Outlaw Mountain

“Quiet in there,” he yelled as he came racing back to Joa

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was almost three o’clock in the morning before Joa

“What do we do with her?” the detective asked, nodding in the direction of a no longer hysterical Karen Brainard, who had taken refuge in the back of Dave Hollicker’s patrol car. “Do we book her and haul her off to jail?”

“Not yet,” Joa

After that, and with a heavy heart, Joa

When she arrived in the tiny yard, Joa

“Joa

And so Joa

It warmed Joa

“Rough night?” Butch asked, opening the door.

“You could say that. But you didn’t wait up for me all this time, did you?”

“No. I dozed on the couch. Junior’s asleep on the living room floor. Je

“I don’t,” Joa

“Have you eaten?”

“I had a piece of pepperoni pizza,” she told him. “but I think that was several hours ago.”

“Do you want me to fix you something?”

Butch’s questions contained all the familiar words and phrases. Not only had Joa

“All I want is a drink,” Joa

“It must have been bad then,” Butch said.

He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and led her inside. In the kitchen, he mixed her a vodka tonic, using some of the leftover stock of liquor he had moved down to Bisbee after the sale of the Roundhouse Bar and Grill up in Peoria. Due to a lack of storage space in his own house, he had used some of it to create what he called a respectable bar at High Lonesome Ranch.

While Joa

“Of course I was afraid,” Joa

“Flores could just as well have shot you instead of himself,” Butch observed. “What would have happened then?”

“I was careful,” Joa

“A vest will work for everything but a thick head,” Butch replied. “And you still haven’t answered my question. What would happen to Je

Joa

“I’m not fighting,” he said. “I’m talking. That’s why…” He stopped.

“Why what?”

“Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Go on to bed. I’ll clean up here. Then I’ll wake Junior up and we’ll head home.”

“Don’t go,” Joa

He took her glass and plate and put them in the dish-washer. “I don’t suppose a night on the couch will kill me,” he said.

“I don’t mean for you to sleep on the couch,” she told him. “We’re engaged. I want us to sleep in the same bed.”

“What will Je

“I didn’t have a chance. I’ll tell her in the morning.”

In the end, it didn’t take all that much convincing to get Butch to give up the idea of sleeping on the couch and to come join Joa

“By the way,” Butch told her, “we picked up that book from Daisy-America the Beautiful.”

“Did you have a chance to look at it?”

“Je

“Find anything?” Joa

“I think so.”

“Tell me.”

Butch did, but Joa

“Phone,” he said, shaking her awake. “Something about a meeting you’re supposed to attend.”

“I called the department last night and canceled the briefing,” Joa

“I don’t think it’s that kind of meeting,” Butch said. “Jeff Daniels is on the phone. He says you’re supposed to be the guest speaker at a Kiwanis meeting this morning. When you weren’t there by the time they finished the Pledge of Allegiance, he was afraid you’d forgotten.”

Groaning, Joa

“Don’t worry. Junior and I will get Je