Conard County: Covert Avenger
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Rachel Lee
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His return has stirred up more trouble than he ever imagined… CIA operative Devlin Paltier never thought returning to his small Wyoming hometown would be riskier than an undercover mission. But Devlin knows that revealing he's no ordinary cowboy could bring danger to everyone in his world. Including Deputy Elaine Paltier, his widowed sister-in-law and the off-limits woman he's never been able to forget. Before long, though, Devlin's dark secrets come back to haunt him…along with two killers hell-bent on revenge. Now protecting Elaine becomes the most crucial assignment of his career — and the only way to secure a possible shared future.
Chapter One
Conard County Deputy Elaine Paltier drove along a dusty gravel road on her nightly round of Wyoming’s isolated ranch country. Out here, excitement was rare, unless there was an accident or injury, or the weather created a problem. The mountains to the west caught the bright moonlight on their snow-capped peaks, adding beauty to gently rolling foothills and the early spring growth in the fields.
The routine, however, gave Elaine plenty of opportunity to ramble around inside her own head, allowing her to think about her life, her job and mostly her young daughter. Being a single parent had its difficulties, even with help from her mother.
She didn’t mind this part of her official duties, though. Each assignment was only for two weeks before she’d be relieved by another deputy. Hardly enough time to find these patrols by herself to be boring.
That night, however, matters got exciting, although indirectly at first. She saw two glowing red spots near the Bixby ranch and wondered if they were tower markers. But who would have erected them since her last two-week tour? And if someone had, she’d have certainly heard about it.
As she got closer, the glowing areas became more orange and bigger.
“Oh, God,” she muttered, her heart accelerating. A range fire? But in two different spots? She grabbed her radio to call for backup from the fire squad, but the device hissed and refused to connect. The satellite phone was no better. Dead zones in these distant areas were not uncommon, providing unreliable service that could be maddening and dangerous at times.
Uncommon or not, she had to find a way to summon help. She pressed her accelerator, driving as fast as she dared on the gravel. Range fires could explode with incredible speed, and the green spring growth would offer no protection once a fire started and dried out everything around it.
Seeing the driveway for Beggan Bixby’s ranch house, she pulled a sharp right and drove even faster to warn the old rancher—maybe get a better radio signal or use his landline, too.
Were those red blobs growing larger? Elaine couldn’t tell, so she turned most of her focus to the looming ranch house. She flipped on her roof lights but no siren, to warn the rancher that she was approaching. All the while, tension increasingly tightened her muscles. A serious range fire could blow up in no time at all.
Then, scaring her half to death, a man appeared in the driveway right in front of her, turning blue and white in the flash of her light bar. He held a shotgun cradled across his breast almost like a baby. Much to her relief, it was clearly cracked open. Not yet a threat.
She jammed her Suburban into Park with a spray of gravel and opened her door, leaning out. “Mr. Bixby?”
Yeah, it was Bixby, in old jeans and a work shirt, with a stained, ancient cowboy hat jammed on his head. He was stomping his feet in anger. “You finally come to get rid of ’em?”
The question put her off-balance. Not at all what she’d expected to hear. Finally? “You mean the fire up north of here?” She pointed at the reddish-orange balls of light as she climbed out of her vehicle.
“Hell no. I ain’t talking about them.”
Elaine looked from him to the glowing light, more orange now. “How can you ignore them? I don’t have to tell you about range fires. I need your phone.”
“’Tain’t no fire.”
“How can you be sure unless we go look?” As if it could be anything else. The idea of a range fire made the skin on the back of her neck crawl. A disaster that could reach hundreds of square miles in no time at all. But now she was dealing with a man who’d lost his mind somehow? She had to get to his phone.
But Bixby had a ready answer. “I see them lights a lot. Now, you just do your job and get rid of them SOBs.”
She nearly gaped at him. “You want me to get rid of those lights?” How the hell was she supposed to do that without help if it was a fire? And why did he keep dismissing them, then demanding she get rid of them? “I can get a fire truck out here to put them out. But I need your landline. Radio’s not working.”
Bixby stomped his feet some more and raised his scratchy voice. “You damn useless cop. Not the red lights. They ain’t no trouble. So when are you going to get rid of them?”
Elaine began to feel some serious irritation, along with a sense of having slipped out of reality. “How am I supposed to get rid of the lights if you won’t let me call the fire department?”
“I been calling you guys for more ‘n’ a month about this. Y’all ain’t done nothing about it. I don’t give a rat’s patootie about the lights. I keep tellin’ ya, they ain’t no problem—never have been. You ever listen?”
“Then why do you want me to get rid of them?”
Bixby was clearly reaching the end of his rope. He started to shout. “I ain’t talking about them lights. I keep tellin’ ya! Get rid of the cussed fools crossin’ my fence. I don’t want no gawkers cuz of them dang lights. This ain’t a ranch like the one on the TV.”
