Duke: Deputy Cowboy

“Dinah did.” Duke watched the man drink the syrupy black stuff. “Farley, these guys haven’t left any tracks. You know, I sort of sense you aren’t happy with the job Dinah and I are doing. If you want to call a town-hall meeting to let everyone vent, I won’t object and I’m sure Dinah won’t. We keep hoping someone saw or heard something, but haven’t connected it to the break-ins, or didn’t think to report it. Remember, Thunder Ranch has suffered the biggest losses. Surely you don’t believe Dinah and I wouldn’t round up this gang if we could?”

Farley didn’t back off. “I’m just saying it’s gone on longer than any problem the city’s ever had. If Dinah doesn’t catch the culprits before our upcoming fair and rodeo, no one will be comfortable leaving their ranches while they attend scheduled events.”

Duke’s meal came and saved him from losing his temper and snapping at Farley. Susie slipped Duke a small plastic bag. “For Zorro,” she said. “I know you always take him some of your steak.”

“Hey, thanks. I didn’t realize I was so predictable.”

“It’s okay. I really wanted to come ask if any of your family has heard from Tuf? My older brother is finally back in the States. He’s at Kāne‘ohe Bay in Hawaii, but he served with Tuf in Afghanistan and asked about him when we spoke. I said I haven’t seen him around town.”

Duke stopped cutting his steak. “Aunt Sarah has been in contact with him. That’s about all I know. But when I’m not at the sheriff’s office or out doing that job, I’m off at rodeos.” Duke gave a casual shrug. Really he knew everyone in the family worried about his youngest cousin. But they were tight-knit, and not prone to blabber personal stuff that could lead to gossip.

Jeff ordered another soft drink. Luckily Farley took out his money clip, peeled off a tip and dropped it beside his plate. Susie went to help a new customer as Farley said, “I don’t think we’ve reached the stage of calling for a town-hall meeting, Duke, but I wonder if Dinah shouldn’t deputize a couple of guys at least through our fair and rodeo. It so happens my son, Rory, is home from college for the summer, along with his good friend, Tracy Babcock. They could be of help. My wife wants Rory to be a lawyer even though he thinks he’d rather be a rancher. A summer internship as a deputy would look good on his résumé if he chooses law.”

Now Farley’s entire complaint came into focus for Duke and made more sense. “I’ll pass that information along to Dinah when I see her in the morning,” Duke said. He could almost predict her reaction. Farley’s wife had spoiled their only son, Rory, with ready cash, hot cars and expensive clothes only dudes would be caught wearing, and his good buddy, Tracy Babcock, was cut from the same cloth. To keep from further comment, Duke cut a slice of steak and put it in his mouth. He gestured goodbye with his fork as Farley ambled off.

Jeff, who ran a dry-cleaning establishment in town that catered to single cowboys, saw through Duke’s badly concealed attitude. “Farley and Janine have high expectations for Rory. The problem as I see it is they’ve waited too long to clamp down on the kid. I doubt Dinah needs to worry about hiring the boys. Those two and their pals are more interested in partying the summer away with their girlfriends over in Musselshell.” Jeff finished his second sarsaparilla, got up, said his farewells to Duke and stopped to talk to a couple of ranchers on his way out.

Duke tucked into his food. His mind lingered less on Farley’s desire to have his son play deputy, and more on the nearness of the event under discussion. He thought of his offer to find a team of wild pony racers for Angie Barrington’s son. He discovered he liked thinking about Angie. Her efficiency in the kitchen left him wondering how much time she spent making her horse treats. The way he’d seen horses gobble up the oat cookies, they probably ate them faster than one woman alone could bake. If Angie wanted to expand and hire people to help mix and bake the cookies as she’d indicated, she could build a profitable company. He could help her advertise by building her a website—if she’d let him.

Having eaten his fill, Duke sliced and bagged his leftover steak for Zorro. Putting his tip on the money Farley and Jeff had left, Duke got up to go.

Weaving through tables still occupied by people he knew well got him sidetracked by several men who wanted news of the latest robbery. Everyone expressed concern and asked him to pass on good wishes to his aunt and Ace. Thankfully no one else hinted that he and Dinah weren’t doing their job.

Outside at last, Duke opened his pickup and let Zorro out. Exhausted as Duke was, Zorro deserved to stretch his legs, and deserved to eat his steak treat in comfort.

