Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

Turning his attention once again to the tableau far below, he watched avidly as the man lifted the carrier holding his first great-grandchild from the pickup truck’s backseat. The kid was sure kicking up a rumpus-he could hear it all the way up here. He had to smile at that-fine strong set of lungs, it sounded like.

Then he grew still, and his old heart sped up a notch or two as he watched the girl bend over the carrier, then straighten up with the baby in her arms. He felt a softness in his chest that hadn’t been there for a long, long time.

“There’s something about her, Elizabeth. Something that reminds me of you.” The way she moves…I remember the way you used to look, holding our baby boy in your arms.

A whisper stirred through the quiet, so soft it might have been the breeze blowing in the open window.

Are you goin’ out to greet them? She’s your granddaughter, after all.

Sam Malone shifted his shoulders impatiently. “In good time…in my own good time.”

He heard a familiar cackle of laughter. You always were a coward, Sam Malone. At least when it comes to emotions.

Mildly stung, he turned to reply, and was surprised to find the room behind him empty.

But not too surprised-it wasn’t the first time.

J.J. kept his hand on the small of Rachel’s back as they walked together up the wide curving flagstone pathway to a heavy arched wooden door with black iron hinges. He didn’t stop to think why; it just felt right to him.

He could feel her body vibrating-trembling, he supposed, was the word he ought to use, but somehow it didn’t fit with the strength he knew she had. Didn’t matter. Whether she was scared, or just wired up with suspense about this unknown she was facing, he felt a powerful need to be there right beside her, to give her support. Protect her, if she needed it.

“Stay, Moonshine,” he said, and the dog lowered her haunches to the ground beside the truck but kept her eyes glued to Rachel and the baby. As if she didn’t trust the situation any more than he did.

The front door opened, and a woman stood there, smiling a welcome. At the same time, from down the long drive they’d just traveled a man came walking, with a black-and-white border collie ambling at his heels.

Moonshine got up and shambled out to meet them, on alert, but not as if there was any real danger there. And although J.J.’s cop-senses were on full alert, he didn’t get any real sense of danger from the man or his dog, either. Like the dog’s, the man’s pace was unhurried, and although he didn’t appear to be smiling, his face and body seemed relaxed.

Meanwhile, the border collie had trotted out to meet Moonshine, and the two of them were sniffing up one another the way dogs do when they’re meeting for the first time and are probably going to decide to be friends. Which meant the other dog was probably a male, J.J. thought, since Moon tended to be a little bit territorial around other females.

Satisfied the newcomers posed no threat, to Rachel and the baby or the old hound dog, he turned his attention back to the woman in the doorway. She was holding out her arms to Rachel in an open, generous way, and her smile was warm and wide.

“Welcome, Rachel, welcome,” she said, and lifted her eyes to include J.J. in the smile. She offered him her hand. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Josie.”

Her voice was musical and pleasant. She had a smooth, round face with the broad cheekbones and olive skin tones that strongly suggested Native American ancestry. She appeared to be in her mid-sixties, although it was hard to tell since she had so few wrinkles, and her straight salt-and-pepper hair was cut in a style that was both up-to-date and becoming to her face. She wore slacks and a rose-pink blouse with a collar, and what he was almost certain was a hand-beaded Native American-style necklace. Although she was short, she still had an inch or two on Rachel, and her figure was what he thought of as solid…comfortably mature-not slim, but definitely not fat, either.

She nodded and smiled briefly at J.J. as he shook her hand, before turning her attention back to Rachel and the baby. She reminded J.J. then of the hens his mother used to raise, the way she sort of gathered them in under her wings, clucking to them in a welcoming, mothering way.

“Come in, come in, dear…oh, what a sweet baby…a hungry baby, too. Come, I have a nice quiet place where you can nurse him. And you need something to drink, too, I’m sure. Do you like milk? It’s fresh-we have our own cows-or would you rather have some tea?”

Rachel threw him a look over her shoulder, a look not of pleading or of panic, but of such intensity he knew it would stay in his mind for a long time while he tried to figure out what it meant. Then the door closed, leaving him to deal as he would with the man and the dog.

The border collie was now cavorting in happy circles around Moonshine, who sat placidly, evidently considering herself above such unseemly behavior. The man came on alone up the flagstone steps, holding out his hand.

“Hello,” he said, “I’m Sage.” J.J. took the proffered hand and shook it. “J.J.”

“You’d be the sheriff.”

“That I would,” J.J. drawled. He and the other man locked eyes, sizing each other up. Like their respective dogs, he thought, figuring out whether or not to be friends.

J.J. couldn’t speak for the other guy, but as far as he was concerned, the jury was still out on that one.

The man who called himself “Sage” looked respectable enough, being clean-shaven and neatly dressed in jeans and a western-style long-sleeved blue shirt. J.J. wasn’t sure how he felt about the black hair worn in a braid thick as his wrist that hung down past the man’s hand-tooled leather belt. But he had to admit it suited him, somehow.

Sage also had a direct and steady gaze and a firm handshake, but since J.J. had known both con men and murderers with those qualities, that didn’t mean much to him. Still…the guy did have a definite-and indefinable- presence, the kind of pride and self-confidence that didn’t need proving to anybody. And there seemed to be both humor and intelligence in those jet-black eyes.

“Alex told us you’d be coming.”

“Alex-that would be…”

“Alex Branson-Mr. Malone’s attorney.”

“Ah,” said J.J.

Sage nodded toward the closed door. “You met Josie- Josephine-she’s my mom. She…uh, she runs the house.”

“Uh-huh,” J.J. said, and waited. It had been his experience that if he left the silences for the other person to fill, most of his questions got answered without his having to ask them.

This time was no exception. “I run the ranch,” Sage said, and J.J. saw a flash of humor in the other man’s eyes that suggested he probably knew exactly what J.J. was up to and didn’t particularly mind. “I have a place down at the other end of the meadow. If you’d hung a right at the T instead of a left, it would’ve taken you to the original old June Canyon Ranch adobe. That’s where I live.”

“Anybody else live there? Employees? Hired hands?”

“Not at the moment. Later on we’ll have a crew to help take the cattle up to the high meadows. Right now there’s still too much snow, so it’s just me.” The tone of Sage’s voice hadn’t changed, but the sharp black eyes narrowed slightly. “You got a particular reason for asking?”

“Just curious,” J.J. said, then found himself on the receiving end of a waiting silence. Score one for you, he thought as he let out a capitulating breath. “Look, I’m sure the lawyer explained about me-”

Sage nodded, his gaze keen and unwavering. “He did. What he didn’t tell us is why Mr. Malone’s granddaughter is in need of a police bodyguard.”

“He’s a beautiful baby.”

Rachel gave a small laugh that was both agreement and frustration; she was still trying to master the art of putting a disposable diaper on a squirming, kicking, unhappy infant. She shook her head and said, “I just can’t believe he’s really mine.” She glanced up at Josie. “You know? Like…oh, my gosh, I have a baby.”

Josie laughed, a musical ripple that made Rachel think of mountain streams. “Oh, I do know. I remember how it was when Sage was first born.”

“Sage is your son?” She hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse of the man as he’d come up the drive, but Josie had