Montana Sky (33 page)

“I haven't been much help,” Adam said, as she removed his coat.

“Next time I'm shot you can be the tough one.” She choked off a gasp at the blood that soaked the sleeve of his shirt from shoulder to wrist. “Pain? How bad?”

“Numb.” With a tired and objective eye, he studied the damage. “I think it passed through. I don't think it's so bad. Would've bled more if it hadn't been so cold.”

Would've bled less, Willa thought, ripping the sleeve aside, if they hadn't been forced to ride like maniacs. She tore through the thermal shirt as well, felt her stomach heave mightily at the sight of torn and scored flesh.

“I'm going to tie it up first, stop the bleeding.” She pulled out a bandanna as she spoke. “I'm going to get some heat in here, then we'll clean it out and see what's what.”

“Check the windows.” He laid a hand on hers. “Reload your rifle.”

“Don't worry.” She tied the makeshift bandage snugly. “Lie back down before you faint. You're beginning to look like a paleface.”

She tossed a blanket over him, then rushed to the woodbox. Nearly empty, she noted, while her heart thudded. With trembling hands she set the kindling, arranged logs, set them to blaze.

The first aid kit was in the cupboard over the sink. Setting it on the counter, she flipped the lid to be sure it was fully stocked. With that small relief, she crouched down to the cabinet below for bandages, pushed through containers of cleaning supplies.

And felt her bowels turn to water.

The bucket kept below the sink was just where it should have been. But it was heaped with rags and stiffened towels. And the rusty stain coating all of them was blood. Old blood, she thought, as she gingerly reached out. And much
too much blood to have been the result of some casual kitchen accident.

Too much blood to be anything but death.

“Will?” Adam struggled to sit up. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” She closed the cupboard door. “Just a mouse. Startled me. I can't find bandages.” Before she turned back, she schooled the revulsion out of her face.

“We'll use your shirt.”

She clattered a basin into the sink, filled it with warm water. “I'd say this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you, but it won't.”

She set the basin and first aid kit beside him, then went into the bathroom for clean towels. She found one, only one, and indulged herself by pressing her clammy face against the wall.

When she came back, Adam was up, swaying at the window. “What the hell are you doing?” she barked, pulling him back to the cot.

“Can't let our guard down yet. Will, we've got to call the ranch.” There were bees buzzing in his ears, and he shook his head to scatter them. “Let them know. He could head down there.”

“Everyone at the ranch is fine.” Willa removed the bandanna and began to clean the wound. “I'll call as soon as I've got you settled. Don't argue with me.” Her voice took on a trembling edge. “You know I don't do well with blood to begin with, and this is my first gunshot. Give me a break here.”

“You're doing fine. Shit.” He hissed through his teeth. “I felt that.”

“That's probably good, right? Looks like it went in here just under the shoulder.” Nausea churned, was ignored. “And came out here in the back.” Raw, torn flesh with blood still seeping. “You must have lost a pint, but it's slowing down. I don't think it hit bone. I don't think.” She gnawed her lip as she opened the bottle of alcohol. “This is going to burn like hellfire.”

“Indians are stoic in pain, remember. Holy shit!” He
yelped once, jerked, and his eyes watered as the antiseptic seared.

“Yeah, I remember.” She tried to chuckle, nearly sobbed. “Go ahead and yell all you want.”

“It's okay.” His head spun, stomach churned. He could feel the clammy sweat pop out in small beads on his skin. “I got it out. Just get it done.”

“I should have given you pain pills first.” Her face was as white as his now, and she spoke quickly, words tumbling out to keep them both from screaming. Tears were falling. “I don't know if we have anything but aspirin anyway. Probably like trying to piss out a forest fire. It's clean, Adam, it looks clean. I'm just going to smear this stuff on it now and wrap it up.”

“Thank Christ.”

They sweated their way through the last of it, then each sighed heavily and studied the other. Their faces were dead pale and sheened with sweat. Adam was the first to smile.

“I guess we didn't do half bad, considering it was the first gunshot wound for both of us.”

“You don't have to tell anybody I cried.”

“You don't have to tell anybody I screamed.”

She mopped her damp face, then his. “Deal. Now lie back and I'll . . .” She trailed off, buried her face against his leg. “Oh, God, Adam, where's Ben? Where's Ben? He should be here.”

