Big Sky Summer Part 23

"It's genetic," Casey spouted. To hear her tell it, a person would have thought Walker had pa.s.sed down a penchant for robbing banks through his DNA, instead of a love for all things Western, including rodeo.

"Maybe," Walker allowed. "But this isn't about me, Casey, and it isn't about you. It's about Shane, pure and simple, and the man he'll be some day."

"If anything happens to him, Walker Parrish-"

Inwardly, Walker sighed with relief and no little amazement. I'll be d.a.m.ned, he thought, she's caving.

"Nothing's going to happen to Shane," he said when she left the last part of her sentence dangling. "Most likely, he'll take a spill, but that's one h.e.l.l of a lot better than hanging back because he's afraid. Trying will net him some bruises for sure, but not trying will hurt his soul."

"I hate it when you're philosophical."

"No, you hate it when I'm right."

Another pause. "If he's afraid, why does he want to enter the rodeo?" Casey asked, sounding resigned now, but also confounded.

"Courage isn't about not being scared," Walker explained gently. "It's about being frightened out of your mind and going ahead with whatever it is you want to do, in spite of the fear." He paused for a second or two. "Kind of like stepping out onto a stage that first time, and singing for an arena packed with people who might or might not like what they hear."

"That's different," Casey said, but weakly.

"Is it? Weren't you scared the first time you opened for some big-name act, thinking you might get booed off the stage if only because you weren't the performer the audience came to see?"

"Heck," Casey answered, "I still get scared."

Walker smiled. That was a big admission, for one of the queens of country music. "I miss you," he said.

"Me, too," she answered. "I mean, I miss you and the kids, not that I miss myself."

"I figured that was what you meant," Walker teased. He wanted to say he loved her, right then and there, but he didn't, because there were over a thousand miles between them and things like that had to be said face-to-face, if only the first time. "Come home soon."

"Sunday morning," she said with a little sigh that raised Walker's spirits considerably. "In the meantime, it's interviews, and fancy dinners with speeches, and plenty of rehearsals and sound checks."

"Speaking of fancy dinners," Walker said, wondering if he was detaining her, keeping her from rejoining the VIPs, "Shane says you're eating with the vice president."

"Yes," Casey confirmed in a whisper, "and the man is a dweeb."

Walker laughed. "I voted for that guy's running mate," he said. "And, therefore, indirectly, for him."

"There is no accounting for taste," Casey replied succinctly. "How's Clare doing?"

"Well," Walker joked, "she hasn't been arrested or run off to join the circus or anything drastic like that."

"Gee, that's comforting," Casey responded.

"Clare's acting like what she is," Walker said, seriously now, "a fourteen-year-old girl whose life was just turned upside down, trying to figure out what the heck hit her." They were all dealing with some variation of the same theme, he supposed.

"Keep them safe, Walker," Casey said. It was a request, not a command-almost a plea.

"Count on it," Walker replied.

"See you Sunday," she said. "We'll probably talk before then, but..." Again, her voice trailed off.

"See you Sunday," Walker affirmed gruffly.

Sunday, it seemed to him, was a long way off.

THE JUNIOR RODEO opened on Friday afternoon, and Shane strutted around with his number pinned to the back of his shirt, sporting the new hat Walker had bought him and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with confidence. He was eager to ride, and bone-certain he'd wind up in the money when the final scores were tallied. Stranger things had happened.

Walker hoped the boy would place, of course, but he knew most of the other kids entered in the compet.i.tion, and they were good. The horses and bulls, while tamer than some, were appropriate for the sport, which meant they were flat-out ornery and guaranteed to do their best to unseat a cowboy long before the buzzer sounded.

Clare, who had come along only because Walker refused to leave her home alone, shook her head as she watched her younger brother conferring with other cowboys his age. "He's such an idiot," she said.

Walker, just back from taking a look at the day's stock, all of which belonged to him, adjusted his hat. "Harsh words," he replied easily. "If I thought you really believed that, I'd be mighty discouraged."

Clare sighed heavily. She was wearing jeans, sneakers and one of Walker's old shirts, and she carried a backpack, a fact he didn't register as unusual. Not at the time, anyhow.

"What if Shane gets hurt?" she fretted.

Walker grinned down at her. "Chances are, he won't," he said.

"Mom will kill you if Shane breaks a bone or gets a concussion or something," the girl warned. "He's her favorite, you know."

Walker hid his surprise. "She will indeed be four kinds of furious if anything like that happens," he agreed, "but what makes you think your mom favors either one of you over the other?"