The big dog nosed the bag. Whimpering eagerly, he pawed Duke’s leg.

“Good dog. But let’s walk down to the park before I feed you. I can stand to walk off some of that big meal before I go home and crash for the night.”

In spite of the fact it had gotten quite dark in the time Duke spent in the diner, five or so teenagers still played pick-up basketball in the park. Their only light came from streetlamps set in every block along the town’s main street. Pausing at a park bench, Duke braced a foot on the bench seat and he watched the boys shoot hoops as he fed Zorro bits of steak.

Lighting the play areas in the park had been on the town council agenda for at least the four years Duke had served as deputy. The money never seemed to stretch far enough. The mayor insisted, rightfully so, that funding for police, firefighters, trash collection and other essentials came before lighting the park. But watching the kids who finally gave up trying to see the baskets and took off for who knew where, Duke thought it would be money well spent to get park lighting on the next general-election ballot. Not that he was political.

He chuckled over the notion as he fed Zorro the last bite of steak. He imagined Ace asking him when he had turned into such an adult as to be considering funding, politics and other grown-up things.

In Duke’s eyes, Ace always seemed more mature than his other cousins. Of course, he’d become the man of the ranch after his dad died. Even before that Duke had gone to Ace with problems Duke’s own dad ignored.

He threw the empty plastic bag in a trash bin, then rounded up Zorro and returned to the pickup. In a reflective mood, Duke wondered if he’d given his dad enough credit for keeping him and Beau in food, clothing and a roof over their heads. Perhaps his dad didn’t have time to be demonstrative.

At the Ford, Duke loaded Zorro. He saw the sheriff’s office across the street was dark except for one interior light they always left burning. Dinah must have finished her report and gone home. The weight of this investigation was on Dinah’s shoulders even though she was younger than him by three years. She and Angie were the same age. That thought just popped into Duke’s head.

Driving home he compared the two women. Dinah had spent some rocky years before she dug in and turned her life around. Angie hadn’t grown up in Roundup. Duke had no idea about her background other than gossip and rumors floating around about her and the Texas cowboy—a relationship that culminated in her having a baby at twenty-one, which left her a single mom with a lot of obligations.

As Duke pulled down the alley and parked outside his apartment he admitted he wanted to know more about Angie. Funny, he never thought he’d spend so much time wishing he knew every little detail about how a woman had grown up. He had spent his early years as a loner. Mostly due to his stuttering he had holed up reading, or watching TV. Old John Wayne movies were his refuge. He watched them so many times it was how the family came to call him Duke, after the star.

Actually, he hadn’t minded. The Duke set a good example for a gangly kid who longed to be easier in his skin than he was.

In the kitchen, he filled Zorro’s bowl with kibble and gave him fresh water, which about maxed out his energy in this really long day.

Taking a hot shower, he toweled off and crawled between cool sheets, and was oh-so-tempted to switch off his phone lest some new debacle in the normally placid town forced Dinah to roust him. Not that he’d ever shirk his duty on a job he took seriously—a job he loved. In fact if the town ever had money to hire a full-time deputy he’d lobby for the job.

He fell asleep speculating about what opinion Angie Barrington had for law officers. He’d pretty much left her today with the notion rodeo competitors were at the bottom of her list of desirable men.

Chapter Three

Duke woke up with sun streaming in his bedroom window, and he felt happily refreshed. Fading from his sleep-logged mind—an appealing picture of Angie Barrington smiling at him as she leaned over a corral feeding her horse treats to the magnificent, now-missing black stallion, Midnight.

He planted his feet on the floor and almost landed on Zorro, who lay not on his bed but on Duke’s bedside rug, something the dog had done as a pup before Duke bought him his own big, soft bed.

“Sorry, Zorro,” he muttered, hopping over the yawning animal to rummage in his closet. He gave up and retrieved a wrinkled shirt out of the dryer. Doing laundry was at the top of his hate list. If it wasn’t so expensive he’d drop everything at Jeff Woods’s Dry Cleaners. He knew plenty of single cowboys who did. Their jeans and shirts were always pressed and neat. But his part-time job covered rent, food and gas. Since the ranch fell on harder times, those in the family who finished in the money at rodeos, which was almost all of them, contributed what they could toward the ranch. His aunt juggled expenses. She had leased out some prime grazing land. In this part of the country, land was gold. Unfortunately empty acres didn’t put money in the bank.

