Man Behind The Badge

Whether chasing a woman or a criminal, Charlie was a patient man.

“Hey, bro, thanks for coming out,” Adam said after he’d parked next to the ranch pickup and joined the other three men.

“No problem.” Briefly, Charlie clasped the hand Adam extended. Charlie had sold out his share of the ranch to his brothers, but they’d all remained close. Today’s summons was no surprise; Charlie would have been upset if they hadn’t called.

“How you doing?” he asked Travis, whose grim expression matched Adam’s.

“I’ve been better,” Travis replied around the stalk of grass stuck in the corner of his mouth. “Dead cattle’s a bad business.”

“That’s for sure. What happened?” Charlie looked from him to the vet, who’d been bent over a dun-colored steer with his black leather bag open beside him. Five other carcasses were scattered nearby.

The old vet packed up the specimens he’d been collecting. “I’ll know for sure when we hear back from the lab,” he said by way of greeting as he got to his feet, “but it looks pretty obvious to me what happened.”

The sick feeling Charlie had been trying to blot out came flooding back. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Doc Harmon glanced at Adam. “Show him what you found.”

Adam held up a bag Charlie hadn’t noticed before. “This was mixed in with some feed we found scattered nearby.”

Charlie glanced at the printing on the bag. It was a common brand. “Have any idea how it got out here?” he asked.

A muscle flexed along Adam’s jaw as he shook his head. “It’s the same kind we keep in the shed,” he replied. “I’ll have to check and see if it came from there, but everyone who works here knows better than to leave rat poison anywhere near the stock.”

The vet cleared his throat. When Charlie glanced at him, he said, “Looks deliberate to me. Maybe you’d better ask your brothers if they’ve made any enemies lately.”

When she heard a vehicle pull up outside, Robin set aside the three-month-old magazine she’d been reading and went to the window. Once in a while a car went by and she’d had several calls; no one had come into the clinic. Even the dog in the back was asleep.

She recognized the SUV, relieved Doc Harmon had returned. She had a lot of questions, a couple of them being whether she had anywhere to sleep tonight—or a job tomorrow. As she continued to watch through the window, he got out of his car, grabbed his bag and walked over to the olive-green Cherokee that had pulled in behind him. It had a gold star painted on the door and an official-looking row of lights on top. Through the back window she could see a rifle rack, and it wasn’t empty.

Robin couldn’t hear what they were saying and the vet’s back was to her as he leaned forward, but the smile Sheriff Winchester had worn earlier was noticeably absent. After a couple more moments, Doc Harmon straightened up.

The sheriff glanced at the clinic window and Robin moved away so he wouldn’t see her spying on them and get the wrong idea. By the time her boss came through the front door, she was standing behind the counter trying to look indispensable.

“Everything okay?” she asked innocently as the dog in the back room began barking again.

“Some days I really dislike this job.” He set his bag on the counter, looking tired. “How did you get on? Any emergencies?”

Robin told him about a couple of the calls she’d taken. “Nothing urgent,” she concluded. “I told them Erline would get back to them. Do you know when she’ll be in?”

“Tomorrow, I hope. Thanks for covering.”

“It doesn’t sound like things went well at the Winchesters’ spread,” she asked, prompted by both professional interest and personal curiosity. She’d mentally reviewed her brief encounter with the sheriff several times, wondering if her abrupt dash into the clinic had made her seem unfriendly, and then telling herself it didn’t matter what he thought as long as it didn’t affect her professionally.

The vet picked up his messages, but she had the impression that he wasn’t really looking at them. “Half a dozen dead cattle at the biggest ranch in these parts,” he said finally. “One of the hands found them this morning.”

Robin could understand his reaction. This was cattle country. A contagious disease could endanger an entire herd if it wasn’t treated in time. No wonder he looked worried. “Were you able to make a diagnosis?” she asked.

He ran his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “It looks like someone tainted their feed with rodent poison. The sheriff is looking into it.”

