Sweet Talking Lawman (23 page)

Raale climbed into
her lap.  “Mom, I’m a’scared.  Can the bad man gets you here?”

Rafe rubbed his
daughter’s back comfortingly.  “He won’t come here, baby girl.  But
if he did, he wouldn’t hurt you or your mom.  I’ll make sure of that.”

Jory crossed the room
with the keys to the SUV in his hand.

“I’m going to get
Shirley and bring her here,” he explained, going out the back door.  In
only a second he popped back in.  “Rafe, I just saw movement along the
edge of the lake, on the back side.  I think it was someone in camo.”

“Call Shirley and
make her stay put.  Y’all lock the doors and stay in here.  I’ll be
back as soon as I can.”  He hustled out the front door, Spur on his heels
and his truck sped around the side of the lake as far as he could drive. 
When the road ended, he hopped out and continued on foot.  Taking his
time, following his dog’s lead, he searched the shoreline of the small lake
thoroughly, finally finding a spot where someone had hunkered down in a thicket
and watched the house and barns.  Whoever it was had moved, paralleling
Mesa’s ride, taken the three shots at her, before returning for some reason and
then high tailing it out of there.  Rafe and the dog tracked the intruder
through the woods until he found where the man had gotten on a dirt bike, and
now he was long gone.

It was almost two
hours before Rafe returned to the house, and by then Levi was there along with
Shirley, Jenny, Russ, both their kids, John and Krystal Montgomery and two more
deputies.

“What the hell is
going on?” he asked.  “I told everyone to stay locked in and wait ‘til I
got back.  This looks like a damn convention.”

Levi grinned at
him.  “We’re putting together a search party.  Our sheriff went out
after an armed suspect without backup and we’re going to retrieve his body.”

Rafe shook his head
silently, his face taking on a shamed look.  “Alright, I know I should
have called for backup, but it would have taken y’all too long to get here.”

“Not if you’d called
us when you left your house,” Krystal Montgomery shot back at him.

Hobbling on crutches,
John joined her.  “You’re setting a poor example for our younger officers,
Sheriff,” he scolded.  “You know you expect us to stick to proper
procedure and you know better than to take off like that without backup.”

Rafe threw his hands
in surrender and nodded.  “Alright.  Y’all’re right.  It won’t
happen again.”

He found Mesa still
sitting on the couch, but Rance and Shirley had taken the kids into the small
den and found a cartoon channel on the television.  Jory was busy at the
stove and with Jenny’s help was fixing breakfast for everyone.

He ignored them all
and settled beside Mesa, slipping one arm protectively around her
shoulders.  “We’ve gotta come up with a plan, sugar.”

She nodded. 
“I’m going to ask Jory to take Uncle Rance, Raale and my mom back to his house
in Memphis.  Not a handful of people know he still owns it, and we haven’t
been there in several years.  They should be safe there.  I’m going
to insist that the hands all start carrying guns, and I plan to as well.”

“You should go with
Jory, also. At least, until I can get to the bottom of this mess,” he said, but
didn’t go further when she began to shake her head negatively.

“I ran from here
once, Rafe, but I won’t run again.  This is my home, and no one is going
to make me leave.”  Her voice was firm.

He saw the stubborn
set of her chin and knew arguing would be useless, so he nodded.  “We’ll
put them on a plane to Atlanta, they can catch another to Memphis, and they can
rent a car from there.  That should make them harder to trace, so they
should be safe.  When they’re safe, we’ll work out a plan to keep you
safe.”

With something to do,
she felt better and rested her head on his shoulder for a few minutes.  It
just felt right to rest against him, and in spite of the morning’s turmoil, she
smiled.

He was content,
feeling her relax against him.  How could this not be right?  He
dropped his head and brushed a kiss against the top of her head, and when he
looked up his sister was standing there looking down at him.

Jenny smiled. 
“I owe you an apology, Rafe, and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to make
it.  I’m sorry for keeping secrets from you and I need you to forgive me.”

