Married In Montana

The aspen grove bordered a wide meadow filled with pungent sagebrush and the windblown arcs of tall, gray-green grass. Now the hunter’s path was visible as a dark line of crushed plants. Rafe released Jed’s lead and pursued the trail on his own.

The line gradually curved to the west, where a thick stand of pines edged the open field. When the tall brush ended, the trail seemed to end as well. Jed zigzagged between the trees, doing his best to pick up a scent, looking more and more worried as the minutes passed.

But Rafe, listening to the wind, had picked up voices. He called the dog to heel. “Which way, buddy? Where are they?”

In response to his whisper, the bloodhound headed roughly south. Signs of human intrusion appeared—a soda can against the foot of a lodgepole pine, a paper napkin blown into a spiny shrub’s branches, a circle of burned grass where some idiot had built a fire. Rafe cursed the stupidity, and moved on.

By the time he and Jed reached the voices—and the pair of trucks parked in a clearing just off the road—Rafe had collected beer bottles and empty condom packets in a discarded plastic bag, along with food wrappers and paper products. He didn’t need to evaluate the assembled company to realize that this was a popular teen hangout. And somehow he wasn’t surprised to find Bobby Maxwell in the center of the group.

They’d heard him coming, because he made no attempt to be quiet. About half a dozen faces were turned his way when Rafe stepped into the clearing.

Bobby raised a soft-drink can in greeting. “Fancy meeting you here, Deputy! Come join our picnic.” A pretty girl sat by his side on the tailgate, trying and failing to hide how nervous she was.

In the next truck bed, a towheaded boy leaned back against a silver metal toolbox. He glanced at Jed, who was still casting around the clearing, investigating scents. “Nice-looking dog, Deputy. What are you hunting?”

“A trash can,” Rafe said, holding up the bag of refuse. “This where you spend your Sunday afternoons?”

“Sometimes.” Bobby swung his legs—still in his Sunday pants and shiny boots—back and forth from the knees. He’d ditched the tie and folded back his starched shirt cuffs. “You might’ve noticed, we’re not exactly living at the center of the social world.”

“Who are your friends?”

“Megan Wheeler.” Bobby touched the top of her head with his drink can. “Dan Aiken, Racey Taylor, Jerry Heath, Kim Rawlins. Anything else you need to know?”

Rafe reached into a juniper shrub and pulled out a recently emptied beer can, still wet with condensation and scented with yeast. “I might like to know who sells beer to underage kids on a Sunday.”

Bobby’s angelic expression wasn’t intended to fool anybody. “I wouldn’t know. I’m a decaf diet-cola man, myself. Dan swears by guava juice.”

“Makes my hair shine,” the boy said, rubbing a hand over his head. Bobby and friends laughed…except for Megan, who still looked worried.

Straight answers from this crowd were unlikely, but Rafe decided to take one shot. “Seen anybody else around this afternoon?”

“No, sir.” Bobby leaned back on his elbows. “Nobody but us nature lovers.”

They were being careful to avoid giving him any concrete reason for suspicion. Without probable cause or a bona fide warrant, he couldn’t search the vehicles for alcohol, an illegal kill or anything else. And Rafe didn’t doubt that Judge LeVay and Robert Maxwell would, between them, discount even the strongest probable cause.

“Enjoy,” he said, approaching Bobby as he lounged in the truck bed. He set the bag of trash on the tailgate, between the boy’s knees. “And rub up that shine on your halo by dumping this where it belongs.” Whistling for Jed, he turned his back on the group and headed for the trail that would take him back toward town.

“You can count on us,” Bobby yelled after him.

Rafe heard the triumph edging his tone. “I know I can,” he called over his shoulder.

The important question being…for what?

DURING THE NEXT WEEK, the game warden got two more reports of poached bucks farther up in the mountains. Bobby Maxwell came into town every night about eight-thirty and drank until the bar closed or the bartender threw him out. Dan Aiken was with him, more often than not. Eavesdropping in the diner, in the general store, in the grocery market, Rafe learned that those two, along with Jerry Heath, hung out together like the Musketeers. And got into almost as much trouble.

He heard them himself, racing their trucks down Main Street at midnight between Thursday and Friday. They roared past him just as he reached the intersection in his own truck. Bobby gave him a grin and a salute as he flashed by. Then, with a squeal of tires that dragged sparks from the asphalt, the three vehicles wheeled off into the darkness in three different directions. Rafe was tempted to drive up to Walking Stones and wait for the Maxwell kid to come home, then arrest him for drunk and disorderly, DUI, and any other infraction that came to mind along the way.

