The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda Read online

  “Am I allowed to go to the bathroom?” she asked, teeth clenched.

  His reply came from the other side of the gray mare. “Doubt if you’ll find a bathroom, but you’re welcome to use a bush.”

  Her heart pounded. Was this the moment? How quickly could she mount up-more quickly than he could grab the reins? Don’t be stupid. He’s got a faster horse than you have, and he knows the terrain. Be patient, Lauren. This is not the time.

  As she stalked into the brush she heard Bronco call, “I’d check real good for rattlers if I were you.”

  Chapter 4

  The phone call came that evening during dinner at the gracious brown-brick Georgian home of Pat Graham, in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., where Rhett and Dixie had gone to await developments out West. The attorney general left the dining room to take the call in her study, and when she returned her face was grave.

  Rhett reached for Dixie’s hand. “News?” he asked quietly.

  “That was Vernon,” Pat said as she seated herself. Her movements were slow and careful, and her eyes didn’t quite meet those of her guests. She placed her napkin across her lap. “They heard from the Navajo Tribal Police. A sheep-herder named Billie Chee reported finding your daughter’s truck and trailer around noon today abandoned on the Big Reservation near Window Rock. Vernon’s people are going over it now.”

  Rhett nodded; he’d been prepared for something of the sort but felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach nonetheless. “From what you’ve told me about these people, I doubt they’ll find much,” he said flatly. “Any word from McCullough’s ranch? Do they know where he’s holding her?” Curled inside his, Dixie’s fingers felt like ice.

  Pat Graham picked up her knife and fork, stared at her plate for a moment, then carefully laid the utensils back down. “Vern and Henry both have their people out there in force. They’ve had the place under surveillance since about eight this morning, local time.” Rhett made a sharp sound. The attorney general glanced at him. “Nobody’s gone in or out since then, but that doesn’t mean much. McCullough would have been expecting something of the sort, I’m sure. He wouldn’t keep Lauren there-most likely moved her out during the night. They could have her stashed just about anywhere by now-there’s a lot of wide-open country out there.”

  Dixie clapped a hand over her mouth. Unable to sit still, Rhett pushed back his chair. “I need to be out there,” he muttered, driving a hand through his hair. “I can’t just…sit here, while my daughter’s out there somewhere-God knows where-held hostage by some damn…militia!” He was standing, now, gripping the back of Dixie’s chair. He wondered why it didn’t snap in his hands.

  Pat rose, too, and leaned toward him, bracing her hands on the white linen tablecloth. “Rhett, I know how you must feel.” Her umber eyes were intent, her voice low and earnest. “But I can only advise you very strongly not to do that. We cannot have the media getting hold of this. We’d be putting your daughter in grave danger if we do. SOL’s instructions were very emphatic on that point. You must proceed with the campaign schedule as if nothing’s wrong, right up till the convention.”

  Rhett expelled a breath. “Where I will regretfully decline the nomination for president.”

  Pat nodded. “Once you’ve done that, your daughter will be released unharmed. So they say.”

  Pacing, Rhett uttered a profanity. “They can’t be al lowed to get away with this,” he growled. “Think what it would mean-hell, it amounts to a coup! The end of our political system as we know it, the rule of law, the will of the majority-”

  “Rhett.” Dixie caught his hand and held on to it.

  He halted and passed a shaking hand over his eyes. “She’s my child, my little girl. I don’t know what I’d do if…” He sought Dixie’s eyes, like chips of an autumn sky, and clung to them as if they were the light of hope.

  “We’re going to get your daughter back,” the attorney general said with quiet conviction.

  Rhett threw her an angry look. “Seems to me you’ve got to find her first. Is Vernon certain she’s not at McCullough’s?”

  She hesitated a beat too long. “Not absolutely certain, no. And there’s no way they can be until they get in there. But rest assured, he and Henry will take no overt action until they know your daughter is out of harm’s way.”

