KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON Read online

  The man nodded again, his tongue still protruding from his mouth. Henry was gratified. He lifted his knee slightly.

  "Can you breathe?"

  "Yeah," the man squeaked.

  "Who sent you?"

  "I don't know what the hell—"

  Henry sunk his knee into the flesh of the man's neck, then withdrew slightly. The man beneath him choked and sputtered.

  "I don't have time for this."

  "Kiss my—"

  Henry leaned in with his knee again. The man's eyes bulged.

  "Cooperate."

  "Yeah. Okay. Don't do that again. God, don't do that again."

  "Who sent you?"

  "I don't know."

  Henry reapplied pressure with his knee ever so slightly. "No, no," the man screamed. "Wait. Hell. I'm telling you. I don't know. I got a call. I swear it."

  "A call from whom?"

  "I don't know, man. I'm just supposed to keep an eye on that long-haired girl with the ranch." The man was breathing heavily, his eyes wide. Sweat dripped from his forehead, mingling with the saliva that clung to his whiskers.

  Henry considered that. Just the girl. Not Henry.

  "When did you get the call?"

  "Come on, man, get your knee off my throat. I'm strangling here."

  Henry applied added pressure. "When?"

  "Wednesday."

  "You just checked in today."

  "I only got paid from today on."

  "How are you getting paid?"

  "Cash. P.O. box. Standard stuff. Really, man, my throat."

  "Just the girl?"

  "Yeah, man. Just the girl. I'm supposed to keep an eye on her for a couple weeks. Nothing illegal."

  Two weeks. Interesting. Henry lifted his knee and straightened. The man grasped at his neck with one hand, folded over double, and writhed silently on the bed.

  "Stalking's illegal," he reminded the spook as he went quickly to the black vinyl duffel bag slung in the corner, reached down and dumped it unceremoniously onto the floor. No gun.

  Henry scooped up the sinister-looking knife and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. He moved to the pile of clothes lying across the lone chair in the tiny room and searched them. He found a snub-nosed .38 in the pocket of the man's pants.

  "Bad boy," he muttered. He checked the load, walked back to the bed and touched the cool barrel of the gun to the man's forehead. "Where are you from?"

  The man swallowed, his flashy Western moustache bobbing up and down in time with his Adam's apple.

  "Salt Lake."

  "Go back there."

  "You betcha."

  "Because if I ever see you near that girl, I will kill you without a second thought. I'm sure you understand." The man nodded frantically, his eyes crossed on the barrel pressed to his head. "Leave now."

  The man slid from underneath the .38 and stumbled over to his clothes. He pulled on the pair of pants and clutched his shirt to his chest. He looked at the empty duffel bag and its contents on the floor in the corner, and looked back at Henry. Henry sighed.

  "Okay, pick it up." It would save him the trouble.

  The man stuffed his shirt and the rest of his belongings into the bag, grabbed his boots from beneath the television stand and made for the door. He turned, clearly reluctant to cause trouble.

  "Uh, I paid eighty bucks for that gun."

  Henry dumped the ammunition into his palm and tossed him the gun. The man caught it, gave Henry a grateful look and left as fast as his bare feet would allow. Henry watched him from the doorway of the motel room until he saw the pickup pass the Paradise Truck Stop and accelerate onto the freeway, heading east, toward Salt Lake City.

  Too easy.

  No one Henry knew would have hired him.

  Someone had hired him, however—to watch Calla. Until he found out who, and why, he was going to have to watch Calla himself.

  * * *

  Calla bid goodbye to her fiancé, who'd spent the night on the couch in the parlor, a fact Henry had taken pains to ascertain before going to his own bed. It was barely dawn, but Calla was dressed for work already, her hair returned to a tight ponytail, her feet out of the strappy little sandals she'd worn yesterday and tucked back into boots.

  Clark looked around him quickly and then leaned and kissed Calla swiftly on the mouth. She reached up to circle her arms around his neck, but he smiled and trapped her arms to her sides.

