Desert Heat (18 page)

“Thank you, I will.” Eager to get to work, Patience walked over and began to examine the four-drawer metal files, her eyes lighting on the drawer that contained the newspaper records for the period from 1910 to 1913. She checked the index under the last name Sims, found only one entry, and located a brief article dated the tenth of August, 1912.

There was nothing else in any of the papers during that period and no other word of Lucky Sims. Patience returned the film and grabbed the next roll, which carried her through the period ending December 31, 1918. Still, no mention of Lucille Sims. She tried a third roll, ending the decade, but again had no luck.

She tried to think what other indices might hold clues to the disappearance. Addie Holmes believed something terrible had happened to her. Patience went back to the first three years of newspapers on the film. She considered looking under the reference Jane Doe—a woman who had died but never been identified—but it was probably too modern a term. Instead she went through the police blotter, a section of the paper that reported anything that had been filed by the police.

In the first three-year period, three unidentified bodies popped up. Two of them were men, transients who died at the local county hospital. The third was a woman who was trying to hop a freight train and was killed when she fell beneath the wheels. None fit the description of Lucky Sims.

It wasn’t until June of 1918 that Patience found something of interest. Two fourteen-year-old boys reported finding the badly decomposed body of a woman in a ravine not far from an old, closed-down theater at the edge of town. It appeared the earth and branches under which the body had been buried had been eroded away by flooding over the years.

In those days, with forensic science still in its fledgling stage, not much could be told about the victim. But the sex was known, her height estimated at somewhere between five-foot-two and five-five. The authorities guessed her age between eighteen and thirty, and her hair appeared to have once been blond. There was no way to determine the manner of death, but the report estimated it had happened five to ten years earlier—which could fit the time Lucky had disappeared.

Patience searched ahead, her heart pounding, trying to find out if the sheriff had ever connected the unidentified body to the disappearance of Lucille Sims. But six years had passed and according to her grandmother’s journal, most people believed Lucky had run away with one of the rodeo cowboys. Like a lot of the women performers of that day, Lucky had no family, no one to really pursue the matter.

Though Patience searched the records for two more hours, she never found another reference to the body that was found, or to Lucille Mae Sims. It really wasn’t surprising. When Lucky went missing, Cheyenne had been a small, isolated country town.

Patience’s chest felt heavy as she drove the pickup back to the fairgrounds. The case might have been left unsolved, but Patience believed she had found the answer to the mystery of her grandmother’s friend’s disappearance.

She thought of the man who had been following the show and couldn’t help wondering if he was the man who had murdered Lucky Sims.

There were only two days of rodeo left. All of the cowboys were tired, exhausted by the long days of tough competition. Yet when the time came for them to compete, each man continued to give it his all.

Dallas had ridden well all week. He was ahead in the standings for the overall and determined to take home the money. After his ride that afternoon on a big black bronc called Indigo, he was in the lead again today, but he had reinjured his shoulder on the dismount and twisted his knee when he hit the ground. He hobbled out of the arena, favoring his left leg, but refused to stop by the ambulance and let the EMTs take a look at him.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just wrenched it a little, is all.”

“You hurt that same shoulder before,” Patience said. “If you don’t take care of it, you might do permanent damage.”

He looked down at her and smiled. “I think I like it when you worry about me.”

Patience gave up a frustrated sigh. “Dammit, Dallas—”

“I’ll be fine,” he repeated. “I promise.” His injuries were just one more thing for him to worry about. All week he’d been on edge, concerned about Charlie and constantly on guard, watching the arena and the area behind the chutes for any sign of trouble. He’d been gruff and a little bit short with everyone.

Everyone but her.

Instead, whenever they were together, he was amazingly sweet, surprisingly thoughtful, and subtly relentless.

He wanted her. He made no secret of it. Whenever he wasn’t competing, doing rodeo publicity, or speaking for one of his sponsors, he took her out to eat or sat with her during the show. Dallas wasn’t a man to take no for an answer and he was completely determined in this.

