windshield wiper of the pickup so they'd know he'd been there. Then he trudged back up the hill. While he did, he looked over his shoulder to make sure the four-wheelers hadn't emerged from the timber to chase him down.

Inside the cab, Joe reached over and patted Daisy on the head and said, “Yup, it's a whole different world here.”

Sand Creek Ranch

The next morning, high above the ranch headquarters on a timbered south-facing slope, before the visitor arrived, Nate Romanowski straddled the peak of the roof of a hundred-year-old line shack and fitted a new six-inch inner-galvanized pipe into the top of an ancient rock chimney. A ladder was propped against the eave, and his weapon hung within reach from the top of the right leg of the ladder.

The sky had cleared from the snow and rain the night before, but the air still smelled of wet spruce and damp forest floor. From his vantage point on the roof, Nate could see dozens of miles in every direction—soft wooded hills stretching south and west to the plains, and east to the border of South Dakota. The lone distant conical spire of Devils Tower shimmered in the morning sun to the northwest.

The headquarters for Sand Creek Ranch was a mile away and a thousand feet lower in elevation than the line shack. The collection of
buildings stretched along the contours of the creek itself on the valley floor. The compound comprised twenty or so buildings, including guest cabins, barns and sheds, corrals for horses, and the magnificent castle-like lodge itself. On mornings when the air pressure was low like it was now, a pall of woodsmoke hung above the headquarters until the temperature warmed enough to release it into the atmosphere. But the compound itself, with all its people and intrigue, was far enough away that Nate often was able to forget it was there.

•   •   •

T
HE FIRST
THING HE'D BUILT
on the grounds of the old log shack was a sturdy mews for his falcons inside a loafing shed once used by cowhands. The birds perched with hoods on their heads and jesses hanging from their talons—a redtail, a prairie, and his peregrine that had somehow found him in the Black Hills and returned more than a year after she'd flown away. He was surprised to see her because returning falcons were extremely rare in his experience and in the falconry literature, but there she was. Their reunion had been unsentimental—she simply cruised down from a thermal air current from the west and roosted on the roof of the line shack. When he recognized the raptor by the mottled pattern of her breast feathers and raised his forearm, she floated down and landed on it clumsily, talons biting into his sleeve for balance.

He'd said: “You again.”

Nate still wasn't sure what to make of it. He wished she didn't remind him so much of his previous life and circumstances, and he brushed away any thoughts that her return
meant
something, because if so, he wasn't prepared to grasp the implications.

•   •   •

O
VER THE
PREVIOUS THREE MONTHS
since he'd found the old structure up on the ridge, he'd built the mews, replaced the doors and windows, chinked the logs, shingled the roof, and reinforced the rafters. He was pleasantly surprised to find out how sound the rock-and-concrete foundation was, and how well constructed the fireplace turned out to be once he cleaned the birds' nests from the chimney and sanded the facing rock clean of soot.

The cowboys who had built the place decades before knew what they were doing, he thought, which was rare for cowboys. There was a permanence about the place that defied cowboy logic.

Nate had a propane tank delivered, as well as a propane-powered electric generator that was housed in an ancient meat cellar, where it could be run almost soundlessly. Inside, the wiring was still exposed and the woodstove needed to be cleaned, blacked, and leveled, but he was days away from renovating the place well enough to withstand the winter, which was coming.

And so was the visitor. He caught flashes of a vehicle moving up the old logging road in the trees, and he narrowed his eyes and reached out to touch the grip of his revolver. When the pickup got closer, he recognized it as a white Sand Creek Ranch GMC. There was a single occupant inside. He knew from the profile who it was, and he went back to fitting on the pipe.

•   •   •

“
A
H,” SHE SAID,
parking the truck next to the loafing shed and getting out. “It's peaceful up here. No wonder you stay away from the ranch. It's a madhouse down there, and this morning . . .
whew!
”

Her name, Nate had learned the first time he met her, was Liv Brannan. He guessed her first name was short for Olivia, but he hadn't asked. She was trim, compact, and athletic, with a thick dark shock of ebony hair pulled back in a heavy French braid. She had mocha skin, a heart-shaped face, a wide mouth, and startling green eyes. She wore tight faded jeans and a red down coat with the ranch logo—the outline of the castle lodge—and
SAND CREEK RANCH
embroidered underneath it.

He assumed Brannan was some kind of executive assistant to Templeton and had been in place for a number of years. There was no doubt she was competent, efficient, and well connected. Other staffers showed Brannan deference, although he never saw her throw her weight around. When he asked about ordering building materials for the line shack and the delivery of a tank, propane, and the generator, she knew instantly who to call and had said, “Consider it done.” Other than Liv Brannan, Nate had no interest at all in the workings of the ranch itself, or the hierarchy and inevitable infighting of the staff.

His arrival was the first and last time he'd seen the ranch executive staff in one place—ranch foreman “Big” Dick Williams, Liv Brannan, Guest Services Manager Jane Ringolsby, the man who ran the Black Forest Inn and game-processing facility, and the two locals who headed up Sand Creek Ranch Outfitting Services, Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith.

Whip was not there at the time and no one mentioned his name. Whip lived by himself in the largest of the guest cottages. Liv had offered Nate the second largest, but he'd turned it down. So far, Nate and Whip had managed to avoid each other on the grounds since he'd been hired.

“I heard you were back,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the front fender of the truck.

