The Rider Revealed
Unbeknownst to Maria, Jessie and Rob had been plotting to make her last day on the ranch memorable. The following afternoon, Jessie announced that they were having a barbecue in the yard instead of regular dinner in the kitchen.
“What?” Maria exclaimed. “I never heard anything about a barbecue.”
“It’s for you,” Jessie said, a broad smile crossing her face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. But the family and the ranch hands wanted to make sure they gave you a proper send-off.”
“Wow,” Maria said. “That’s—that’s really nice.”
It felt surreal that this was her last day on the ranch.
Not just the last time this visit, but the last time ever.
The papers to sell the ranch were being drawn up today, and by tomorrow they would probably be turned over to Owen Beck.
Looking out the kitchen window, Maria envisioned a resort in the middle of the big hayfield.
Maybe the Becks would keep the ranch house for something.
A small lodge or a visitor center. Maria could just see all the fancy people who would visit, fishing in the creek, sitting around drinking margaritas, riding horses.
It would be like the guest service the Rocker A did, but on steroids.
Maria couldn’t imagine what her grandfather, who apparently had been every bit as attached to the ranch as Grandma Austin was, would have said.
She helped Jessie make potato salad, jalape?o poppers, and fruit bowls. Rob would grill the meat for the barbecue, Jessie said.
Finally, everything was ready. Maria helped load it all into the back of Rob’s truck and climbed into the back after it, sitting there to make sure nothing spilled. Rob took the winding road up to the big house slowly, mindful of the cargo and the unbuckled passenger in the back.
They drove up behind the house, near a big shade tree.
Maria exclaimed in surprise. The tree had been hung with Chinese lanterns.
People milled around, some sitting at picnic tables that had definitely not been there the day before, others talking, others working on setup.
Fairy lights hung from the back of the house.
Uncle Russell was getting ready to help Rob with the grilling. Aunt Steph was arranging hors d’oeuvres on a platter. Many of the ranch hands were there. And there was Grandma Austin, not busy for once, sitting in a lawn chair talking to one of the cowboys.
One cowboy was conspicuously missing. Maria had heard that Tim had gotten back the day before, but she hadn’t seen him.
He was probably resting up. It was just as well.
Grandma Austin could praise Tim all she wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that he had broken Maria’s trust and not trusted her himself.
She had opened up and shared things about herself with him that she usually didn’t share with anyone. He hadn’t shared anything.
Maria bustled back and forth, helping Rob and Jessie unload food. She didn’t make as much progress as they did, though, because she kept getting stopped by people who wanted to say goodbye. They’d all have to say goodbye to each other, too, in a few days.
Guitar music was coming from near the tree.
A couple of the cowboys were playing bluegrass.
It was embarrassing, having so much fuss made over her leaving.
Whose idea had this been, anyway? Was it really Maria’s whole family and the ranch hands?
Or was it Grandma Austin’s idea that she was letting other people take credit for?
Someone elbowed Maria. Maria turned. It was Annabelle.
“I haven’t seen much of you recently.” The taller girl looked apologetic, twisting a strand of one blonde curl around her finger. “But I wanted to say thanks, and that it’s been nice hanging out with you the last few weeks. Sorry I kept being gone.”
“That’s all right.” Maria smiled. “I hope we keep in touch over social media after I go home.”
“I’d love to,” Annabelle said. “I’ll have more time, since I’m not getting ready for Miss Rodeo Montana. Maybe I can be a fashion consultant for some of those other girls. They’ll need to put their wardrobes together for the pageant.”
“That sounds fun,” Maria said. “Probably more fun than a nerve-wracking pageant, honestly.”
Maria found a spot at one of the picnic tables with Annabelle and Savannah.
She’d never had an authentic Western barbecue, and the meat—pork, beef, chicken, or a little of each, depending on what you wanted—melted in the mouth.
The potato salad wasn’t too heavy on the mayonnaise, and the jalape?o poppers provided a good amount of heat.
Maria reminded herself to spend more time doing Western cooking when she got back to Michigan.
She was in the middle of a bite when someone came around the side of the house. It was a rider on a black horse, his hat pulled down, his mask covering his face. His arm was in a sling.
Why on earth was Tim doing the masked rider thing again, in broad daylight? Especially with the sling? People would guess who he was right away. What was he doing riding a horse when he was injured? Maria had questions.
