Calder Pride (38 page)

“I’m not sure,” Jessy answered. “It’s his shoulder. I can feel where the bullet came out the top of it.”

“…okay,” Ty mumbled.

Cat ran back into her bedroom, grabbed a pair of tennis shoes from the closet and raced for the stairs.

“Cat, where are you going?” her father demanded.

“The lines are dead. There’s a mobile phone in the truck.”

She flew down the steps and heard a door shut somewhere in the house. The path through the living room was ingrained in her memory. She crossed it without checking her headlong pace. At the front door, Cat paused long enough to push a foot into one of the shoes, then hopped onto the front porch while tugging on the other one.

The rumbling growl of an engine starting up momentarily froze her.

It came from behind the house. The kidnappers. It had to be the kidnappers.

Cat ran to a pillar and flattened herself against it as a van came barreling around the corner of the house, its lights off. She watched to see which direction it went. When it turned onto the north road, she ran to the pickup.

The interior light flashed on when Cat opened the door on the driver’s side. She snatched the keys off the floor mat and scrambled behind the wheel, driven by only one thought—she had to find out where they were taking Quint.

Hurrying, she inserted the key in the ignition and
started the truck. She reached for the headlight switch, then pulled her hand back. She had been born and raised on this ranch. Cat knew its roads better than whoever had taken Quint. Gunning the motor, she reversed away from the house and sped after the van.

The lights atop the patrol car flashed their eye-jarring cadence, throwing their jerky glare across the Shamrock ranch yard. Logan spotted the dark, wet glisten of a blood trail that led straight to the house. The hand that had been on the butt of his .45 now drew it.

“Stay alert, Garcia,” he told the deputy with him. “It could be a trap.”

Moving parallel to the trail, they followed it to the front stoop and flanked the door. Logan checked to make sure the stocky deputy was ready, then burst onto the porch and into the darkened house, Garcia on his heels. High-powered flashlight beams raked the interior. Then Logan hit the wall switch, flooding the living room with light.

A scratching sound came from the kitchen. At a nod from Logan, the two men moved toward it with caution. The beam picked out O’Rourke’s body on the floor, the back of his shirt soaked with blood. The telephone was near him, his fingertips touching the beeping receiver off the hook.

Logan flipped on the light switch, motioned for Garcia to check the rest of the house, then went to the motionless body, sidestepping the blood smears on the floor. Crouching beside him, Logan pressed two fingers to O’Rourke’s carotid artery and found a pulse. It was on the thready side, but it was there.

“Hang on, O’Rourke. Hang on.” Logan holstered
his gun and ripped open O’Rourke’s shirt, exposing two bullet wounds. One appeared to be an exit wound, while the second was an entrance wound, an apparent kill shot, intended to finish off the old man.

Garcia returned to the kitchen. “We’re clear.” His dark eyes focused on O’Rourke.

“He’s alive,” Logan told him. “Grab some towels. We need to get a compression bandage going and slow down this bleeding.”

“How the hell did he drag himself all the way in here, shot up like that?” The deputy moved to the cupboard, pulling out drawers.

“Sheer force of will.” Logan picked up the receiver on the old rotary dial phone and depressed the cradle’s disconnect button, silencing the irritating beep. A soft moan came from O’Rourke as his fingers moved in a feeble effort to reach the phone. Logan bent close to his face. “O’Rourke, are you with me? Can you hear me?” Lashes fluttered and lifted, showing him glazed and unfocused green eyes. “Who did this, O’Rourke? Who shot you?”

“…don’ know…” The words were barely louder than a breath.

“…mas’…”

“He had on a mask?” Like the kidnappers. The connection in Logan’s mind was instant.

Eyes closed in confirmation. “Yeah…Ca’…alone…sorry…” The last faded into a long feathering breath.

There was a perceptible slumping of his body. Seeing it, Logan thought they had lost him. But, no, the pulse was still there. Gathering up the phone, Logan straightened and moved out of Garcia’s way, then silently cursed the slowness of the rotary dial. He wouldn’t let himself think about the mask yet.

“Jenna, it’s Echohawk,” he said the instant her voice came on the line.

“Logan. Thank God, I—”

“O’Rourke’s alive—barely. Get an ambulance out here double quick. Alert the air-evac while you’re at it.”

“Right away. I’ve been trying to reach you on the radio,” she rushed. “Your wife called—two men in a van took your son. Ty Calder was shot. I’ve got paramedics headed there now.”