He felt no need to respond to such an obvious statement. The pipe was fitted on tight, and he grunted as he turned it slightly so he could line up the holes he'd drilled in the pipe and chimney fitting. He dug a sheet metal screw out of his jacket pocket and started it into the first hole, twisting it with his fingers until it caught the sleeve inside and was tight enough that he could reach for the screwdriver.

“I heard the plane come in two nights ago,” she said. “I kind of looked around for you at breakfast the last couple of days, but then I remembered you don't ever show up. So I figured you were up here working on your cabin.”

“I am,” Nate said, screwing in the first screw. “So now you can leave.”

She laughed in response. “No way,” she said. She had a pleasant southern accent—Louisiana?—and would slip a bit into dialect when she was making a point. She knew she was attractive and, given the location, extremely exotic. “I'm not going back down there until the smoke clears. So you're stuck with me for a while.”

“Oh, good.”

“I see three birds in that cage of yours,” she said, pointing at the mews. “I swear there were only two the last time I was up here.”

“There were.”

“How'd you get another one?”

Nate sighed. “She just showed up. We were acquainted with each other a couple of years ago.”

Liv Brannan closed one eye and contemplated that, then said, “A bird you owned just
found
you?”

“A falconer doesn't own his bird. A falconer and the falcon are partners,” Nate said.

“Kind of like a loyal bird dog or something?”

“Not at all. More like hunting partners.”

“How do you make them come back when they fly?”

“You don't.”

“Then why do they come back?”

He sighed. “I don't have time to explain an ancient art right now. I have a cabin to fix before the snow flies.”

“So the bird just kind of shows up,” she said. “Kind of like
me
.”

“Except the bird doesn't keep talking,” he said, flapping his fingers and thumb together in the air to mock her.

She ignored him. “I'd like to see what these birds do one of these days. Are you gonna invite me to come watch?”

“Not likely.”

She laughed again. “Is it true sometimes you climb up a tree and just sit there naked? That's one of the rumors going around down at the ranch.”

Nate paused and looked up. “Too cold right now,” he said.

She whooped and clapped her hands together. “So it's
true
. Don't you get bark-burn or something on your tender white skin?”

He didn't respond. He had the second screw secure and shifted his balance so he could put some muscle into twisting the screwdriver.

“Tell me again where your people come from?” she asked.

“I didn't tell you the first time.”

“Mine are from Houma, Louisiana, in the Terrebonne Parish. Five generations' worth. We've got some real characters down there, too, but nothing like the folks that've been coming around here. Especially this morning. That's why I needed to get some space from 'em.

“So I decided to come up here and see you,” she said with a flourish.

Nate grunted.

She laughed and shook her head from side to side, as if amazed. “Most men usually don't try to get rid of me so damn quickly.”

“Well, there you go,” Nate said.

She pushed herself off the bumper and approached the cabin. Nate thought for a moment she intended to climb up the ladder and join him on the roof. He didn't like that idea. Instead, he saw the ladder move and he snatched his weapon from where it hung before she carried the ladder away and leaned it against her truck.

“Now you
have
to talk to me,” she said with a sly smile.

“No, I don't.”

“Then you'll just have to listen,” she said with a laugh. He liked her laugh,
and
her smile. He wished he didn't.

He
really
wished he didn't. It was one of the main reasons he had decided to renovate the line shack—so he wouldn't have to see her every day. There'd been an instant attraction from the moment he first met her that was as jolting as it was unexpected. He'd tried to ignore it. But it was obvious from her visit she felt it, too.

She said, “You know, it's funny. I don't have any problem talking to you. Ask anyone down there and they'll tell you I'm kind of stuck-up and, you know,
aloof
. They know I've been with Mr. T. for a long time and they don't know what to think about that. But I know you won't tell anyone else what we talk about because you're not a talker. And you can't tell me I'm wrong, can you?”

Nate said nothing.

“If Mr. T. says he trusts you to be his second earner,
I
trust you. Simple as that. Lord knows we need another earner around here.”

Nate didn't like the word
earner
.

•   •   •

“T
HERE'S A
LOT
OF STRESS
down there,” she said, after a few minutes. “Tension and stress. Living on a ranch is like living in a big dysfunctional family. It's not like we just see each other during the day, you know, like a regular job. We have to eat together and see each other in the evenings—there isn't much personal space. I don't know how Mr. T. stays calm all the time. If it was me, I'd tell 'em all to stop their whining and get the hell back to work. Or back to town. I don't know how he does it, I really don't. I just know how much I admire that man, even if he brings a little of it down on his own head. That's why I stayed with him when he moved out here in the middle of freakin'
nowhere
. When I told my people I was moving here, my aunt didn't even know where it was. She thought Wyoming was somewhere by Nevada.”

He continued to circle around the stovepipe, securing it with the screws.

She put her hands on her hips and said, “I don't know if you've noticed, but there isn't exactly a big population of sisters around here in these hills to gossip with.”

Nate responded by not looking at her but raising his hand and opening and closing it even faster than he had the last time.

“Stop it with the hand,” she said. “I'm on a roll. You know those two women down there in the castle, the ones with the fake boobs? A redhead and a blonde? Do you know who I'm talking about?”

“No.”

“Well, he told them it was time for them to go. He did it in a nice way, like he always does. He offered them their golden parachutes and all, standard operating procedure. But they are none too happy
about it, so there's lots more bitching than usual. That blond one, her name is Adrian, I never liked her anyway. She should have been gone months ago, if you ask me.”