Savannah elbowed Maria in the ribs. “It’s the Montana Rider!” she exclaimed. “I guess he came to say goodbye. I’ve never seen him in the daytime. What happened to his arm? Wait, what happened to his arm?”
Her eyes were wide as saucers, staring at Tim in the Montana Rider outfit. Maria waited. She wasn’t going to say anything unless Savannah guessed.
But Tim didn’t give Savannah a chance to guess.
He rode his horse between the picnic tables, people scattering at his approach (although he approached slowly enough so that he shouldn’t actually hit anybody).
He stopped by Maria’s table, looking down at her.
Then he raised his head, addressing the crowd, on whom a startled silence had fallen.
“Hi, everybody,” he said. “A lot of you have seen me, or heard of me, or talked to me. The Montana Rider. Well, I’m coming clean.”
Murmuring had started, especially from the ranch hands, who—based on what Maria had overheard of their lunchroom conversations—had been wondering about the Montana Rider for some time.
With his non-injured hand, Tim flung his hat and mask to the ground.
“Tim!” Savannah exclaimed, her voice a mingled shriek of surprise and delight. “It was you?”
The whole ranch seemed to be talking at once. Tim waved his good arm, and the commotion died down.
“It was me all the time,” Tim said, his voice carrying over the yard. “I started doing it to amuse Savannah here.”
“Really?” Savannah clasped her hands.
He smiled at her. “Well,” he said, turning back to the rest of the assembly, “then we started getting sabotaged. And I had a run-in with some of those guys. At the time, they told me that if I—Tim Daniels—kept snooping around, it would be bad for the Austins. Obviously I wasn’t going to stop snooping around, but I didn’t want to put the Austins in danger.
So I decided to do my snooping in the Montana Rider outfit.
I didn’t tell anybody except Pat, in case the word got out.
But I know now that was a mistake.” His shoulders slumped.
He’d made a mistake, all right. But it looked like he was sorry for it now. Maria’s heart warmed.
Tim cleared his throat. “I think you all deserve to know who I think is behind the sabotage on this ranch,” he said.
“Yes, there’s the guy with the skull tattoo.
A bunch of people have heard about that.
But the guy that I really think is behind all this—and I haven’t proven this yet—is Neil Baldwin. ”
Neil. Maria’s head began to whirl. Neil had a motive. He only benefited from the ranch sabotage. If the Austins sold the Rocker A, Neil could bundle his ranch for a large profit too.
Murmuring had increased again.
“It can’t have been Neil!” Annabelle exclaimed. “I mean, I’m mad at him, but I don’t think he did it. One of the times we had sabotage happen, he and I were hanging out together.”
“I think he hired other guys to do at least some of his dirty work,” Tim said. “The guy with the cow skull tattoo is one of his ranch hands. I saw him with Neil at the rodeo.”
Annabelle’s brow creased deeply, and she folded her arms.
“I was trying to get evidence about Neil,” Tim said, “when I had a run-in with the guys trying to set the bunkhouse on fire. I’ve been in the hospital since then. And nobody told me anything. I heard this morning that the Austins were going to sell the ranch.”
Uncle Russell cleared his throat, looking like he was about to say something, but Tim turned, speaking directly to Grandma Austin.
“Pat,” he said, “if the hands and I work together, I think we can trap Neil at his own game. It was different when nobody else knew, trying to catch him on my own. But I think we can come up with a way to outwit him. Please, don’t sell the ranch yet.
You haven’t made the news public. Put it off for a few days.
Give me a chance—with the rest of the people on this ranch—to fix this, before you do anything.
Even if you did sell the ranch in the end, you wouldn’t want somebody who set fire to the bunkhouse running around loose, would you? ”
Grandma Austin looked around. “I’ll talk to the family,” she said. “We’re going to collaborate. But I hope the rest of the family agree.”
“Thank you,” Tim said, his voice suddenly gruff. “Pat, you know what this place means to me.”
He turned away, toward Maria, and her heart leaped in her chest, although she didn’t know why.
“Maria,” he said. “I should have told you about the Montana Rider the first day I ran into you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you never wanted to speak to me again.”
Maria was speechless.
Something landed on the table in front of her. It was a single yellow rose. Where had Tim gotten that?