Duke: Deputy Cowboy

Polishing off his breakfast, Duke rinsed the dishes and the pan he’d used to scramble eggs, and put them in the dishwasher.

He tidied up and still found himself replaying comments Angie’s son had made about his dad. Angie had cut the boy off quick enough. But Luke kept pressing. Duke wondered if that might make Angie reconsider getting back together with the guy. How similar was her case to Colt’s having a kid he had no part in raising—a boy now almost a teen? Colt paid support, and just recently decided he’d like a relationship with his son—Evan was his name, who had a stepdad. Man, relationships could get messy.

Having told Dinah he’d be at the office early, Duke grabbed his hat and whistled to Zorro. He could speculate from now to kingdom come and still have no answers as to the real situation between Angie and her son’s birth daddy. And the truth of the matter was he had more to worry about than the Barringtons’ family situation. He had a string of robberies, the most recent of which left his family missing a very pricey horse. He locked the apartment and drove into town.

* * *

MONDAY NIGHT LUKE HAD RATTLED on nonstop—and he started in again this morning—begging Angie to sign him up for the Wild Pony Race. She was glad Dylan Adams had been discreet in volunteering to hunt up an age-appropriate team in case he didn’t find one. The deputy might even forget. He may only have used it as a cover because he’d all but accused her of horse thievery. Someone driving along the road saw her old black horse and told the sheriff, he claimed. But it was embarrassing to think anyone who knew her would even suggest dishonesty in any way, shape or form.

The sheriff probably had to be tough to get elected to that job. Angie only ever saw Dinah Hart at a distance or driving her patrol vehicle. They were about the same age, Angie knew from something Austin Wright said. Well, it didn’t matter how many townspeople thought she’d steal a horse, she never would.

And none of that addressed the issue of her allowing Lucas to chase off after some wild pony during a rodeo—which brought up another point. It pained her to think her grandfather had gone counter to her express wishes to not tell Luke anything about his father.

Angie considered Carter Gray a sperm donor at best, and a reluctant one at that. As if she’d gotten pregnant on purpose to hold on to him—to tie him down. He’d pursued her for a year, not the other way around. Oh, who cared? It was all ancient history. Carter had wanted a cook, a housekeeper and a bedmate was all. He hadn’t wanted a wife and he sure as heck never wanted a child. Gramps knew that. It must have had something to do with how ill he’d been with pneumonia last winter. Sick enough for the fever to let him ramble. So sick, a third round of antibiotics didn’t cure him.

How could she in good conscience blame a sick man, who in her hour of desperate need had opened his home and his heart to her and her unborn child? The answer was, she couldn’t. She’d have to negotiate Luke’s questions about his dad as best she could. It was just a shame the seed had been planted to make him want something that could never be.

“Mom!” Luke raced into the kitchen from the living room where he’d asked to eat his breakfast cereal while watching TV. “Guess what. Guess what,” he shouted.

Angie sighed. “What, Luke?” Of late he never went anywhere at less than a run, and he couldn’t seem to talk without his voice bouncing off the ceiling. The one positive thing she had noticed: when it was the two of them alone, he stuttered less. Angie continued to mix cookies. She had one more batch to bake to fill the last of her orders in town. As well she hoped to make another batch to sell at the roadside stand out at the county road along with her tree-ripened apples, farm-fresh eggs and an excess of summer squash. Every little bit extra she earned helped pay growing food costs for her rescued animals.

“On TV they have p-p-pictures of last year’s Wild P-pony Race. Come quick and see how fun it’ll be.”

His eyes glowed with excitement, so she couldn’t ignore his request. She followed him to where, sure enough, kids about his age in jeans, plaid shirts with numbers on their backs, and some wearing hats too big for their heads, were clinging to a long rope hooked to a pony’s hackamore. The children were being dragged through dust and dirt and, heavens, in some cases, mud. Oh, boy, this was not a ringing endorsement for something she wanted her young son to do.

“And Duke and his dog are there. S-see, Mom? Duke grabbed the pony and s-s-stopped him. The other g-guy said to win, one of the three kids has gotta get on the pony before he crosses that wh-white line.”

In his excitement, Luke talked too fast, and so began to stutter some.

“C-can I please sign up? Please, Mom!”

Angie loved him so much. But seeing the arena with lanky cowboys ringing the corral, hearing the roar of the rodeo crowd sent her reeling back to when watching the slapping, hitting, prodding of animals to get them to run, to buck or perform sickened her. Back to a time when the man who she thought loved her had promised to quit the rodeo circuit even though he never had the slightest intention of doing so. All of it caused Angie’s head to spin.

“We’ll see, Luke,” she said, wishing she lived in a town that didn’t live, eat, sleep and breathe rodeo. “I need to ask more questions, and really find out how safe it is before I’ll agree.” She felt relieved to see the station had gone on to show a row of booths at the fair portion of the weeklong affair. All the same, it hurt her to watch the slump of Luke’s skinny shoulders, and see him plop down in dejection, the light extinguished from his eyes.

* * *

DUKE SHOVED OPEN THE DOOR to the sheriff’s office with the elbow connected to his injured hand as he juggled two cups of hot coffee he’d picked up at the convenience store on his way into town. The office he shared with Dinah was little more than a hole in the wall large enough for two desks and a divided jail cell stretched side by side across the back. Two three-drawer filing cabinets separated the desks, and a few Wanted posters hung off a corkboard attached to one wall. Early as it was, Dinah already sat at her computer, but her desk was also strewn with papers, and there were telltale signs she’d already eaten a Snickers bar.