Elaine sought to make the connection, then did. In an instant, she knew she had fallen down the rabbit hole. She spoke carefully, needing to be sure she understood before Bixby escalated beyond his current anger and frustration. “I saw that show once.”
“Well, I ain’t that place, and I’m getting sick of freakin’ trespassers climbing my fence and bothering my herd. Damn it, I got cattle to raise.”
Elaine looked to the north, saw the lights were still there but didn’t seem to have grown. They didn’t resemble a range fire, which by now would have been a whole lot larger. Just lights, like Bixby had said. Her tension eased as she gave her full attention back to the old man. “Bet you got gawkers tonight.” The idea of people chasing balls of light amused her. Clearly Bixby didn’t share that feeling.
“Hell yeah.” Bixby spat on the ground. Chewing tobacco. “Swear I’m gonna shoot one or two of them soon as I get a chance. Hell, I can’t afford no security guys to protect my fence and my herd. I’m it.”
Elaine’s stomach tightened with apprehension. “Mr. Bixby, you don’t want to kill somebody and put yourself in jail.”
“I got a right to shoot anybody who comes on my land.”
That was debatable, and would require a judge and maybe a jury. She realized she wasn’t going to be able to talk or scare him out of murderous intent—not right now. Her hands tightened with a sense of urgency, seeking a way to calm the situation.
She glanced north again at the lights, more curious now than anything. “What are they?”
“Damned if I know. Been showin’ up from time to time all my life, but they ain’t hurt no one and nothing. Seems like they ain’t no problem, and I’m happy to leave them alone. But things might not be so simple if them jackasses keep crossing my fence and taking pictures and all that other stuff they do. Bunch of lunatics.”
Elaine sighed, now having a clear picture of the real problem here, and it wasn’t just a couple of lights or orbs or whatever they might be called. No, it was people who wanted to climb his fence—maybe even cut it—and wreak havoc on a rancher’s land and herd.
Bixby spat again and resettled his shotgun in his arms. “Used to call ’em UFOs,” he said. “Now they got a new name—UAPs. Don’t make no difference. No little gray or green men ever been seen. Nothin’ ever seen but them balls. Bet you can’t even take a good picture of one.”
Elaine studied Bixby, thinking he was a little more informed than a man who simply wanted to keep trespassers out. UAPs?
A recent term not yet in common vernacular as far as she knew. Maybe he’d been talking to some of these trespassers. Arguing with them. Given this man, it wouldn’t surprise her. Maybe the only surprise was that he hadn’t killed one of them yet.
Bixby glared at her in the lights from her vehicle. “What the hell you gonna do about them, Deputy? Them trespassers. I complained before, but you never even sent anyone out here. So what are you going to do?”
Since it was unlikely that half the Conard County Sheriff’s Department could come out here to guard Bixby’s land from trespassers, Elaine had no answer.
Which apparently didn’t surprise Bixby. “Ha,” he said. “What good are all you folks? Ya think I don’t pay taxes like everyone else around here?”
“It’s more about manpower,” Elaine said finding a reasonable response, although minute by minute, Bixby was looking closer to a frazzled edge.
“Wouldn’t take many of you to convince them jerks to stay away.”
Well, he had a point there. A few deputies talking to these invaders might scare them off. Briefly.
“They’ll just come back eventually,” Elaine said honestly.
Bixby went off into a cussing fit that would have amused Elaine a whole lot more if he hadn’t been holding a shotgun.
When he ran out of words and rage and fell briefly silent, Elaine spoke heresy. “You know, Mr. Bixby, those balls of light are hardly harmless to you and this ranch if they’re causing these trespassers to overrun you.”
Bixby glared at her again as if she were a fool. “They didn’t bring them jerks. Like I said, the lights been there on and off my whole life. Even my cattle ain’t bothered by them.”
Bixby spat again, and this time he cocked the shotgun and waved it. “You get yourself out of here. Useless. Just useless.”
Elaine started to turn, her back prickling with awareness of that shotgun. Leaving was the only choice to avoid a possibly dangerous confrontation. She’d only taken two steps toward her Suburban when Bixby spoke again.
“I know you,” he said. “Elaine Paltier, George Henley’s girl. Dang, wouldn’t your daddy be ashamed of you right now.”
Elaine stiffened but kept walking to her vehicle, then climbed in and switched off all her flashers. Bixby could go to hell.
Yet as she swung her vehicle around to continue her patrol, she saw the red lights again. Then she saw them wink out.
She braked and waited for five minutes or so, but they never reappeared.
A mystery that would always remain a mystery, she supposed. But she had a real life to deal with, and she resumed her patrol at an easy pace. Eventually her radio and satellite phone returned to normal function.
After a few more minutes, she returned to normal as well, smiling into the night. Red lights, trespassers and Mr. Bixby.
What a story!