“When was this?”

“I’m not sure. She called a few minutes ago.” She paused a beat. “Logan, she’s following them. She called me from the mobile phone in the ranch pickup.”

“Give me the number.” His mouth tasted tinny and dry. She read it off to him. He hung up and dialed the number with sharp, impatient strokes. When Cat answered on the second ring, Logan wasted no time.

“Cat, where are you?”

“Logan. Thank God it’s you.” He heard her voice waver, heard it steady. “I’m on the main north road, almost to the gate. The van is less than a mile ahead of me, heading for the highway. They took Quint. I tried to stop them—”

“I know, I know—”

“It must be the same two men, Logan. They wore ski masks and cut the phone line just like before. They shot Ty in the shoulder. I don’t know how bad he is.”

“Listen to me, Cat—”

She broke in again. “Logan, they’re turning east on the highway. They’re turning east! They’re in a dark-colored van. I don’t know what the make is. And I haven’t been able to get close enough to get a license number.”

“Cat, pull over. Do you hear me? Pull over,” he ordered harshly. “I’m only a few minutes away, and
the highway south of town is blocked. They can’t go anywhere.”

“But they could turn onto a side road,” she argued.

“Damn it, pull over and stay where you are. I’ll find them. Don’t follow them any farther.”

“Logan, I’m almost sure they don’t know I’m behind them. My lights aren’t on and—They’re slowing down. Logan, they’re slowing down.”

“Stay back. For God’s sake—”

“Oh, my God,” she murmured.

“What is it? What’s happening?”

“They’re turning off, Logan.” Her voice sounded strange. “They’re turning into the old Simpson place. That’s where Lath Anderson lives.”

“I’ll handle it from here, Cat,” he spoke carefully and clearly. “You just stay right where you are and wait until I get there.”

“Logan, hurry. He’s got Quint.”

“I’ll take care of—” He heard a click on the other end. “Cat? Cat?” She had hung up. He swore viciously.

About a mile from the head of the rutted lane, Cat swung the pickup onto a section of grassy shoulder and killed the engine. Common sense told her not to go any farther; she didn’t know how long the driveway was. Logan was right, she decided. She should wait until he got there.

Cat rolled down the window and listened for the wail of a siren. There was nothing. It was impossible; she couldn’t just sit there. She had to go look, see where they were, maybe find out what they had done with Quint.

When she started to climb out of the truck, her
legs became tangled in her long nightgown. Stretching across the seat, Cat rummaged through the glove compartment and found a razor-edged box cutter. Using its sharpness, she sliced through the side seam and started ripping, shortening the nightgown to mid thigh.

Unimpeded, Cat stepped to the ground, noticed a denim jacket stuffed behind the cab seat, and pulled it out. It looked like one of Ty’s. Knowing it would be miles too big, she put it on and rolled back the sleeves, hesitated, then picked up the box cutter and stuffed it in a side pocket. It was a weapon of sorts, the only one she had. After her last experience with Lath, Cat knew better than to rely on it. Just the same, she felt better having it.

After a quick scan of the lane behind her, she took off, running alongside the rutted track, following it as it led her toward the old Simpson ranch yard. At the first glimmer of light ahead, Cat slowed and ducked into the trees, her breath coming quick and fast, her heart pounding.

The sudden, harsh gabbling of guinea fowl momentarily froze her near a tree trunk. Through the trees she could see the lights of a house trailer. An angry mutter came from somewhere nearby. She crept forward with caution.

“…worry too much, little brother.” Lath’s voice; Cat recognized that cocky drawl instantly. Rage rose up like bitter bile in her throat. “In the first place, ain’t nobody gonna come here lookin’ for him. Even if they did, you aren’t gonna hear a peep out of him. That sleepin’ pill will knock him out in five minutes flat. And they’ll never find him in there otherwise.”

Where was “in there”? Cat stole a look, glad of the denim jacket’s dull blue color that hid the paleness of her bare shoulders and the satin sheen of her
nightgown. The two men were walking toward the trailer, coming from a hillside area off to the left. Both were dressed in ordinary jeans and plaid shirts, the ski masks and gloves gone.

Rollie mumbled something.

“Hell, I’ll just stick those guns in the next shipment. If they ever surface again, it’ll be somewhere in Texas,” Lath replied with a strut in his voice. “I tell ya, I got this all figured out. Ma’s got a whole bottle of them pills. We can keep the kid doped up for a couple weeks if we have to.” He thumped Rollie on the back. “Wouldn’t you love to see Calder’s face about now?”