“Don't worry.” He stroked her hair, but his eyes were trained on the door. “He'll be here. We'll radio the ranch, get the police.”

“Okay.” She sniffled, lifted her head. “I'll do it. Just sit there. You've got to get your strength back.” She rose and walked to the radio, switched it on. There was no familiar hum, no light. “It's dead,” she said, and her voice reflected her words. A cursory look made her stomach drop. “Someone's pulled out the wires, Adam. The radio's dead.”

Tossing down the mike, she strode across the room, hefted her rifle. “Take this,” she ordered, and laid the gun across his knees. “I'll use yours.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

She picked up her hat, wound the scarf around her throat again. “I'm going after Ben.”

“The hell you are.”

“I'm going after Ben,” she repeated. “And you're in no shape to stop me.”

His eyes on hers, he rose, steadied himself. “Oh, yes, I am.”

It was a matter for debate, but at that moment they both heard the muffled sound of hooves in snow. Unarmed, Willa whirled toward the door and dragged it open. With Adam only steps behind her, she raced out. Her knees didn't buckle until Ben slid out of the saddle.

“Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to be right behind us. We've been here nearly thirty minutes.”

“I circled around. Found some tracks but—Hey!” He dodged the fist she'd aimed at his face, but misjudged the one to his gut. “Jesus, Will, are you crazy? You—” He broke off again when she threw her arms around him. “Women,” he muttered, nuzzling her hair. “How you holding up?” he asked Adam.

“Been better.”

“Me too. I'll tend to the horses. See if there's any whiskey around here, would you?” He gave Willa a friendly pat on the back and turned her toward the door. “I need a drink.”

“C
AMPSITE A LITTLE NORTH OF WHERE WE GOT
ambushed was cold. Signs somebody dressed some game. Looked like three people on horseback, with a dog.” He patted Charlie on the head. “Two days, maybe three. Tidied the place up, so I'd say they knew what they were doing.”

He dug into the canned stew Willa had heated. “Anyhow, there were fresh tracks. One rider, heading north. My guess is that would be our man.”

“You said you'd be right behind us,” Willa said again.

“I got here, didn't I? Charlie and I wanted to poke around first.” He set what was left of the stew on the floor for the grateful dog and resisted rubbing his hand over his stomach where her fist had plunged. “The way I see it, the guy takes a couple of shots, then rides off. I don't think he waited around to see what we'd do.”

“He may have been staying here,” Adam put in. “But that doesn't explain why he sabotaged the radio.”

“Doesn't explain why he tried to shoot us, either.” Ben shrugged his shoulders. “The man we've been worried about for the past few months uses a knife, not a gun.”

“There were three of us,” Willa pointed out. At Charlie's thumping tail she managed a small smile. “Four. A gun's a safer bet.”

“You got a point.” Ben reached for the coffeepot, topped off all three cups.

Willa stared at hers, watched the steam. They had food in their bellies, the kick of caffeine in their blood. It was all the time she could give the three of them to recover.

“He's been here.” Her voice was steady. She'd been working on that. “I know the police checked the cabin after that woman was killed, and they didn't find anything to indicate she'd been held here. But I think she was. I think she was held right here, killed right here. And then he cleaned up after himself.”

She got up, went to the base cupboard, dug out the bucket. “I think he mopped up her blood with these, then stuck it back under the sink.”

“Let me have that.” Ben took the bucket from her, then eased her into a chair. “We'd better take this back with us.” He set it aside near the woodbox, out of her range of vision.

“He killed her here.” Willa was careful to keep her voice from bobbing along with her heart. “He probably tied her to one of the bunks. Raped her, killed her. Then he cleaned up the mess so if anybody checked in, things would look just as they should. He'd have had to bring her down on horseback, most likely at night. I guess he could have hidden the body somewhere for a few hours, even a day, then he dumped what was left of her at the front door. Just dumped her there with less care than you would a butchered deer.”

She closed her eyes. “And every time I begin to think, to hope, that it's over, it comes back. He comes back. And there's no figuring the why.”

“Maybe there is no why.” Ben crouched in front of her, took her hands in his. “Willa, we've got two choices here. It's going to be dark in an hour. We can stay until morning, or we can use night as a cover and head back. Either way it's a risk. Either way it's going to be hard.”

