Lone Star on a Cowboy Heart Read online

  Montgomery drinks some of his beer, not reacting beyond a sleepy-eyed blink.

  “What do you want to know about Joel Troutman for?”

  “What can you tell me about him?” Montgomery asks.

  The bartender looks at him with his mouth pressed into a tight line, maybe hesitant or unsure. “You said Troutman’s married, right?”

  Montgomery nods.

  “Pretty sure he come in apart from Ed sometimes, with a woman named Donna. She’s a blonde. Got a nice rack. Only, she don’t wear a wedding ring… and times Joel showed up here with Ed and Ed’s wife, he was with a brunette.”

  Montgomery raises his chin and his eyebrows, swirling the base of his beer bottle above the bar top. “Troutman’s been screwing around. Hmm.”

  The bartender looks guilty for tattling, face now speckled with perspiration. “Anyway, that’s about the only thing I can think of,” he says.

  “You know Donna’s last name?” Montgomery asks. “Or somebody who does?”

  The bartender shakes his head. “No. But I got something else.”

  He walks off to the cash register at the end of the bar, opens the drawer, lifts the money organizer and pulls something out from under it. He comes back and pushes it across the bar top with his forefinger.

  A crumpled, dirty paper napkin with a phone number written on it.

  Montgomery looks up at him. “You know this is hers?”

  “Yeah. She left it for someone, when she was here alone once. He didn’t take it.”

  Montgomery sticks the napkin into his hip pocket and nods. “Thanks.”

  The bartender nods and leaves him alone, returning to the back end of the bar.

  Montgomery nurses his beer, listening to the soft noises of the television and people talking behind him, and circles around the question of what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to get too close, doesn’t want to touch it with his hands, but he’s aware of the question, even more than that now—attentive. He’s got no reason to care where the fugitive Joel Troutman is or where he goes with that sack of money. It’s sure as hell not his job to find him.

  But here he is.

  He can name all the things this isn’t about. It isn’t an irrational fear that Troutman will come back to avenge Ed Decker. It isn’t guilt over killing a man. It isn’t any kind of heroic urge begging to see Troutman brought to justice for the robbery, and it isn’t a rotten pulse of greed hankering for the hold-up spoils. It isn’t about Troutman at all, if he’s honest.

  Montgomery drains the beer bottle and leaves a five on the bar, before walking back out into the bleached daylight. He stands in the parking lot and lights a cigarette, watching the highway and the landscape on the other side of it. Tries to imagine Decker and Troutman scheming the robbery inside the saloon, drinking one night just the two of them, tossing around the idea without meaning it yet.

  He wonders if they were close.

  He doesn’t think they were.

  ~~*

  Sam gives himself an extra half hour to find the Barbee Ranch, and he uses about twenty minutes of it, after asking for directions at the Skull Valley General Store. The ranch is on the western side of Iron Springs Road and north of the town center, past a handful of other homesteads. Sam follows a skinny paved road branching off Iron Springs, then takes a couple dirt paths to the main entrance of Barbee’s property, marked with a sign in the metal archway above the gate reading BLITHE BEE RANCH. He drives in and sees Montgomery standing in the middle of the long, wide, unpaved driveway with his arms crossed and the back end of his pickup truck behind him. Sam parks his car and gets out, Carhartt work boots scraping at the gravel. He’s wearing his lined denim jacket, because he’d rather be too warm than cold for however long Montgomery’s going to keep him on horseback.

  “You’re on time,” Montgomery says, as Sam approaches him. “I was going to give you a half hour to be late finding the place.”

  “It’s not that hard to find with directions,” says Sam, without mentioning that Montgomery never offered any.

  “Hope you had breakfast. ‘round here, lunch is about noon.”

  The dirt drive winds past Montgomery’s pick-up and reaches far back into the property. The main house, where the Barbees live, is off to the left behind Montgomery. The ranch style home is long and low to the ground, painted white with forest green window and door trim, the roof’s wood shingles a dark, earthy brown. The front porch is covered and decorated with a few large potted plants, and there’s a rocking bench seat near the front door.

