The Cowboy Meets His Match

“You know, Jacquelyn, at my age a woman can’t help warming her hands at the fire of the past. But while we should always recall our dead, this world belongs to the living.”

Jacquelyn raised an interrogatory eyebrow, waiting for more. “Yes?” she encouraged.

But Hazel kept her waiting, as if she was mulling possible explanations for the old matriarch’s secret.

Finally she said, “You told me last time that you want to capture the true feel of Jake’s pioneer experience, remember?”

“Of course. I hoped my articles were doing that.”

“Your articles are wonderful, dear. Quite honestly, I expected the usual twaddle and bunkum about grizzled pioneers. But you’ve captured the essence of Jake McCallum better than any other writer who’s tried. And many have.”

Hazel snatched up a copy of last week’s Mystery Gazette from a pedestal stand beside her chair.

“‘Jake McCallum,”’ she read out loud, “‘was a man who went a great distance while others were still debating whether to leave today or tomorrow.”’

The corners of her eyes crinkled deeply when Hazel laughed. “Jacquelyn, you do understand that old rascal’s basic nature. But for your own sake I want you to go that great distance, too. Or at least part of it. The important part.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“I’d like you to actually repeat Jake’s original journey. Not the entire trip, of course. As you already know, his original plan was to travel from his home in St. Louis all the way north to the Yukon to mine for gold.”

Jacquelyn smiled. “Yes. Until he was waylaid in a beautiful Montana valley to help a rancher with some straying cattle, right?”

“Right as rain. Because that rancher had a pretty daughter of marrying age named Libbie. One look at her, and Jake wrote back home that he was settling in Montana. The part of his journey that Jake’s journal mentions most was the hard, but beautiful, five-day ride through the mountains and Eagle Pass to this valley. Called McCallum’s Trace to this day.”

“And that’s the part of the journey you’d like me to make?” Jacquelyn mulled the odd suggestion for a few moments. Well, so what if it was a bit…eccentric of Hazel to suggest it? After all, Jacquelyn didn’t want to be one of those journalists who never left the office to find a story. And it really was an important piece of American history.

“All right,” she finally agreed, her face brightening. “It sounds like fun. My family has a Hummer at the summer lodge here that usually just sits in the garage. I’ll borrow it. I could also—what?”

She broke off, confused at the way Hazel was shaking her head to silence her.

“Jacquelyn, we’re talking about the ‘true feel,’ remember? Your own words. My lands, Jake didn’t cross those high-altitude passes in a Hummer—nor was there a highway, just an old Sioux Indian game trail. That’s still all there is up there.”

Jacquelyn’s jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes widened. “Hazel. You want me to ride across the original trace? Five days on horseback?”

“Well, you do ride, don’t you? I’ve seen you in your fancy riding britches. And there’s horses at your place.”

“Well…yes, I ride. But—”

Hazel dismissed her objections with a careless wave. “I rode that trail myself when I was about your age. Never in winter, of course, as Jake did. In August, just like you’ll be doing. Gets a bit nippy at night, especially up in Eagle Pass. Sure, you might even see some snow, but it’s quite exhilarating.”

“Hazel, you simply don’t understand. I ride, yes. But it’s the English style I learned at boarding school. You know—dressage, preparation for show jumping, things like disciplined turns and reverses, fancy jumps and tricky hurdles. Not trail riding in rugged mountains. Hazel, I—that is, I’ve never even been a Girl Scout. I wouldn’t know the most basic—”

“Oh, all your objections are just pee doodles,” Hazel scoffed, her eyes cutting to an ormolu clock on the mantel. “Because you’re going to have the perfect guide for this little trek.”

“Guide?” Jacquelyn repeated, immediately feeling like a parrot.

“I should say! None other than Mystery’s own world-champion saddle-bronc rider, A. J. Clayburn.”

Hazel opened up a photo album lying on the pedestal table and passed it over to her visitor. “This is A. J. at the rodeo at the Calgary Stampede, accepting his World Cup. One of the proudest days in Mystery’s recent memory.”