Laughing, he opened the trailer door. Cat ducked low behind the brush as light poured through the opening. Then the door closed, muting the voices, leaving only the occasional gabble of the still-uneasy guinea hens.

What were they doing over by that hillside? Cat wondered. Could that be where they had hidden Quint? She didn’t see anything that looked like a building, just trees and some brush.

“Nobody will find him,” Lath had bragged.

Maybe she could, if she got there before the sleeping pill knocked Quint out.

D
ammit, Cat, why couldn’t you have waited?” Logan clutched the torn swatch of satin from her nightgown. He looked in the direction of the Simpson place, his mind registering the odd noises coming from the pickup’s cooling engine. He was only scant minutes behind her.

“She can’t be far ahead of us,” Garcia echoed Logan’s thoughts.

“I know.” His fingers curled into the slick cloth an instant before he tossed it back onto the seat. “Wait here for our backup. I’ll see if I can find her—and get her out of there.” Logan checked his watch. “With or without her, I’ll be back in ten minutes. The state troopers should be here by then, and we’ll move in.”

“Right.”

Logan set off at a loping run.

An old root cellar. Cat stared at the weathered door that lay flush with the hillside slope. This had to be where they had hidden Quint. Hugging the shadows,
she crept closer to it, darting wary looks at the trailer.

The door lifted with barely a sound. She slipped inside and carefully lowered it shut. Blackness swallowed her, total and absolute. She battled back the surge of panic and reminded herself that she didn’t see either man carrying a flashlight. Somewhere, there had to be a light. She felt along the walls, encountered a string and pulled it. She heard the
snick
of a chain a split second before a single, bare bulb came on with blinding brightness.

Eyes narrowed against its glare, Cat looked around the cellar and saw nothing but shelves, a stockpile of canning jars, some empty and some filled. There was no sign of Quint. Her heart sank. She had been certain he would be here. But where? Where could they have hidden him when it was all so open and empty?

Taking a chance, she called in a loud whisper, “Quint, it’s Mom. Are you in here? If you can hear me, make some kind of noise.”

Cat held her breath, listening. Two seconds later, she heard a faint thump. She took a hesitant step forward, not sure where it came from.

“Do it again, Quint.”

There was a second thump, a little louder. Glass jars rattled on an end wall shelf. He was behind that wall, Cat realized. Somewhere there had to be a door. She tugged at the middle shelf, felt it give a little, heard the rubbing of wood against wood and pulled harder. With a groaning scrape, it swung toward her, almost the whole wall.

She saw Quint lying in the narrow space behind it, his mouth, hands, and legs taped. Swallowing a sob, Cat rushed to him and yanked the tape off his mouth, then dug the box-cutter out of the jacket pocket and went to work on the tape binding his wrists. Quint turned his head and spit, then spit
again. “They tried to make me swallow a pill,’’ he told her, gray eyes blazing. “Yuck, it’s all stuck on my tongue.” He screwed up his face at the taste of it.

“Use your pajamas to wipe it off.” As soon as his hands were free, Cat moved to his ankles. “Your dad’s on his way here. We’ve got to find him. Okay?”

“What if those men come back?” Quint sounded as worried as she felt.

“We’ve got to get out of here before they do.” She rubbed his legs and arms hard just in case the tape had cut off the circulation to them, and resisted the urge to hug him to her. There would be plenty of time for holding him and hugging him once they were safely away from here. Cat stood him up and turned. “Get on my back. We’ll do this just like we did before.”

He climbed on and wrapped his arms around her neck. “Are we going to ride Molly again?”

“Not this time, honey. This time we’ll have to run until we find Dad. Hang on tight now.”

Outside, the guineas set up another racket. Cat stopped halfway to the slanted door, fear striking deep in the pit of her stomach when she heard a voice muttering.

“Damned noisy birds. Don’t you know that I’m the one that buys your damned feed.”

“It’s them, Mom.” Quint whispered near her ear.

Cat swung him off her back. “You hide right there by that door. When he comes in, I’m going to talk to him so he won’t see you. You run outside as soon as you can—and you run that way.” She pointed in the direction of the highway. “Don’t wait for Mom. You run as fast as you can.”

He nodded, his eyes big.

She could hear footsteps now. “Hide, quick,” she whispered and pushed him toward the side of the door.