  Montgomery leads Sam around the house and across a grassy backyard to a big barn, its double doors already wide open. Sam waits for him as he disappears into the first stall on the right and reemerges leading a horse that’s already been saddled and bridled.

  “This one’s yours for the day,” he tells Sam.

  The horse is a dark chocolate brown, almost black, with a well-kept blonde mane and tail. He’s never seen a horse with her colors before, and he’s struck by how pleasing she is to look at. Her body is slender with graceful lines, and she has a kind face, black eyes peering at Sam with a look that he recognizes from various women he’s known: a combination of gentle concern and curiosity.

  “Her name’s Cavendish,” Montgomery says, handing him the reins. “Rocky Mountain breed, something special Bill gave his wife. Just about the easiest thing to ride around here.”

  Sam raises his hand to her nose and lets her sniff his palm. “Mrs. Barbee won’t mind me taking her?” he says.

  “Nope.”

  Montgomery disappears into the stall across from Cavendish’s and comes out leading a buckskin Quarter Horse. Like Sam’s, the horse is already saddled and bridled. The body is custard yellow, and the mane and tail are black, along with the horse’s ankles. Color wise, this horse appears to be the inverse of Sam’s. It has a masculine, handsome face and a thicker, stronger frame than Sam’s mare. It might be the most beautiful animal Sam’s ever seen, and just a minute ago, he thought that honor belonged to Cavendish.

  “This is Gold Dust,” says Montgomery. “Best all-around stock horse in Barbee’s stable.”

  He looks at the horse with a trace of affection in his eyes, the slightest smile on his lips, holding the reins in one hand. It’s the first time Sam’s seen him pleased by something, and he now realizes that if he’s going to understand and grow close to this man, he’ll have to learn to appreciate these animals.

  Without being asked, Montgomery moves to hold Cavendish steady, so Sam can mount her. It’s been years since Sam got on a horse, and he’s tentative when he sticks his right foot into the stirrup. Montgomery withholds instruction. Sam hauls his weight up onto the mare in one fluid motion, swinging his left leg over her and settling in the saddle. He forgot how high up he’d be. He’s not quite ready for Montgomery to hand over the reins and let go of Cavendish, but he doesn’t object. Montgomery hops onto Gold Dust and without a word, rides out of the barn ahead of Sam.

  Sam follows him. It doesn’t feel like he’s riding the horse—more like the horse is taking him along with her.

  Barbee’s homestead is a hundred acres of deeded land, most of it pasture for the horses, paired with five thousand acres of surrounding state land allotted for livestock grazing. With seven horses and fifty-five head of cattle, the ranch is a small operation, one that the Barbees chose for their retirement after decades on a much bigger ranch in southeastern Arizona. Headquarters on the deeded land consists of the main house, horse barn, working corrals, garage, storage shed, tack room, and shop. None of the ranch hands live on the property, but there are a couple mobile homes situated at a distance from the back of the main house, used when workers need to stay overnight. Montgomery explains to Sam that the Barbees plan on selling off the cattle when they can no longer take care of them and hold onto some of the horses.

  “You ever think about getting your own?” Sam asks, as they amble through an open pasture of yellow grass, riding west.

 
“When I was younger, I thought about it,” Montgomery says. “At some point, I realized that loving the work doesn’t mean I want to deal with the responsibility of ownership. Or the commitment. Owning things—it ties you down, makes it hard to move on to somewhere else should you care to.”

  The grazing pastures stretch the length of a football field behind the Barbee’s house, fenced apart from it and a patch of yard saved for grandchildren and their brightly colored playsets. Those pastures open up into wider fields that lead into wilderness, and the fencing disappears from sight in the back of the homestead, reaching far west along the front and the dirt road running parallel. A few of the other horses are scattered throughout the field, long necks sloping to the ground as they nibble on grass, heads lifting to watch the two men riding past them. Montgomery stays ahead of Sam by one horse length, and Sam can tell that he’s setting the pace slow to ease him into riding.

