Montana Refuge Read online

  John Smyth stood up. “Excuse me for interrupting you,” he said, “but we all know what happened. We’ve all talked about it and we all know Julie and Andy are planning on leaving tomorrow morning and frankly, it doesn’t sit well with any of us. As a matter of fact, we’ve unanimously agreed that if she goes back, we’ll all go back. We started this together and we want to finish it together.”

  “That’s very nice,” Tyler said, “But you don’t understand the situation—”

  “Actually, we do understand it,” John said. “You have a herd to get to pasture and a woman in jeopardy.”

  Meg Peterson stood up, waving her hand. “We all understand,” she said. “John and Dr. Marquis filled in some of the blanks for us. We know someone drugged Andy and has taken some deadly actions toward Julie. We won’t hear of her and Andy going off on their own. There must be someone else out there intent on doing her harm. It simply can’t be one of us.”

  Julie’s tears were back, but they weren’t the guilt-induced gut-wrenchers from a couple of hours before when she heard about Nora. These were grateful tears as she glanced from one face to another.

  “Look at it this way,” John said. “We’re all watching out for her now. We’re all keeping an eye on each other, too, and that’s a good thing. She’s safer here now that things are out in the open. If there’s a stranger up to no good, one of us is bound to see him. If one of us isn’t who they say they are, they are on alert that this is no longer a secret and they’d be well served to back down.”

  Tyler shook his head. “Sorry, folks, you don’t know what you’re volunteering for. I’m already taking chances I shouldn’t take. This stunt today was the crowning glory. Any one of you could have been hurt by this culprit’s ruthlessness. You’re not aware of the full scope—”

  “Are you talking about what happened to Julie’s sleeping blanket?” John Smyth said.

  “You know about that?”

  “Not the details, no, but I know there was a problem and it kept you two up most of the night.”

  “And how about that arrow?” Bobby Taylor added, gesturing at the arrow still stuck in the side of the wagon. “Heck, we know someone narrowly missed hitting Julie with that thing.”

  Julie spoke into the ensuing silence. “I’m so sorry to have impacted your vacations in such a negative way.”

  “You mustn’t worry about that,” Meg Peterson said as the three secretaries rushed to Julie’s side.

  “We all voted, even the wranglers and cowboys,” one of them said. “We all want to get the herd up to the meadow and we all want to stay together. In fact, you’re sleeping with us tonight in our tent. So, don’t cry.”

  “This will be like the Old West,” Meg said.

  “Yeah. All of us against the bad guys,” Bobby added.

  Julie tried to speak, but she just couldn’t.

  “And we’re doing the dishes tonight,” one of the other secretaries added. “You need to get some rest. I can’t imagine how harrowing that river must have been.”

  “From now on, Julie, we’re on a buddy system and you aren’t ever going to be alone,” John Smyth added.

  * * *

  THE SECRETARIES WERE as good as their word. Two of them stayed to wash dishes and the third—Sherry—went with Julie to their tent. Julie laid out her bedroll and opened it completely before getting inside, searching every inch with the flashlight for spiders or other miscreants. Thankfully, she didn’t find a thing.

  Julie had thought her eyes would close the moment her head hit the pillow, but oddly enough, she found sleep elusive. Dr. Marquis paid a visit by saying “knock, knock” outside the tent and entering when Sherry opened the flap.

  “Tyler told me you had an upsetting telephone call today,” he said, looking from her to Sherry. “I wondered if you’d like a sleeping aid.”

  “No,” Julie said, sitting up. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine and I’ll need to be up early to get breakfast going.”

  “I’m going to help you,” Sherry said.

  Julie started to protest, then thought better of it. Who was she kidding? Company and an extra pair of hands would be great. “Thanks,” she said instead. “I appreciate the offer.”

  “The drug won’t knock you out,” the doctor said. “All it will do is relax you so that you can sleep.”

  Again Julie shook her head. “Really, thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, you let me know if you change your mind,” he said, and left.

