Page 37 of Rawhide and Ransom

Annalee had been working from dawn until dusk for three days straight on the flowerbeds that ran intermittently along the outer perimeter of the track. Instead of commercial pavers, neighbors had taken the time to gather medium-sized stones to edge the flowerbeds with. The result looked both natural and beautiful.

Yesterday, she’d started planting the hedges and fruit trees that would line the inside of the track. It would take a couple of weeks to finish that segment of the project. Then, and only then, would she be able to devote all of her time and attention to the heart of the project — the community garden. The spring planting season was already well behind them, but there were many late-season crops they would still have time to sow. She seriously couldn’t wait for the tilling crew to finish prepping the ground so she could start poking seeds into the soil. There would be lettuce, spinach, kale, carrots, beets, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower…plus peas, beans, and garlic. Before long, they would have vegetables coming out of their ears.

An elderly woman shuffled her way with a ball of string in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other hand. The ankle boots she had on were missing the laces. The tongues of them flapped with each step she took. Two thick gray braids tumbled over her shoulders as she stooped wordlessly over the first plum tree she came to.

She worked in silence to tie a trio of strings to the young sapling. Then she anchored them on the ground with a set of upside-down U-shaped hooks. Though she didn’t make eye contact or greet Annalee, they worked in companionable silence.

Annalee watched the woman from the corner of her eye, loving how the project that Running Bear and Hawk had envisioned was quickly becoming a popular gathering place for the members of their tribe. Folks showed up without being asked to pull weeds, haul rocks, chop downed tree limbs into logs, and perform countless other tasks. Most of the work wasn’t glorious — just good old-fashioned elbow grease.

Though the Comanches rarely smiled or engaged in chitchat, their quiet presence provided a much-needed balm to Annalee’s aching heart. Their gradual acceptance of her role in the project made her miss her foreclosed farm less. The sting of losing her husband was also fading. It was still there. It would always be there, but it was becoming more bearable.

She and Hawk were dating without calling it that. She still wasn’t ready to put a label on their relationship. They simply enjoyed each moment they got to spend together, which was pretty often since he rarely let her out of his sight.

She could feel his whiskey eyes on her now. Glancing up from her planting, she drank in the coppery strength of his arms that were never idle. He was trimming a long strip of leather while observing her from the doorway of his workshop.

To an outsider, it might look like he was simply gawking at her, but she knew it was so much more than that. His watchful gaze was trained to pinpoint any sign of danger, and he’d installed numerous security cameras on his property to assist him. There were a few cameras in plain sight for drive-by punks, who were foolish enough to vandalize them, and hidden cams to catch them in the act. Word on the street was simple: Nobody who messed with Hawk Chesney got away with it.

Even the older fella who’d flicked a cigarette butt in Hawk’s yard, inadvertently starting a fire, had been quick to bring his sons over to help repair the sod. In return, Hawk watchdogged the entire residential community sprawling around the acreage his cabin was located on. He performed small repairs inside the homes of the elderly, dribbled basketballs with the teens, and played soccer with the younger kids.

What few people knew was how well armed he was. Because of the number of times Annalee had been in his embrace, she was intimately aware that she was dating a walking arsenal — a man who had the rez police, the Heart Lake Police, both fire departments, and all key personnel at Lonestar Security on speed dial. He worked in tandem with them to protect the innocent and put the guilty behind bars.

And right now, he was the man guarding Annalee and her daughter with his life. Like she did nearly every time she laid eyes on him, she sent up a silent prayer of thanks for his protection. It didn’t feel like any less of a miracle now than it had when she’d first run into him at the diner downtown.

She fluttered her fingers at him and went back to work. As she mulched the flowerbed, a nagging thought returned —one that had been bothering her ever since she’d called the cell phone company to turn off Miley’s old phone number. Discontinuing the service to prevent a thief from wrongfully running up her phone bill hadn’t erased the fact that the thief was still in possession of her daughter’s old cell phone.

When Annalee was alone with her thoughts like this, it was all too easy to replay the conversation with the stranger who’d answered when she’d called the stolen cell phone. She could remember the woman’s ugly laugh. Her cruel words. Her bold declaration that she’d taken Annalee’s life as a ransom, whatever that meant. It wasn’t all she’d said, though. The rest of her vicious declaration was permanently seared into Annalee’s mind:

Your husband is dead, your farm has been foreclosed on, and your daughter is missing.

Only someone without a conscience could’ve sounded so gloating over the triple tragedy Annalee had suffered. She’d immediately demanded to know who the woman was and why she was tormenting her family.

I’m you, of course, the stranger had declared with another one of her evil cackles.Your life has been taken as a ransom. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you no longer exist, my dear.

Who was she? Annalee could only assume she was the same person who’d tried to burn Miley alive in her bedroom. But why?

She replayed the maniacal voice again and again inside her head until a new observation struck her. There’d been an almost mechanical quality to the voice. Though the volume of the voice had fluctuated and the laughter had come across as spontaneous, the pitch and tone of the voice had remained steady — almost too steady.

What if…? Her thoughts raced over the possibilities. What if the person who’d stolen her daughter’s phone had been using a voice changer device? What if she didn’t sound in real life anything like the woman on the phone had?

There was only one way to find out. Annalee straightened and reached for her cell phone. She dialed the cell phone company while she walked back toward Hawk’s cabin.

A nerdy-sounding guy picked up and asked how he could be of service.

“I have a weird question,” she admitted.

“Fire away,” he shot back cheerfully.

“My daughter’s phone was stolen a while back.” She gave him the short version, sticking to the parts most relevant to her forthcoming request. “I had the number turned off, of course, but I was wondering. Is there a way to get it turned back on — like remotely — to the same phone?”So I can get back in contact with the creep who stole it?She wanted to hear the maniacal voice again. She wanted to tap the record button on her phone and capture a sample of it.

“We can’t do that.” Her listener sounded apologetic. “If you found the phone, the best way to reconnect it to your daughter’s old number is to bring it to the store.”

Bummer!“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“If you’ll give me the number, I’d like to check something,” he offered.

She rattled it off, not sure what he had in mind.

He typed it in. “Uh-oh. Glad I checked. It looks like the number has already been reassigned. I’m sorry, ma’am. Now that it’s taken, we won’t be able to reconnect it to your daughter’s new phone after all.”

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