  What a fool, Henry thought grimly.

  She stood in the driveway for a moment after Clark started his car and eased down the gravel road. It was the wedding, she told herself. Just the wedding. There was no other possible reason to feel this overwhelming sense of melancholy.

  Henry watched her for a minute. She looked … tragic, and beautiful. A tough combination for a man to resist. But he did resist. There were more important matters to attend to.

  "Calla," he called through the strengthening light of the desert morning. He stepped from the shadow of the doorway of the bunkhouse.

  She tilted her head. And smiled. Why was it just the sight of this man could make her happy, when the man she was going to marry … well, no use going there, she reminded herself. A woman did what a woman had to do. "You spying on me?"

  "No." He stepped closer. "I wanted to talk to you."

  She upped the brilliant smile a volt or two. Henry felt the charge right in his chest. "'Cause if you were spying, I'd have to shoot you where you stand."

  Henry laughed. "You spend an inordinate amount of time threatening my life, you know."

  "I know. It's kind of fun. City boys are so easy to intimidate."

  "Well, that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about I'm having a little trouble up at Two Creek."

  "Oh." She tried to hide her disappointment in him. "What kind of trouble? Fences or cows or both?"

  "Cows. And, um—" Henry looked properly embarrassed "—fences, too, if you want to know the truth. Some of those old fence lines are pretty hard to follow. And Lester gave me a quick tour of the fields, but you know, that's big country up there and I'm never sure where I'm going."

  She shook her head. "It's my own fault, I guess. I should've taken you around myself. Stupid Lester. The blind leading the blind."

  Henry refrained from giving her a shake and gritted his teeth. She didn't have a lot of faith in his abilities, he thought grimly. And even though that was precisely what he was going for, it took an effort not to be aggravated by her tone. "I think I'd be okay if you could come up for a few days and show me where I'm supposed to be going," he said, trying to be humble.

  Calla scrutinized him steadily for several moments. "Is this a trick?" She narrowed her eyes. "Because I asked you not to play this game with me, Henry."

  "No, it's not a trick," he lied. "I'm in way over my head out there." He played his ace. "And I'm afraid the BLM is going to come up and find out you've got cows spread all over hell and gone and slap you with a trespass fine."

  "Damn." Calla looked at the ground, her brows knitted. "Damn, damn, damn."

  He had her. He knew the signs. He deliberately composed his strong features into a mask of humility. Calla glared at him.

  "Okay, get your irrigating boots. You can help me change water this morning." She was thinking quickly. Oh, hell. She needed this right now like a hole in her head. "I'll leave the water on twenty-four-hour sets. Dad can change them for a few days, I guess. I'll have to put off planting the sink field. And I have an appointment with Carol at the FHA Thursday. Well, maybe I'll be back. You think?"

  Henry shrugged, looking doubtful.

  "Guess not. Great. You're as bad as Lester." Henry bristled at that, but luckily Calla had her mind on other things. "Okay, I'll call her before we leave and reschedule. I'll pack a bag after we change water, you can catch me a couple horses. Who do you have up there? Sonny and Lucky? Better catch Toke and Queenie. No, wait. Queenie will be coming into heat next week. Catch Toke and Buster. They'll get along together all right. You have tw
o cots up there, right? Oh." She paused. "That's no good, is it, considering… Well, we'll move the tack into your tent and I'll sleep in the tack tent. It'll smell, but it's better than… Geez, what else?" She pinched two fingers across her forehead, deepening the lines of worry. Henry's annoyance faded abruptly. He knew it was necessary, but he hated like hell to add to this woman's already considerable burdens. Especially when his every instinct told him it was his job to ease them for her.

  "Well?" She was looking at him. "You gonna get your boots or do you want me to help you find them, too?"

  "I'll get 'em," he said. She frowned as he turned and jogged obediently to the bunkhouse to change his boots. She felt bad—it wasn't really his fault he was useless—and thought she should probably apologize, but, darn it, she had more important things on her mind just now than the hurt feelings of her hired man. She jogged off in the opposite direction.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

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  The drive to camp was made in silence. Calla plowed the pickup and stock trailer ruthlessly across the pitted roads. Henry rode shotgun, Jackson sat between.

