chapter Ten
Dawson came to slowly. At first all he felt was cold. Then came the pain, the confusion. He blinked for a moment, thinking he’d gone blind.
The darkness was total. He blinked again. Something sticky ran down into his eye and when he raised his hand to the spot over his eye, his fingers came away wet with blood from a gash in his forehead.
He wiped the blood away and tried to sit up, suddenly aware of his shoulder. It, too, was wet with blood. He lay there for a moment breathing in the damp, musty air. He could hear what sounded like gunfire outside and, between the volleys, could hear what sounded like rain. Under him he felt cold dirt and sensed he was underground.
With the memory of what had happened, he pushed himself up, fighting the pain; his only thought was of Jinx.
“Jinx?” he said as he felt around on the cold floor. “Jinx?” He listened but heard nothing but the haunting echo of his own voice. Reaching out in front of him, he felt something cold and solid. A rock wall. He inched his fingers along it until he came to what felt like weathered wood. A door? He discovered a hinge and pulled himself to his feet, using the wall for balance until the dizziness subsided.
The doorknob was ice-cold to the touch. He turned it. The door swung open and the space filled with a dim, rain-streaked light. He stumbled out into a small covered space that ended in a row of stairs leading upward.
He could hear the thunder now, see flashes of lightning. Breathing in the sweet scent of rain, he stepped back out into the downpour. He still felt wobbly on his feet, but some of his strength was coming back.
Glancing back, he made sure that Jinx wasn’t in a corner of what he saw was an old root cellar that had been dug back under the house. His attackers had shot him and thrown him down here, probably thinking no one would find his body.
But where was Jinx?
Dawson began to climb the steps, his memory coming back to him as he mounted each old stone step. The rustlers had waited in ambush and attacked. He told himself he should have known they would do that. Hadn’t they already killed one man?
But he hadn’t anticipated an attack. He’d believed that they were more interested in his cattle. Apparently they were more worried about Jinx than he’d thought they would be.
Still, something niggled at the back of his mind. First her father, and now they were after Jinx. Probably had Jinx. The thought sent his heart pounding. What would they do to her? He hated to think.
With dread, he went to find her.
The thunderstorm snuffed out most of the day’s light. Low clouds hung over the ranch yard. Through the driving rain he saw the spot next to the wishing well where he’d last seen Jinx.
Their horses were gone. No big surprise there. As he moved through the downpour, he looked for any sign of her and saw nothing. The old cabin was small and empty. At the wishing well, he stopped and looked down. The well was too narrow to stuff a body down. He felt relieved, though only a little.
After a quick search, it was clear.
Jinx was gone.
So were the cattle and his horse. The rustlers had taken her. As he bandaged his shoulder as best he could and washed the blood from his face, he told himself that their taking her alive was a good sign. They had left him for dead and could have done the same thing with her. He had to assume they had a reason for keeping her alive—at least for the time being.
Though he wasn’t fool enough to think she was safe. If anything, he was all the more worried about her. Where would they take her? In a flash of lightning he looked down the mountain toward the prairie. They wouldn’t be crazy enough to try to move the cattle in a thunderstorm, would they?
For a moment he thought he heard the mooing of his cattle. He moved toward the sound, climbing up the small hill behind the cabin. At the top he waited for another crack of lightning. He didn’t have to wait long. The sky lit up, illuminating a ranch house in the distance and a large herd of black cows.
Relief washed over him like the pouring rain. He watched, trying to estimate how many of them there might be. He’d seen at least one rider and knew there would have to be several watching the herd. The cattle would be spooked with the thunder and lightning. Just about anything could start another stampede and the cattle could scatter for miles.
In the darkness that followed the lightning strike, Dawson saw what appeared to be a small fire glowing under an overhang on an outbuilding a little way from the house. There were no lights on in the house, no sign of Jinx. But there were horses in the corral, his and Jinx’s included.
Dawson knew what he had to do. The bastards had tried to kill him. They’d left him for dead. Taken his horse. And his woman.
The thought of Jinx being his woman made him smile. She would never belong to any man. But a man would be damned lucky if he could talk her into sharing her life with him.
With each step, he thought about her and how to get her away from the rustlers. He had no weapon and he’d lost just enough blood that he was unsteady on his feet. But he was alive, and with his last breath he would find a way.
