Hunting Down the Horseman
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B.J. Daniels
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15,9K
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15
Chapter One
According to the legend, the town of Lost Creek is cursed. Only a few buildings remain along the shore of the Missouri River in an isolated part of Montana.
The story told over the years is that a band of outlaws rode into the fledgling town and killed a mother and child, while the rest of the residents watched from a safe distance.
When the husband returned, he found his wife lying dead in the dirt street, his child and her doll lying next to her, and the townspeople still hiding from the outlaws.
He picked up his daughter’s doll from the dirt and swore revenge on the townspeople.
One by one, residents began to find a small cloth doll on their doorsteps—and then they’d die. According to one story, the rest of the townspeople fled for their lives.
But another story tells of a pile of bones found at the bottom of a cave years later. Men, women and children’s bones—the residents of Lost Creek and evidence of a story of true retribution.
THE SUN SINKING into the Little Rockies, Jud Corbett spurred his horse as he raced through the narrow canyon. Behind him he could hear the thunder of horses growing louder. The marshal star he wore on his leather vest caught the light as the canyon heat rose in waves, making the towering rock walls shimmer. Sweat trickled down his back. His mouth went dry.
Just a little farther.
His horse stumbled as he rounded the last bend and almost went down. He’d lost precious seconds. The riders were close behind him. If his horse had fallen…
His gray Stetson pulled down low over his dark hair, he burst from the canyon. On the horizon, the ghost town of Lost Creek wavered like a mirage under the cloudless blue of Montana’s big sky.
Jud felt his heart leap as he spurred his horse to even more speed, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Almost there.
The loud report of a rifle shot punctuated the air. Jud grabbed his side, doubling over and grimacing with pain. The second shot caught him in the back.
Tumbling headlong from his horse, he hit the ground in a cloud of dust.
“Cut! That’s a wrap.”
FROM THE SIDELINES, assistant director Nancy Davis watched Jud Corbett get up grinning to retrieve his Stetson from the dirt.
“He’s such a showoff,” stuntwoman Brooke Keith said beside her, her tone a mixture of envy and awe.
“The man just loves his work,” Nancy said, cutting her gaze to the stuntwoman and body double.
That got a chuckle from Brooke. “Kind of like the way the leading lady just likes to be friendly.”
Nancy watched as Chantal Lee sauntered over to Jud and, standing on tiptoes, whispered something in his ear. Jud let loose that famous grin of his as Chantal brushed her lips against the stuntman’s suntanned cheek before she sauntered away, her hips swaying provocatively.
“Easy,” Nancy warned.
“Easy is exactly what she is,” Brooke said with obvious disgust as she walked off toward Jud.
Jud Corbett was shaking his head in obvious amusement at Chantal. Whatever she’d offered him, he wasn’t taking the bait.
As Brooke joined Jud, Nancy couldn’t help the sliver of worry that wedged itself just under her skin. All she needed was Chantal and Brooke at each other’s throats. There was enough animosity between them as it was. She’d have to talk to Chantal and tell her to tone it down.
As for Brooke…Nancy watched the stuntwoman sidle up to Jud and knew the signs only too well. A catfight was brewing, and Jud was about to be caught right in the middle. Nancy wondered if he realized yet what a dangerous position he was in.
“NICE STUNT,” Brooke said with an edge to her voice as she handed Jud a bottle of water.
“Thanks,” he said and took a long drink. “But you could have done that stunt blindfolded.”
She smiled at that, but the smile never reached her eyes. “I was referring to Chantal’s stunt.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” He’d noticed, though he certainly hadn’t taken it seriously. Chantal liked to stir things up.
Brooke chuckled. “You noticed.”
“Good thing I never date women I work with while on a film.”
Brooke eyed him. “That’s your rule?”
“The Corbett Code,” Jud said, lifting his right hand as if swearing in.
She laughed. He liked Brooke. He’d worked on a couple of films with her. She was a grown-up tomboy.
Chantal Lee, on the other hand, was a blue-eyed blond beauty, all legs, bulging bosom and flowing golden hair. While Brooke was the perfect stunt double for the star, she dressed in a way that played down her curves. The two could have passed for sisters, but they were as different as sugar and salt.
Brooke was scowling in the direction of Chantal’s trailer. “Did you know Chantal demanded another stuntwoman and body double? Zander refused, even though Chantal threatened to break her contract.”
That surprised Jud. Not about Chantal, but about director Erik Zander, who had never seemed like a man with much backbone. But if the rumors were true, Zander was betting everything on this film, a Western thriller. Apparently, it was do or die at this point in his career.
According to the rumor mill, the director was in debt up to his eyeballs from legal fees after a young starlet had drowned in his pool and the autopsy showed that the woman was chockfull of drugs—and pregnant with Zander’s baby.
