• • •
THE 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.
• • •
OVER 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.
• • •
“AH,” 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.
• • •
“THERE’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.”
After a while, Nate thought, her voice was like anything else: the breeze through the trees, birds chirping. Other things he’d learned to filter out. But he grudgingly admitted to himself that he enjoyed the timbre and cadence of her voice and found it beguilingly musical.
She said with a conspiratorial whisper, “Mr. T.’s getting the place ready for someone new. I’ve been working for him long enough that I think I can recognize that Mr. T. is in love.”
Nate couldn’t help himself. He looked at her. She showed no signs of jealousy. In fact, she seemed delighted by the prospect.
“That’s right,” she said, nodding. “He’s getting the walls painted and replacing old furniture. He got a nice proper poster bed to replace the decadent round one he’s had forever, so I was wondering what was up. I used to ask him, ‘When you getting rid of that white-trash Hugh Hefner bed?’ and he’d just say it was in the castle when he bought it, which it was. But when he sent those two bimbos away and asked me to help him pick out a nice new bed to order, I just knew it. He’s bringing in a new lady. I couldn’t be happier for him. I think he’s been lonely. Those bimbos weren’t exactly interesting conversationalists, you know. So this new lady—she must be something pretty special.”
Nate went back to the chimney pipe.
“So in the middle of them bitching and whining at breakfast about having to pack up their stuff to be out of here by tonight—one of the staff is driving them to the airport in Rapid City—two of our local redneck employees show up and demand to see him. Usually those types come in the door with their hats in their hands, acting all docile because they want something from him. But these two walked straight into the breakfast room and said they needed to talk to him right away. They had no manners, just like most of the people around here. They were muddy and dirty, and they had blood and feathers stuck to them. It was disgusting,” she said, making a face.
“I escorted them into Mr. T.’s office. He was calm and cool as always, but they were all worked up. They said they had a big problem, and like always they expected Mr. T. to fix it. They started going on and on before I even left the room. You know, Mr. T. can’t fix every damn thing there is around here, even though some of those people seem to think he can.”
She muttered to herself and shook her head back and forth before continuing. “But they said they knew Whip was back, which is something no one is supposed to talk about. None of the staff is even allowed to say his name, just like they aren’t supposed to say yours. No one. Those rednecks said they wanted Mr. T. to send Whip to take care of their stupid problem.”
She wagged a single finger in the air. “That just isn’t done. You don’t ask Mr. T. to send Whip. You just leave Whip alone and don’t look at him or meet his eye or talk to him. Those are the rules. You just leave that man alone. Those fools don’t know what they’re doing even mentioning his name, and they don’t know what kind of . . . man . . . they’re dealing with. Whip—” She caught herself. Then: “He’s the coldest alive, and not someone to mess with. Not for something like this.”
She paused, and Nate waited.
“Did you hear what the problem was?” Nate asked.
“Not the whole thing,” she said. “Something about a new game warden.”
The screw slipped out of his fingers and rolled down the length of the roof and fell to the dirt below.
“You dropped something,” she said, advancing again to pick it up. “Hold on a second, and I’ll bring it up to you.”
“It’s okay,” he said. He thought: Game warden? “I’ve got another one.”
Liv retrieved it anyway, moved the ladder back, and climbed up. When she reached to hand him the tiny screw, their fingers touched and Nate felt it deep inside like he was afraid he would.
“Time to go now,” he said.
“You know, Mr. Falcon, you’re a hard man to flirt with.”
“Good.”
“You gonna tell me what the problem is?”
“No,” he said, turning away.
Sundance, Wyoming
Jim Latta was over an hour late arriving for breakfast at the Longabaugh Café in Sundance, and Joe checked his wristwatch and ordered a second refill of coffee. He needed it, since he’d slept only three hours after returning to the Whispering Pines Motel.
The Longabaugh was located on Main Street, across from the post office, and was the only business on the block open that early in the morning. Mud-splashed pickups were parked outside, and Joe had chosen a corner booth next to the kitchen bat-wing doors with his back to the wall so he could observe the patrons and greet Latta when he showed up. When Joe arrived at seven, the place was filled with road crew workers
en route to a highway construction project on I-90—men who wanted big breakfasts of chicken-fried steak, three eggs, and gravy to drown it all in. There was plenty of grumping about the weather and their bosses before they all got up and left en masse with box lunches at seven-thirty.
While he waited, Joe checked his phone—no calls or messages from Sheridan—and read about the history of Longabaugh on the back of the menu. Harry Longabaugh was a fifteen-year-old Pennsylvanian who had come west in 1887 in a covered wagon as far as Sundance, where he decided to steal a horse, saddle, and gun from a local ranch. He was caught immediately and arrested. During his year-and-a-half jail term, he’d adopted the name the Sundance Kid.
After the construction crew left, locals filtered in. A young, dirty couple in their late twenties or early thirties took the largest table in the center of the room and situated three children under six in the other chairs. The kids were loud and wild, and the mother cursed at them to shut up. The father wore a battered Carhartt barn coat and he took it off to reveal a black heavy metal T-shirt and sleeve tattoos. He was obviously not in a hurry to get to work that morning, Joe thought.
When two of the boys threw packets of jam at each other from a container on the table, the father reached over and swept the condiments away from their reach with his arm, lit a cigarette, and looked away.
“Still waiting?” the waitress asked Joe. She was heavy, with pink hair, and she wore cargo pants and a hoodie. There was a small silver hoop in her left nostril that Joe found hard not to fix on.
“A few more minutes,” he said.
“Waitin’ on Jim Latta?” she asked, nodding toward Joe’s red uniform shirt.
“Yup.”
“He’ll be here,” she said. “He comes in most days. You want to order while you wait?”