He smiled to himself as he realized that he wasn’t going after the rustlers for justice. Or revenge. Or even his cattle. All he wanted was Jinx.
ZANE WATCHED THE PLANE bank over the Billings rimrocks and thought about what he’d learned in California.
“I have been worrying about Emma,” Alonzo had said. “She usually calls every few days to see how I am doing. I haven’t heard from her yet this week.”
“She doesn’t come to visit?” Zane asked, surprised by that, since the two seemed close.
“She knows he has people watching the house.”
“You’re sure her former husband is still in prison?” he’d asked Alonzo. Apparently Emma had gotten involved with an abusive criminal who’d almost killed her. He’d ended up in prison for killing another man during a liquor-store holdup. Emma had turned him in. He’d sworn that when he got out he would find her and kill her.
“I check every week. He is still inside. But he comes up for parole next year. It’s his friends I worry about,” Alonzo said, looking even more worried.
“It might not be this ex-husband or his friends.” Zane told him about Aggie Wells and how the sheriff in Whitehorse was planning to set a trap in the morning and his brothers were helping.
“It’s good she has such wonderful stepsons,” he’d said. “I don’t want to believe that our Emma married another killer.”
“She didn’t. My father had nothing to do with the deaths of his other wives. The sheriff thinks this Aggie Wells might be behind it. Hopefully, we’ll know tomorrow.”
“I know Emma loves your father. All she talked about every time I spoke with her was Hoyt this and Hoyt that. I could hear the happiness in her voice. She would never have left him if she believed he was innocent.”
“My father is convinced of that, as well.”
Alonzo had crossed himself and said something in Spanish he didn’t understand. “You must find her.”
Yes, Zane thought as the plane came into its final approach. He was beginning to think his brothers were right about Emma having never left Montana—at least not of her own free will.
Zane had promised to let Alonzo know as soon as he heard something and then he’d caught the last flight home. Now as the plane came in for the landing, he couldn’t wait to get back to the ranch. He still had a three-hour drive ahead of him, but he’d called Marshall and filled him in on everything he’d found out.
His brothers were at the ranch waiting for him. In the morning, the five of them would leave early to go off to work on the new fence and leave the sheriff to spring her trap.
Zane hoped to hell it worked.
JINX MOVED AROUND the dark abandoned house cautiously. She didn’t dare use the flashlight she’d found on Rafe. After she’d realized that the other rustlers must not have heard the gunshot over the noise of the storm, she’d searched Rafe, finding another gun, a knife and the flashlight. She tucked the knife sheath into the top of her boot, stuffed one of the pistols into her waistband and held on to the one that had killed Rafe.
She avoided his body. She was shaking, from the cold and rain, from what had happened with Rafe.
She’d killed a man.
That realization, she knew, hadn’t completely settled in yet. Right now she just had to concentrate on getting away from the other rustlers. If they found out she’d killed Rafe, she had no doubt what they would do to her.
Jinx checked the windows and saw where the other rustlers had gone. Through the pouring rain she could make out an old shed against the hillside with a lean-to on one side. They had built a fire and some of them were sitting around it. She was sure they were warmer than she was.
Counting the men around the fire, she figured three of them must be out with the cattle in the rain. She watched lightning zigzag across the open dark sky, listening as the thunder began to move off, and knew she couldn’t wait much longer to make a run for it.
Even if the men were planning to spend the night here, eventually someone was going to come check on Rafe. His body lay in front of the locked door, blocking her exit. Fortunately there was a back door. In a flash of lightning she’d seen that it opened to a small gully that ran behind the house.
If she could stay down and keep moving, she might be able to get far enough from the house that the men wouldn’t be able to find her.
In a burst of lightning that illuminated a corner of the house, she saw the saddlebags Rafe had brought in. She found hers and Dawson’s and quickly went through them, stuffing anything she thought she might need into one and pulling on her slicker. She was still chilled and running scared.
But she knew she stood only one chance and that was to make a run for it.
Jinx moved to the door, waiting until the next lightning flash and the pitch blackness that followed it.
DAWSON SMELLED THE SMOKE and knew he had to be close. He’d been stumbling along in the darkness and pouring rain. He was soaked to the skin and chilled and couldn’t tell if his light-headedness was from his loss of blood or from exhaustion and hypothermia.
He crouched down as he neared a rise and saw what was left of the old ranch buildings below him. He could see the dark cattle through the steadily falling rain and the horses penned up in the corral.