  No one spoke.

  Good, Henry thought.

  He'd have time to think of a way out of this mess.

  He'd tried to contact Pete again before they'd left the ranch, but the cheerful male voice at the number Pete had given him before he left said Mr. Fish was unavailable and couldn't be reached until the following week. Standard stuff. Henry had then called the lab. Colonel Frank was gone, too, or so his secretary had said. No matter. Calla would be safe up at Two Creek until Pete or the colonel contacted him.

  All he needed was a little time. There had never been any problem he hadn't been able solve with enough time. It was what made him so good at his job, Henry thought. He had a knack for solving problems.

  Henry shifted forward and chanced a glance at Calla. She had the same grim expression she'd worn since he had asked for her help on the mountain.

  She refused to meet his eye. He shrugged his shoulders at Jackson, who gave him a noncommittal smile, and leaned back on the bench seat. He closed his eyes. Fine. At least when she was sulking she wasn't talking. It gave him a little time to think.

  His mother had wanted him to go into academia. Her son as a professor of chemistry at a Big Ten university would have been a serious coup for a woman who hadn't even finished high school. Not that anyone outside the family knew she'd never finished high school. Hers was a secret almost as well-guarded as some Henry carried.

  But his father had been thrilled when Henry was wooed into the private sector. "More money," the older man had argued in the reasonable tones of a man practiced in dealing with emergency room hysterics. "Why languish away in a robe and tassel for a lifetime and retire with a tiny pension and a scrapbook full of college-age conquests? Make more money, son, and you can get all the nubile young women you want. Heaven knows, I paid enough for your education."

  Henry could call up his father's voice at will. He often wondered if he would hear that cultivated sound on his deathbed.

  He'd gone to work for AgriFactor right after he received his doctorate from Purdue. Twenty-eight years old and at the top of his graduating class, he was offered the world and was young enough to believe he could change it. The agricultural chemical company gave him an opportunity normally reserved for more experienced scientists: the research equivalent of carte blanche in exchange for Henry's chemical composition that more than tripled field yields in soft white wheat while allowing it to grow in soil normally unsuitable for farming; reclaimed oil fields, arid desert land, even the alkali flats of the Southwest. Henry dubbed the formula Perfect Soil. The agricultural impact worldwide was staggering, and AgriFactor knew it.

  The formula had been the basis for his doctoral thesis, and Henry had proved within a year at AgriFactor that it worked. He'd also proved something else. Something with far more sinister consequences. Something he'd taken great pains to hide from his colleagues at AgriFactor.

  But he'd told Heidi, an AgriFactor technician with a brilliant mind and excellent legs. They'd married just three months after they met, just days after he showed her the results of the formula mutation. It wasn't until she introduced him to Peter Fish a mouth following their Las Vegas wedding that he began to believe she'd been a plant. And began to curse himself for a fool.

  Pete's organization, International Chemical Defense, was heavily involved in government research contracts and they courted Henry for nearly a year. But Henry liked AgriFactor and the plans they were making for his Perfect Soil formula. He declined the outrageous offers.

  And so, barely in their marriage, Heidi began the affair.

  That was how he began to think of it. He declined the I.C.D. offer, and so Heidi began the affair. Blackmail. Pete and Heidi appeared genuinely offended by the idea, but Henry knew blackmail when he saw it.

  She'd seduced David, Henry's own brother, and made some very skillful video tapes along the way. David was a freshman senator with a plump, cheerful wife Henry loved almost as much as he loved his brother, and three adorable kids he loved more.

  He'd had no choice at all, really. Not when Heidi threatened to make the affair public if Henry didn't roll over for I.C.D. David was devastated, terrified for his marriage and his career, and he begged Henry to help him keep his infidelities quiet. Then David had brought in the big guns, confessing all to their parents and having them plead his case to Henry. Henry, disgusted with everyone involved, but most especially himself, reluctantly agreed. His family had always been his weak link.

