“That would be mighty helpful. She had a boyfriend, didn’t she?”
“They broke up. A couple of weeks ago. Chad Ammon. He’s one of our drivers, doubles as bell staff. He’s off today.”
“Is that Stu Ammon’s boy?”
“It is.”
“And would you know who did the breaking?”
“She did. He cheated on her with a girl out of Missoula—and a girl from Milltown before that—so she showed him the door. I want to say—and I know you’ll need to talk to him, too—Chad is absolutely slippery when it comes to women, but there’s not a mean bone in his body. And he was about as upset about getting the boot as he’d have been nicking himself shaving. Just something that happens.”
“Was she seeing anyone else?”
“She was, how’d she put it? Taking a breather from…” She glanced at the grannies. “A certain anatomical part. I saw her almost every day, and she’d have told me if she’d shifted her mind on that.”
“All right then. I appreciate you laying all that out for me, Bo.” After tucking his book in his pocket, Tate got to his feet. “That was fine coffee, Mrs. Bodine. I’m going to leave you all alone.”
“Are you going over now?” Bodine asked him.
“I am.”
“If I could go over with you, I can get the people you need to talk to, set up a place for you to do that.”
“That’d be helpful.”
He waited for her while she got her coat. She glanced back at her family. Nothing more to say for now, she thought, and went outside with Tate.
“I know you can’t say what you can’t say,” she began, “but it’s clear somebody went after her. I don’t know why she stopped where she did, how it happened, but it’s clear she was scared enough to run, and that means she was running from something. Someone.”
“There’s more to do before I can say whether or not that’s the case. Officially.”
“I’m asking if I should put on more security.”
“I don’t know that that’s necessary. But when something like this happens, people are going to be spooked until the answers come out. I think you should do whatever you feel’s right.”
A woman she knew was dead, and on her land, Bodine thought. She wished she knew what felt right.
*
As he loaded a docile mare into a trailer, Callen spotted the sheriff’s truck heading down the road toward the BAC.
He’d been expecting it.
He lifted the trailer gate behind the pair of horses, stepped toward the shelter where Easy LaFoy was grooming another horse.
“Going to put you to work later,” Easy told the gelding. “So you get your lazing around in now.”
“Easy, I’m going to need you to take these horses down to the center. We got a lesson in about an hour. Maddie’s going straight there for it.”
“I ain’t finished here, boss.”
“It’s all right, I’ll see to it. You get these two down there, saddle them up. Just say to Maddie that she’s to remember the rules. You can take your lunch while the lesson’s going on.”
“Okay, boss.” He stepped out of the shelter with Callen as Tate pulled up. “I guess he’s here about what happened to that girl. Awful thing to happen.”
“Yeah. You go ahead.” And Callen walked over to meet Tate.
“Cal.” Tate nodded. “How’s your mom doing?”
“She’s doing fine. She likes having a grandkid right under her feet to spoil.”
“I got one coming myself.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, first one, due in May. My wife’s half crazy already buying those onesies and teddy bears.” Tate paused, watched Easy maneuver the truck and trailer. “That a new hand?”
“He is, but then, so am I.”
“Not the welcome back anybody’d want. How about you go over it for me?”
“Can we talk while I work? We’ve got a six-person trail ride coming up this afternoon.”
“We can sure do that.” He walked with Cal to the shelter and the horses, and Callen picked up where Easy had left off.
As he worked, Callen relayed everything from meeting Bodine in the stables to finding the body.
“You rode up White Tail Trail?”
“Yeah. This weather, it’s like riding through a movie. Picture-perfect.”
“You’d know about that. Movies.”
“I guess.”
“Have you had a drink in the Saloon here since you’ve been back?”
“Nope. I’ve been busy, and I’ve got beer back at the ranch. I’d never met the woman.” And would never forget her. “I can’t prove I didn’t decide to drive over this way in the middle of the night, and go after some woman I’d never met, but it sure would be a change in habit for me.”
Despite the circumstances, Tate’s lips curved a little. “You got in some tussles here and there as I recall.”
“With boys and men,” Callen agreed easily, even though he heard Clintok’s influence in the line of questioning. “The kind of tussling I did with girls and women? That’s of a different nature, and always by mutual agreement.”
“I’ve never heard otherwise.” Tate gestured to Callen’s eye. “Looks like you’ve had a recent tussle. That’s a decent black eye you’re sporting.”
“I’ve had better. Bodine … She just wanted to get to her friend. She couldn’t think outside of that, and I couldn’t let her. So, yeah, you could say we tussled, and she caught me. She’s got an admirable right hook.”
“This how you told it all to my deputy?”
“I did.”
Tate waited a beat, another. “Don’t want to add to it?”
“There’s nothing to add.”
“I’ve got a story to tell you.” Tate dug a pack of gum out of his pocket. “The wife nagged me until I quit smoking.” He offered the pack, and Callen took a stick out. “Anyway, I was saying. There was a poker game one night, over at the Clintoks’ spread. The missus was visiting her sister, took the little girl along, so it was just Bud Clintok and young Garrett at home. He’d’ve been about twelve, I guess, at that time. Your dad was there.”
Callen’s eyes stayed flat gray as he nodded. “He usually was if there was a poker game.”
Or a horse race, or a sporting event to bet on.
“That’s a fact, though he had his stretches where he held that devil down. But this wasn’t one of those stretches. It’s not speaking ill of the dead to say Jack Skinner had a weakness. But there wasn’t mean in him. That night, he was having a run of luck. Raking it in. Lot of drinking going on, a lot of swearing and betting and smoking—which I dearly miss.”
Tate sighed, chewed his gum.
“Last pot, it came down to your dad and Garrett’s. Now, Bud had been losing almost as much as yours had been winning that night. This was a rich pot, and Bud, he kept raising. Jack, he kept raising right back. About five hundred dollars in there when Bud ran out of money. He says he’d put something else in. Your dad, half joking, says he could put the pup in. This dog, no more than a four-month-old pup, had taken to Jack. Jack said the pup was his lucky charm. And Bud says that’s fine. And they laid the cards down.