  “Pat, this isn’t a damn press conference,” he snapped, then immediately followed that with a heavy, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

  Only once before in his life had the future seemed so black, so terrifying, ironically also a time when he’d feared his children might be lost to him forever. Sixteen years ago, and it seemed like yesterday. Back then, too, it had looked as if he might be forced to make an unthinkable choice. Back then the choice had been between his children and Dixie, the woman who had become as essential to him as the air he breathed. Now, as then, the stubbornness inherent in his nature insisted there had to be another possibility. A third choice.

  “This man Henry’s got on the inside-the one he says is going to keep my daughter safe. What have you heard from him? Seems to me if anybody’d know where Lauren is being held…” He paused at something in the attorney general’s eyes. “What?”

  The woman’s face was a study in mute sympathy. “I wish I knew. At last report he hadn’t checked in since the night before Lauren was taken. Henry hasn’t heard from him in almost forty-eight hours. We don’t even know if he’s-”

  “Alive?” Rhett finished for her.

  Pat shrugged and looked away.

  They arrived at the entrance to the camp around midnight, by the light of a full moon. Bronco suspected Lauren had been dozing in the saddle for the past hour or so, but she came wide awake when he spoke to the sentry. As they rode close together through the barbed-wire gates, she murmured in a voice slurred with exhaustion, “Where are we?”

  He allowed himself a wry smile, knowing she couldn’t see it in the moonlight. “Welcome to Liberty.”

  “Liberty?” Though her face was turned toward him, its expression was hidden from him by shadows. He could only hear her confusion in her voice.

  He didn’t even try to keep the irony out of his. “That’s the sovereign and independent nation of Liberty. The laws of the oppressive and totalitarian regime known as the United States of America have no dominion here.”

  “You people have your own country?” She had missed the irony. No longer sounding the least bit sleepy, her voice cracked on the last word.

  He gave it some thought, debating whether to point out to her that, as a matter of fact, his people were indeed a sovereign nation. “Well, now, I’m not sure whether you could call Liberty a country, at least not yet, but we have declared our independence from the U.S. of A., yes, ma’am.”

  “Why?”

  He intoned, “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights-”’

  “You’re quoting me the Declaration of Independence?” Lauren squeaked, edging toward outrage before adding sourly, “And, anyway, it’s ‘inalienable rights.’ At least get it right!”

  “You sure about that?” Bronco pretended surprise.

  “Yes, I’m sure. It’s ‘inalienable’-everybody knows that.”

  Her tone-huffily superior-amused him. “Well, now,” he said somberly, “maybe you ought to look it up before you go and bet the farm on that.”

  “Bet! Who said anything about a bet?”

  “So, you’re not sure.”

  “Of course I’m sure-I’m a lawyer, dammit! Don’t you think I know the Declaration of Independence?”

  “And I’m a revolutionary,” Bronco countered in an even tone. “We take our creeds pretty seriously. And by the way, it goes on to say that ‘whenever any form of government becomes destructive to those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…as shall seem to them most likely to eff
ect their safety and happiness.’ End of quote. That’s all we’re doing here-exercising our rights as set forth by our founding fathers.”

  “Your founding fathers! You just said you people declared yourself independent of the ‘U.S. of A.’ What, you get to pick and choose what parts you want to keep?” She was wide awake now and becoming more and more incensed by the minute. So incensed, in fact, that Bronco wondered if maybe it was some kind of protective mechanism kicking in, so she wouldn’t have to think about the position she was in and how scared she was.

  He, on the other hand, was enjoying himself more than he had all day. More, in fact, than since he’d had the in credibly bad judgment to dance with the woman at Smoky Joe’s.

  He watched the dark shapes of rabbits bounding through the silvery meadow like fish jumping in a moonlit ocean, and said serenely, “That’s about the size of it. Throw away the stuff that doesn’t work, keep what does. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well…sure.” Her tone was grudging. “But you don’t do it with violence!”