  Tyler was next and this time, Sherry explained she was going to stand outside the tent while they said goodnight.

  “Obviously, everyone knows we’re married,” Julie said as the flap closed behind the secretary.

  “Everyone knows everything,” Tyler said, but there was a smile in his eyes as he knelt down to perch on his heels beside her.

  “I’m sorry about the mutiny on my behalf,” Julie said. “I could sneak away—”

  “No, you couldn’t. John organized a camp watch. People are taking shifts, two at a time, I might add, keeping an eye on things and each other.”

  “I can’t imagine the guests are finding this situation very enjoyable. Aren’t they worried they could be cavorting with a killer?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, reaching out to smooth a piece of hair away from her eyes. How she wanted him to slide into the bed with her, just to hold her, just to take away some of the pain. How selfish was that?

  “You need sleep,” he said. “Good night, Julie.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

  “If it’s not time for your shift with the herd, maybe you could stay for just a minute?” she asked softly.

  He wrapped his big hand around her smaller one. “I can be a few minutes late,” he said. “Lay down.”

  She did as he directed.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked, tucking the bedding up around her chin.

  She nodded.

  He hummed a few bars of the song he usually whistled, a tune she always associated with him, a tune she’d always found comforting. But this time she thought of the bomb John Smyth was waiting to drop on Tyler and her stomach clenched.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tyler awoke near daybreak out near the herd where he’d thrown his bedroll after his turn at watch. His thoughts immediately jumped to Julie and he rolled up his bed and slung it under an arm before he was fully awake.

  Once again the scene that greeted his eyes as he approached camp was infinitely reassuring. Not only was Julie hard at work making breakfast, but two of the Wall Street secretaries were helping her. John Smyth was up as well, flipping pancakes. Even Andy was there, seated on a rock, his mug in his hand. Apparently bad coffee the day before hadn’t turned him off the stuff.

  Tyler didn’t know what his mother’s issue was with John, but he’d decided she was wrong about him. Julie trusted him and he’d come through for her. For that matter, he’d come through for the whole group. Many of the wranglers were like Mele—young, relatively inexperienced, especially with violence, more trained in serving people than keeping an eye on them. Tyler decided he’d go along with Julie’s instincts and trust John—up to a point.

  Within a couple of hours, the chuck wagon was ready to leave camp, Julie taking the reins, Dr. Marquis riding shotgun beside her, his horse tethered to the back. Andy would ride alongside them.

  “Had that thermos for twenty-eight years,” Andy grumbled as he and Tyler hitched up the team. “Like to get my hands on whoever messed with it.”

  “Do you have any ideas?” Tyler asked as he nudged Gertie into her harness.

  “None. I left it in my saddle bag. Anyone could have doctored it.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Tyler said.

  “And I was just getting it broke in proper like,” he added.

  “Tell you what,” Tyler said, fastening the last buckle. “Get one of those fancy kind that actually holds heat and it’s on me.”

  “You’re on,” Andy said. “But
what do I do for coffee today?”

  Tyler shook his head as he watched Andy ride toward the chuck wagon which soon took off, Julie at the reins, Dr. Marquis seated beside her, Andy bringing up the rear.

  The rest of them gathered the strays, and two hours later, took off trailing the wagon. As always, the cattle instinctively found the easiest route while humans worked to keep them more or less together. It was a lot more efficient to keep an animal from straying than rounding them up once they headed off on their own.

  Tyler hadn’t ridden this far afield yet this year and he was surprised to find several minor rock slides. He warned the wranglers to keep an extra eye on the poorer riders in the group and was glad the doctor was safely seated in the wagon up ahead.

  Was one of them a killer? He couldn’t quite buy the theory of a stranger following along behind, drugging Andy’s thermos when he wasn’t looking, trying over and over again to harm Julie without succeeding.

  If the goal was to kill her, then shoot her, already, and get it over with. That meant the goal wasn’t to kill her. But wait...if the goal was simply to scare her or harm her, then why not be more overt? To Tyler, everything pointed toward someone trying to make what happened to Julie look like an accident. A fatal accident.