"Parents always have a favorite," Clare said wisely, still watching her brother. "They just won't admit it, but kids know anyway."

"Well," Walker replied slowly, "I'm a parent, it just so happens, and I love you just as much as I love Shane."

Clare made a sputtering sound with her lips, a sort of modified raspberry, adequate to convey her skepticism. "He's a boy. Dads always like boys better than girls."

"Not true," Walker said, wondering why important conversations like this one always seemed to start up in public places, when there was little or no time to pursue the matter. On impulse, he plopped his hat onto his daughter's head and tugged the brim down over her eyes.

Much to Walker's relief, Clare laughed. "Really?" she asked, pushing back the hat and looking up at him with the first hint of a sparkle he'd seen in her in days.

"Really," he confirmed, choked up and trying not to show it.

She took off his hat, handed it to him. That quick, the father-daughter moment was over.

"Some of my friends from school are here," she said, not bothering with a segue. "Mind if I go find them?"

Walker nodded his permission, but qualified it with "Stay on the rodeo grounds, and check in, either by cell phone or in person, every hour or so."

She sighed dramatically but Walker thought, by the look in her eyes, that she was glad he was looking out for her. Later, he'd wonder if he was any better at predicting teenage behavior than he was at saying the right words at the right time, but at the moment, he was a sucker for a pretty girl-especially when that pretty girl was his daughter.

"All right," she agreed, and disappeared into the growing crowds.

Walker immediately had second thoughts. There were a lot of spectators on hand for the big weekend, out-of-towners as well as locals. Had he done the right thing, letting Clare go off looking for her friends? Casey, given her tendency to hire bodyguards and avail herself and her children of police escorts, probably wouldn't approve.

The trouble was, it was too late to call Clare back-she was already out of sight and, unless he missed his guess, she wouldn't answer if he called her cell.

This is Parable County, Montana, he reminded himself. Not the mean streets of some big city.

The opening ceremony was impressive, with flags and firecrackers and a six-jet flyover, courtesy of the United States Air Force. The kids in the high school chorus group sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," and every hat was off as men, women and children joined in.

When that part was over, Walker made his way behind the chutes, looking for Shane but trying not to be too obvious about it.

The calf roping was just starting, soon to be followed by steer wrestling-also known as bull d.o.g.g.i.ng, in rodeo lingo. After that would come the barrel racing, an all-girl compet.i.tion, and a show of skill on the part of both the rider and the horse that never failed to rouse Walker's admiration.

Shane appeared as quickly as his sister had vanished, standing beside Walker at the fence. He'd probably been hanging out with his buddies from school, but none of them were around at the moment.

"Does that hurt the calves?" the boy asked quietly, watching the compet.i.tion over the top rail of the fence. Clearly, this wasn't a concern he wanted broadcast all over the rodeo grounds. "Being roped like that, then jerked off their feet and tied up?"

"No," Walker said. "It's not like roping a human being or a dog and throwing them down. Calves are st.u.r.dy little devils, but if they look at all fragile for any reason, we pull them before the compet.i.tion gets started." He paused, watching the proceedings for a few moments. Shane hadn't said anything in reply, which might mean he had his doubts. "Roping calves is part of ranching," Walker went on. "It's usually the only way to give them their shots or treat them for disease or any kind of injury."

Shane nodded. "I guess calves don't come when you call them, the way dogs do," he observed.

Walker laughed and slapped his son on the shoulder. "Nope," he said. "They surely don't come when you call them."

They watched another compet.i.tor and then another, in companionable silence, as did lots of other fathers and sons. Both calves evaded the rope entirely, to the discouragement of the youthful and very earnest cowboys attempting to la.s.so them from the back of their trained horses.

"I drew a bronc called Backflip," Shane said as the announcer chatted up the audience while another calf and mounted rider prepared to make their run.

Walker knew Backflip, of course-knew all the horses, because he owned them. This particular animal was a fair-to-middling bucker, but he didn't have the juice for the main event, so he'd wound up in the junior category. "He's a good ride," Walker said, studying the boy out of the corner of one eye. He seemed nervous, which only showed he had good sense, but wasn't out-and-out scared.

"I guess eight seconds probably seems like a long time, when you're out there trying to stay on some bronc or bull."

"It can be an eternity," Walker said, speaking from experience. He'd given up rodeo a long time ago, except for some fooling around out on the ranch, when he and Al and the hands were winnowing out the duds, broncos and bulls who weren't athletically inclined, and there were times when he missed it a lot.

