Forsaken

As he dialed 9-1-1 and asked for an ambulance and the undersheriff, he recalled her last words.

You really didn’t think I was done with you, did you?

* * *

RIDING BESIDE MADDIE, Jamison crossed a wide meadow between two mountain peaks before working his way along the bottom of a sheer granite cliff that shot up to dizzying heights over them.

Sunlight traveled down through the pine boughs to bathe them in flickering golden beams. He breathed in the sweet scents of pine and new green grasses, the morning air crisp and cold. He feared the air was so clean it would intoxicate him since he had never breathed anything like it before.

The air, the altitude or Maddie Conner would be his undoing, he thought. He didn’t doubt that if he couldn’t keep up, she would leave him behind. Didn’t they shoot animals that couldn’t keep up with the herd?

Once they left the pines, the sky overhead seemed as endless as the wide-open mountain slopes in front of them. The huge expanse was a startling clear blue, no clouds on the horizon that he could see.

The wind kicked back up the higher they went. Above the tree line, it swept across the grassy slope in a blistering howl of undulating tall grasses that looked like waves rushing to shore. Water gushed from a plethora of small creeks as higher snowfields melted slowly. It was still early in the year up this high. The sun had a lot of climbing to do before summer warmth ever reached these mountains.

Still, the view was breathtaking. The land seemed alive with color from the dark silken emerald of the trees to the vibrant chartreuse of the grass. All this was in contrast to the dark rocky peaks with their cap of blinding white snow and the clear, deep blue sky overhead.

He’d heard Montana called God’s country but until that moment he’d never understood it. The beauty made him ache. Just as the high altitude made him light-headed. Maddie was right about him. He was a fish out of water up here.

“How high are we?” he asked as they crossed a windblown ridge, the horse hooves clattering on the rocks.

“Close to ten thousand feet.”

The last time he was this far above sea level, he’d been in a plane.

He didn’t know how far they’d ridden. He hadn’t felt the hours slip past, lulled by the gentle rocking of his body in the saddle and the mesmerizing beauty juxtaposed against the remoteness and endless isolation. It gave him an odd, alien feeling and added to his apprehension about what they would find over the next mountain.

He didn’t realize anything was wrong until Maddie suddenly pulled her horse up short. “What is it?”

She didn’t answer, but seemed to be listening, though he couldn’t imagine what she could hear over the relentless wind.

Reining in, it took him a moment to hear anything but the deafening gale. When he finally did hear what had caught her attention, he felt the hair on his neck shoot up as goose bumps skittered over his skin.

An eerie keening sound rode the wind.

Last night, he’d heard coyotes calling in the distance. But this was no coyote. If this sound was human, the person was in terrible pain.

“Where is it coming from?” he asked as he eased his horse up next to Maddie’s.

She shook her head, still listening as if trying to pinpoint the sound. But with the wind shifting around them, he couldn’t tell any more than apparently she could.

Maddie cocked her head. Her expression gave little away, but he could tell that, like him, she was shaken by the spine-chilling sound. Unlike him, though, he had a feeling she knew what it was.

“This way,” she said after a moment. He glimpsed her face just before she rode off. There was more than determination etched in her expression. There was pain and regret. She had come to a sad conclusion based on what, he didn’t know.

He followed, riding up along the edge of the wide basin then across another high rocky ridge. The view took his breath away and gave him vertigo. He swore he could see forever and yet he still couldn’t see what was making that heart-wrenching sound.

The keening grew louder just before he and Maddie dropped off the high ridge and over a rocky rise. He could feel the wind in his face, wearing away at his skin the way it had worn away at the land.

They hadn’t gone far when Maddie pulled up again.

He reined in just an instant before he saw the dog. A small Australian shepherd mix of a mutt was sitting on a rocky knob below them. Its head was thrown back, and long, mournful howls were emitting from deep within its throat.

Something was crumpled on the ground below the dog in the rocks. He caught only a glimpse of dark red plaid fabric, and then Maddie was racing down the mountainside toward the dog.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MADDIE’S HEART SANK at the mournful cry of the dog—let alone whatever was lying at the dog’s feet just over the rocky ledge. She braced herself for what she would find and yet she was already fighting tears before she reached the animal.

She’d been so sure she was going to find Branch Murdock’s body just below the dog on the mountainside that she was startled when the familiar red-and-black-plaid fabric just over the edge of the ridge was only that—the red-and-black plaid of the sheepherder’s coat.

Maddie slid off her horse, still stunned and even more confused when she saw that the coat had been spread out like a bed for the dog.

It was what a hunter did when he lost one of his bird dogs and couldn’t find the animal before dark set in. He would leave his coat with his scent on it. The dog would hopefully find it and stay there until he returned. With luck, the hunter would find the dog lying on the coat, waiting for him, the next morning.

How long had Lucy been waiting for Branch? And why would he leave his coat here for the dog? Branch and Lucy were inseparable.

As Maddie approached the dog, Lucy quit howling for a moment, but started up again. It was the most heartbreaking sound Maddie had ever heard on that lonesome mountain ridge so far from everything.

“Where’s Branch?” she whispered as she squatted down next to the dog. She remembered when Branch had adopted the puppy. Just the thought of the two of them crossing the ranch yard, Lucy still a puppy, running hard on her short legs to keep up with Branch’s long stride, broke her heart.

As she put her arm around Lucy, she heard the deputy dismount and come toward them, his boots crunching on the rocky ground. Not his boots, she reminded herself. Her husband’s. That thought shot like an arrow through her heart.

Her husband.

The loss often hit her out of the blue as if until that moment, she hadn’t realized Hank was gone and never coming back.

She blinked back tears as she knelt by the dog. “It’s all right,” she whispered to Lucy, even though she suspected it was far from it.

Picking up Branch’s coat from the ground, she held it close. The coarse wool smelled of a strong mixture of tobacco, campfire smoke, sheep and dog. She breathed in the familiar scents that would always remind her of Branch as she looked out across the mountain—just as Lucy was doing. There was no sign of her sheepherder—or her sheep.

“May I see that?” Jamison asked and held out his hand for the coat.

She hesitated, feeling protective and afraid, but grudgingly she handed it over to him and watched as he went through the pockets then checked the fabric. For bloodstains? Bullet holes?

He didn’t seem to find anything of interest, she saw with relief. She watched him sniff one of the pockets, then the other one.

“He took his tobacco with him and whatever tool he carried in his other pocket,” the deputy said.

“A knife. He always carried a pocketknife.” She watched as he shook out several flakes of loose tobacco from the one pocket. The wind caught the stray tobacco leaves and sent them whirling off over the side of the mountain on a downdraft.

Jamison turned the other pocket inside out to show her where the pocketknife had worn a hole in the fabric. “Why would your sheepherder leave his coat here and take everything else with him?” he asked as he eyed the dog.