As he moved closer, staying to the gully behind the ranch house, he caught the sound of laughter, even a snatch of drunken conversation. He inched closer, anxious to see Jinx, praying she was safe.
The smell of smoke grew stronger. As he came around a bend in the gully he could see the light from the campfire under the lean-to and several of the men sitting around the fire. He listened.
If Jinx was with them, she wasn’t saying anything. He had to get closer. One of the men suddenly stepped to the edge of the lean-to and looked toward the house. He said something over his shoulder to the other men.
Dawson caught only the name Rafe and the words that woman, followed by a raunchy laugh as the man rejoined the others.
Rafe was at the house with Jinx? Dawson felt his stomach roil at the thought. Working his way back up through the narrow gully he was almost to the back of the house when the door opened.
He stepped back and waited, hoping it was Rafe.
JINX DARTED OUT THE DOOR only to be grabbed, spun around and slammed against the back wall of the house. Dawson pulled back his fist at the last moment. Rain pounded. Lightning lit the sky.
“Dawson!” she cried and threw herself into his arms as thunder rumbled around them. “I was so scared that you were dead.” He grimaced in pain at her embrace and she quickly drew back. “How badly are you hurt?” she asked, keeping her voice down as the thunder died.
“Never mind that. Where’s Rafe?” Clearly he had been expecting Rafe to come through that door—not her.
“Dead. The others are either watching the cattle or sitting by the fire under a lean-to a ways from here.” She could see that he was still processing the news that Rafe was dead.
“Anyone else in the house?”
She shook her head and he reached around her to open the door, leading her back inside. Jinx hadn’t wanted to go back inside. It was dark and cold in the house. Only the occasional lightning flash illuminated the space. They stood just inside the back door out of the rain.
When he glanced toward the front door and saw Rafe’s body in a flicker of lightning, she said, “It was an accident. I…” She couldn’t form the words to say what Rafe had planned for her or how she’d gone for his gun—another impulsive decision that had almost cost her her life. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Dawson put his good arm around her and pulled her close. “Did he tell you who is behind the ring?”
She shook her head and nestled against his wet clothing, seeking the warmth beneath it. “I don’t think the others will come around until morning.”
“We can’t take that chance,” he said. “We need to get to the horses. What do you have for weapons?”
She told him, handing him his gun and Rafe’s pistol, keeping her own and the knife.
“I’m going to sneak out and get us two horses,” he said. “Can you get the saddles and tack?”
“Yes.” She could feel his gaze on her.
“Be careful. We’ll meet in the gully behind the house.”
“Dawson—” She realized she’d almost blurted out that she loved him. “You be careful, too.”
He disappeared out the back door, with her right behind him. The saddles and tack had been dumped on the porch of the house out of the rain. She rummaged through it quickly and as quietly as possible.
Dawson took two halters from Jinx and she watched him cross to the corral between flashes of lightning. It was far enough from the house and the lean-to that she doubted the rustlers would see him. But if the already spooked horses started acting up, one of the rustlers might brave coming out in the rain to check.
Jinx quickly gathered up what she could carry and took it around to the back of the house out of sight of the lean-to and the men under it to wait for Dawson.
He appeared a few minutes later leading two horses. They each saddled their horses quickly. The rain was letting up, but her fingers were still red and numb by the time she finished getting her horse ready to ride.
“I want you to ride up through that gully at the back of the house and meet me on the other side of the hill,” he said.
She saw that he was still in a lot of pain and his shoulder had started bleeding again. He needed medical attention. Surely he wasn’t still thinking of trying to get his cattle back. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to open the corral and run off the horses, then you and I are headed for Chisholm Cattle Company.”
“What about the cattle?” she asked.
“All I care about is getting you away from here to some place safe. If you’re still determined to go after the leader of this rustling ring—”
“I just want to get you to a doctor,” she said.
He leaned into her, kissed her quickly and said, “Be ready to ride, then.”
JUST BEFORE DAYLIGHT, Marshall picked McCall up and brought her to the Chisholm ranch. She was hidden in the king cab seat behind him as they drove in—as per the plan. She could see the mountains in the distance and the tops of the peaks encased in clouds.
Earlier she’d thought she’d smelled rain in the air, but the forecast for the prairie was warm and dry. The sky was lightening to the east, the sun peeking out from the horizon, promising a clear, sunny day.
