The Widow's Revenge (23 page)

Because this information did not precisely respond to her question, Patsy rephrased and repeated it: “Well where
is
he?”

Sarah jutted her chin to indicate an easterly direction. “Over at Sunrise Arroyo.”
She won’t know where that is
.

The innocent librarian stared toward the Buckhorns. “Where’s that at?”

“Near the foot of the mountains.”

“Well what’s he doing over there?”

“Looking at a dead cow.”

Patsy P. cringed. “Ick.”

Sarah could not help smiling. Anticipating the lady’s next question, she provided the answer: “Charlie probably won’t be back for hours and hours. Maybe not till after dark.”

“Oh.” Disappointment fairly dripped from Patsy’s doll-like face.

Which pleased Sarah immensely. “Would you like to come inside and wait?”

“That’s not an option, honey. I’ve got to get back to town.” She frowned. “But I’d like to get together with Charlie sometime soon, so we can practice some songs.”

Now the seventeen-year-old rolled her eyes and sighed. But it was a slight roll and a light sigh—not so much that Patsy would notice. “I’ll tell Charlie when he gets back.” She inquired whether Miss Poynter had a particular day and time in mind.

“I’m not working tomorrow evening, so if he’s available—”

“I don’t think he can make it then.”

Patsy’s wide eyes said:
Oh? And why not?

This highly expressive query called for a response.

“I think,” Sarah said, “that he may have a date.”

A date?
The pretty face drooped. “Well then . . . Oh, I almost forgot what I came for.” She offered the canvas bag to Sarah. “I brought him this.”

As the girl accepted the offering, a delicious aroma wafted up to her nostrils. “What is it—cookies?”

Patsy Poynter shook her head and the Goldilocks mop. “Brownies. I made ’em myself, and they’re almost still warm.”

“They smell really good.”

“Help yourself to some, sweetie.”

“Well, thank you. I’ll tell Charlie—”

This exchange was interrupted by another arrival. A big, brown, boxy UPS truck. The driver parked in the yard and hopped out with two armloads of parcels, which she—

Yes, still another she. But not another cover girl.

The hardworking UPS employee unloaded her burden on the Columbine headquarters porch, pointed at a long, slender parcel. “That one’s for Charlie Moon.”

“Oh,” Patsy shrieked, “he’ll be so happy!”

The strictly business driver was already headed back to her van.

Sarah squinted suspiciously at the package. “What is it?”

“A banjo Charlie ordered two or three weeks ago.”

“Charlie bought himself a new banjo?”

“It’s not exactly what you’d call
new
, honey. That five-stringer is a real old-timer, and very expensive—probably cost Charlie two arms and a leg.” She clapped her hands. “Hey—why don’t we saddle up a couple of horses and take the banjo to Charlie and surprise him?” Patsy’s big, sky-blue eyes glowed and seemed to grow even larger as she expanded upon the plan. “We could take the brownies and some coffee—and have a nice little picnic.”

“Charlie’s miles away and we might not be able to find him.” Sarah picked up the parcel in both arms, cradled it close to her chest like a precious baby. “But soon as he gets back, I’ll tell him about the banjo. And the nice brownies you brought.”

And that was precisely what she intended to do.

But the dust behind the Patsy Poynter’s departing Toyota pickup had barely settled when Sarah decided that the stunning blonde’s notion was worth considering. Why wait until Charlie returned to present him with the treasured musical instrument? With every beat of her youthful heart, the plan (no doubt enhanced by the conspicuous absence of its pretty author) became increasingly appealing.

Off to the stables Sarah went with Patsy’s brownies and the mail-order banjo. In less time than it takes to eat a tasty chocolate pastry and pick a few licks of “Muleskinner Blues,” the seventeen-year-old had saddled up her pinto pony and was off
like the wind
.

CORRECTION—MAKE THAT PLURAL
.

And not merely two errors. What the rancher’s folly added up to was a trio of mistakes—those sorts of blunders that even an experienced stockman makes when his blood runs hot about slaughtered purebred stock and he’s in too big a hurry to stop and think about the hungry creature he’s dealing with, and how those bloody teeth and slashing claws are liable to end up ripping
his
flesh.