He’d managed to keep from getting arrested, but it had cost him not just his small fortune but his fiancée, the daughter of a wealthy film producer. She broke their engagement, and that was the end of her wealthy father backing Zander’s films.
Jud paid little attention to rumors but he did have to wonder why Erik Zander had decided to produce and direct Death at Lost Creek, given the publicity after the death at his beach house. On top of that, Zander had cast Chantal Lee and Nevada Wells, former lovers who’d just gone through a very nasty public breakup. Jud feared that would be the kiss of the death for this film.
Jud had gotten roped into the job because Zander had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse—complete control over all the stunts in the movie as stunt coordinator.
Suddenly Chantal’s trailer door slammed open. The star burst from it, clutching something in her hand as she made a beeline for them.
As she drew closer, Jud saw that the star had one of the small rag dolls from the film gripped in her fist. She stalked up to the two of them and thrust the doll into Brooke’s face.
“I know you left this on my bed, you bitch!” Chantal screamed. “If I catch you in my trailer again…” She threw the doll at Brooke.
Jud watched Chantal storm away. Everyone in the common area had witnessed the scene but now pretended to go back to what they were doing.
Beside him, Brooke stooped to pick up the doll that had landed at her feet.
Jud saw at once that the doll wasn’t one from the prop department. He took the tiny rag doll from her. It was so crudely made that there was something obscene about it.
Brooke wiped her hands down the sides of her jeans as if regretting touching the ugly thing. “I didn’t put that on her bed.” She sounded confused and maybe a little scared.
“You’re not buying into that local legend,” he said with a chuckle. “Not you.”
She smiled at that but still appeared upset. According to the script for Death at Lost Creek and local legend, the recipient of one of these dolls was either about to have some really bad luck, or die.
“I’ll take that,” Nancy snapped as she came up to them and held out her hand.
Jud dropped the tiny rag doll into it. From the look on the assistant director’s face she was not amused. But then Jud didn’t think he’d seen her smile since he’d gotten to the set.
“I can’t wait until this is over,” Brooke said, her voice breaking after Nancy walked away. “I hate this place.”
He’d heard the crew complaining about the isolation since the closest town was Whitehorse, Montana, which rolled up its sidewalks by eight o’clock every night.
But Jud suspected it was the script—not the location—that was really getting to them. Their trailers were circled like wagon trains, one circle for the crew, another for the upper echelon in what was called the base camp.
Not far from the circled RVs was the catering tent and beyond it was the false fronts and main street depicting the infamous town of Lost Creek.
But it was the real town of Lost Creek farther down the canyon that had everyone spooked. Now a ghost town deep in the badlands of the Missouri Breaks, with its history it was a real-life horror story.
All that was left of the town were a few rotting wooden buildings along the creek and the Missouri River. The town, like so many others, had been started by settlers coming by riverboats up the wide Missouri to settle Montana.
The wild, isolated country itself was difficult enough for the settlers. The river had cut thousands of deep ravines into the expanse, leaving behind outcroppings of rocks and scrub pine and hidden canyons where a person could get lost forever. Some had.
But even more dangerous were the outlaws who hid in the badlands of the Breaks and attacked the riverboats—and the towns. Lost Creek had been one of those towns.
“I have to get away from here for a while,” Brooke said suddenly. “Are you going into town tonight?”
“Sorry, I’ve been summoned to a family dinner at the ranch. Which means something is up, or I’d ask you to come along.”
“That’s right, your family lives near here now. Trails West Ranch, right?”
He nodded, wondering how she knew that. But it wasn’t exactly a secret given who his father was. Grayson Corbett had graced the cover of several national magazines for his work with conservation easements both in Texas and Montana.
“I’m dreading dinner tonight,” Jud admitted. He had been ever since he’d gotten the call from his father’s new wife, Kate. That in itself didn’t bode well. Normally Grayson would have called his son himself. Clearly Kate had extended the invitation to make it harder for Jud to decline.
“Family,” Brooke said. “That’s all there is, huh.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
She smiled. “I’m fine. You’re a nice man, Jud Corbett, but don’t worry, I won’t let it get around.”
He watched her walk away, strangely uneasy. He’d worked with Brooke before. She was a beautiful, talented woman with a core of steel—much like Chantal. She didn’t scare easily. He suspected whatever was bothering her had nothing to do with a silly rag doll or the horror stories that went with it.
BABY SHOWERS were enough to make any twentysomething female nervous. For Faith Bailey it was pure torture. But she had no choice.
This was a joint shower for the very pregnant Cavanaugh sisters, who Faith had grown up with.
Laci Cavanaugh had married Bridger Duvall, and the two owned the Northern Lights Restaurant in downtown Whitehorse. Laney Cavanaugh had married Deputy Sheriff Nick Giovanni, and they had built a home near Old Town Whitehorse, where the girls’ grandparents lived. Both sisters were due any day now—and looked it.