What he didn't miss was eating dirt, hitting the ground hard and running like h.e.l.l for the fence when a bull came after him instead of just trotting off across the arena, the way they usually did, proudly showing themselves to be cowboy-free.

"If you don't feel ready to tackle this, Shane," he added quietly when the boy didn't say more, "that's okay. n.o.body will think any less of you for it, including me."

Shane beamed at him. "I'm gonna do this," he said, and that was the end of that particular discussion.

Clare checked in by cell phone, as agreed, some forty-five minutes later. She was hanging out with some of her friends from school, and they were all headed for the carnival, set up right there on the fairgrounds, to try out some of the rides.

Walker, rea.s.sured, told her to have fun and call back in an hour.

By then, Shane had wandered off with a few of his pals, and Walker, thinking this fathering business wasn't as hard as folks made it out to be-folks like Casey, for instance-didn't give the matter another thought.

When the bareback event finally got underway, Walker kept some distance between himself and the chutes, knowing it would embarra.s.s Shane if he hovered too close.

Shane was the third rider in the lineup, as it turned out, and Backflip proved himself worthy of his name by shaking the kid off at the three-second mark.

Shane landed hard, sprawled on his back, while the pickup men herded Backflip out of the arena without incident.

"A good try for a first-timer!" the announcer boomed as Shane got his wind back, rolled to his feet and stooped to retrieve his hat. "That's Shane Parrish, ladies and gentlemen, from over in Three Trees. Let's give him a hand!"

The crowd cheered.

Using his phone, Walker snapped a quick picture of his son, dented and dust-covered as he ambled toward the fence, grinning from ear to ear. He texted the shot to Casey, so she'd know Shane was alive and well in spite of entering the rodeo, snapped the device shut and dropped it back into his shirt pocket.

Shane scrambled deftly over the fence to stand beside Walker, with that grin still splitting his face.

"I did it," he said.

"You sure did," Walker agreed, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his voice a mite gruff.

In the next moment, his phone rang, and Walker plucked it out of his pocket, expecting the caller to be Casey.

Instead, it was Treat McQuillan.

"One of my officers just arrested your daughter on a charge of shoplifting," the chief of police said, not even trying to hide his satisfaction over this turn of events. "We're holding her here, at the station."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

CASEY, TAKING A BREAK in her dressing room between rehearsals, smiled at the snapshot Walker had sent, showing a recently thrown Shane sauntering across the rodeo arena back in Parable, covered in dust and grinning as widely as if he'd just been named All-Around Cowboy for that year.

She was about to respond with a digital thumbs-up when the second message came in. Expecting another installment in the Shane saga, Casey opened it.

This new image brought her up short, made her breath catch in her throat and her heart lurch, then go into free fall. The picture showed a sullen Clare, hands cuffed behind her back, being placed in the back of a police car.

Fresh shock jolted through Casey before the first rush had entirely abated, swamping her whole system with adrenaline. She paced, shaking, and Mitch, who had been chatting with the hair and makeup people, noticed her distress, came over to her and silently took the phone from her hands.

She watched, helpless with panic, as her manager took in the shot of Clare, and though his color changed a little, he stayed cool. Expertly, Mitch thumbed from that screen to another, searching for the sender's name.

Casey could have told him not to bother, that he wouldn't find it. People who took pictures like that, delighting in the havoc it would wreak, normally crawled right back under their favorite rock as soon as the deed was done.

"No information," Mitch said with a sigh. "I can get in touch with your service provider, have them do some checking-"

"Forget it," Casey said. "Even if we found the sender, it wouldn't help." She drew in a breath, thought of all the good people who were depending on her and the other performers to make the benefit concert a big success. A lifesaving success, for some of the victims of that South American earthquake. "I've got to get back to Parable, Mitch. As soon as possible."

"Your show is tomorrow night," Mitch reminded her gently. "And it's live, Casey."

"We could record our performance-"

"Casey. Get a grip. It looks as though Clare's in some trouble, all right. But she's not injured or sick. If this turns out to be an emergency, fine, G.o.dspeed, catch the first plane home, do whatever you need to do and I'll cover for you on this end. But we don't know that it is an emergency, do we?"

Knowing Mitch was right didn't do one thing to calm Casey down. Concerned raged in her like a fever. "That's my daughter in that picture, Mitch," Casey replied in a ragged whisper.

"And she has a father," Mitch replied reasonably. This was the old Mitch, the one she knew so well, not the one who had proposed to her, and that was rea.s.suring. "Walker's right there, isn't he? Anyway, the situation probably isn't as bad as it looks. Kids do stupid things, Casey. It happens."