It was not as if the fellow had galloped off half-cocked, without a sensible thought in his head. Before mounting up, Moon had checked his Winchester rifle and made sure a round was in the cylinder. Now, as horse and rider approached the mangled steer, both the human and the equine eyes scanned the sparse, boulder-strewn forest for any sign of a predator.

The keen-eyed man saw nothing.

Neither did the horse, but the mount’s muscles were as tense as twisted coils of tempered steel, his nostrils flared for a danger scent, and his ears flicked this way and that. The animal might have bolted at the sudden jump of a grasshopper.

Within a few yards of the kill, Moon dismounted and looped the reins loosely around a spindly little aspen.

Error Number One:
Loosely
.

Number Two was leaving his rifle in the fringed leather scabbard on his mount.

Blunder Number Three? Not strapping on his .357 Magnum sidearm before leaving the Columbine headquarters.

Though a warning simmered somewhere in the depths of his mind, and there was a cold tingling rippling up (and down) his spine, 99 percent of the rancher’s attention was focused on the dead animal. The Hereford
had been pulled down at the edge of the East Range pasture, on the fringes of a forest of white-trunk aspens and blackish-blue spruce.

From time to time, a sizable black bear would attack a young or sickly animal that had wandered away from the herd, and a griz would kill anything on four legs—or two, for that matter. This looked more like a mountain lion’s work. But before giving the crack shots among his cowboys permission to hunt down the likely suspect, the rancher had to be certain. Moon circled the carcass. There were several deep bite marks on the unfortunate bovine’s neck. Its belly had been ripped open and one of the hindquarters shredded. He paused to take a long look at two barely discernible pad prints.
This wasn’t done by a bear. Sure as I’m standing here, this was
—

Moon’s nervous horse bolted and hit the breeze like a pack of red-eyed timber wolves were nipping at his knees. No, a grasshopper was not to blame. Put it down to that bloodcurdling sound from the aspens—the female feline’s throaty growl.

The stranded man had no option but to stand his ground.

How dangerous was this predator? Of all the large cats, the cougar is the only one that purrs like the kitty nestled in your lap. Yes,
purrs
. Isn’t that sweet? Not when you’re about to become dead meat.

To go along with her purr, m’lady also had big, sharp teeth, and an array of pointy vesicles on her tongue. So does your ordinary tabby cat, which is what makes her delicate little tongue feel like sandpaper when she licks your hand. Why mention this detail? Because the equivalent apparatus on the larger relative’s tongue enables the mountain lion to
lick the flesh off your bones
.

Or, in the case at hand, off Charlie Moon’s bones.

The situation was serious.

CLIPPITY-CLOP, CLIPPITY-CLOP

This is not a radio-studio sound effect—rather the audible result produced by an actual pinto pony’s hooves saying “Goodbye, dirt!” to those meters, rods, and furlongs slipping rapidly behind. Sarah Frank is mounted on the spotted equine; mount and rider are headed toward that location where Mr. Moon hopes to face down a fearfully dangerous
predator. The girl could not have imagined the drama that she and her pony were clippity-clopping into, which is not to suggest that Sarah had been shortchanged when imagination was being doled out. The teenager had her fair share, and more. Which was a good thing. Most of the time. An unbridled ability to imagine fantasy into reality can prove to be hazardous, especially to a seventeen-year-old girl who is passionately in love with a Brown-Eyed-Handsome-Man. Particularly when said BEHM, for whatever reason, does not respond in like manner. Even more so when he seems to be an irresistible magnet for the seventeen-year-old’s competition. It does not help that these mature women are endowed with superficial good looks and know how to walk in such a way as to make men lust after them. Which more or less sums up what was nagging at Sarah as her pinto galloped its merry way across the high plains.

But, by and by, it occurred to her that not
all
her heartburn could be charged to the likes of Lila Mae McTeague, Annie Rose, and Patsy Poynter. Charlie Moon was partly to blame. After a few dozen more clippity-clops of bouncing along in the saddle (which may have been affecting her brain), make that
largely
to blame.
Why can’t Charlie be smart enough to see what’s going on?