Mesa lifted her head
and looked up at her best friend before she turned and looked at Rafe. 
“That’s my fault.  I made her promise not to tell you.”  Tears of
regret pooled in her green eyes.

He pulled his arm
from around her and stood, cutting his eyes between the two of them.  Mesa
read the hurt and anger that tinged the coffee brown of his eyes for a second,
then he shook his head and looked at Jenny.  “I accept your apology,” his
eyes darted back to Mesa’s.  “But this is not somethin’ I want to deal
with right now.  I’ve got other things to think about.”

Mesa nodded and
pushed to her feet.  “I’m going to talk to Jory.”

It didn’t take long
to convince Jory that it was the right thing to do and within an hour
reservations were made and Mesa was upstairs with Raale packing for the trip to
Memphis.

The child was teary
eyed that her mother wouldn’t be going with them.  “I’ve neber been gone
off for a long time,” she sniffled.  “With me and Papa J gone, who’s gonna
take care of you, Mom?”

“I will,” Rafe
assured the child, slipping in the door just in time to field the
question.  “I will not let anything happen to your mom, Raale.  I
promise.”

Her liquid brown eyes
looked at him steadily for a few seconds.  “Who’s gonna take care of you?”

Mesa smiled at her
daughter.  “I will.  I promise, and he has all those deputies
downstairs and Uci and Spur.”

“And they’re all
gonna help me take care of your mom.  It’ll be alright, baby girl.” 
Rafe crossed the room and lifted the child into his arms.  “We’ll be
better able to look after each other if we know you and G’ma and Uncle Rance
are safe with Papa J, someplace else, where the bad guys can’t find you.”

Raale nodded, another
sniffle shaking her small body as she hugged him tightly.  “I’m gonna be
a’scared for you and my mom.”

He nodded.  “We
know, but when the bad guy is in jail, you’ll be back here with us. 
That’ll be something good to think about when you’re missing us.  I know
it’s what I’m gonna be thinkin’ about when I get lonely for you.”  He
brushed away another tear that rolled down her cheek with the pad of one
thumb.  “We’ll be able to talk on the phone and that’ll help time pass
faster.”

“Eber day?” she eyed
him steadily.

He shrugged. 
“I’m not sure it’ll be every day, but sometimes it might be twice in one
day.  Okay?”

She nodded.  “I
really don’t like dat bad guy dat shot at Mom.  He needs to be in jail.”

“And your dad will
put him there as soon as we can find out who he is,” Mesa had closed the bag
she’d packed and crossed the room to stand next to the man and child.

They left in the SUV
about an hour later, with Raale’s head turned as long as she could see Mesa and
Rafe on the front porch of the cabin, waving until the vehicle disappeared from
sight.

Krystal and John
Montgomery followed them, providing some unofficial law enforcement escort to
the nearest airport while Levi and the other two deputies patrolled the nearby
roads for any sign of a dirt bike or someone acting out of place.

Confident that her
family would be safe, Mesa felt better as she put To in his stall and settled
him in for the day while Rafe kept a lookout for trouble, but she was still
keyed up from the morning’s attack.

She accompanied Rafe
back to the office in town simply because he refused to leave without her, and
spent the rest of the morning visiting with Beth and Heather while he and Spur
returned to the Rocking H to make a closer inspection of the woods.

With the help of his
dog he found the spot where the assailant was hidden when he fired the
gun.  Keeping Spur close so as not to disturb evidence, he used a stick to
move the leaf litter around and found a spent shell casing.  Wearing
gloves, he slipped it into an evidence bag.  It appeared to be the same
caliber that had knocked Rance’s horse over the edge of the sink hole. 
Now he’d have something to compare with the casing he’d found at that site.

His stomach knotted
with rage when he studied the tracks left by the horse and the places where the
bullets impacted the trees.  It was so close it chilled his blood. 
Just a few inches ahead of where the horse shied, and if Mesa hadn’t sensed
something was wrong and slowed the horse, it could easily have hit her right in
the head.  The other two shots missed because the horse was moving
erratically, and then the frightened pair had simply out run the shooter.