“Oh, I could kiss you,” she said, jumping up to relieve Duke of one steaming foam cup. She bumped his hand and he drew back with a moan.

“What did you do?” She narrowed her eyes at his still-swollen hand.

“Don’t tell Ace or my dad. I wrapped the bull rope too tight and couldn’t release it fast enough at the end of my eight-second ride. The bull whipped me around. I’m lucky it didn’t yank my elbow or shoulder out of a socket.”

“Will this injury jeopardize your point standing? Do you have to scratch an event?”

“No. It feels better today and my next rodeo isn’t until the weekend. I see you’re reviewing previous robberies. Anything new? Anyone call the tip line?”

“No calls since you phoned last evening to clear Angie.”

Duke sat at the second desk and turned on his computer.

“Rob Parker’s tip about seeing a black horse there gave me hope,” Dinah said. “Now we’re back to square one, darn it.”

“Angie’s ranch is definitely a dead end. I insulted her by the mere suggestion she’d harbor a stolen horse.”

The pair sat in silence a moment, sipping their drinks, each deep in thought. With Duke’s mind having reverted to Angie, he set down his cup, leaned forward and suddenly asked, “Dinah, do you know of any eight- to ten-year-old boys hankering to get in the Wild Pony Race but may need a third to make a team?”

Spinning in her chair, Dinah scrutinized Duke. Her keen mind always worked overtime. She laughed and poked him. “Angie has a son about that age. You wouldn’t be going soft on her, would you, coz?”

Wanting to hide his interest in Angie, Duke met Dinah’s probing eyes. “She has a cute kid, who happens to have a stuttering problem to which I can relate. I gathered he hadn’t made many friends last year in first grade. The boy, Luke is his name, got the flyer I handed out to his Sunday-school class. He wants to sign up in the worst way, but as you can imagine, his stuttering probably hinders other kids from including him. I thought I’d check around a bit is all.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry to hear about his problem. Sorry for Angie, too, even though I don’t really know her.” Dinah removed the lid from her cup and blew on the hot coffee. “Hmm, I just had a thought. Gary and Pam Marshall have twins who I think will be in second grade this fall. Tommy Marshall is a bit of a hellion. His brother, Bobby, is a nice, sweet kid. Last week I saw Pam at the library and she hadn’t yet signed the boys up to race. I’m pretty sure she said they lacked a third kid. Call her or Gary.”

“Thanks, I will.” Storing the information in his head to check into later, Duke accessed his computer copy of Dinah’s break-in file. “You know, like I said yesterday, horse thieving doesn’t fit the pattern we’ve assembled on our crooks. Everything else points to them being petty thieves. In all except this last robbery, they’ve taken items easily pawned or sold to secondhand shops.”

“True, but Ace knows he put Midnight in a pen behind the barn when he checked the laboring mare at eleven.”

“If Midnight accidentally got out I’d expect to find him in the field with the broodmares.”

“Ace checked there first. I’ve gone over and over every step we’ve taken to date. We’ve been thorough, Duke.”

“That’s what I told Jeff Woods and Farley Clark at the diner last night. Farley suggested you deputize his son, Rory, and his buddy Tracy Babcock. He seemed to think with adding boots on the ground, so to speak, you’d solve the case in no time.” Duke tossed that out obliquely, but wrinkled his nose as Dinah’s mouth fell agape.

“I hoped you were kidding, but I see you’re not. Does Farley know we start work before noon?” she said caustically. “I hear Rory doesn’t get up before then.”

Duke laughed. “Jeff said not to worry. Rory and his pal are too into partying with their girlfriends to want to work. I felt I had to warn you in case Farley takes his idea to the mayor.”

“Ah, well, the mayor will nix it quick. He’s in budget meetings with the city council all month. The last meeting someone suggested replacing all our rodeo/fair banners. The mayor went on for twenty minutes how there’s not one extra cent in the city’s discretionary fund.”

“In a way that’s a relief.” Duke glanced at the case file again. “What we have so far is this. The thieves know this area. They’re night owls. And they’re growing bolder.”

Dinah let out an exasperated sigh. “At first they lifted stuff they could toss in the back of a pickup. Now they have a horse trailer. A covered one, I assume, to conceal a distinctive horse.”

“If you want to follow up on leads where they may have unloaded the last custom saddles of Beau’s, Dinah, I’ll concentrate on getting word out to places where they could sell a horse,” Duke said. “I’ll email Midnight’s photo to Beau and Colt. Ace gave me a detailed description for livestock inspectors and auction barns. I’ll check online newspaper ads for private horse sales. What do you think about starting a blog we can hitch on to some well-known trade bloggers?”

“Great. But you do remember I’m registered for a professional development class in Billings the first week of August? I need to leave Sunday as workshops start early Monday. I can cancel if it conflicts with any of your scheduled rodeos. Your point standing to make the NFR is more important than my class.”

Duke took out his BlackBerry. He liked bull riding, and this year had his sights set on getting to and winning at Finals. He also wanted to catch these crooks.

“I’ll make Bozeman this weekend. I can skip Great Falls the days you’re talking about. Beau never misses that rodeo.”

“You’re twins, but it’s not as if you’re interchangeable in vying for the Finals. Beau isn’t in the running. You are.”

“Beau could be in contention. He’s the better rider,” Duke said offhandedly.

“Huh? Are you afraid he’ll beat you if you compete against him?”