  They sit the horses at the edge of a plateau that slopes off into another stretch of plains several feet below and look around at Barbee’s land, at the treetops brushing the bottom of the sky and the mountains far beyond them. They breathe in the clear, cool air and don’t say a word for a long time, a single bird crying the only sound they can hear. The landscape has more color and beauty out here than in the other parts of Skull Valley Sam saw, including Montgomery’s own little homestead. It feels like they’re a thousand miles from civilization, even this close to the ranch house, and Sam doesn’t have a hard time imagining a solitary man disappearing into this space. His sheriff deputy work, the hunt for Joel Troutman, a world of robberies and murders might as well belong to someone else now.

  Sam glances over at Montgomery’s left hand resting on his thigh, notices the bare ring finger. “You ever been married?” he asks.

  Montgomery squints into the distance, his face tanned to a peachy brown from so much time spent outside. He’s quiet for a long time. “Once,” he says.

  Sam can’t tell if there’s anything in his voice like regret or nostalgia. He looks away, in the same direction as Montgomery and says, “Me and my ex-wife were together for six years, total. Married four.”

  “What was her name?”

  Sam looks at him again, almost surprised at the show of interest. “Jen.”

  “Jen Roswell,” Montgomery says, like he sees her out there, somewhere on the horizon line.

  “Not anymore,” says Sam, with just a touch of wistfulness.

  “When’d you split?”

  “About a year ago.”

  Montgomery looks over at him. “So that’s why you moved to Prescott. Ran away from her.”

  “I didn’t run away,” says Sam. “We lived in a small town. I thought it’d be easier on her if I left.”

  Montgomery turns his eyes back to the landscape and doesn’t argue.

  “What about you?” Sam asks, after a minute. “What was her name?”

  “Annalee.” Montgomery speaks the name like it’s something he put on a shelf and hasn’t touched in a long time. “Al for short.”

  Sam nods. Cavendish flicks her ears.

  “What’s she look like?” Sam says.

  Montgomery smirks and shakes his head. “Good enough for a man to make bad decisions. But it didn’t make much difference to me what she looked like.”

  Sam frowns in confusion.

  Montgomery starts his horse forward before Sam can ask him to explain.

  They ride down the slope and across another open pasture, continuing into a thicket of cottonwood trees that have yellowed for the season. It’s a little warmer now, the sun brighter in the sky.

  Sam thinks about his ex-wife as he keeps his eyes on Montgomery’s back. Jen is a real estate agent with long, blonde hair. They met in a country western bar, one night in Susanville, California—the Lassen County seat. She asked him for a dance, and he surprised her with how good he was. She’s an outdoorsy woman, like most people in California. She hikes, jogs, and goes four wheeling. When they lived together, she would go on long bike rides, weekend mornings. She never asked Sam to go with her. He never wanted to.

  It’s strange what you remember about someone gone from your life. Jen almost never painted her nails, but when she did, she always picked robin’s egg blue. She played on her high school softball team all four years but not in college. She has a raised scar about four inches long, starting at the base of her neck on the left side and angling down toward her shoulder blade at a diagonal. She’s wanted a tattoo since she was fifteen, but she could never decide what to get. Her lips were always soft; she used a lot of lip balm but rarely wore lipstick. When she tanned, the freckles surfaced across her face like a dash of cinnamon in a cup of milky coffee.

  Either Montgomery slows his horse or Sam speeds up, but they come alongside each other somehow, riding in silence for a few minutes more.

  “You think you’ll get married again?” Sam asks, blurting out the question the second it occurs to him.

  “Hell, no,” says Montgomery. “Didn’t agree with me the first time.”

  “Why not?”

  Montgomery glances at Sam and doesn’t answer.

  They ride under the cottonwood trees until they arrive at another clearing, where the mountains reappear in the distance, blue and impenetrable, following the horizon line as far as they can see. A few cows, two black and one brown, stand scattered before them.

  “You mind if I give this horse a run?” Montgomery asks.

  “No,” Sam says, looking over at him.