  It had taken Heidi only a few months of marriage and Pete only a few months of pursuit to see that. They'd used it ruthlessly. They also realized Henry hadn't chosen the private sector for the money. He had craved the scientific freedom it provided. No papers to write to appease the provost, no hours spent trying to instruct a randy bunch of postadolescents on the benefits of chemical research, no underfunded laboratories and poorly planned grant applications.

  He craved freedom of a different kind after the affair. Heidi argued against it and I.C.D. had even offered to pay for marriage counseling, a fact Henry would have found amusing if he hadn't been so angry. But he'd filed for divorce.

  And Pete skillfully managed to keep him busy enough in the sophisticated, well-funded government laboratory to prevent him from brooding over his ex-wife and his straying brother and his meddling, overbearing parents. He'd forgiven Pete for Heidi eventually, and had even counted him as a something of a friend after a while. He understood Pete. If there was one thing in his life he understood, in fact, it was blind devotion to a goal. Henry's goals were reached in a laboratory. Pete's goals were reached on a political battlefield.

  And of course he forgave David. David was family.

  But Heidi. Heidi he didn't forgive. He sold their house in a posh neighborhood of Brentwood, a house Heidi had chosen and adored, but that Henry had never really noticed, preoccupied as he was, and moved to a condo near the lab. Her presence in his life had been a failed experiment, and he'd filed what he'd felt for his beautiful wife away like so much useless data.

  He'd left the patent for Perfect Soil at AgriFactor, and followed the company's meteoric rise on the stock exchange over the next two years with mild interest. The original formula wasn't what Pete and Lieutenant Colonel Lyndon Frank were interested in anyway. They were interested in what Heidi had told them about the odd mutation Henry had come up with quite by accident. Henry closed his eyes against the thought, against the potential chaos and destruction he had unleashed.

  "Don't fall asleep," Calla said sharply, interrupting his thoughts.

  "How could I possibly fall asleep," Henry replied, his eyes still closed. "The way you drive, it's a wonder this old truck is still running."

  "I wouldn't even be driving this old truck today if you could do your job."

  "Now, Calla…" Jackson began.

  It was more than Henry could take. He snapped forward and glar
ed at her. "I would be perfectly capable of doing my job if you had come up here in the first place and shown me around instead of hanging around Paradise waiting to get engaged to a guy even Aunt Helen could whip in arm wrestling."

  Calla leaned forward to glare back at him, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel. "You jerk."

  "Now, Calla…"

  "It's okay, Jack. Forget I said that." Steady there, Johannsen. Dartmouth is certainly the least of your worries. If that cowgirl fires you today, it'll be a heck of a lot harder to keep an eye on her.

  He settled back into his musings.

  The formula had seemed to mutate during routine testing. An addition of a chemical here, a subtraction of something else there, and it was something else entirely. He tested it again and again, this variation to Perfect Soil. It decimated every plant in his lab, and had no effect at all on anything else; not the mice, not the earthworms, not himself. A quiet, inexpensive weapon, designed to starve out the enemy without killing him. That's how Colonel Frank described Henry's formula. Henry once told Pete he expected Frank's description to end up on television advertising someday; it sounded so clean and honorable. Quiet Inexpensive.

  You can live with that, can't you, Dr. Johannsen? Frank had asked.

  Apparently, he could. Henry had kept a photo of his nephews on his desk at the lab and pressed the memory of his grandfather flat in the back of his consciousness, and lived with it. Until four months ago.

  Four months ago he'd erased his personal research files from the lab computer, destroyed the backup diskettes, and tapped into the colonel's mainframe at I.C.D., sucking two years of official government research into an information black hole.

  It had taken Henry more than a month to break the computer security codes and bypass the intricate internal alarms in order to annihilate any evidence that he, or his formula, had ever existed, but he'd been very thorough.

  Then he'd played his own blackmail card.