  What would that person do now that the whole camp knew something was afoot? Suddenly, his allowing the guests to override his common sense seemed like a really stupid idea and as they reached the top of the hillside, he came to a conclusion. He would send half the wranglers on ahead with the cattle and half of them back with the guests before something terrible happened. All they needed was a liability suit brought about by injury, or heaven forbid, death. Talk about destroying the ranch...

  Decision made, it was all he could do to keep going forward, but there were just a couple more hours to go before they made camp and people were too spread out to effect any changes right that minute anyway.

  He tried to do something of a head count. He could see the secretaries trying to steer a group of about six heifers and their calves with the help of Bobby Taylor and Mele. John Smyth wasn’t far away, riding near the two fishermen brothers. The older Taylors were taking care of the cliffside flank like seasoned pros.

  Tyler looked around for Meg Peterson who usually rode with the secretaries, but not today. Too many terrible things had happened not to grow alarmed at her absence, and he pulled Yukon to a stop, turning in his saddle and shading his eyes to look behind him. A glimpse of white announced her horse’s presence, out near the rim of the trail next to a precipitous drop of fallen rocks that cascaded down the hillside. Meg was in the saddle, but although she wasn’t a bad horsewoman, he didn’t want her that close to the unstable edge of the trail.

  “Come on, boy,” he urged Yukon and started the ride back to her, wishing he could shout out a warning but not wanting to take a chance of spooking a cow—or a guest.

  It appeared she was taking photos with a handheld camera. Perhaps she sensed his focus on her. Her head went up. Her hat was pushed far back on her sunburned face, but she was too far away and the sun was too high in the sky for Tyler to make out her expression.

  She waved an arm as though to greet him. Her horse reared back a little, dancing near the border of the bank. All Tyler could think was that the combination of an overconfident rider and a startled horse was never good. Sure enough, Snowflake took off.

  Meg was obviously pulling back on the reins but it was doing little good. Tyler watched the scene unfold with cruel clarity as all four of the animal’s feet slid over the side of the trail and started down the crumbling shale. Meg sat far back in the saddle, instinctively using her body as a counterweight to the horse’s forward momentum as a small avalanche of dirt and stones formed a brown cloud around them.

  The whole episode was oddly quiet, the only sounds being the crumbling rock. Meg appeared to be too startled to cry out and the horse was obviously fighting for her life. Tyler rode hard, wondering what in the world he could do to help.

  He threw himself off Yukon a few feet from the compromised edge, dropping the reins in haste. As he looked over the side, he saw the horse lose her battle and fall forward onto her knees. Meg immediately flew right over the top of the horse’s head, her body landing several feet farther down with a horrible thud. Snowflake was up again almost at once, and this time she found footing, taking her parallel with the face of the slope and galloped away in a cloud of dust.

  Meg Peterson lay on a narrow shelf of land about twenty feet down the slope. Tyler heard horses approaching and turned to find John Smyth had joined him. In the distance, he could see some of the wranglers headed back his way.

  Narrowing his eyes, he peered down at Meg’s still body again, taking his first real breath when he detected the rise and fall of her chest and a movement of her legs.

  “Did she make it?” John asked, grabbing his lasso off his saddle.

  “So far. We’ve got to get her off that ledge before she accidentally rolls off.” Tyler grabbed his lasso, too, and started tying a square knot to unite the two. They needed at least one more lasso, though.

  “Do you want me to go after her horse?” John asked.

  “No, I need you here to help me. Get one of the others to go. It’ll probably head back to the canyon where we spent the night. And send someone up ahead to get the doctor. Tell whoever goes to trade places with him and help Julie get the wagon back here as fast as she can. Damn, she’s probably already at the camp.”

  Wranglers and guests alike began arriving to see what was wrong and offer help. Another lasso was donated and another knot secured, then Tyler tied a bow knot and slipped the loop over his own head down to his waist. It was a gesture eerily reminiscent of the one Julie had done the day before when she was stuck in the middle of the river.

