Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries) (23 page)

I had no weapon, no way to protect myself. I could only hope that I would be taken for dead. If I were doing the shooting, I thought, I would be very wary. With a scope, I could hide in the trees back in the ravine and sight the rifle on my target up here. I wouldn't want to show myself, or shoot twice. One shot is often ignored; two might draw interest.

Lisa and Al and Janey knew I was out here. Anyone of them, at any time, could come riding or driving up to check on me or help move the cattle. The road was passable for a pickup to the corrals, thanks to Glen's bridge. It wouldn't even take four-wheel drive. Joyce would not want to be seen. If I were found dead up here, she could not afford to have been in the area.

Joyce. Why hadn't I thought about it? Joyce had been suspicious of me. Of course the first thing she would do would be to look in her purse for the dummy fuse. When she found it gone, she would have known I'd taken it. Would have jumped to the conclusion that I knew. Joyce had to eliminate me.

I held my breath. The seconds passed with infinite slowness, but eventually they lengthened into minutes. Or I thought so, anyway. My heart pounded steadily, panic unrelieved. I could feel the rock digging into my leg, which was uncomfortably bent. I held still.

She would get away with it, I thought. No one would know Joyce had anything to do with Glen's accident; no one would know I suspected her. I hadn't told a soul. If I were dead, no one would imagine Joyce had a reason to kill me. Even if they found the dummy fuse in my pocket, it was doubtful anyone would put it together. And no one could know I had found the bar in Joyce's purse.

I had been incredibly, idiotically stupid. I had told Lonny I was in no danger, which was true, until Joyce discovered what I was doing. After that, I thought, Glen had been out of danger and I was the primary target.

The silence around me was all-encompassing. Echoes of the shot had died out of my ears. I could hear the thin wind now and then, an occasional rustle in the cottonwoods and willows. Some small thing, a lizard maybe, moved in the stones near my head.

I didn't dare twitch. If I was being watched through a scope, the tiniest movement might result in another shot. I lay still, not twitching.

My leg ached fiercely. How long, I wondered, would I need to lie like this? My eyes were open, staring straight ahead. I didn't dare blink or shift the angle of my vision. A scope could reveal those details from 200 yards away. My only hope was to lie perfectly still. Eventually Joyce, if it was Joyce, would have to either leave or come up here and see if I was dead.

Was it Joyce? It seemed as if it must be. Yet I wondered. My ears strained for any noise-a car engine, voices, the soft sounds of footsteps. The first two would be welcome, the third infinitely less so. Lisa might drive up here, looking for me. If I heard her coming I would know I was safe.

On the other hand, Joyce, if it was her, might decide to investigate. If she did, I told myself, I'd lie still till the last moment, then rush her. She would approach close enough to see if I was dead; she had to. She wouldn't risk firing a second shot for no good reason. I'd get a chance, I'd have to get a chance, to knock her down.

A sudden noisy rustle in the willows behind me sent my heart shooting up into my throat. The rustling continued, horribly loud in the silence. I lay frozen. Someone or something was moving through the willows.

More rustles. Getting closer. I lay still with every muscle tense. I could not make a mistake. I had to lie immobile until the person reached down to me, had to take that second to knock their legs out from under them. I had to.

More rustling, very close now. Silence. My heart pounded. She could be staring at me, getting ready to shoot. I wanted to jump up, break, and run, anything but lie still. That's how quail are killed, I told myself. Don't be a stupid quail. Hold still.

I ached with fear and held my breath. The brush rustled again, right next to me.

Something moved out where I could see it, something traveling into my line of vision. Gray speckles, furry, suddenly familiar-Joey. The relief was almost worse than the fear. I needed to do something. Yell at the dog. Cry. Instead I lay still, trying not to pee in my pants, feeling my heart beat in hysterical thuds. Jesus.

I kept on imitating a corpse. My leg was numb. I thought roughly an hour might have passed. It was probably about two o'clock in the afternoon. How long could I lie here? On the other hand, could I afford to move? The downside risk was pretty great.

Joey sniffed me a couple of times, puzzled and curious, and eventually lay down near me. I was glad of that. I thought he might bark if someone approached.