Mounted on Button, cooling the horse down for Shari after the show, Patience spotted him walking next to Charlie. Ever since the wreck, he’d been staying as close to his uncle as his busy schedule allowed. Even with his bad dismount, Dallas had scored well today. Stormy had taken a third in the calf roping, so he was happy.

Unfortunately, Shari hadn’t fared nearly so well. She’d made a solid, third place run in yesterday’s perf, and come in second one day earlier in the week, but today, Button had taken the second barrel wide and her time wasn’t fast enough to place in the money.

Today, Jade Egan had won.

The rodeo was over but Jade was still there, sitting on the fence next to Reno Garcia, getting ready to watch the last of the bull slack being ridden. Patience made a final circle of the arena and rode out of the ring. Jade didn’t wave and neither did Patience. But Reno grinned and waved as she rode past. Handlebar mustache waxed to a sheen, he said something to Jade, then left to prepare for his ride.

Patience turned Button around to watch. Cowboys, cowgirls, and die-hard rodeo fans remaining after the show returned to the grandstands or climbed up on the fence to watch the last bulls being ridden, the most dangerous event in rodeo. Reno paused to rosin-up his rope and glove, then grabbed his gear and headed for the chutes.

He’d had some bad luck so far. His thigh was wrapped in an elastic bandage, and day before yesterday, a rank bull named Texas Red had knocked out one of his teeth. But Reno was a cocky little cowboy, a good bull rider, and today he wanted to win.

Patience reached down to pat Button’s neck. The horse blew as she sat in the saddle, watching from behind the fence in an area enclosed by another lower fence beyond. She wouldn’t stay long, but she was rooting for Reno. She hoped he had drawn a good bull.

And that this time he stayed on.

Minus his face paint, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans but still wearing his knee pads, Cy Jenkins waited anxiously in front of the chute, his lean, muscular legs splayed apart, his concentration fixed on the gate. Junior Reese stood farther away, but close enough to rush in if he were needed. The clowns were the best athletes in rodeo, the fastest, the toughest, the most agile of the men. They were the cowboys’ life-line and there wasn’t a man out there who didn’t know it.

Patience sat forward in the saddle as the gate jerked open. A big black bull, Ace of Spades, surged up and out, taking Reno with him. The animal bellowed and tossed its head, flinging slobber and twisting its massive body from one side to the other. Reno clung to his back like a thorn.

It was a plunging, whirling ride but Reno made it to the whistle. His dismount was shaky. He tripped when he hit the ground and landed on his head. For a second, he didn’t seem to know where he was and then Ace of Spades was on him.

Patience’s heart froze. The crowd let out a terrified roar and Cy rushed forward. He threw himself in front of the bull just seconds before the big black Brahma stomped Reno into the dirt, turning the bull away at the very last instant.

Junior hurried toward Reno. Along with several other cowboys, they helped him to his feet. Reno staggered, then straightened, shook his head and appeared to be all right. Patience sagged with relief as he limped away, but Ace of Spades wasn’t finished. The big bull paced the arena, nostrils flaring, horns in the air, looking like he wanted to stomp every cowboy he saw into the ground. He circled the arena, ignoring the mounted cowboys trying to shoo him into the gate leading back to his pen and instead increased his speed.

Ace of Spades roared down the fence line in front of the nearly empty grandstand, thundering like a locomotive toward the end where Patience sat on Button, acting as if the fence weren’t even there. Or if it was, it didn’t matter. He hadn’t the slightest intention of stopping no matter how high the fence was.

Her pulse speeded up. She told herself the big Brahma would turn, that he was just making a show of being tough, but when she saw his head go up, saw his front feet lift off the ground, she whirled Button, pressed her boots into the horse’s ribs, and hung on for dear life as Button leapt forward, as eager to escape the raging bull as she was.