The shower was being held at the Bailey Ranch in Old Town Whitehorse, the only place Faith had ever considered home in her twenty-six years. Another reason Faith had to be here.
But as she sat in her own ranch house living room, she couldn’t help feeling out of place. Almost all of her close friends were married now, except for Georgia Michaels, who owned the knitting shop in town, In Stitches. And everyone knew what followed marriage: a baby carriage.
“Can you believe this population explosion?” her friend Georgia whispered. On the other side of Georgia, their good friend Rory Buchanan Barrow was fighting morning sickness even though it was afternoon.
When they were all kids, growing up in this isolated part of Montana, they’d all vowed not to get married until they were at least thirty-five, and none of them was going to stick around Whitehorse. Instead, they’d sworn they would see the world, have exciting adventures and date men they hadn’t grown up with all their lives and dated since junior high.
While some hadn’t married the boy next door, they’d all fallen hard for their men and totally changed their big plans for the future.
Faith couldn’t help but feel annoyed with them as she looked around the crowded living room and saw so many protruding bellies and wedding bands. To make matters worse, they all looked ecstatically happy.
A man and marriage just wasn’t Faith Bailey’s secret desire, she thought as she looked wistfully out the window at the rolling grassland and the rugged edge of the Missouri Breaks in the distance.
“I had to add a baby bootie knitting class at the shop,” Georgia whispered to her. “Something about getting pregnant makes a woman want to knit. It’s really spooky.”
Faith laughed, imagining her sister McKenna knitting booties in the near future. McKenna had started her Paint horse farm, and her husband, Nate, was busy building them a home on a hill overlooking the place, but neither had made a secret of their plans to start a family right away.
It was her older sister, Eve, who Faith thought would be hesitant. While all three Bailey sisters were adopted and not related by blood, Eve was the one who was driven to find her birth mother. Before bringing a child into the world, Eve would be more determined than ever to know about her genes and the blood that ran through her veins.
Faith watched Laci and Laney open one beautifully wrapped box after another of darling baby clothing and the latest in high-tech baby supplies, all the time wishing she was out riding her horse. After all, she was only home for the summer, and she’d promised herself she was going to spend every waking moment in the saddle.
“If I see one more breast pump, I’m going to be sick,” she whispered to Georgia who laughed and whispered back, “Do you have any idea what some of that stuff is for?”
Before Faith could tell her she didn’t have a clue, Laci’s water broke, and not two seconds later, so did Laney’s.
Faith smiled to herself. She was going to get in that ride today after all.
SHOWERED AND CHANGED, Jud came out of his trailer to find Chantal Lee waiting for him beside his pickup. He groaned under his breath as he noticed Nevada Wells sitting in the shade of his trailer with a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the table next to him. Nevada was watching Chantal with a look of unadulterated hatred on his face.
The two stars had made front-page tabloid news for months beginning with their scorching affair, their torrid public shows of affection and their scandalous breakup—all in public.
Jud wondered what director Erik Zander had been thinking, throwing the two together in this Western thriller, given their recent past. How were they going to get an audience to believe they were crazy about each other in this film and not just plain crazy?
As Jud neared his pickup, Chantal sidled up to him in a cloud of expensive perfume and a revealing dress that accented her every asset. She looped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him.
Across the compound, Nevada grabbed up his bourbon bottle and stormed into his trailer.
“If you’re trying to make Nevada jealous,” Jud said to Chantal, “you can stop now. He’s gone back into his trailer.”
“Don’t you read the tabloids?” she asked as he disengaged her from around his neck. “I’ve moved on. So,” she said, “how about showing me the town tonight?”
“Whitehorse? As flattering as the offer is, I’m afraid I have other plans.”
“Brooke.” Chantal made a face as she said the stuntwoman’s name.
He shook his head, knowing whatever fueled this battle between the two women had started long before now. “I don’t date anyone I work with during filming. I’m having dinner with my family.”
Chantal brightened. “Take me,” she pleaded. “I am bored beyond belief out here in the middle of nowhere. You’ll be saving my life.”
“Sorry,” he said, thinking about what would happen if he took her home with him. He’d dodged a bullet by sacrificing his brother Shane to the marriage pact he and his four brothers had made. But he was still in the line of fire.
It would be fun, though, to see his family’s expressions if he pretended interest in Chantal for a wife. But even he couldn’t do that to them.
No, the last thing he wanted was to call attention to himself right now. He’d hoped that karma would be on his side when he and his brothers had drawn straws to see who would have to find a wife first. Then he’d drawn the shortest straw and known he had to do something fast, so he had. He’d found the perfect woman—for his brother Shane.
That little maneuver had really only delayed the problem, though. Jud knew in his heart that what his father wanted wasn’t so much for each of his sons to marry but for them to settle in Montana closer to Trails West Ranch, the ranch Grayson Corbett had bought for his new bride, Kate.