When he wasn’t on duty he always wore jeans and black T-shirts. The family teased him for that quirk, too. But he liked black and it was a matter of convenience. Now he stopped to wonder if Angie would find him dull because he didn’t gravitate to flamboyant Western shirts like most other cowboys wore.

Still mulling that over in the kitchen, Duke opened the fridge and discovered his milk had gone sour. He spat in the sink a few times, dumped the carton and washed the smelly stuff down the drain. He settled for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, and drank water.

Suddenly, for no real reason, he remembered telling Angie he’d find a couple of kids for her to vet as possible pony-race partners for Luke. He got out the church directory and ran down the list of members as he ate. None of the families listed who had kids the right age jumped out at him.

Rethinking yesterday’s conversation with Angie, Duke wasn’t 100 percent certain he wouldn’t be wasting his time. She sure didn’t seem thrilled about the idea of Luke entering. Duke felt slightly guilty at the thought that he’d volunteered so it’d give him a reason to contact Angie again.

Was that pathetic? He needed an excuse to phone or approach a woman that interested him? If it was Colt—well, Colt before he got married—or Beau, those guys were never shy when it came to chatting up attractive women.

Polishing off his breakfast, Duke rinsed the dishes and the pan he’d used to scramble eggs, and put them in the dishwasher.

He tidied up and still found himself replaying comments Angie’s son had made about his dad. Angie had cut the boy off quick enough. But Luke kept pressing. Duke wondered if that might make Angie reconsider getting back together with the guy. How similar was her case to Colt’s having a kid he had no part in raising—a boy now almost a teen? Colt paid support, and just recently decided he’d like a relationship with his son—Evan was his name, who had a stepdad. Man, relationships could get messy.

Having told Dinah he’d be at the office early, Duke grabbed his hat and whistled to Zorro. He could speculate from now to kingdom come and still have no answers as to the real situation between Angie and her son’s birth daddy. And the truth of the matter was he had more to worry about than the Barringtons’ family situation. He had a string of robberies, the most recent of which left his family missing a very pricey horse. He locked the apartment and drove into town.

* * *

MONDAY NIGHT LUKE HAD RATTLED on nonstop—and he started in again this morning—begging Angie to sign him up for the Wild Pony Race. She was glad Dylan Adams had been discreet in volunteering to hunt up an age-appropriate team in case he didn’t find one. The deputy might even forget. He may only have used it as a cover because he’d all but accused her of horse thievery. Someone driving along the road saw her old black horse and told the sheriff, he claimed. But it was embarrassing to think anyone who knew her would even suggest dishonesty in any way, shape or form.

The sheriff probably had to be tough to get elected to that job. Angie only ever saw Dinah Hart at a distance or driving her patrol vehicle. They were about the same age, Angie knew from something Austin Wright said. Well, it didn’t matter how many townspeople thought she’d steal a horse, she never would.

And none of that addressed the issue of her allowing Lucas to chase off after some wild pony during a rodeo—which brought up another point. It pained her to think her grandfather had gone counter to her express wishes to not tell Luke anything about his father.

Angie considered Carter Gray a sperm donor at best, and a reluctant one at that. As if she’d gotten pregnant on purpose to hold on to him—to tie him down. He’d pursued her for a year, not the other way around. Oh, who cared? It was all ancient history. Carter had wanted a cook, a housekeeper and a bedmate was all. He hadn’t wanted a wife and he sure as heck never wanted a child. Gramps knew that. It must have had something to do with how ill he’d been with pneumonia last winter. Sick enough for the fever to let him ramble. So sick, a third round of antibiotics didn’t cure him.

How could she in good conscience blame a sick man, who in her hour of desperate need had opened his home and his heart to her and her unborn child? The answer was, she couldn’t. She’d have to negotiate Luke’s questions about his dad as best she could. It was just a shame the seed had been planted to make him want something that could never be.

“Mom!” Luke raced into the kitchen from the living room where he’d asked to eat his breakfast cereal while watching TV. “Guess what. Guess what,” he shouted.

