High-Caliber Cowboy

The keys were gone.

Panic sent her blood pressure into orbit. She couldn’t get out until she found the keys. She bent, thinking she must have knocked them to the floor.

But as she bent over, the hairs rose on the back of her neck.

In slow motion she lifted her head, then turned by degrees to look behind her through the office window to the hallway.

Dr. French smiled and held up her keys.

Chapter Two

Monday night

Two nights later

Brandon McCall couldn’t keep his eyes open. He’d driven every road on this section of the ranch and, like all the other nights, he hadn’t seen a thing. Not a track in the soft earth. Not a light flickering down in the sagebrush. Not a soul.

Tonight a storm was blowing in. Lightning splintered the horizon and thunder rumbled in the distance as dark clouds washed across the wild landscape, from the Bighorn Mountains over the rolling foothills to the tall cottonwoods of the river bottom.

The first raindrops startled him, hitting the roof of his pickup like hail. He stopped on a hill, turned off the engine and killed the lights.

Taking off his Stetson, he laid it over the steering wheel and stretched his long legs across the bench seat, careful not to get his muddy western boots on the upholstery.

He had a good view of the ranch below him and knew there were a half-dozen other men on watch tonight in other areas, waiting for vandals.

Unfortunately there was too much country, and even Mason VanHorn, as rich as he was, couldn’t afford to hire enough men to patrol his entire ranch.

Something moved in the darkness, making him sit up a little. A stand of pine trees swayed in the stormy darkness. He watched for a moment, then leaned back again. False alarm. But he didn’t take his eyes off the spot.

It looked like another long, boring night since he doubted the vandal was dedicated enough to come out in this weather. This was southeastern Montana, coal country, and coalbed methane gas had turned out to be the accidental by-product of the huge, open-pit coal mining to the south. The thick coal seams were saturated with water, which, when pumped out, produced gas that bubbled up like an opened bottle of cola.

With big money in natural gas, thousands of wells had sprung up almost overnight, causing controversy in the ranching communities. Some landowners had cashed in, opting to have the shallow wells dug on their property. Others, like Brandon’s father, Asa, would die before he’d have one on his ranch.

The real battles had less to do with traditional uses of the land and more to do with environmental concerns, though. By extracting the gas from the water, something had to be done with all the water, which was considered too salty for irrigation but was being dumped into the Tongue River. The drilling was also said to lower the water table, leaving some ranch wells high and dry.

Mason VanHorn had the most gas wells and was the most outspoken in favor of the drilling. Because of that, he’d become the target of protesters on more than one occasion.

And that was how Brandon McCall had gotten a night job on the VanHorn spread. He’d been in the Longhorn Café in Antelope Flats the day the new VanHorn Ranch manager, Red Hudson, had come in looking for men to patrol the ranch at night.

Fortunately for Brandon, Red didn’t seem to know about a long-standing feud between the VanHorns and the McCalls and Brandon hadn’t brought it up. He’d hired on, needing the money. While he worked some on his family ranch at the other end of the river valley, that job didn’t pay like this one.

The irony was that his little sister Dusty thought he had a girlfriend and that’s why he dragged in like a tomcat just before dawn every day.

He wished. No, this was his little secret. And given the generations of bad blood between the McCalls and the VanHorns, Brandon would be out of a job—or worse—once ranch owner Mason VanHorn found out. He hated to think how VanHorn would take it when he found out he had a McCall on his payroll.

Something moved again in a stand of pines below him. The wind and something else.

He sat all the way up.

A slim, dark figure stood motionless at the edge of the pines. He stared so hard he was almost convinced it was a trick of the light from the storm.

The wind whipped at the trees. Rain slanted down, pelting the hood, pouring down the windshield. He turned on the wipers, squinting into the driving rain and darkness.

This had been monotonous boring work—until last night when several of the wells had actually been vandalized. Nothing serious, just a lame protest attempt, and patrols had been stepped up.

Red had made it clear he wanted the vandal caught at all costs. And now it looked as if the vandal was planning to hit one of the wells in Brandon’s section.

The presumed vandal sprinted out from the pines, running fast and low as he wove his way through the tall sage and the rain. He wore all black, even the stocking cap on his head. From this distance, he appeared slightly built, like a teenager. A teenager on a mission, since he had what appeared to be a crowbar in one hand.

The vandal disappeared over a rise.

Brandon slapped a hand on the steering wheel with a curse. If he started the pickup, the vandal would hear it and no doubt take off on him. Brandon needed to catch him in the act.

He had no choice. He was going to have to go after him through the pouring rain and darkness. He’d be lucky if he didn’t break his leg or worse, as dark as it was.

Pulling on his coat, he snugged on his Stetson, quietly opened the pickup door and reached back to pull the shotgun from the gun rack behind the seat. Not that he planned to shoot anyone. Especially if it really did turn out to be some teenager with a cause.

But it was always better to have a weapon and not need it than the other way around.

Rain slashed down, stinging his face as he loped down the hillside, winding his way through the sagebrush until he reached the rise where he’d last seen him. In a crouch, the shotgun in both hands, he topped the rise and squinted through the rain and darkness.

At first, he didn’t see anything. Coalbed methane wells were fairly unobtrusive. Not a bunch of rigging like oil wells. The wellheads were covered with a tan box about the size of a large air-conditioning unit. The boxes dotted the landscape to the north past the ranch complex, but there were none near the house.

He scanned the half-dozen wells he could see. No sign of anyone. Frowning, he wondered if the vandal might have doubled back, having purposely drawn him away from his pickup. Brandon had been so sure the vandal hadn’t seen him where he was parked.

But as Brandon started to look behind him, he caught movement down the hillside toward the ranch house itself and the large stand of pine trees behind it.

The VanHorn Ranch was nothing like Brandon’s family’s Sundown Ranch, which was family-owned and run with a main house and the barns nearby.

The VanHorn Ranch was run by hired help, so the main ranch house sat back a half mile from a cluster of buildings that housed the ranch office, the bunkhouses and the ranch manager’s house.

The rustic main ranch house was long and narrow, tucked back into the hillside and banked in the back by pines. Mason VanHorn lived in the house all alone after, according to local scuttlebutt, his wife had run off and he’d alienated his only two offspring.

The vandal disappeared into the pines at the back of the ranch house, the crowbar glinting in the dim light.

This time of the morning, there were no lights on in the small compound down the road from the ranch house, and few vehicles, since most of the men were out riding the huge ranch’s perimeter.

The ranch house was even more deserted since Mason VanHorn had flown to Gillette, Wyoming, two days ago for a gas convention and would be gone for at least another forty-eight hours.

Red had promised a large bonus to any man who caught the vandals or anyone else trespassing on the VanHorn Ranch before the boss got home.

And now Brandon had one in his sights.

A bank of clouds crushed out the light of the moon. Brandon moved, running fast. Had their vandal gone from wells to an even bigger prize: VanHorn’s house?

Brandon reached the trees and stopped, moving slowly through the darkness of the dense pines to the back of the house. The guy was nowhere in sight, but Brandon heard the snap of rain-soaked curtains in the wind and spotted the open window.

He thought about radioing for backup, but just the sound of the radio might warn the intruder. At the window, he raised the glass higher to accommodate his height of six-four, and climbed into what appeared to be a bathroom, since he found himself standing in a large tub, the wet curtains flapping behind him in the wind.