But another wee-hours confrontation with Robert Maxwell would be as counterproductive as the last. Judge LeVay would hand out the same warning to keep clear of Maxwell business, while the folks in town would chalk up yet another win to Boss Maxwell, and their respect for Rafe would drop another notch. He knew a no-win situation when he saw one.

The solution to his problem came to him at breakfast Friday morning. Sitting in his usual spot at Grizzly’s, Rafe picked up his coffee mug, stared at it for a second, then grinned. There was still one person concerned about Bobby and his friends whom he could approach without risking his health or his job. In fact, getting her on his side might raise his status around town, help him settle the Maxwell kid down and improve his personal life.

He made the call when he went home for lunch. A voice he didn’t recognize answered the phone. “Walking Stones Ranch, Beth Peace speaking. May I help you?”

Rafe cleared his throat. “This is Deputy Sheriff Rafferty. Could I speak to Thea Maxwell, please?”

A silence followed, and he didn’t think he was imagining the disapproval pulsing through the line. “Miss Maxwell is at work, Deputy. Can I take a message?”

“Sure.” His disappointment was way out of proportion to the situation. “Please ask her to call me at the office before six, or at home afterward.” He dictated the numbers. “It’s important that I talk to her. Not urgent.” No need to cause a panic. “But I’d like to get in touch as soon as possible.”

“I’ll tell her. Goodbye.” Beth Peace disconnected briskly. Secretary or housekeeper or whoever, she’d taken on the familiar Maxwell attitude.

The phone rang a total of eight times before he left the office that afternoon. Rafe jumped each time, picked up the receiver with his breath a little short…and dealt with two traffic complaints involving tourists, three questions about the start of deer season, a report of vandalism to an abandoned cabin in the woods, a hang-up call and a wrong number. No word from Thea Maxwell.

By nine that night, he’d decided she was going to ignore him. That realization, coupled with a message on his answering machine that said his furniture remained lost on the highway between Los Angeles and Paradise Corners, shortened his temper to the point where even talking to Jed was too much of an effort.

When the phone rang at nine-thirty, Rafe had just dropped his only coffee mug, which left a zillion pieces of pottery scattered across the kitchen floor plus one long and extremely painful shard embedded in his foot.

“Hello.” Not his friendliest tone. Receiver clutched between shoulder and cheek, he tried to ease the ceramic splinter out of his arch.

“Um…Deputy Rafferty? It’s Thea Maxwell.”

He jerked as she said her name. The splinter burrowed deeper. Rafe swore.

“I beg your pardon?” Glacier mode.

“Damn, here we go again.” Rafe gave up on the splinter. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”

“That’s just your usual phone manner?”

“I have a piece of glass in my foot and was trying to get it out when you called.”

“Are you okay?” Her question carried a current of laughter. And maybe a hint of concern?

“I’ll live.” He dabbed gingerly at his bleeding foot with a paper towel. “I think.”

“I’m sorry, too, for calling so late. We worked past dark, bringing some cows down from the high country. A few of them spooked, detoured through a steep gorge, and the only way out was back into the mountains. That added about five hours to the process.” Weariness roughened her voice.

“I’ve had those kinds of days. You need a meal and a bath and a bed.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “So why did you call? Our housekeeper said it was important.”

Rafe pulled his thoughts back from a mental picture of Thea Maxwell soaking in a tub of warm, sweet-smelling water. “Uh…yeah. It’s about your brother.”

“Oh, really.”

“But I don’t want to get into anything tonight.” He’d expected the sudden change in her tone, but it bothered him anyway. “I wondered…is there sometime in the next day or two that you could come into town?”

“You want to interrogate me at the jailhouse?”

He sighed. “I want to buy you a cup of coffee, maybe a piece of pie, and talk this situation over like reasonable people.”

Thea recognized Rafe Rafferty’s exasperation. She couldn’t blame him—he didn’t have a clue that her question was purely defensive, an effort to get control of the excitement his invitation provoked. “I, um, I usually come in on Saturday mornings to pick up groceries. Do you have time…tomorrow?”

“Sure.” How could he sound so calm when she felt as if she was standing in the middle of an electrical storm? “How’s ten-thirty sound? Too early?”

“Th-that’s fine.”

“I’ll see you then.”

Was he hanging up? “Rafe, um, Deputy? Wait a minute. Deputy?”

“Rafe will be fine.” She practically heard him grin. “What’s wrong?”

“Where do you want to meet?”

“Oh, yeah. Good question. Is Grizzly’s okay with you?”

“Great. I…I’ll see you at Grizzly’s at ten-thirty.”

“Sounds good.” After a long pause, he said, “Well, then…good night. Get some rest.”

“You, too.” There was some kind of problem here, saying goodbye. “Um…good night.”

“Sure.” He pulled in a deep breath. “’Night.” After yet another hesitation, Thea heard the phone click off. Rafe Rafferty was finally gone.