Angie sighed. “What, Luke?” Of late he never went anywhere at less than a run, and he couldn’t seem to talk without his voice bouncing off the ceiling. The one positive thing she had noticed: when it was the two of them alone, he stuttered less. Angie continued to mix cookies. She had one more batch to bake to fill the last of her orders in town. As well she hoped to make another batch to sell at the roadside stand out at the county road along with her tree-ripened apples, farm-fresh eggs and an excess of summer squash. Every little bit extra she earned helped pay growing food costs for her rescued animals.

“On TV they have p-p-pictures of last year’s Wild P-pony Race. Come quick and see how fun it’ll be.”

His eyes glowed with excitement, so she couldn’t ignore his request. She followed him to where, sure enough, kids about his age in jeans, plaid shirts with numbers on their backs, and some wearing hats too big for their heads, were clinging to a long rope hooked to a pony’s hackamore. The children were being dragged through dust and dirt and, heavens, in some cases, mud. Oh, boy, this was not a ringing endorsement for something she wanted her young son to do.

“And Duke and his dog are there. S-see, Mom? Duke grabbed the pony and s-s-stopped him. The other g-guy said to win, one of the three kids has gotta get on the pony before he crosses that wh-white line.”

In his excitement, Luke talked too fast, and so began to stutter some.

“C-can I please sign up? Please, Mom!”

Angie loved him so much. But seeing the arena with lanky cowboys ringing the corral, hearing the roar of the rodeo crowd sent her reeling back to when watching the slapping, hitting, prodding of animals to get them to run, to buck or perform sickened her. Back to a time when the man who she thought loved her had promised to quit the rodeo circuit even though he never had the slightest intention of doing so. All of it caused Angie’s head to spin.

“We’ll see, Luke,” she said, wishing she lived in a town that didn’t live, eat, sleep and breathe rodeo. “I need to ask more questions, and really find out how safe it is before I’ll agree.” She felt relieved to see the station had gone on to show a row of booths at the fair portion of the weeklong affair. All the same, it hurt her to watch the slump of Luke’s skinny shoulders, and see him plop down in dejection, the light extinguished from his eyes.

* * *

DUKE SHOVED OPEN THE DOOR to the sheriff’s office with the elbow connected to his injured hand as he juggled two cups of hot coffee he’d picked up at the convenience store on his way into town. The office he shared with Dinah was little more than a hole in the wall large enough for two desks and a divided jail cell stretched side by side across the back. Two three-drawer filing cabinets separated the desks, and a few Wanted posters hung off a corkboard attached to one wall. Early as it was, Dinah already sat at her computer, but her desk was also strewn with papers, and there were telltale signs she’d already eaten a Snickers bar.

“Oh, I could kiss you,” she said, jumping up to relieve Duke of one steaming foam cup. She bumped his hand and he drew back with a moan.

“What did you do?” She narrowed her eyes at his still-swollen hand.

“Don’t tell Ace or my dad. I wrapped the bull rope too tight and couldn’t release it fast enough at the end of my eight-second ride. The bull whipped me around. I’m lucky it didn’t yank my elbow or shoulder out of a socket.”

“Will this injury jeopardize your point standing? Do you have to scratch an event?”

“No. It feels better today and my next rodeo isn’t until the weekend. I see you’re reviewing previous robberies. Anything new? Anyone call the tip line?”

“No calls since you phoned last evening to clear Angie.”

Duke sat at the second desk and turned on his computer.

“Rob Parker’s tip about seeing a black horse there gave me hope,” Dinah said. “Now we’re back to square one, darn it.”

“Angie’s ranch is definitely a dead end. I insulted her by the mere suggestion she’d harbor a stolen horse.”

The pair sat in silence a moment, sipping their drinks, each deep in thought. With Duke’s mind having reverted to Angie, he set down his cup, leaned forward and suddenly asked, “Dinah, do you know of any eight- to ten-year-old boys hankering to get in the Wild Pony Race but may need a third to make a team?”

Spinning in her chair, Dinah scrutinized Duke. Her keen mind always worked overtime. She laughed and poked him. “Angie has a son about that age. You wouldn’t be going soft on her, would you, coz?”

