The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

powerless. How ironic it was, she thought, that a man possibly destined to become the most powerful man on earth should be reduced to such a state.

He was listening now, his body tense, face set in gaunt lines that betrayed all the fear and strain and uncertainty of the past few days. As he listened he put out his arm, and Dixie moved out of old habit into its comforting shelter. She put her arms around him and pressed her face against his shoulder, and her heart ached when she felt his body tremble.

“My God-” his voice cracked “-how could you let this happen?”

Then he listened again for a long time, offering only monosyllables himself and those in leaden tones, while Dixie waited with her hand against his thumping heart, her body as rigid as his and every nerve vibrating with suspense.

It seemed to her half a lifetime before Rhett placed the receiver back in its cradle. It took him two tries.

“Bad news?” she whispered, cold inside. Numb with dread.

“There’s been a shooting.” He was staring past her out the window, squinting hard as if there was something out there of great interest to him, but he couldn’t quite make it out. “At McCullough’s Ranch.”

Dixie’s eyes were locked on her husband’s face. “Not-”

His head moved-one quick, hard shake. “No, not Lau ren.” His arms encircled her and pulled her close so that she heard the rest as a whisper of exhaled breath. “Not Lauren…”

“Rhett, what happened?”

It was a while before he answered her. In the quietness she heard the busy chick-chick- chick of the sprinklers in the horse pastures, the haunting cry of a mourning dove from somewhere down in the river bottom and the high-pitched whinny of a colt calling to its mother out in the paddocks. She was glad they were here; it was always so peaceful on the Tipsy Pee, and she knew Rhett found some comfort in being here in Texas, that much closer to the last place his daughter had been seen alive, in the last place she’d called home, before…

But Dixie wouldn’t let herself think of that. She wouldn’t even consider the possibility that Lauren, that bright beautiful wonderful young woman she loved like her own flesh and blood, might never come home again.

“They’re calling it a mistake,” Rhett said, his voice a growl. “No one seems to know exactly who’s responsible- the FBI and ATF are blaming each other, naturally. I told you they’ve had the main compound surrounded and the whole place under surveillance?” Dixie nodded. “The situation was that the ATF wanted to go in with their warrant to search for illegal weapons, on the assumption their man had already gotten Lauren safely away from SOL. The FBI-at my request, through the attorney general-has been holding off until they heard something definite from the ATF’s man. Meanwhile nobody’d gone in or out of the place, which in itself is suspicious.” He exhaled restlessly, trying to force himself to relax.

Dixie leaned back in the loose circle of his arms, and his hands slipped to her shoulders. “Last night…” he began, and had to pause to clear his throat. He was still looking past her out the window, and she could see a muscle working in the side of his jaw. How hard this must be for him, she thought. These were his people. He would hold himself responsible.

“Last night,” he went on in a hard determined voice, “apparently a couple of local sheriff’s deputies showed up and demanded to be allowed into the ranch-said they’d been asked by ‘concerned relatives’ to check on Mrs. McCullough to make sure she was all right. Claimed they hadn’t been able to reach her in a while. Which seems reasonable, except that, according to the information already given to ATF by their man on the inside, these two deputies were known to the members of SOL. As I understand it-” Rhett slowed and spaced his words as if summing up a complex scenario for a jury “-the two deputies got into an altercation with federal agents within view of the ranch house. Whereupon Mrs. McCullough, who knew the deputies as friends and did not know the agents from Adam, came to their aid with a shotgun.”

“Oh, God.”

Rhett nodded; his face was grim. “When ordered to put down the weapon, she refused and, instead, opened fire. She got off one round before they took her down.”

Dixie whispered, “Is she-?”

He shook his head. “As of this morning she’s out of surgery, but still in critical condition. Apparently-” he took a deep breath “-the bullet severed her spine.”

Dixie closed her eyes, but opened them quickly when she heard her husband’s soft anguished swearing, and laid her hand along the side of his face. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said in a tense grating voice. “It wasn’t. Those people took our daughter. They’ve threatened to kill her. If they-”

“But this woman was innocent!”

“You don’t know that. And even if she is innocent, it’s her husband who’s to blame for what’s happened to her, not you! If he hadn’t taken Lauren…” She fought for breath, for calm. He didn’t need her falling apart on him, not now. He needed her strength. Especially with the national convention due to convene in Dallas tomorrow.

She drew the calming breath she needed and asked the only question that mattered: “What does this mean… for Lauren?”

Rhett stared back at her with eyes almost black with fear. He didn’t answer.

Lauren resigned herself to spending the afternoon cooped up in the tent. Which she had to admit was a lot closer to the way she’d have expected a prisoner of war to be treated. But it was still hard to take after being allowed to enjoy an illusion of freedom all morning.

As for that, the time spent with the horses and Bronco in the meadow now seemed a strange and contradictory interlude. Looking back on it, she felt a lovely little burn of pleasure, like the feeling she’d get after a great day spent skiing or at the beach when she knew she’d had more sun than was good for her, but so much fun it was worth it. And yet, when she remembered conversations, specific words, expressions and gestures, she found her emotions leapfrogging from one mood to another. And it was a lot like trying to catch a frog, she thought; no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t quite hold on to one.

It was true that some of the things Bronco had told her had made her sad, but there’d been something exhilarating about it all, too, a thrilling sense of discovery. And was it really sympathy she’d felt for the little boy whose mother had gone away and left him, or had it been more like…kinship? She remembered the scalp-prickling tingle of recognition she’d felt when he’d told her, the deep inside ache of bewilderment and anger. That was me-me, too! she’d wanted to cry out to him. I know what it feels like to have your mother go away and leave you behind!

She’d been on the verge of telling him that when they’d been interrupted, and then Bronco had whistled to the horses and rushed them all back to the camp with great urgency. After a stop at the latrine, he’d zipped her into the tent and warned her to stay put or else, then had left to go down to the cabin to get her some food. And now she felt a restless frustrating disappointment, a sense of something important left undone.

Oh, yes, and there’d been those moments of fear, hadn’t there? But why was it she couldn’t remember exactly what it was she’d been afraid of? Was it possible it hadn’t been fear she’d felt at all, but rather some crazy sort of excitement? The kind that called up memories of a certain long-ago summer night, fireflies winking in the humid darkness, dock lights reflecting on black lake water and little girls whispering and giggling, running through the woods that separated their camp-Camp Kawea? was that the name?-from the boys’ camp nearby. She’d been thirteen that summer, her one and only summer-camp experience, memorable mainly because of the humiliating crush she’d developed on the boys’ swim instructor. Most of that summer had slipped through the cracks of her memory long ago, but she still remembered the sweet delicious heart-thumping apprehension.

And could that have been, she wondered now, because it was the last time she’d allowed herself the luxury of breaking the rules? She didn’t think she’d ever been a difficult child, even before her mother’s selfish pursuit of happiness had taken her off to that cliff house in California with the director of the Des Moines children’s museum.

And then, just as Lauren was entering what should have been her rebellious years, her dad had begun his first run for governor, and the last thing she’d wanted to do was give his political enemies ammunition that could be used against him in an election campaign. The years had gone by and one campaign had followed another, and she’d gotten used to living in the public eye, used to being the model daughter in the perfect middle-American family. She’d al ways believed that was who she really was. Until recently. She wasn’t sure she knew who the real Lauren Elizabeth Brown was anymore.