I longed for the sound of Lisa's voice, but the silence was unrelenting. Why, oh, why had I gotten myself into this? Too late to cry, too late to back out. I lay still and ached all over, except for my leg, which I couldn't feel at all.

Please, dear God, I prayed fervently, unsure to whom I was praying but absolutely sure I needed help, please help me get through this. Help me survive.

TWENTY-THREE

A long, long time later the light began to die out of the sky. I lay where I had fallen, alternately throbbing and numb, trying to decide when to get up. Wait for dark, I told myself. You've waited this long. The rifle will be useless when it's dark.

I tried not to think about the pain, tried to relax and let the pain wash in and out, no more trouble than little waves along the beach. I watched the rocks in front of me as their outlines grew softer with the advance of evening.

The light was fairly dim and the air was getting cooler when I tried to straighten out my legs. I almost screamed. My right leg shrieked and throbbed. Oh God. Oh, my God. I forgot about being shot as I shuddered and clenched my teeth.

Nothing happened. No shot. Nothing at all. My leg cramped in spasms that made me gasp. Inch by inch I straightened it out; slowly the devastating slashes of pain became drilling tingles. I moved in minuscule increments-my arms, my hands, my neck, my feet A few mosquitoes whined in my ears. Crickets chirped. The light grew dimmer.

Eventually the pain subsided to a dull ache. Slowly I sat up. Nothing. Even more slowly (and extremely painfully) I got to my feet. Nothing happened. Joey walked up to me and wagged his bobbed tail. The sun was behind the western ridge, but there was still enough light in the sky that I could make out the dark shapes of trees and rocks, brushy and indistinct. Accurate shooting would be impossible. Time to go.

In reality, I thought, Joyce, or whoever, had probably been gone for hours. The thought shoved me forward, stumbling and hobbling, toward the gate. I needed to get to Glen.

Limping in the direction of the corrals, I was infinitely relieved to see Chester, peacefully cropping grass near the water trough. He’d broken his reins, but that appeared to be all the damage he’d sustained.

Knotting the reins hastily together, I led Chester to the corral fence to climb on him. I didn't think I could manage it from the ground.

Chester regarded me with a calm eye as I edged him up to the rails, all fear from the shot long forgotten. He stood like a perfect gentleman as I heaved myself up on him, my right leg cursing me in no uncertain terms. Between being folded up under me and pressed against a rock for over six hours, it was almost too stiff and sore to be usable.

“Come on." I clucked to the horse and dog indiscriminately as I opened the gate with one hand and let us out of the pasture. It was getting dark fast; the dirt road was a faintly lighter gray band running down the graying hillside.

Despite my aches, I urged Chester to a jouncy downhill trot, my fear driving me harder every second. Was Glen still alive?

The gully loomed up ahead, the shapes of the trees jet black against the charcoal sky. No sign of a moon. It had been a ening, I remembered, when the lights had gone out at the roping. Damn.

Moonlight wouldn't have helped me in the canyon. It was claustrophobically dark under the redwoods; I couldn't see the road right in front of Chester's feet. Horses can see better in the dark than we can, I reminded myself. Chester can see the road. That's all that counts.

He seemed to be able to. He slowed from a trot to a long walk, but he kept rolling on, seeming sure of his footing, sure that he was going home. I almost fell off when he suddenly spooked and came to a jarring halt.

The bridge. Damn, damn, and damn. The frigging bridge. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even see my hand if I held it up. The blackness was absolute. I had no idea if we stood on the edge of a precipitous drop. I couldn't see the bridge, but I knew it must be there.

My heart thumped steadily. I might as well have been killed by the sniper as go rolling down a cliff. I could get off, but I didn't know where I was. If I climbed off Chester, I might go over the bank. Chester could see, at least.

Gathering every atom of courage I possessed, I kicked the horse firmly. "Come on; let's go," I said out loud. "Let's go home."

Chester got my message. As a horse will do, he seemed to feel the urgency of my need, and, like the good ones, he came through. I could feel him take one, two, three cautious steps forward. He stopped; I could feel his front legs trembling. I clucked to him gently, and he took another step. I heard the hollow wooden clunks of his hooves coming down on the planking of the bridge.

