Alice Sharpe - Cowboy Cavalry

“Kate! What’s wrong?” Frankie asked as he started to walk toward her.

“No, open the door. Hurry,” she cried, casting him a wild-eyed look. “Open the door.”

He turned back around and tried to twist the knob, then he rammed his shoulder against the door.

“Hurry!” Kate said.

Raising his leg, he kicked at the thing and this time the old wood creaked but it still didn’t budge. He ran to Kate’s side. “What is it?”

Her skin had drained of color. “A man,” she said. He glanced at the windows but from that distance, all he saw were their reflections. “I think he’s...he’s dead,” she mumbled.

Frankie grabbed one of the plaster garden gnomes and smashed it against the window. As glass shattered to the ground the foul odor of rotting flesh all but slammed him in the face. Kate turned her back to him, braced her hands on her knees and retched as he peered into the heavily shadowed room.

A small-framed man with sandy white hair hung from a rope attached to a rafter while an overturned stool occupied the floor under his dangling feet. From the smell and the appearance of his face, it was obvious he’d been there for quite a while.

Frankie moved to grasp Kate’s shoulders as she heaved. He tried patting her back but he didn’t say anything. What was there to say? When she had finished, she looked even more pallid than before. She accepted the clean handkerchief he offered her. “Thanks,” she whispered. “I saw a faucet by the garage. I’m going to go wash out my mouth.”

He took out his cell phone and dialed 911. What had Dave Dalton wanted to show him? It now seemed unlikely he’d ever know.

* * *

THEY SAT IN the car and waited for the sheriff’s department and an ambulance to arrive. Kate breathed through her mouth. Even with the windows rolled up, she was almost positive she could still smell the rotting corpse of that poor man. Her empty stomach clenched.

The ambulance and the sheriff’s cars came with sirens. Frankie and Kate answered a dozen questions that added almost no information that mattered one way or another. The deputy who entered the house came out looking almost as washed-out as Kate felt. He was about her age and she got the feeling this might be his first dead body.

“I can’t believe old Dave killed himself like that. Sara is going to be real broken up by this.”

“Sara?”

“His daughter.”

“Then it is Dave Dalton in there,” Frankie said.

“Yeah, though his own mother wouldn’t recognize him now. No note or nothing, either. Shame you folks had to find him.”

“Did he live alone?” Kate asked.

“Yeah. Has since Polly died ’bout five years back.”

“I’d never really met the man,” Frankie said. “In fact, I only talked to him one time and exchanged a couple of emails.” He explained about the documentary and added, “He seemed interested in showing me something. It just seems odd that he’d kill himself before he could do it.”

“What did he want to show you?”

“I have no idea.”

“You never can tell what’s going on in someone’s head,” the deputy said.

Two EMTs came out of the house rolling a body bag between them and loaded it into the ambulance. The deputy, Frankie and Kate watched with somber expressions.

“That’s a nice car in the garage,” Frankie said as the ambulance left the yard. He’d already retraced the actions they’d taken since arriving at the Dalton house.

“He’s got himself a hell of an entertainment system and a kitchen that looks like one of them that’s on a cooking show,” the deputy said. “I had no idea he had that kind of loot.” The deputy took off his hat, scratched his head and pulled it back on. “Dave’s dad died a few years back,” he added. “Dave retired about then. Maybe he inherited some money. He wasn’t exactly the chatty type.”

“I guess it’s true,” Frankie said softly. “It takes more than money to make a person happy.”

The remark hit close to home for Kate who glanced down the twisting road as the ambulance’s taillights disappeared from view.

Chapter Four

Several hours later when they stopped for gas, Frankie asked Kate if she was hungry and she shook her head. “I don’t think I could eat. You go ahead, though.”

“I don’t have an appetite either,” he said. “Listen, Kate, I’m very sorry that you were with me today and had to see all that. I wish I’d known what we were getting ourselves in for.

“How could you possibly have known?”

“If I’d called or texted him and he hadn’t responded we wouldn’t have stopped...”

“Don’t beat yourself up on my account,” she said. “The deputy mentioned Mr. Dalton had a daughter. It’s better that we found his body than she did, right?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“Anyway, I was with my grandfather when he died.” Now why had she told him that? When she’d signed on for this venture, she’d sworn she wouldn’t talk about herself, invite confidences or reveal personal information. She had never lied to anyone before in her life and Frankie was making doing so now very hard because...well, she didn’t know why exactly, she just found herself wanting to tell him things. She muttered, “Death happens.”

“But not usually like that,” he said.

“No, you’re right. Poor man.”

Once back on the road, the fatigue Kate couldn’t seem to shake came back and once again she fell asleep. When she woke up, it was dark outside and the dashboard clock said it was half past eleven.

She’d been dreaming about people. Luke had been in one of them but she wasn’t sure in what way. The most vivid had been of her grandmother who had been baking. She’d offered Kate a taste of cookie batter from a long spoon. Kate had stared at her, tears running down her cheeks, mumbling over and over again, Gram, you’re like you used to be! You’re okay. And her grandmother had laughed. Of course I’m okay.

Kate swallowed a knot. “Where are we?” she asked as she glanced at Frankie.

“We just ran over the cattle guard that is the ranch’s unofficial welcome mat. Did you have a nice snooze?”

“I think so,” she said. “I’m sorry I keep falling asleep.”

“It’s no problem,” he said. “When you live out this far, you get used to time alone behind a wheel.”

She looked out the window. The waxing moon illuminated nothing but fields. Maybe there wasn’t a whole lot else to see. They traveled a couple of miles down a dirt-and-gravel road before cresting a hill. Below, Kate saw a large house and a scattering of dark buildings, but her gaze went to the winding path of the river. Her heart jumped into her throat. The Bowline River...the real reason she was here. She tore her attention from that tantalizing U-bend and concentrated on the house instead lest Frankie sense the direction of her thoughts.

“That’s my family’s house,” he said.

“Does everyone live there?”

“No. Gerard, Chance and Pike all built homes scattered about on ranch land.”

“But not you?”

He shrugged. “The only people who live full-time in this house are my father and his wife, my brother Chance’s fiancée, Lily, and her little boy, Charlie. They’ll move out after the wedding. I’ve talked to Grace and she says you’re welcome to stay with them.”

“What about you?”

“I have a room at the house for when I’m here or once in a while I stay with Pike.”

“Then you don’t live on the ranch?”

He cast her a quick glance. Dashboard lights illuminated part of his face and the dazzling white of his eyes. “I like my privacy, too,” he said.

“Touché,” she muttered.

Three dogs greeted them when they got out of the car. They all had dark fur though two also sported patches of white. Though difficult to tell in the semidark of the night, one looked like a Labrador retriever and the others like some kind of shepherd mix. Kate hadn’t had a dog since she was fifteen and she knelt to pat them and accept welcoming licks across the cheek. Frankie handed her the backpack. “What did you pack, rocks? This thing weighs a ton.”