Jacquelyn took in gunmetal-blue eyes as direct as a Remington, an unruly thatch of thick, brown hair that touched his collar. The scornful twist to the mouth irritated her immediately. The handsome man in this photo radiated the easy calm and confidence, bordering on arrogance, of men who were good at handling animals—and thought the talent translated to women, as well.

“You’ve seen him around town, no doubt?” Hazel inquired.

Jacquelyn nodded, still too numb and confused by all this to speak. She had seen him around town, all right. How could anyone miss those metallic eyes and his wide-shouldered, slim-hipped frame? A. J. Clayburn was straight off the cover of a Western novel—but whether the hero or the bad guy, she wasn’t sure. Still, there was no mistaking the living, breathing personification of a great American myth.

But there was no way Hazel could expect her to travel McCallum’s Trace with this man. It was like putting a duck in the desert. He was utterly foreign to Jacquelyn’s genteel, urban world, and vice versa.

Hazel seemed to read some of these thoughts in her visitor’s stunned face.

“Believe me, honey,” she assured, taking the photo album back from her. “You’ll quickly learn to appreciate A.J.’s qualities. He’s what we Western gals like to call an ‘unflighty’ man. Nowadays, of course, that’s not what it once was. I don’t recall any flighty men who took Omaha Beach.”

“Hazel, I just don’t think—”

“Generally,” Hazel nattered on blithely, cutting her off, “when he’s not on the rodeo circuit, you’ll find A.J. perched on the top board of a corral somewhere in the valley.”

“Hazel, honestly, I can’t see me—”

“But he’s not riding this season, you understand. At the year’s first rodeo in Miles City, A.J. caught his spur in a cinch. The horse went over on his leg and crushed it. Now he’s knitting, but it was a bad fall. It’s not clear if the doctors will certify him for the circuit again. Leaves A.J. with some free time to take on guide jobs for me.”

“I’m sorry he’s had an accident. But—”

“Not that he’s pining away and burning any daylight,” Hazel charged on. “Lands no! A.J. stays busy—a little too busy, if you catch my meaning.” She winked. “He’s left a mighty long trail of broken hearts, but still I remember his ma and pa. They were something fierce in love. The kind you don’t see nowadays. A love like the kind I had.” Hazel smiled at her. “Oh, he’ll have a love like that one day. It’s just taken him a while to come around. In the meantime, while his leg’s been healing, he’s helping out his old partner Cas Davis. Cas runs a popular rodeo-riding school in Thompson Falls.”

Hazel finally paused to take a breath.

“I can’t do this,” Jacquelyn blurted out. “I’m sorry. Not only am I unprepared for the ride, but A. J. Clayburn is a stranger to me. I can’t just go camping in the wilderness—”

“He won’t be a stranger in a few minutes,” Hazel assured her, again glancing at the clock. “A.J. will be here any moment now to meet you.”

For a short, panicked moment, Jacquelyn felt her breath catch.

“Meet me?” she repeated foolishly, stunned at this massive loss of control in her very controlled life. Am I a mail-order bride? she almost asked in disbelief.

“Since you’ll be spending so much time alone with A.J.,” Hazel added, “I suppose I should also mention that he has a recently acquired police record.”

Jacquelyn could feel the blood drain from her cheeks. Hazel laughed.

“Steady, dear. He can be rehabilitated. I’m quite sure of it. You’ve heard of Red Lodge, Montana?”

Still shell-shocked, Jacquelyn answered woodenly. “The town where cowboys and rodeo types rendezvous every Fourth of July for a party, right?”

“I suppose you could call that annual riot a party. Anyhow, this year A.J. was arrested for riding his horse into the Snag Bar saloon. Evidently, a deputy or two ‘accidentally ran their jaws into my fist,’ as A.J. put it in court.”

Oh, great, Jacquelyn thought, her stomach sinking. So he’s a drunken brawler, too? How lucky can one woman get?

“If you really want the true feel of being with Jake McCallum and along on his ride,” Hazel told the reporter, “you couldn’t be with a more similar man. Just as Jake was, A.J. is fast out of the gate.”