He returned to the
spot where the assailant had mounted the dirt bike and found Levi leaning
against a tree.

“You were
right.  I found the old logging road and drove up it a good ways.  I
found the place where he parked a truck while he used the dirt bike and I
tracked it here.  This guy is smart and careful.”  The deputy walked
over and joined Rafe where he was squatted looking at the wheel print of the
dirt bike.  “Did you find anything?”

Rafe nodded. 
“He probably took the other shell casings with him, but he missed one and he
seems to like to snack on granola bars while he waits for his victim.  I
found a wrapper and I’m hopin’ the lab in Liberty can lift a print off it.”

Levi’s stomach
rumbled hungrily and he grinned when Rafe looked at him.  “It’s been a
long time since Jory fed us breakfast.”

Rafe nodded. 
“Yeah, you’re right.  Come on.  I’ll drive you back to your car and
we’ll go to town for lunch.”

Levi grinned. 
“I’ll bet Mesa is ready to carve you up, leaving her sitting in the office all this
time.”

His dark brows arched
as he shrugged but mused softly as he led the way through the woods to where
he’d left his truck parked.  “At least while she’s there, I know she’s
safe.”  He said nothing else until they were buckled into the front of the
truck.  His dark eyes were stormy when he turned and looked at his deputy
and friend.  “Levi, this scares the hell out of me.  I don’t
understand why anyone would be after the people of the Rockin’ H.”

Levi nodded. 
“It’s strange.”  He sat for a minute looking straight ahead.  “Maybe
it’s not about the people.  What if it’s about the ranch itself?”  He
let his thoughts expand.  “The land?  The location?  The
terrain?  What’s on the land?  What can be done with or on the
land?  Damn, that really expands the possibilities, don’t it?”  His
talent for brainstorming was one of the things that made him Rafe’s next in
command.

Rafe nodded.  “I
wonder how big the place is.  Ever heard anybody say?”

“No,” the deputy
answered.  “I know it’s the biggest place in the area and, backing up to
the national forest like it does, makes it huge.  I’m not sure anybody
knows where the Rocking H ends and the forest begins, except the survey
company.  I’ve heard Rance talk about making sure the back part of the
ranch remains like it’s always been, a safe place for wildlife.  Never
heard anyone mention the actual acreage though.”

“After lunch, why
don’t you visit the courthouse and find out.  That survey has to be
recorded.  I’m gonna see if I can borrow a helicopter.  It might pay
to get a bird’s eye view of the place.  See what’s back there.”  Rafe
started the truck and carefully navigated through the trees to the small two
track road Mesa had been riding earlier in the day.  From there it didn’t
take long to get back to the highway.

Mesa insisted on
accompanying Rafe when a helicopter, borrowed from the state highway patrol,
arrived just after lunch to fly him over the forested area behind the Rocking H
headquarters.  She found the experience totally different from flying in a
plane, even a small plane.  The turns were much more dramatic and she
punched Rafe in the arm when he chuckled at her white knuckled grip on the
seatbelt that held her in her seat.

It was obvious that
some traffic had been moving along the logging road from the state forest into
the back side of the Rocking H, but the hardwood trees grew so large and thick
on the ranch that the road was sheltered and hopeless to keep track of.

Once or twice they
saw what could be some type of building, but without landing, it was impossible
to be sure, and there was nowhere to set the helicopter down within walking
distance.

They joined Levi and
the Montgomerys at the café for a quick supper.  Levi reported what he’d
found at the courthouse, and even Mesa was amazed to learn just how big the
Rocking H was.

Before they finished
eating, Rafe noticed how quiet she had become and how often she covered her
mouth to conceal a yawn.  She’d had a long, busy day.

Pushing his chair back
he stood up.  “Come on, let’s get you home.  It’s been a hard day and
you’re exhausted.”  He took one of her hands and pulled her to her feet.

She smiled and
nodded.  “When we get there, I need to call and make sure everyone is safe
at Jory’s house.”