“Tell me why I should trust you,” she challenged.
“You shouldn’t. You should trust Chase. This is the way he wants it.”
She studied him with a long, unwavering look while she mentally reviewed her options.
“What kind of vehicle are you driving?”
Jessy observed the sudden leap of wariness in his eyes. “A blue Ford pickup with Texas plates.”
“I hope that’s the truth,” she said, “because tomorrow morning at exactly nine o’clock, I want to see a blue Ford pickup with Texas plates drive slowly past the east gate on the main highway. If I see Chase in the truck, ten minutes later I will leave a note on the gate telling you when and where I will meet you.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded in agreement. “We’ll be there at nine o’clock sharp. Just one more thing: Chase is trusting that you will not mention this conversation to anyone. And he means anyone.”
“Why?” Jessy asked, unable to make sense of any of this.
“I’ll let Chase explain it himself when he sees you. Till tomorrow.” Nodding, he touched his hat to her and moved away at an unhurried pace.
Still troubled and doubtful, Jessy watched him a moment, noting that he seemed to be headed toward the rows of parked vehicles that crowded the ranch yard. Briefly she toyed with the idea of having one of the men follow this Laredo Smith when he left, but she suspected he would be watching for that.
Approaching footsteps crunched across a section of gravel. Turning toward the sound, Jessy saw Monte coming toward her, a look of concern furrowing his forehead.
“Where is Trey? Haven’t you found him yet?”
“Yes. He went up to the house to fetch his rope.”
His expression cleared. “I am relieved to hear he is no longer among the missing. You appeared to be in such deep conversation with that cowboy, I thought perhaps you were about to organize a search for Trey.”
“Fortunately, no. He just wanted to talk to me about Chase,” she answered truthfully. “I’d better go talk to the governor before he has to leave.”
As she started for the barn, Jessy threw a last glance after the mysterious Laredo Smith. He had the look of a cowboy and the rolling gait of one, but she remembered the grip of his hand. It hadn’t possessed the distinctive ridging of callus that went along with rope work. In her mind, a cowboy who couldn’t handle a rope wasn’t a cowboy.
Laredo Smith raised more questions than he answered. Chief among them was why would he insist Chase was alive if he wasn’t?
Chapter Five
The two-lane highway was the only sign of civilization for miles in any direction. A lone pickup traveled over it while its shadow raced alongside. The morning sun’s strong rays poured into the truck’s passenger window, heating Chase’s shoulder and arm.
But he was only distantly aware of the sun’s building warmth as he gazed out the window a
t the surrounding plains. There was deception in the land’s appearance of flatness, making it easy to overlook the lone buttes and wandering coulees. He waited to feel some tug of home, but other than experiencing an urge to ride across it, he felt no sense of belonging.
Vaguely disgruntled, he glanced at Laredo. “How much farther is it?”
“The gate is coming up on our left,” Laredo replied then checked his watch. “It’s five minutes till. We’ll go a couple more miles and turn around. It should put us there right on time.”
Chase spotted a pair of tall posts with a sign suspended between them, marking the entrance. He was struck by the plainness of it.
“Not very pretentious, is it,” Laredo remarked, as if reading his thoughts. “Nobody can accuse the Calders of being full of themselves.”
“If the ranch is as big as you say, why shout about it? Everybody already knows it.”
A wry smile tugged at Laredo’s mouth. “Judging from some of the tales I heard about you at the funeral yesterday, that sounds like something Chase Calder would say.”
As they drove by the gate, Chase craned his head to look out the rear window and scan the dirt road leading up to the entrance gate. “It doesn’t look like anyone is there yet.”
“Jessy Calder struck me as a cautious woman. My guess is she’ll pick a vantage point and watch from there. I don’t think she will show herself.”
“The question is, how much can she be trusted? She could be on one of those hillocks looking through a rifle scope.” His tone was dryly grim.