Why, indeed. But this is one of those ageless and imponderable questions that is quite beyond the cognitive powers of us common folk. Such matters shall be left to the domain of brainy philosophers, eminent psychologists, talk-show hosts, and other erudite scholars.

But Sarah had the bit in her mouth and would not let go.

The farther she rode toward Sunrise Arroyo, the madder she got. Urging her pony into a faster trot, the girl ground her teeth.
Charlie treats all those hussies like they were something special. And he treats me like a kid!
She hated that three-letter word. Loathed and detested it.
If he ever calls me kid again, I’ll . . . I’ll
. . .

The passionate young lady did not complete the thought, but the fact that she was about to fantasize some unspeakable mayhem is relevant to what happened when she came over the same ridge Charlie Moon had topped, and spotted him standing by a steer’s carcass, staring into the trees.
Oh, he makes me so mad!
She dug her heels into her mount’s flanks. The pinto broke into a full gallop.

Like Charlie Moon and his recently departed mount, neither Sarah nor her pony spotted the cougar that was partially concealed in a thickish cluster of youthful aspen shoots. Neither did the fact register in her overheated brain that Moon’s black horse was not among those present and accounted for.

The full-grown mountain lion did see the angry girl (longish parcel clutched tightly under her left arm) charging like a Mongol warrior on a crazed pony. The sizable cat was moderately unnerved by this novel sight, and, being of a prudent disposition, Ms. Cougar turned tail and melted silently into the shadowy forest.

The cavalry, it seemed, had arrived in the nick of time.

Charlie Moon turned to determine who his rescuer might be. He would not have been surprised to see Butch Cassidy, the Wyoming Kyd, his crusty old foreman, or even one of the new hires. When he saw Sarah coming on like John Wayne in
True Grit
, he imagined her with the reins clenched between her teeth, and laughed out loud. What a girl!

Sarah might have gotten past the laugh, which she interpreted as follows:
So. He thinks I look comical
.

Moon waved a big hello and shouted, “Hi, kid!”

Oh!
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. Her scowl turned into a hateful frown.

When it looked like the spotted pony was out of control and might run him down, Moon sidestepped, with the intent of grabbing the wild-eyed animal by whatever he could get hold of, or yanking the girl out of the saddle. Whatever opportunity presented itself.

At the instant before a collision, Sarah reined her pony in. The pinto made a wide circle around the steer carcass before coming to a dead stop.

She sure seems excited
. Moon assumed his characteristic grin, and repeated the unforgivable sin: “Well, kid—I’m sure glad to see you.”

“Oh you are, are you?” Out of breath, she took time to inhale a helping. “I guess you should be—I brought something for you.”

Moon eyed the UPS box. “What’s that?”

“Your damned old
banjo
, that’s what!”

The man who had never heard so much as a
darn
or
dang
pass between the prim little girl’s lips could hardly believe what he’d heard. “What?”

She repeated it. Verbatim. And louder this time.

Well. “I appreciate you bringing it.” He pointed his chin at the parcel. “But that’s a genuine Stelling’s Golden Cross that cost me about three head of prime beef, so please be careful and don’t drop it.”

Sarah had no intention of dropping anything. She raised the parcel over her head, flung it in his general direction. Yes,
flung
it. Hard as she could.

More by luck than skill, Moon made a catch that any receiver in the history of the National Football League would have admired.

Being busy removing something from a saddlebag, the young lady did not fully appreciate this manly display of athletic prowess. “And here’s your stupid brownies!” She tossed the canvas bag at Moon’s head. The missile went well over its intended target, but the alert receiver managed to snatch her wild pass—without dropping the boxed banjo.

Sarah whirled her mount and was gone in a cloud of dust.

Not so very far away, she raised a defiant chin.
I guess I showed him!
From somewhere in that small fraction of her mind that retained a degree of rationality, a pertinent question was posed:
Showed him what?
Well, that was a no-brainer.
I showed Charlie that I’m not some dumb kid
.

After a few bumpity clippity-clops, her throbbing heart had settled down to about ninety thuds per minute. The rider eased off some on her hard-pressed pony, which settled down to a leisurely trot. Ever so gradually, a measure of sanity returned. As it did, the girl’s face contorted into a painful grimace.
I showed him that I’m an idiot
.