“The sheriff?” Robin echoed.

Doc Harmon nodded. “Cattle will eat damn near anything. Ranchers don’t leave poison around for them to get into.”

“So it was deliberate?” Robin asked. “Why would anyone do that?”

He shrugged. “Everyone has enemies.”

“Is there some kind of range war going on around here?” she probed.

His smile was fleeting. “This isn’t the Old West, my girl, but bad things still happen. Could be an unhappy ex-employee or an envious neighbor. Those boys have worked hard, and they’ve done well. I even heard a rumor that they’d had an offer for their land.”

He glanced around the office. “Did you get a chance to explore?”

Robin would have liked to ask more about the Winchesters, but she didn’t want to push. “A little.” She clasped her hands together and took a deep breath. “I know you expected me to get here yesterday, but I had car trouble. I should have let you know.” Before she could add anything more, anxiety closed around her throat like a noose, choking off her voice.

All Doc Harmon did was shrug again. “I was out most of the day and we’ve been having trouble with the answering machine, anyway. It’s nice you were here to get the phone today, though, so no one started thinking I’d died or retired.”

He glanced out the window as she nearly went limp with relief. “Car running okay now? You’ll need something reliable, you know.”

Her gaze followed his to where the sorry little coupe sat baking in the sun. “Oh, yes, it’s fine,” she assured him. “I guess I just expected too much, towing a trailer full of all my worldly goods.”

The doc glanced at the messages again and then he set them on the counter. “Speaking of which, I rented you a little house at the edge of town. If the bar down the street from it is too noisy, you can look for something else, but there’s not much of a choice right in town.”

Especially in my price range, she added silently. “I’m sure it will be fine. Thank you for going to the trouble.” She was trying to figure out how she could possibly ask for an advance when he pulled open a drawer in the battered desk.

“No trouble. Figured you might need to get a few things.” He thrust a check at her.

Robin stared speechlessly at the amount. She’d been on her own for so long, counting on no one but herself, that she was blindsided by his gesture. She ducked her head, her eyes filling with tears that she barely managed to blink away before they ran down her cheeks. She had to be more tired than she’d realized to get so emotional.

“Thank you.” She looked up. “I can use this.”

The crusty expression relaxed for a moment. “You’ll earn it,” he said gruffly. “I’m an ogre to work for. Ask anyone.”

Somehow she doubted that very much. For one of the few times she could remember since her aunt had died, the hard knot of tension in Robin’s chest eased up. When she’d been sending out rеsumеs, she’d almost decided not to answer his ad, figuring an old geezer in a small town surrounded by cattle ranches would never consider hiring a woman as his assistant. “You don’t scare me,” she replied somberly.

“We’ll see about that.” Chuckling, he glanced at the plain round wall clock above the door. “I can manage for now. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon to get settled? Open a bank account, get some groceries. I’ve got the key to your place here somewhere.” He fished around in the drawer while Robin folded the check he’d given her and tucked it into her pocket.

“Are you sure? I can stay, if you need me.”

He handed her a brass key. “The lights and water are hooked up, and I had your phone connected.”

“What do I owe you?” she asked. “Didn’t you have to pay deposits on the utilities?”

This time his laugh was more of a cackle. “This ain’t Chicago, Doctor. All I did was to tell them you were coming to work for me. And this way, people can start calling you in the middle of the night ’stead of me when their prize stud gets a sliver in his arse.”

She wondered how long it would be before anyone around here actually did request her services, rather than merely tolerate her whenever the “real” vet was otherwise occupied. “Can you give me directions to my house?” she asked after she’d thanked him again.

The words my house danced on Robin’s tongue. Since moving out of Aunt Dot’s, she’d lived in college dorms and rundown apartments with an assortment of roommates to keep the rent low, but she’d never had a place to really call her own. She was determined to make this a real home, despite it being another rental and no matter what the condition.