She kept her hands in Ben's, looked at Adam. “Are you up to the ride?”

“I can ride.”

“Then I don't want to stay here.” She drew a deep breath. “I say we head out at dusk.”

 

I
T WAS A COLD
.
CLEAR NIGHT WITH JUST A HINT OF FOG
crawling low on the ground. A hunter's moon guided them. Just, Willa thought, as that same hunter's moon spotlighted them for whatever predator stalked them. The dog trotted ahead, his ears pricked up. Beneath her, Moon quivered as her nerves were transmitted to the mare.

Every shadow was a potential enemy, every rustle in the brush a whispered warning. The hoot of an owl, the quick whoosh of wings on a downward flight, and the scream of something hunted well and killed quickly were no longer simply sounds of the mountains at night but reminders of mortality.

The mountains were beautiful with the pale blue cast that moonlight made on snow, the dark trees outlined in fluffy ermine, the unbowed rock jutting up to challenge the sky.

And they were deadly.

He would have come this way, she thought, riding steadily east with his trophy strapped over his saddle. Wasn't that what that poor girl had been to him? A trophy. Something to show how skilled he was, and how clever. How ruthless.

She shuddered, hunched her shoulders against the kick of the wind.

“You okay?”

She glanced at Ben. His eyes gleamed in the dark like a cat's. Sharp, watchful. “I thought, on the day of my father's funeral when Nate read off how things were, would be, I thought nothing would ever be as hard, as hurtful as that. I thought I'd never feel that helpless, that out of control. That it was the worst that could happen to me.”

She sighed, carefully guided her horse down an uneven slope where the shadows were long and the ground began to show through in patches. Thin fingers of mist parted like water.

“Then when I found Pickles, when I saw what had been done to him, I thought that was the worst. Nothing could
be more horrid than that. But I was wrong. I just keep being wrong about how much worse it can get.”

“I won't let anything happen to you. You can believe that.”

There in the distance, the first glimmer of light that was Mercy. “You were a damn fool today, Ben, going out tracking on your own. I told you I didn't like heroes, and I think less of fools.” She nudged her horse forward, toward the lights.

“Guess she told me,” Ben murmured to Adam.

“She was right.” Adam tilted his head at Ben's quick frown. “I wasn't any good to you, and she was too busy making sure I didn't bleed to death to do anything else. Going looking on your own didn't help things.”

“You'd have done the same in my place.”

True enough. “We're not talking about me. She cried.”

Uncomfortable now, Ben shifted, shot a look toward Willa as she rode a few paces ahead. “Oh, hell.”

“Promised I wouldn't tell, and I wouldn't have if all the tears had been for me. But there were plenty for you. She was about to go out after you.”

“Well, that's just—”

“Foolish.” Adam's lips curved. “I'd have tried to stop her, but I doubt I'd have managed it. Maybe you'd better think of that next time.”

He tried to ease his stiffening shoulder. “There's going to be a next time, Ben. He isn't finished.”

“No, he isn't finished.” And Ben quietly closed the distance to Willa.

 

T
HE DAMN SIGHT ON THE RIFLE HAD BEEN OFF
.
STINKING
expensive biathlon sight, and it had been defective.

That's what Jesse told himself as he relived every moment of the ambush. It had been the rifle, the sight, the wind. It hadn't been him, hadn't been his aim, hadn't been his fault.

Just bad fucking luck, that was all.

He could still see the way the half-breed, wife-stealing bastard's horse had reared. He'd thought, oh, for one sweet moment he'd thought he nailed the target.

But the sight had been off.

It had been impulse, too. He hadn't planned it out. If he'd planned it out instead of having it all just happen, Wolfchild would be cold and dead—and maybe McKinnon would be dead too. And maybe he'd have taken a taste of Lily's half sister for good measure.

Jesse blew out smoke, stared into the dark, and cursed.

He'd get another chance, sooner or later, he'd get another chance. He'd make sure of it.

And wouldn't Lily be sorry then?

 

E
VERY NIGHT FOR A WEEK WILLA WOKE IN THE GRIP OF A
nightmare, drenched in sweat, with screams locked in her throat. Always the same: She was naked, wrists bound. Night after night she struggled to free herself, felt the cord bite into her flesh as she whimpered and writhed. Smelled her own blood as it trickled down her bare arms.