Grayson was no fool. He had to know that getting all his sons to settle down in Montana probably wasn’t going to happen, no matter what kind of carrot he dangled in front of them. But it was some carrot.
Grayson’s first wife, the boys’ mother, had written five letters, one to each son, before she died. The letters, only recently found, were to be read on each son’s wedding day. Her dying wish in a letter to Grayson was that the boys would marry by the age of thirty-five—and all marry a Montana cowgirl.
It was hard to go against the dying wishes of his mother, even a mother Jud, the youngest, couldn’t remember, since she’d died not long after he and his twin brother, Dalton, were born. Being a Corbett demanded that he go along with the marriage pact the five brothers had made—and eventually live up to the deal.
The problem was that he’d never met anyone he wanted to date more than a few times, let alone marry.
But then most of the women he knew were like Chantal, he thought, as beside him she pretended to pout.
“You’re going to hate yourself in the morning for leaving me behind,” she cooed.
Jud nodded ruefully. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Your loss,” she said, and turned in a huff to storm off, again putting a whole lot of movement into those hips of hers.
Jud smiled as he headed for his pickup. He had a weakness for beautiful women and a whole lot of oats left to sow, but his real-life exploits could never live up to those that showed up in the movie magazines about him.
When he thought about it, what woman in her right mind would want to marry a man who did dangerous stunts for living? And he had no intention of quitting until he was too old to climb into the saddle, he thought, as he headed for the ranch.
FAITH BAILEY RODE her horse to the spot where she always went when she wanted to make sure no one saw what she was up to. She’d been coming here since she was a girl. It was far enough from the ranch house and yet not too far away should she need help.
As she got ready, she recalled too vividly the time she’d taken a tumble and broken her arm.
“Were you thrown from your horse?” her mother had demanded when she returned to the house holding her arm after one of her “rides.”
Not exactly. “All of a sudden I was on the ground,” Faith had said, determined not to lie—but at the same time, not about to tell the whole truth, which she’d feared would get her banned from horseback riding altogether.
She’d kept the truth from even her two older sisters, Eve and McKenna. They couldn’t have kept her secret, afraid she’d break her fool neck and they’d get blamed for it.
Now with her mother remarried and living in Florida, Faith still didn’t like to upset her family. They’d all been through enough without that. So she kept her trick riding to herself. It was her little secret—just like her heart’s desire.
Faith had taken more precautions after the broken arm incident, and while she’d gotten hurt occasionally as she’d grown older, she’d also kept that to herself.
She made a few runs along a flat spot at the far end of a pasture before she got her horse up to a gallop and slipped her boots from the stirrups to climb up onto the back of the horse behind the saddle.
It was a balancing act. Standing, she galloped across the flat area of pasture, feeling the wind in her face and the exhilaration. She always started with this trick, then moved on to the harder ones.
Her mind was on the task at hand. Over the galloping of her horse, the pounding of her heart and the rush of adrenaline racing through her veins, Faith didn’t hear the sound of the vehicle come up the dirt road and stop.
JUD CORBETT BLINKED, telling himself he wasn’t seeing a woman standing on the back of a horse galloping across the landscape.
He’d stopped his pickup and now watched with growing fascination. The young woman seemed oblivious to everything but the stunt, her head high, long blond hair blowing back, the sun firing it to spun gold.
She still hadn’t seen him and didn’t seem to notice as he climbed out of his truck and walked over to lean against the jackleg fence to watch her go from one trick to another with both proficiency and confidence.
He’d seen his share of stuntmen and women do the same tricks. But this young woman had a style and grace and determination that mesmerized him.
She reminded him of himself. He’d started on the road to his career as a kid doing every horseback trick he could think of on his family’s ranch in Texas. He’d hit the dirt more times than he wanted to remember and had the healed broken bones to prove it.
The young woman pulled off a difficult trick with effortless efficiency, but as she slowed her horse, he could see that she still wasn’t quite happy with it and intended to try the stunt again.
“Hey,” he called to her as he leaned on the fence.
Her head came up, and, although he couldn’t see her face in the shadow of her Western hat brim, he saw that he’d startled her. She’d thought she was all alone.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, shoving back his hat and smiling over at her. “On that last trick, try staying a little farther forward next time. It will help with your balance. I’m Jud Corbett, by the way.” No reaction. “The stuntman?”
She cocked her head at him and he thought as she spurred her horse that she intended to ride over to the fence to talk to him.
Instead, she turned her horse and took off at a gallop down the fence line. He knew what she planned to do the moment she reined in. She shoved down her Western straw hat and came racing back toward him.
This time the trick was flawless—right up until the end.
He saw her shoot him a satisfied look an instant before she lost her balance. She tumbled from the horse, hitting the dirt in a cloud of dust.
