“It’s okay, “I said. “But my horse-”
“I’ll get her in the trailer with mine. You just make yourself comfortable.”
I felt my poor backside throbbing and I was cold and tired. It had been a wretched night. I was too numb and sore to protest, so I just watched with pleasant surprise as he took a blanket from behind the seat and began tucking it in around me. Redhead looked at me over the ranger’s back as he bent over. She was flicking her ears, which usually meant she was excited. That made me grin.
The man had a healthy look about him. His face was roughened a little by wind and sun, and his prominent brow was dressed with thick eyebrows that almost met over the bridge of his slender nose. His eyes were deep-set beneath that brow, and his long, thin face was set off by a strong jaw. There was a small white scar on his chin, and another narrow one under the outer corner of his right eye, adding some masculine character to what otherwise might have been called a pretty face. He was too good-looking for me not to notice, no matter how much my bottom hurt.
“You sure there’s nothing I can do?” he asked. “Maybe you’d let me take you someplace warm where we could get some breakfast while we exchange reports.”
“Okay,” I said, “I could use a decent meal and something hot to drink.”
“Let me just see to your horse,” he said, “and we’ll get on the road.” He grabbed Redhead’s reins.
She followed him like a slave.
I sent her a telepathic postcard: Be nice.
She nickered softly.
I could hear the ranger talking to her in a low, quiet voice. “Yeah, you’re cold and tired, too, aren’t you, girl? Yes, you are. We’ll get you some hay up at the ranger station, how would that be?”
We had to crawl back to the Forest Service road in his truck, easing over one bump at a time, and the riding was rougher than in the saddle. Redhead and the ranger’s horse had to be working hard not to get slammed around in the trailer behind the truck. I kept looking back to make sure they were all right.
“Your horse is going to be just fine,” the ranger said. “Peter-he’s a guy that works up at the ranger station-he’s excited about having horses there this week. They normally don’t have horses in their stables there except in the summer. So both these guys will get lots of attention.” He had brought a big red travel mug full of coffee, and he wiped the cap off with his glove and handed it to me. I sipped a little of it, but after the second time I sloshed it all over myself, I gave up and just held it to warm my hands. I was wrapped up to my chin in the blanket and I felt like my nose was about to thaw out, but my feet still ached from the cold.
“So you’re Jamaica Wild.” He looked at me and smiled.
“And you’re Kerry Reed.” When I returned the smile, my face felt like it would crack, it was so dry from the cold.
“Where’d you get that handle of yours?” He reached across me to take a pair of sunglasses from the glove compartment.
I could smell his scent as he leaned near, his head over my lap, his smooth, tan neck right below my left shoulder, a perfect line where his hair had been recently trimmed. I could almost feel the warmth of his skin, right through the blanket.
He straightened up in the seat, put the glasses on, and turned to look at me, waiting for an answer.
I stared at him blankly for a moment. “Oh, my name!” I recovered. “Well, same as most people, I guess. My father gave me the second one, and my mother gave me the first.” I looked out the window, hoping to change the subject. Everyone asked me about my name. I got tired of trying to come up with a glib rejoinder.
“So, was your mother from Jamaica, or were you born there, or what?”
“No, I was born in Kansas, but I don’t think my mother liked it there very much. Maybe Jamaica sounded better to her somehow.” I fidgeted in the seat. I always felt uncomfortable when the subject of my mother came up.
He seemed to sense my mood and let it go. After a few minutes, he tried a different approach: “Did you see anything out there last night?”
“Only one thing, I don’t know what it means. It’s the reason Redhead threw me. Some guy had built a campfire in the draw of the stream-an impossible place to camp. Who builds a campfire where there’s no dry ground to sleep? Anyway, I would guess that he’d been dozing, maybe sitting on a downed tree. He was wrapped up in a blanket and it was dark-I didn’t get a look at him. We must have startled him and almost ran him over because I didn’t see him there. He screamed, Redhead bucked, and I landed on my behind. The guy ran off. I tried to track him after I got back up but the ground up top was frozen, no tracks. He didn’t have any gear there except a flimsy canvas backpack. I didn’t get to look through it yet. The ashes from his fire looked to be a day old. Besides having an illegal campfire, something must have been up for him to run off like that.”
“Huh,” he uttered. It was the kind of sound you make when you notice something curious and you can’t quite figure it out.
“What?”
“Oh, probably nothing.” He shifted into low. “Someone has definitely been going back in there for some reason. Last night, I saw Santiago Suazo’s pickup pulled over on the four-wheel track north of there in the national forest. The truck was down that track about two clicks. The road is impassable, so he must have gone in farther on foot. There was no one around, and I didn’t see anything in his truck I could hold against him, but of course I couldn’t get inside it to look around. It looked like there were several sets of ruts there that were fresh. Maybe someone with a good four-wheel drive met up with him, and they managed to get down that road. When I went back around dawn to check on it, Suazo’s truck was gone, and then it was time for me to come meet you. I don’t know what he’s up to this time. He can’t lift much firewood when the roads aren’t passable, but he could have been scoping out a site to cut from later, or he could even have been poaching. He’s been known to take elk out of season. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. Everybody knows who Santiago Suazo is. He’ll sell you illegally cut firewood in the afternoon, then steal it from you that night and sell it to your neighbor the next day. One of ours busted him two years ago with three eagles that had been shot with a high-powered rifle, and he got off because the agent hadn’t followed procedure to the letter; the judge wouldn’t even allow the photographs of the birds to be used as evidence. Suazo has done probation for petty theft, a little lockup time for an assault with a deadly weapon conviction, but he’s gotten off on two different charges of possession of unlicensed firearms and one minor drug charge. He’s got a second or third cousin who’s a lawyer. Nobody has managed to nail him for illegal woodcutting yet, but almost every time we discover an area that’s been clear-cut, he’s been seen around. We get reports, the sheriff gets complaints, but we can’t prove anything. One of these times Suazo is going to steal somebody’s firewood and they’ll shoot him. We won’t hear about it, but they’ll find that pickup of his at the bottom of some arroyo the next spring.”
He looked at me and chuckled. “You got it.”
By this time, we had reached the Forest Service station. Kerry pulled the truck into the dirt lot and backed the trailer to the path in front of the stables.
I began trying to untangle myself from my blanket cocoon, balancing the full mug of coffee carefully in one hand. “I’ll get Redhead-”
“No.” He reached out a hand and pulled the blanket back over my shoulder, tucking me in. “You stay here and get warm. I’ll take care of your horse. I think she likes me better than you, anyway.” He winked and smiled.