Under Threat

someone said that she was driving back and forth for work from Bozeman where she was living with her mom.”
“Did she always leave alone?” he asked.
With a shake of his head, the bartender said, “No.” He motioned toward the names he’d given the marshal. “It was usually with one or the other of those two.”
Hud thanked Mike and went outside to the car. He’d already run the plates. The vehicle was registered to Christy Shores. Bill came out and drove off, followed by Mike who hopped on his mountain bike.
Christy’s older model sedan wasn’t locked Hud noted as he pulled on latex gloves and tried the driver’s-side door. It swung open with a groan. He looked inside. Neatness apparently wasn’t one of the young woman’s traits. The back seat was stuffed full of clothing and boxes. He’d been told that she was planning to move into an apartment on the second floor of Mary’s building today. The front floorboard on the passenger side was knee-deep in fast-food wrappers and Lone Peak Perk go cups.
He leaned in and took a whiff, picking up the stale scent of cigarettes and alcohol. All his instincts told him that after the apparent night Christy’d had, she would have driven home drunk rather than walk.
On impulse, he slid behind the wheel, inserted the key and turned it. There was only a click. He tried again. Same dull click. Reaching for the hood release, he pulled it and then climbed out to take a look at the engine, suspecting an old battery.
But he was in for a surprise. The battery appeared to be new. The reason the car hadn’t started was because someone had purposely disabled it. He could see fresh screwdriver marks on the top of the battery.
Hud suspected that whoever had tampered with her battery was the same person who had wanted Christy to take off walking down this road late last night.
When Mary walked across the street to the Lone Peak Perk the next morning, she was surprised to find her favorite coffee shop closed. There was a sign on the door announcing that there’d been a death.
She wondered who had died as she retraced her footsteps to climb into her pickup and head for the ranch. Cardwell Ranch was a half mile from Meadow Village on the opposite side of the Gallatin River. She always loved this drive because even though short, the landscape changed so drastically.
Mary left behind housing and business developments, traffic and noise. As she turned off Highway 191 onto the private bridge that crossed the river to the ranch the roar of the flowing river drowned out the busy resort town. Towering pines met her on the other side. She wound back into the mountains through them before the land opened again for her first glimpse that day of the ranch buildings.
Behind the huge barn and corrals, the mountains rose all the way to Montana’s Big Sky. She breathed it all in, always a little awed each time she saw it, knowing what it took to hang on to a ranch through hard times. Behind the barn and corrals were a series of small guest cabins set back against the mountainside. Her aunt Stacy lived in the larger one, the roof barely visible behind the dark green of the pines.
At the Y in the road, she turned left instead of continuing back into the mountains to where her Uncle Jordan and his wife, Liza, lived. The two-story log and stone ranch house where she’d been raised came into view moments later, the brick-red metal roof gleaming in the morning sun.
There were several vehicles parked out front, her father’s patrol SUV one of them. When she pushed open the front door, she could hear the roar of voices coming from the kitchen and smiled. This had been the sound she’d come downstairs to every morning for years growing up here.
Mary knew how much her mother loved a full house. It had been hard on her when all of her children had grown up and moved out. But there were still plenty of relatives around. Mary had seven uncles and as many aunts, along with a few cousins who still lived in the area.
As she entered the kitchen, she saw that there was the usual group of family, friends and ranch hands sitting around the huge kitchen table. This morning was no exception. Her uncle Jordan signaled that it was time to get to work, giving her a peck on her cheek as he rose and headed out the door, a half dozen ranch hands following him like baby ducks.
Mary said hello to her aunt Stacy and kissed her mother on the cheek before going to the cupboard to pull down a mug and fill it with coffee. There was always a pot going at Cardwell Ranch. The kitchen had quieted down with Jordan and the ranch hands gone. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she asked, “So what’s going on?” She saw her mother glance down the table at the marshal.
“Some poor young woman was run down in Meadow Village last night,” Dana said, getting up from the table as the timer went off on the oven. “It was a hit and run,” she added, shaking her head as if in disbelief.
Mary moved out of the way as her mother grabbed a hot pad and pulled a second batch of homemade cinnamon rolls from the oven.
“You might have known her,” her mother said. “She worked at that coffee shop you like.”
“Lone Peak Perk?” she asked in surprise as she took a vacated seat. “I stopped by there this morning and it was closed. There was a note on the door saying there’d been a death, but I never dreamed it was anything like that. What was the woman’s name?”
“Christy Shores,” her father said from the head of the large kitchen table.
“Christy.” She felt sick to her stomach as she called up an image of the small fair-haired young woman.