Ace of Spades sailed over the six-foot fence, his back hooves knocking down the top rail, his big body crashing to the ground on the opposite side right behind her. Still, he didn’t slow. She and Button were picking up speed, the bull still on their tail. The second fence loomed ahead, shorter than the first, maybe three and a half feet high.

Button was sleek and fast and he wanted out of there, too. Patience came up over him, leaning forward, letting him collect himself, giving him the help he needed to sail over the fence. They made a perfect, four-point landing on the opposite side, smooth and controlled, not a single missed beat. Patience grinned, her heart still racing. She patted Button’s neck as she slowed him a little, thought again what a magnificent horse he was.

Strangely enough, when she looked back over her shoulder, she saw that the bull had refused to jump the second fence and now trotted back toward the arena, trying to find a spot to get in. A couple of cowboys herded him toward the gate and he slithered back around the corner. The alley leading to his pen apparently looked good to him now and he headed in that direction, bellowing and eager to get there.

Patience gave Button another grateful pat. “Weren’t you a brave, good boy?” Smiling, she swung down from the saddle just as Jade Egan, Reno Garcia, Stormy, Charlie, and half a dozen cowboys rushed up.

Jade got there first. “Well, what do you know.”

“Yeah,” Dallas said, walking up just then. “What do you know.” He turned a hard, blue-eyed stare in her direction. “I thought you said you couldn’t ride.”

Patience shrugged. “Jade said that. I just didn’t bother to correct her.” She flicked a glance in the black-haired woman’s direction. “Actually, until I started exercising Button, I’d never ridden Western before. I teach English riding to children in the summers.”

A muscle bunched in Dallas’s jaw. “How many more secrets you keeping, P.J. Sinclair?”

A few feet away, Charlie grinned. “Well, it ain’t no secret she can ride—not now. You did good, honey. Real good.”

“That was one mean-ass bull,” Reno said, knocking the dust off his hat. “He sure made short work of that fence.”

Shari raced up just then, breathing hard, her eyes darting worriedly from Patience to her horse. “I heard what happened. You two okay?”

“We’re fine.” Patience rubbed the star on the sorrel’s forehead. “Button was great. If barrel racing doesn’t work out, maybe you can take up show jumping.”

Shari laughed and several of the cowboys joined in. Then the group began to disperse back toward the chutes. Jade cast a long glance at Dallas, turned and went with them. There were more bulls waiting, more cowboys yet to ride, and a little thing like an angry Brahma was all in a day’s work.

Dallas still stood there frowning. “I think you took ten years off my life when you charged that fence with that bull right behind you. Dammit to hell, why didn’t you tell me you could ride like that?”

She grinned. She couldn’t help it. “You didn’t ask.”

“I swear, woman, you never cease to amaze me.”

Her grin went wider. “Well, good for me.” She linked her arm with his. “So you were worried, were you?”

“Damned right I was.” He turned her to face him, bent his head, and very thoroughly kissed her. “Don’t scare me that way again.”

But if that kind of kiss was her reward, she might have to make a habit of it. They started back toward the trailer, Dallas favoring his leg as he walked along beside her, following Shari and Button.

“How’s your knee?” Patience asked.

“Better.”

“Yes, I can see that.” To a cowboy, better meant he could manage to walk at all.

“You missed part of the show today.”

Her mind slid back to the information she had found in the archives. “I went to town. There was something I wanted to check out.” Dallas knew about the journal and about Lucky Sims. Now she told him her theory about Lucky being murdered.

“So you think it might be the guy your grandmother mentioned? The one who seemed a little too interested in the women in the rodeo?”

“I think there’s a chance it might have been him.”

“Might have been a lovers’ quarrel or something. Crime of passion, you know.”

“According to the journal, Lucky didn’t have a boyfriend.”

“People didn’t know about stalkers back then, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.” He didn’t mention Tyler, but she knew he was thinking about him, and a little chill went through her. “If it
was
the guy who was following the rodeo, I wonder if he killed any other women over the years.”