Always, just before she pulled herself awake, there was the glint of a knife, that shimmering arc as the blade swept down to work on her.

Every morning she shoved it away, knowing that, like a rat, it would gnaw free in the night.

The signs of spring, those early hesitant signs, should have thrilled her. The brave glint of crocus her mother had planted scattered such hopeful color. There was the growing spread of earth where the snow melted back to thinning patches, the sounds of young cattle, the dance of foals in pasture.

The time to turn the earth was coming, to plant it and watch it grow. And the time when the cottonwoods and aspens and larches would take on a lovely haze of green. The lupine would bloom, and even the high meadows would be bright with it, with the neon signs of Indian paintbrush, with the sunny faces of buttercups.

The mountains would show more silver than white, and the days would be long again and full of light.

It was inevitable that winter would whisk back at least once more. But spring snows were different; they lacked the brutal harshness of February's. Now that the sun was
smiling, bumping the temperature up to the balmy sixties, it was easy to forget how quickly it could change again. And easy to cherish every hour of every bright day.

From the window of her office, Willa could see Lily. She was never far from Adam these days, had rarely left his side since the night they had come back from high country. Willa watched Lily touch Adam's shoulder, as she often did, fussing with the sling he wore.

He was healing. No, she thought, they were healing each other.

How would it be to have someone that devoted, that much in love, that blind to everything but you? How would it be to feel exactly that same way about someone?

Scary, she thought, but maybe it would be worth those jiggles of fear and doubt to experience that kind of unfettered emotion. It would be an exhilarating trip, that wild ride on pure feeling, pure need. And more, she realized, beyond the moment, the promise and permanence that was so easily read on the faces of Lily and Adam when they looked at each other.

The little secret smiles, the signals that were so personal. So
theirs.
What a thrill, she mused, and what security to know there was someone who would be there for you, always. To have someone who thought of you first, and last.

Silly, she told herself, and turned away from the window. Daydreaming this way with so much to be done, so much at stake. And she would never be the kind of woman a man thought of first. Even her own father hadn't thought of her first.

She could admit that now, here in his office that still held so much of him trapped in the air, like a scent ground into the fibers of carpet. He had never thought of her first, and he had certainly not thought of her last.

And what was she? Deliberately Willa sat in the chair that was still his, laid her hand on the smooth leather arms where his had rested countless times. What had she ever been to him? A substitute. A poor one at that, she thought, certainly by Jack Mercy's standards.

No, not even a substitute, she thought as her hands curled
into fists. A trophy, one of three that he hadn't even bothered to keep a memento of. Something easily discarded and forgotten, not even worth the space of a snapshot on his desk.

Not worth as much as the heads of the game kills mounted on the walls.

The fury, the insult of it was rising up in her so quick, so huge, she didn't fully realize what she was doing until she'd done it. Until she was up and yanking the first glassy-eyed head from the wall. The left antler of the six-point buck cracked as it hit the floor, and the sound, almost like a gunshot, mobilized her.

“The hell with it. The hell with him. I'm not a fucking trophy.” She scrambled onto the sofa, tugged at the bighorn sheep that stared at her with canny eyes. “It's my office now.” Grunting, she heaved the head aside and attacked the next. “It's my ranch now.”

Later, she might admit she went a little insane. Pulling, pushing, dragging at the mountings, a macabre task, stripping the walls of those disembodied heads, breaking nails as she pried them loose. Her lips were peeled back in a snarl matching that of the mountain cat she wrestled from its perch.

For a moment Tess just watched from the doorway. She was too stunned to do much more as she saw the grisly heap growing on the floor, and her sister muttering oaths as she muscled the towering grizzly out of its corner.

If she hadn't known better, Tess would have said Willa was locked in a life-and-death battle, with the bear in the lead. Since she did know better, she wasn't certain whether she should laugh or run away.

Instead of either, she pushed the hair back from her face, cleared her throat. “Wow. Who opened the zoo?”

Willa whirled, her face contorted in rage, her eyes alive with it. The bear lost the edge of gravity and toppled like a tree. “No more trophies,” Willa said, and panted to get her breath. “No more trophies in this house.”