The other Chisholm brothers had stayed at the main house last night and had made sure that anyone listening in would know they weren’t leaving until morning.
Marshall parked where he could sneak her in the back way. She had her radio and deputies planted out of sight at strategic points on the roads so they could see anyone coming in or out of the ranch. They had been advised to simply report if they saw someone and not to apprehend.
McCall hoped they weren’t all wasting their time.
As she slipped into the back of the house, the Chisholms went about their business, making themselves sack lunches as she took a look around. She looked for a comfortable place to wait, since she didn’t know how long it might take.
There was a good chance that Aggie Wells wouldn’t show, because she was dead and buried somewhere on the ranch. It wouldn’t be the first time McCall had been wrong about a suspect. It took a kind of killer mentality to start from nothing and build an empire the way Hoyt Chisholm had. McCall reminded herself that she could be dead wrong about him and that would make Emma dead wrong, as well.
Finding a stool in the kitchen, she dragged it into the large walk-in pantry, leaving the door open a crack so she had a view of the kitchen table and the back door.
A few minutes later the brothers waved goodbye and made a show of leaving to go string barbed wire on the fence they were building too far from the house to return unexpectedly.
McCall listened as they drove away and a deathly quiet fell over the house. She thought about the way it must have sounded when all six sons and Hoyt and Emma and several hired help had been in this big old place. She also thought about the first time she’d met Emma and how much she’d liked her. It was clear just looking around the house that Emma had made it a home.
Now the place was empty. The brothers had been staying here to hold down the fort until their father was exonerated. If that happened. They were all old enough that they would soon want to go back to their own places, get on with their lives—no matter what happened with their father.
But she did wonder what would happen to Chisholm Cattle Company if Hoyt was found guilty. The brothers would try to keep the place going without him, but Hoyt had been the heart and soul of the ranch.
At the sound of a floorboard creaking, McCall started. She eased her weapon out of the holster, telling herself it was an old house. Old houses creaked and groaned. Another floorboard creaked and then another. The sound was coming from the living room. Whoever it was, was headed this way.
McCall stood and pressed her body against the pantry wall so she had a good view of the person who was about to appear in the kitchen doorway.
AS JINX RODE UP through the dark gully, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but she barely felt it she was so worried about Dawson.
Her heart suddenly leaped to her throat as she heard shouts behind her, then the boom of gunfire. She looked back, but saw nothing through the rain and darkness. It took every ounce of common sense she had not to turn around and go back. Spurring her horse, she stopped at the edge of the hill. She could see the cattle were huddled in a shimmering sea of black bodies against the first signs of daybreak. No sign of any rustlers.
Reining in, she turned and stared back into the darkness of the hillside, telling herself Dawson would come riding over the rise at any moment. She saw movement, heard more shouts and gunfire. The cattle began to mill and bawl.
Jinx blinked as a rider emerged from the rain and darkness. She held her breath. As the figure drew closer, she felt her chest swell with relief. Dawson. Tears burned her eyes. Her heart felt as if it might burst.
She glanced behind him, expecting to see rustlers coming over the hill as he rode up to her. His face was etched in pain and she feared they would never make it to the ranch. He gave her a smile, even though she could tell it cost him. The rain had almost stopped. A fine mist hung in the air, making all of it seem surreal.
As they reined their horses around and rode into the new day, she looked back at the cattle. She could smell smoke from the rustlers’ fire. Hear voices. Two rustlers on foot topped the hill as she and Dawson rode into the trees.
Rifle fire punctuated the wet morning air, but the men were too far away and their shots never reached the trees.
Jinx thought about the cattle they were leaving and wondered if Dawson would ever get any of them back. Or would the rustlers, after finding Rafe dead, only care about retrieving their horses and saving their own necks?
Dawson had come for her—not his cattle.
It filled her heart like helium and yet, as she rode, she couldn’t help the feeling that she’d failed in so many ways. She’d almost gotten Dawson killed and herself as well and she still didn’t know who was behind the rustling ring, who was ultimately responsible for her father’s death.
She shivered in the cold as water dripped from the dark green branches of the pines and glanced over at Dawson. This wasn’t over yet, she thought, realizing how weak he was. Nothing else mattered, she realized, but getting him to a doctor. She couldn’t let him die. Not after everything they’d been through. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell him that she loved him.