  “Who said anything about violence?”

  “Oh, I suppose I’m here because you asked me nicely to please come and help you blackmail my father out of the presidential race! And what about that guard back there? You think I didn’t notice he had a gun? A very big gun.”

  The shadow of a hunting owl brushed silently past them and the rabbits vanished. But an instant later Bronco heard a high-pitched squeal, cut ominously short. “He has a gun,” he said mildly. “He’s exercising his constitutional right to bear arms.”

  Apparently too preoccupied to have noticed either the owl or the rabbits, Lauren turned her face toward him. In the moonlight her eyes looked like soot smudges on blue marble. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” she said in a cold contemptuous voice. “That’s all you militia types care about. Guns. You know what my father stands for.” Swearing angrily under her breath, she shifted around to face forward again.

  A moment later the gray mare broke into a gallop. Not as if the woman was seriously trying to escape, Bronco realized. More likely her horse had picked up on some unconscious need to blow off steam. It was a condition he more than understood, but even so he wasted no time catching up with her. He’d hate for the sentries tracking their progress across the meadow with infrared cameras, high- powered binoculars and night-vision scopes to get the wrong idea.

  “Lady, it’s too damn late and too damn dark to be doin’ that,” he scolded as he took hold of the mare’s bridle and slowed them back to a walk. “It’s a rough trail. Take it easy. You may’ve been napping in the saddle since dark, but the horses are dog tired and so am I.”

  She glanced at him and didn’t say anything, and he was glad he couldn’t see the look in her eyes.

  Actually, he decided he rather liked having her mad at him. He’d a lot rather have her riled up than the way she’d been this morning when he’d found her hanging on to the gray mare’s saddle, looking about one good gulp of air away from breaking down.

  Bronco wasn’t exactly known for his tender heart, except where horses were concerned, and it had surprised him more than he cared to admit how close he’d come to gathering her into his arms right then and there. How much he’d wanted to stroke his fingers through that hair of hers that reminded him of a high-country meadow in the wintertime and tell her if she’d just trust him, everything was going to come out all right.

  He’d thought about telling her the truth right then, just to keep her from trying anything stupid, if nothing else. Thing was, he didn’t know whether he could trust her. In the end he’d decided he couldn’t take the chance that she might, in some small way, maybe with a look or a gesture, give him away. He’d been under a long time-too long. The number-one commandment of the undercover operative-Thou shalt not blow thy cover-was so ingrained in him it was a natural part of who he was. He wasn’t even sure there was still the capacity for truth in his soul.

  They crossed the rest of the meadow in silence. Lauren kept her eyes fixed on the road-no more than a track, really, gravel or trampled grass in places, marshy in low spots where water had collected from a recent thunder shower-and tried not to think about what lay ahead. Liberty. She shuddered and wished she could find something amusing in the irony of that. But her sense of humor had deserted her. Everything she could recall reading about militia organizations involved well-publicized acts of violence, and her circumstances seemed far too perilous for levity.

  It occurred to her, though, that under different circumstances the night might have held a certain magic. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine it, a moonlight ride through a high-country meadow with a man who stirred her senses and ignited the romantic fires in her soul-fires she thought she’d snuffed out long ago, but that, it now appeared, had only been temporarily banked.

  A pine-scented breeze stirred her hair, and she opened her eyes to find that the man riding beside her, prudently close enough to grab her mount’s bridle if she tried to run away, was still Johnny Bronco-a charming lying renegade Apache with nothing less than the violent overthrow of the U.S. government on his agenda. The last man on earth she’d have chosen to be alone with on a lovely moonlit night.

  But the instant the thought formed in her mind, she knew there was something wrong with it, something that didn’t fit, something she’d overlooked. But as she chased it through the chaos in her mind, trying her best to pin it down, the stallion, Cochise Red, suddenly bugled a warning. Beneath her she felt the gray mare tense and tremble with her own shrill reply. A moment later, dark shapes emerged silently from the trees to surround them with guns at the ready. Welcome to Liberty.