Unless you counted the way she thought about him as she showered. The way he got between her eyes and the book she tried to read while eating the warmed-over plate of chicken and dumplings Beth had made. The way he got all tangled up in her dreams.

THEN THERE WAS the problem Saturday morning of what to wear. Nothing special, of course. Just the usual jeans and boots and a shirt, with a jacket against the cold wind sweeping down from the mountains. So what if the shirt was new, hanging in her closet since her trip to Denver last summer? The bright red would be cheerful on this gray day. And, yes, the black jeans were new, too. A woman didn’t have to look like one of the boys when she drove into town. There was such a thing as self-respect.

But she got a sharp glance from Beth. “You’re awful dressed up. What’s going on?”

Thea picked up her coffee cup. “Nothing. Just driving in for the groceries, same as usual.”

“What can I fix you for breakfast?” Saturday was short-order day—you could ask for strawberry waffles or ostrich-egg omelettes and Beth would do her best to oblige.

But Thea couldn’t imagine putting food on top of the jitterbugs in her stomach. “I ate late last night. I’ll just get something in town.”

“With that deputy?”

Trust Beth Peace to know everything. “He wants to talk about Bobby.”

The housekeeper puffed out like a threatened hen. “What’s there to talk about?”

“I don’t know.” It was too early to leave, but she couldn’t face any more questions. “I’ll tell you when I get home.” She put her cup in the sink and started out the back door. Her work jacket hung there—dusty worn denim with a tear in the sleeve from yesterday’s argument with a fallen branch.

Beth followed her as she reversed directions and headed for the coat closet in the great room. “You might want to put on some jewelry for this date of yours. Earrings, at least.”

Shrugging into her black wool blazer, Thea thought about it. Then shook her head. “It’s a business meeting, Beth, that’s all. He wants to talk about Bobby. I don’t need to get all dressed up. See you later.” She left by the front door, preferring to walk all the way around the house in the cold rather than go through to the back with the housekeeper at her heels, teasing.

But she didn’t get away fast enough to avoid hearing Beth’s comment.

“Of course you shouldn’t get dressed up.” The older woman crossed her arms over her full breasts. “And I’m the queen of the monkey house.”

Thea looked back just before she rounded the corner. “I’ll add bananas to the grocery list,” she called, and heard Beth’s laugh carried off on the wind.

Instead of heading straight out to the state road, Thea turned the Land Rover toward the work buildings, the cattle barns and the pastures beyond. Backing onto the foothills of the Crazy Moutains, the Walking Stones Ranch claimed terrain from water meadows all the way to subalpine mountain peaks. Most of that land was as familiar to her as her own bedroom.

And she loved to examine it the way other women might admire their jewelry. Even on a cloudy day, Walking Stones showed its riches, in the dull gold of cut hayfields, the fading green of frosted grass, brilliant yellows and reds from the aspens and oaks, the velvet black of fat Angus cattle grazing for breakfast. Wood smoke, wet leaves and a hint of snow colored the wind, its moan the only sound in an otherwise blessed silence…

Until it was broken by a rifle shot.

Thea jumped, then sighed and shook her head. Deer season opened today. Herman and Bobby and her dad had left before dawn for the start of their annual male-bonding ritual. She’d never been invited to go along, but she’d never wanted to. Venison steak didn’t hold a candle to range-fed Angus beef, as far as she was concerned. Culling the deer population made sense, she supposed, although she had a strong belief in nature’s ability to handle its own problems. There were, after all, coyotes and wolves.

Mostly, though, she liked looking at the deer alive, liked the alert shine of a doe’s eyes, the sweetness of the fawns, the power and majesty of a heavily antlered buck. Why destroy something so beautiful?

Turning into the wooded hillsides, she headed up a dirt track toward the fence line dividing Walking Stones land from the national forest. The winding mountain road beyond the back gate was the long way into town, guaranteed to take up enough time that she wouldn’t look stupid arriving early for her meeting with Rafe Rafferty. Or, worse, eager. Just because she wanted the chance to see him again, maybe have a decent conversation, didn’t mean he had to know how she felt.

Thinking of his dark eyes and the humor she’d caught there a couple of times, Thea stopped at the gate, climbed down from the Land Rover to unlock the chain, drove across the cattleguard, stopped again and got out to refasten the lock. She pulled hard, to be sure the snap had caught, started to turn away, and realized her brain had recorded an image she hadn’t quite processed.

Easing between two of the fence wires, she walked carefully over the rough ground, uneven with clumps of grass and rocks and dirt. About a hundred feet along, she came upon what her eyes had seen without her mind knowing. A deer. A doe.

Or what was left of one, anyway.

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