Thunk, thunk, thunk. We were on it now, floating in the darkness above the gully. I tried not to picture the drop, tried not to remember how low the railing was. My right hand was locked tightly around the saddle horn; my left held the reins gently, trying to steady Chester and not disturb him. He kept walking, slowly and carefully. Thunk, thunk, thunk.

Abruptly the thunks stopped and Chester sped up. We were off the bridge and clambering uphill. I resisted the urge to ask for a trot. It was too dark and the bank was too steep.

We slid through the darkness, Chester moving effortlessly once we were up the hill. I clucked to him and he picked up the long trot, seeming confident. It was a strange feeling, trotting along when I couldn't see a thing. It required trust of an odd and unfamiliar sort, and I probably never would have tried it if I hadn't been driven by the need to hurry. Faster, my mind urged, faster.

Suddenly I could see lights ahead. After the unrelenting darkness they were an immeasurable relief. Civilization, help, safety. I could see that we were emerging from the canyon; the lights were on Glen's barn, which was lit up like a Christmas tree. I pulled Chester to a sudden halt.

My automatic reaction to those lights might not be smart. I was safe out here in the darkness. No one could see me; no one could shoot me. I was safely dead, in the mind of my assassin. Emerging into the light was another story.

Chester tossed his head and stamped his front feet anxiously. He could see the barn, too, and he wasn't pleased at being detained. "Come on," I could almost hear him saying. "You wanted to hurry; now we're here. Let's go home."

I patted his neck, which he ignored, flipping his nose up and down restlessly. What he wanted was to be turned loose in his pen with a flake of hay; being petted was of no interest. His agitation made it hard for me to think.

After a minute I got off of him, slowly and painfully, and unclipped his reins so he wouldn't step on them. Then I turned him loose. He trotted off, breaking immediately into a lope and heading for home.

I followed, limping, keeping to the verge of the road, staying behind convenient bushes. My eyes were glued to Chester. If someone was at the barn, waiting for me, they would surely come out to catch the horse. At the very least, their attention would be drawn to his obvious, noisy presence. No one would be looking for me out here in the shadows.

Something brushed against my leg, and I jumped and almost shrieked. A second later the thought registered: It's just the dog. I reached down to pat his furry head, reassuring myself, and felt the warm, damp swipe of his tongue. "Good dog," I whispered.

I took a few more steps forward. Joey looked up at me with puzzled eyes. I could almost see him shrug. Then he turned away and trotted toward the barn, where Chester was traveling from corral to corral, greeting his friends. Joey was aiming for civilization. If I wanted to spend the rest of my life hiding out here in the brush, that was my business. He'd had enough.

I stopped behind a bay tree-the last useful cover before I reached the brilliantly lit square of bare ground around the big barn. I could see Chester; he'd come to rest at the hitching rail where he would normally be unsaddled and was nibbling on the alfalfa hay that had been spilled there. I could see no human beings.

Chester's arrival-all clattering hooves and shrill nickers, complete with loud answering neighs from the other horses-had produced no human activity of any sort. The barn was lit up and apparently deserted.

I pondered this. The barn must have been lit for my sake. It wasn't usually left like this. Why, then, was there no welcoming party; why, in fact, had there been no search party? It wasn't normal behavior to set out on what should have been a several-hour, at most, gather and not return till after dark. Lisa, at least, should have been worried about me. So where was she?

Not at the barn, as far as I could tell. I stood behind the bay tree for another few minutes, considering. Was this all some elaborate trap? Was the sniper waiting in the loft of the barn, rifle sighted on the road where it emerged into the light? The thought gave me chills.

I scanned the barn carefully but could see nothing out of place. No dead bodies in the barnyard, no rifle barrels emerging from windows or cracks in the wall. Of course, the odds that I could pick such a detail out from this distance were slim.

I could see Glen's truck, parked where I had left it. It didn't look as if it had been disturbed. As I watched, Joey marched up and lay down next to it, putting his chin on his front paws. He would wait there, I supposed, knowing that people eventually showed up to collect trucks.

Al's mobile home was illuminated by the front porch light, and the brown pickup and red Trans Am were parked in front of it. So why the hell wasn't Al out looking for me, or at least here at the barn waiting for me?