As soon as he was hugged against the edge of it, Cat pulled the string, switching off the overhead light. She backed up a couple of steps and bumped against the shelf door. Hearing the clink of jars, she reached around until her fingers touched smooth glass. As she eased the jar off the shelf, the slanted door was raised up. A moonlit sky showed the bulky silhouette in the opening. Cat knew she had only seconds before he turned on the light and saw her. She prayed she could distract him long enough for Quint to get away.

His hand reached for the string. Cat heard the slide of the chain and closed her eyes against that first blinding glare. It flashed against her eyelids.

“What the hell—” Rollie stared at her in openmouthed shock, then took an angry step forward.

Cat threw the jar at his head. “Run, Quint! Run!” She grabbed for another jar, her heart soaring at the sight of Quint darting into the open doorway.

Rollie looked back in time to see him scamper outside. He charged after him, bellowing, “Lath! Get out here! The kid’s loose!”

Cat ran after him and jumped on Rollie’s back, hammering at his head with the second jar. A door slammed. With an angry roar, Rollie threw her off. She landed hard and struggled to get up. She had one short glimpse of her barefoot, pajama-clad son running as fast as he could over the rough ground. But a little boy’s ‘fast’ wasn’t fast at all. Rollie could catch him easily, and he had already started after him.

“You fool, get her!” Lath yelled. “She’s the one that can get us the death penalty. Here.” He threw something to Rollie. Cat saw the flash of moonlight reflecting on metal and knew it was a gun. “I’ll grab the kid.”

In those seconds while Rollie caught the gun, shifted it into his grip and turned toward Cat, she
scrambled to her feet and raced for the tree-covered hillside five yards away. Footsteps pounded after her. As she ducked behind the first tree, Cat heard that sharp crack of sound. Bark chips flew. She ran to the next tree.

“Throw down your weapon, Anderson!”

Logan. Cat swung toward the sound of his voice. Lath let loose with his automatic, raking the brushy edge of the clearing with a spray of bullets. At almost the same time, a skinny pajama-clad boy scurried into the concealing brush.

“Keep running, Quint. Keep running,” she whispered.

Twigs snapped not far from her location. Cat instantly changed directions to lead Rollie away from Quint. But it was Logan she was worried about, conscious of the silence that had followed Lath’s gun burst.

Logan melted back into the trees, away from the yard, placing each foot carefully and angling to intercept Quint. Once he had his son out of harm’s way, he could concentrate on Cat.

Somewhere Lath moved along the tree edge. Once in a while, Logan could hear a faint rustling. The trailer door opened a crack, letting out a sliver of light. “Lath,” a woman’s voice called softly. “Did you get him?”

“No,” came the answer far off to Logan’s right. “But stay inside. I’ll let you know when it’s safe.”

The heel of his foot touched a rock. Logan shifted silently off it, then picked it up and hurled it as far as he could to the right, where the voice had been.

It landed with a thud, drawing another spate of
bullets. Logan used the masking noise to sprint closer to where Quint should be. He spotted him just ahead, running awkwardly in his bare feet, the moonlight picking up the paleness of his light-patterned pajamas.

“Quint,” he whispered.

The boy stopped and turned his tear-streaked face toward him. “Dad,” he sniffled, his face crumpling.

Logan scooped him under his arm and angled back toward the ranch lane and the waiting patrol car. Seconds after he intersected the rutted tracks, he heard footsteps running toward him, coins jangling in a pocket.

“Garcia,” he called out softly.

The stocky deputy puffed to a stop. “Logan, thank God. I heard gunfire.”

“Is our backup here?”

“Not yet.”

“Take Quint back to the patrol car.” He handed him into Garcia’s arms.

“Dad, no.”

“I’ve got to go get your mom.”

When he made his way back to the ranchyard, Logan saw that all the lights had been turned out inside the trailer. He scanned the area, trying to locate Lath’s position, sweat beading along his upper lip.

A partially muffled outcry came from high on the hillslope, followed by scuffling sounds. Abandoning caution, Logan broke toward it, fully aware that Cat was a bigger threat to the Andersons alive than she was dead.

Gunfire exploded again, bullets chopping the brush directly ahead of him. Logan skidded to a stop, going to the ground in a feet-first slide as a shower of leaves and branches rained on him.

Gathering his legs under him, he sprang into a
crouching run, making for the nearest tree, snapping off three shots as he went. His shoulder hit the solidness of the trunk and immediately he dived behind a boulder an instant before another spray of bullets chewed the tree bark.