  Montgomery nods and knocks his heels into his horse’s sides, speeding up into a fast trot. He’s yards ahead in a minute or two, and Sam watches him, picturing Montgomery out here alone, day in and day out. He fits the scenery too well, the lone cowboy who’s half-wild animal himself, as good as caged at somebody’s dining room table with the forks on the left and the knives on the right. Sam wonders if anybody really knows Montgomery, if Sam can know him or if he’s too used to this silent relationship with nature to allow for human closeness. Maybe it’s a futile endeavor, trying to befriend a man like this one, but Sam wants to try. He wants to tread the bottom of the well.

  Montgomery rides in a wide arch, from right to left, coming back around toward Sam. The cows don’t flinch or flee as he passes them, knowing when to respond to horseback riders and when to ignore them. Sam runs his hand along the side of his horse’s neck, feeling her body respond to him, and watches as Montgomery returns.

  They continue on, silent again, walking the horses about as slow as they can go.

  Montgomery drapes the reins across his saddle and digs his lighter and a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. He lights up and says, “What about you? You looking to find wife number two?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam says, the answer more thoughtful than the question. “I don’t know what I want now. I thought I was going to be married to Jen forever.”

  Montgomery slips his lighter back in his pocket and smokes. The corners of his mouth quirk up, smile dying before it forms.

  “What?”

  Montgomery turns his head toward Sam, eyes weathered. “Forever’s a lie only people can tell themselves,” he says.

  He holds the cigarette in his fingers and looks out ahead into the landscape again, smoke squiggling away from his hand.

  Sam watches him longer than he should. He wonders if Montgomery really is that cynical. Wonders about Montgomery’s ex-wife, the kind of woman it takes to wrangle a man like that into marriage. He wants to ask why they split, whose idea it was, if Montgomery hates her or loves her. He holds his tongue because they don’t know each other well enough, and Montgomery strikes him as a private man.

  They ride deeper into the wilderness, through a grove of black walnut trees that have yellowed with autumn like the cottonwoods. They catch sight of a mule deer ahead, as it pauses to look at them before disappearing. A butterfly trails through the air between them, hovering low near their heads, until they’re almost out of the grove. On the other side are more
open plains, a huge pasture meant for livestock grazing that leads to the hills. They stop the horses with the trees at their backs and look out at the land.

  Perched on a log somewhere in the middle of the pasture is a row of lidless jars and beer cans.

  “Did you bring it?” Montgomery says, eyeing the log.

  Sam reaches into his jacket and pulls his sidearm from the holster on his belt. The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t issue weapons to their deputies but requires them to carry their own at all times while on duty. Sam never owned a gun in California except the one Lassen County gave him. Holding this one in his hand now, he stills finds it weird that it’s his, not something he can leave behind with the job. It was easy enough to get—firearm possession laws in Arizona are laughable—and he figures it would be easy enough to sell it if he wanted to.

  Montgomery looks over at him, sees the gun in Sam’s hand, and swings off his horse. He walks several yards ahead and stops, feet planted in a wide stance and the wispy grass brushing below his knees.

  Sam re-holsters his gun and has an awkward time of dismounting Cavendish, who is unbelievably patient for an animal bearing the weight of a grown man. Once he’s on the ground, he’s surprised to feel that his ass and thighs hurt like he’s been in the gym for a couple hours. He walks up to Montgomery’s side and waits for instructions.

  Montgomery brandishes his own weapon, the gun he used to shoot Ed Decker in the Dog Bowl Diner. He shows it to Sam. The frame is a clean stainless steel, and the grip is a rich, nutty brown wood. It’s obvious that Montgomery takes good care of it.

  “Good ‘ol Smith and Wesson, .45 ACP, eight rounds in the mag and one in the chamber,” he says. “You?”

  Sam holds out his gun in his right palm. It’s a Ruger LCRX .38 Special, a small black revolver loaded with hollow point bullets powerful enough to kill a man at point blank range with one shot. It’s the lightest gun Sam’s ever handled and easy to conceal. Maybe a revolver’s a little old-fashioned, and maybe a man should carry something bigger, heavier, flashier. But Sam liked the Ruger as soon as he picked it up in the gun store.