  The armed guard escorted them through a forest of tall pines, a ghostly landscape of deep shadows and slanting streaks of moonlight that seemed eerily busy in spite of the quiet, as if unseen beings lay watching, listening, marking their passing. Overhead the trees made soft swishing sounds in the breeze. The nighttime chill seeped through the sweatshirt Bronco had given her and into her bones, and deep inside she began to shiver.

  The forest ended at a wide, upward-sloping stretch of bare ground that gleamed like a snowfield in the moonlight. At the far end of the clearing, tucked under the overhang of a looming escarpment and probably almost invisible from above, stood a house-just a cabin, really-made of logs. Incongruously charming, it had a wide porch that extended across the front, a stone chimney at one end and, opposite that, a long extension that looked as though it might once have been an open-sided shed, enclosed now with walls of rough-cut logs.

  The cabin door stood open, and Lauren could see the man who waited silently on the porch outlined against the soft glow of light from inside. Gil McCullough. She knew him at once, even from a distance, by his faintly military stance-feet apart and firmly planted, arms confidently folded across his chest-and by the pewter shine of his crewcut hair.

  The militia leader started down the steps as Bronco brought all three horses to a halt just below the porch and slid lightly from the saddle. Lauren noticed that only one of their armed escort was still with them; the others had melted soundlessly away. The remaining guard waited a short distance away, eyes watchful in his blackened face, automatic weapon cradled in his arms, while Bronco spoke briefly in an undertone to McCullough.

  Then Bronco slipped past the gray mare’s head, clucking to her as he slid his hand along her neck. He gathered the reins from Lauren’s slack fingers and, with one arm resting on the pommel of her saddle, said in the same gentle tone he’d used with the horse, “Are you gonna get down offa there or not?”

  But Lauren sat frozen in the saddle, glued to it by pride and the steadfast resolve that she would sooner die where she was than ever let him know-let any of them know-how stiff and saddle sore she was. She was accustomed to riding, but she’d never spent nearly eighteen solid hours in the saddle before.

  “Need a hand?”

  “No, I don’t need a hand.” Her voice matched the bone-chilling cold in her hear
t; if she’d never fully understood the term “cold-blooded murder” before, she did now. “If you would, please, get out of my way?”

  Bronco instantly stepped back with a gesture of mocking gallantry. Summoning every ounce of willpower she had, Lauren gripped the saddlehorn, swung her leg around, disengaged her boot from the stirrup and eased herself to the ground.

  When she did, it seemed as though every muscle from her waist on down screamed in agony. A groan pushed against her clenched jaws and a gasp lay locked inside her chest as she let go of the saddle and slowly turned.

  “A little stiff?” Bronco inquired.

  “A little.” She said it lightly, striving to keep her breathing inaudible.

  She was also trying, under the guise of brushing herself off and setting her clothing to rights, to stretch the stiffness out of her legs. With three men watching her, she would not walk up that hill bow-legged and rump-sprung. She wouldn’t.

  But the minute her clothing shifted and the air hit the four spots on her body-two on the insides of her knees and two more on her backside-that had been rubbed raw by the friction of the saddle, they began to burn like fire. Exhausted tears sprang to her eyes. She was sure she’d never been more miserable, or in more pain, in her life.

  The next thing she knew, Bronco was taking her arm, guiding her up the slope to the foot of the steps with such gentleness, such subtle solicitude, that she felt bewildered, almost undone.

  What was this? Compassion? Sympathy? Kindness? From her jailer? Perversely, instead of gratitude, now it was anger that made her eyes sting with helpless tears. To feel beholden to her kidnapper seemed the final insult-salt on her wounded pride.

  Furious and seething, she jerked her arm from Bronco’s grip just as he was presenting her to Gil McCullough like the spoils of some great conquest.