Wanting to hide his interest in Angie, Duke met Dinah’s probing eyes. “She has a cute kid, who happens to have a stuttering problem to which I can relate. I gathered he hadn’t made many friends last year in first grade. The boy, Luke is his name, got the flyer I handed out to his Sunday-school class. He wants to sign up in the worst way, but as you can imagine, his stuttering probably hinders other kids from including him. I thought I’d check around a bit is all.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry to hear about his problem. Sorry for Angie, too, even though I don’t really know her.” Dinah removed the lid from her cup and blew on the hot coffee. “Hmm, I just had a thought. Gary and Pam Marshall have twins who I think will be in second grade this fall. Tommy Marshall is a bit of a hellion. His brother, Bobby, is a nice, sweet kid. Last week I saw Pam at the library and she hadn’t yet signed the boys up to race. I’m pretty sure she said they lacked a third kid. Call her or Gary.”

“Thanks, I will.” Storing the information in his head to check into later, Duke accessed his computer copy of Dinah’s break-in file. “You know, like I said yesterday, horse thieving doesn’t fit the pattern we’ve assembled on our crooks. Everything else points to them being petty thieves. In all except this last robbery, they’ve taken items easily pawned or sold to secondhand shops.”

“True, but Ace knows he put Midnight in a pen behind the barn when he checked the laboring mare at eleven.”

“If Midnight accidentally got out I’d expect to find him in the field with the broodmares.”

“Ace checked there first. I’ve gone over and over every step we’ve taken to date. We’ve been thorough, Duke.”

“That’s what I told Jeff Woods and Farley Clark at the diner last night. Farley suggested you deputize his son, Rory, and his buddy Tracy Babcock. He seemed to think with adding boots on the ground, so to speak, you’d solve the case in no time.” Duke tossed that out obliquely, but wrinkled his nose as Dinah’s mouth fell agape.

“I hoped you were kidding, but I see you’re not. Does Farley know we start work before noon?” she said caustically. “I hear Rory doesn’t get up before then.”

Duke laughed. “Jeff said not to worry. Rory and his pal are too into partying with their girlfriends to want to work. I felt I had to warn you in case Farley takes his idea to the mayor.”

“Ah, well, the mayor will nix it quick. He’s in budget meetings with the city council all month. The last meeting someone suggested replacing all our rodeo/fair banners. The mayor went on for twenty minutes how there’s not one extra cent in the city’s discretionary fund.”

“In a way that’s a relief.” Duke glanced at the case file again. “What we have so far is this. The thieves know this area. They’re night owls. And they’re growing bolder.”

Dinah let out an exasperated sigh. “At first they lifted stuff they could toss in the back of a pickup. Now they have a horse trailer. A covered one, I assume, to conceal a distinctive horse.”

“If you want to follow up on leads where they may have unloaded the last custom saddles of Beau’s, Dinah, I’ll concentrate on getting word out to places where they could sell a horse,” Duke said. “I’ll email Midnight’s photo to Beau and Colt. Ace gave me a detailed description for livestock inspectors and auction barns. I’ll check online newspaper ads for private horse sales. What do you think about starting a blog we can hitch on to some well-known trade bloggers?”

“Great. But you do remember I’m registered for a professional development class in Billings the first week of August? I need to leave Sunday as workshops start early Monday. I can cancel if it conflicts with any of your scheduled rodeos. Your point standing to make the NFR is more important than my class.”

Duke took out his BlackBerry. He liked bull riding, and this year had his sights set on getting to and winning at Finals. He also wanted to catch these crooks.

“I’ll make Bozeman this weekend. I can skip Great Falls the days you’re talking about. Beau never misses that rodeo.”

“You’re twins, but it’s not as if you’re interchangeable in vying for the Finals. Beau isn’t in the running. You are.”

“Beau could be in contention. He’s the better rider,” Duke said offhandedly.

“Huh? Are you afraid he’ll beat you if you compete against him?”

“No. But, believe it or not, he doesn’t ride his best when we’re up against each other.”

“As gung ho as he is to succeed at everything? Although, I have noticed he tends to push you. You’ve gotta stop letting him do that.”

“I don’t let him, Dinah.”

“Well, you sometimes hang back. Why would Beau let you win, Duke?”

Duke wondered about that himself. “I agree it makes no sense. But the upshot is, I can easily skip Great Falls. You take your class. I hope you learn new tricks for tracking ranch robbers and horse thieves if we haven’t solved this case by then.”

“We have to find Midnight soon. The ranch can’t afford to absorb the cost of his monthly loan payments if he’s not standing at stud. What that means is Colt and the hands taking stock to more rodeos, which leaves Ace doing double duty. He wants Tuf to get home.”