Operation Cowboy Daddy

He was almost finished eating when the men from the Humes ranch walked over to him. “Hey, Tony, I heard through the grapevine that you have a little papoose,” Lloyd Green said and then snickered.

“Are you going to teach him how to hunt with arrows?” Zeke asked.

“Or maybe how to scalp somebody?” Ace added.

Tony turned around on the stool to face the men, his blood boiling at their utter disrespect, the vile offensiveness of their words.

Flashbacks from his painful childhood raced through his head, flashbacks that had made Tony hate the very blood that flowed through his veins.

All three men balled their hands into fists. It was obvious they were spoiling for a little entertainment in the form of a fight. Tension snapped in the air.

“Ignore them, Tony,” Trisha said softly, yet urgently.

He had been taught by the tough Cass Holiday to never start a fight, but she’d also told him never to walk away from one.

He was just about to get off his stool when the chief of police, Dillon Bowie, entered the café. “Afternoon, gentlemen.” His gray eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem here?”

“No problem.” Lloyd moved the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other as he backed away from Tony’s stool. The two younger men followed his example and stepped back.

“We were just on our way out,” Zeke mumbled. The three hurried out the door.

“They’re a bunch of jerks,” Trisha exclaimed as Dillon took the stool next to Tony’s.

The lawman’s eyes bore into Tony’s. “Don’t tell me there’s new bad blood brewing between all of you.”

“Like Trisha said, they’re just a bunch of jerks,” Tony replied as his blood slowly returned to a more normal temperature. “Anything new on the investigation?”

Tony didn’t have to say specifically what investigation—there was only one that he was interested in and only one that had been the talk of the town for months.

Dillon’s eyes darkened. “Nothing new.”

“Would you tell me if there was something new?” Tony asked.

Dillon gave him a dry grin. “Probably not.”

Tony knew that he and every other cowboy on the ranch were suspects in the fifteen-year-old murder case that had rocked not only the people on the Holiday ranch, but also the entire town of Bitterroot.

“I’ve got to get moving,” Tony said as he stood. “I’ve got things to attend to.”

“I’m sure I’ll see you later,” Dillon said.

“’Bye, Tony,” Trisha added.

Once he was back in his truck, thoughts of the murders filled Tony’s mind. It had been just after Cass’s death in the aftermath of the spring tornado that the skeletons of seven young men had been found buried under an old building that was being torn down.

The murders had been committed around the time period that Cass had brought in twelve teenagers who had been living on the streets in Oklahoma City to work on her ranch, making all of the men still working there today potential suspects.

He shoved these thoughts aside as he pulled into the parking lot of the Bitterroot General Store. Inside, a person could buy everything from a fancy evening dress to a part for a lawn mower. He hoped he could find anything that Mary might need to take care of the baby.

An hour later he finished placing the last item in the bed of his pickup and then headed back to Mary’s house. He knew this was only a temporary arrangement. He had to find Amy. He had to know if the baby was really his, or if she’d lied about who the baby’s daddy was to Mary.

One of the reasons he’d stopped seeing Amy was because of her lies. He frowned and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. What kind of trouble was she in and when would she reappear?

He couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to think of Amy’s friend, but the shock of being left with a baby had numbed his brain.

It was almost four when he pulled back into Mary’s driveway and sat for a moment as he gazed at the house before him. The ranch-style home was on a huge lot with tall cottonwood trees along the back perimeter.

It exuded a sense of welcoming, with its warm dark beige color and the last of the summer flowers spilling a colorful display into flower beds across the front of the house and in pots on the front porch.

A sense of fear whipped through him. What if in the hours he’d been gone Mary had changed her mind? He meant nothing to Mary Redwing and she certainly had no reason to take on his troubles.

If truth be told, he knew very little about her. He knew only that she’d been a kind and caring friend to Amy and that her reputation around town was stellar.

He got out of his truck and grabbed several of the bags, filled with formula and diapers, and then knocked on the front door.

Mary opened the door to allow him inside. The air smelled of something cooking and Joey was asleep on a blanket in the middle of the living room. There was no sign of Mary’s grandmother.

Mary gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen, where he placed the plastic bags on the top of the table. “There’s more in the truck,” he said.

She frowned at him. “You said this was just for a couple of days.”

“It is,” he assured her. Stress welled up inside him. What if Amy didn’t make contact within the next day or two? Then what was he going to do?

He shoved these thoughts aside. He couldn’t think about that scenario right now. “I bought a small playpen for him to sleep in and a bouncy chair thingy that Jenna McCain in the general store insisted I needed. I’ll just go grab them and be right back.”

Once again Mary met him at the door and this time indicated he follow her down a hallway and into what appeared to be a storage room. Plastic shelving rose from floor to ceiling along one side of the room, each shelf holding colorful multishaped baskets, beautiful pottery items and a variety of clothing carefully folded.

“You can set up the playpen in here.” She pointed to an empty space near the window. “I need to get back to the kitchen. You can come back in there when you’re finished in here.”

Tony watched as she left the room and disappeared down the hallway. He set the playpen box down on the carpeting and opened it.

He was just placing the pads around the sides when he sensed somebody nearby. He turned to see Halena standing in the doorway. “Hello again,” he said.

“Tony Nakni. Are you a good Choctaw warrior?” Her gaze was dark and unfathomable.

He didn’t know how to answer. He wasn’t a good Choctaw anything. He knew nothing about that part of his DNA. He’d been taught from a young age that his Native American blood was something to be ashamed of.

Still, he had a feeling that the question was far more important than anything Mary had asked him and that his answer might screw up this whole arrangement.

“I try to be,” he finally replied.

Halena stared at him for another long minute. Her piercing gaze seemed to be probing into the very soul he believed he didn’t possess and then she turned and walked away.

* * *

“I knew that girl was big trouble from the time she was young,” Halena said as she came into the kitchen. “And I’m not sure that man in there is any better.”

Mary turned from the stove, where she’d been stirring a big pot of stew. “None of that matters. What’s important right now is the baby.”