The shooting had driven the guinea fowl from the house yard. Their disturbed racket now came from somewhere near the old ranch buildings. Under their covering noise, he scooted back to another tree and stood up behind it, taking off his hat to peer around it and locate Lath’s position.

Something moved in the shadows near the trailer steps. Logan shifted to another tree for a better look. Suddenly there was Lath vaulting onto the wooden stoop and yanking the door open.

Above the boom of a shotgun, a voice yelled, “You ain’t takin’ my boys!”

The blast blew Lath back against the railing. Logan briefly closed his eyes against the anguished scream that followed, then he looked to the hillside, his fingers tightening around the .45. Cat was up there somewhere.

With the gun pointed straight at her head, Cat didn’t move. The sharp rock digging through the denim sleeve into her elbow didn’t register, nor the trickle of blood from her scraped knee. The piney smell of resin was all around her. There was a sharpness and a clarity to every sight and sound that gave all of it a feeling of unreality.

But that gun was very real. Cat forced her eyes to look beyond the muzzle’s deadly maw at Rollie. Anger and regret warred in his expression.

“Why? Why did you have to follow us?” The gun shook with his tightly bit words.

Hope sprang. If he truly wanted to kill her, he
would have already pulled the trigger. “Don’t do this, Rollie.” Her voice sounded thin. She worked to strengthen it. “It will only make things worse for you.”

“It can’t get any worse.”

Cat heard the sob in his voice. “Yes, it can. Rollie, I can testify for you. I—”

“You wouldn’t before!” he raged. “Vengeance, that’s what you wanted. Now I’m getting mine.”

His voice was low and ugly, hard purpose ridging the set of his jaw as he looked down the barrel of the gun. “Rollie—”

An explosive blast reverberated through the night. Cat flinched, thinking he had fired, but he was spinning away. A keening wail came from the house yard. Rollie took a step toward it, his whole body tense, listening.

Seizing her chance, Cat was on her hands and knees in a flash and scrambling away even as his voice rang out, “Ma? Ma!” Then the rattle of stones alerted him to her escape. “Come back here, you little bitch.” He lunged after her.

Her foot slipped on a rock. She stumbled. His fingers closed around a handful of denim, pulling her back. With a wild, twisting shrug, Cat was out of the over-sized jacket. Before she had taken two scrambling steps, he grabbed her hair and yanked her back, muscled arm banding itself across her throat in a chokehold. Her hands came up to pull at it and release the pressure.

“Let her go, Rollie.”

Cat instantly stopped struggling at the sound of Logan’s voice, relief soaring through her when she saw his dark shape near a tree, his outstretched arms braced in a shooting stance. It crashed at the cold feel of the gun muzzle pressed against her temple.

“Drop the gun, Echohawk. Drop it or she dies.”

Logan never changed his stance. “You’re no killer, Rollie. We both know that. Now, give it up. It’s over.”

“It isn’t over yet. Lath—”

“Lath is dead.”

“You’re lying.” A tiny mewling sound came from Rollie’s throat. “Get away from that tree. Step out here where I can see your face.”

Cat gasped at the sudden, hard jab of the gun against her temple, then bit down on her lip to stifle any further cry. With frightened eyes, she watched Logan move with slow, deliberate steps into the moonlight, keeping his gun still pointed at Rollie.

“He’s dead,” Logan repeated. “Now drop the gun. It’s over.”

The muzzle eased back from her head. Testing its closeness, Cat turned slightly, felt it and felt the movement eliminating some of the pressure against her throat. If she could turn her head all the way to the side, if he took the gun away, Cat was certain she could duck out from under his arm.

“Ma?” Rollie said in a kind of question.

“She’s crying over your brother. She won’t want to lose both her sons tonight. Drop the gun, Rollie.”

“You did it, didn’t you?” Anger trembled in his voice. “You killed my brother!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cat saw the barrel of the gun swing toward Logan. She didn’t remember anything; she didn’t remember twisting her head out from under Rollie’s arm, only the gun centering on Logan. She didn’t remember dropping to the ground to be out of Logan’s line of fire, only the explosions coming one on top of the other.

She didn’t remember screaming, only the sight of Logan falling in that sharp limp way that told her he’d been hit.

Sobbing, Cat ran to him.

The pain, he couldn’t breathe. Eyes closed, Logan felt himself rise, then fall back again. A whisper of perfume came to him. The fragrance of it made him open his eyes and make sure it was real.