  “I’m going down to make sure she can be moved,” Tyler said, looking from face to face, landing last on John’s. He would be hard-pressed to say why he trusted this man even if he had time to try to figure it out.

  “There aren’t any trees to wrap the line around for leverage, so playing out the line is going to fall directly on you guys,” he added, and amid a chorus of encouragement, stepped backward off the rim of the trail. His boots immediately slid on the rocks and he started to fall. The rope yanked up under his arms. As the men on top adjusted their hold, he did the same and when he began repelling again, it was slower and at an angle.

  Within a few minutes, he’d landed on the shelf and was kneeling beside Meg, whose crumbled glasses lay broken beside her in two pieces. Her eyes were open and dazed.

  “I’m mighty glad to see you,” she said.

  He hoped his smile was reassuring. “Can you sit up? Is anything broken?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe my wrist.”

  “Try sitting,” Tyler said. He wasn’t feeling real secure about this ledge. It seemed his added weight had created additional erosion and the sound of skittering rocks was a constant.

  He helped her sit, cautioning her to take it slow. She’d landed on her hands and they were bleeding as was a cut or two on her face. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “This really hurts,” she said, cradling her right hand with her left. “I think it’s broken.”

  “May I look?”

  “Don’t touch it, though,” she screamed as his fingers landed lightly on her good hand.

  “I won’t.”

  She unfolded her left fingers to reveal the injured hand. The blood on her skin seemed to come from contusions and not bones poking through the skin.

  “At least it’s not a compound break,” he said.

  She clutched it to her breast. “Is the doctor up there waiting for me?”

  “He will be soon,” Tyler assured her. “I sent someone as soon as you fell.” While he spoke, he took the rope from around his waist and slipped it back over his head. Somehow this woman was going to have to get up the slope with just one hand to help steady herself. All the medical supplies were on the wagon.
/>   He slipped the rope over her head, careful not to hit her hand. Then he took off his vest and helped her button it with her injured arm tucked inside. It wasn’t real tight on her even with one arm pinned against her torso, but he adjusted it as well as he could so at least the hand wouldn’t flap around as she the men above pulled her to safety.

  “Can’t we call for a helicopter?” she asked, clearly unimpressed with the rope.

  “The telephones don’t work very well out here,” he said. We’ll get you back where it’s safe and if the doctor thinks you need to be airlifted, I’ll ride to the top of the plateau and call for help.”

  “This all seems so old-fashioned,” she said, looking up at him as he finished securing the rope. “Is your wife responsible for what happened to me?”

  “You mean your fall?” he asked, surprised when she nodded. “Why would you think that? What exactly happened anyway? Why did Snowflake go over the side that way?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I dropped behind to get a few pictures. The horse just seemed to get a wild hair as though something spooked her. Next thing I knew, she’d started down that slope. Did something frighten her? Did whoever is behind all these shenanigans mistake me for Julie?”

  He glanced down at her short, plump form and sunburned face. No two women looked less alike than Meg Peterson and Julie Hunt. “I don’t see how that’s possible,” he said.

  “I don’t see how you can discount what happened to me,” she said. “By trying to save her, we put ourselves in jeopardy and you let us.”

  He wasn’t going to stand there and argue with a frightened, injured guest who was obviously in pain especially when he suspected she could be right. “Let’s just get you up top so the doctor can set that wrist.”

  “I want to go home,” she said. “It’s dangerous out here and it’s not any fun anymore.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is dangerous,” he said as he double-checked the knots. It was one reason everyone had to sign a waiver. This was a real cattle drive fraught with real danger on occasion, but he wasn’t going to argue that either. The fact was he agreed with her, he was partially responsible for this no matter what its cause. He looked up the cliff and hollered. “John? Meg has what appears to be a broken wrist. She’s not going to be able to help you hoist her much. Are you guys ready?”