Turkey Ranch Road Rage (39 page)

“I’m fine,” he snorted. “I just have a bad picker, that’s all.”

“Oh, I see. Your only fault is that you choose defective women. If your picker worked, you’d be able to find one that believed your lies and would let you get away with whatever it is you want to get away with. If only you could pick the right woman, there wouldn’t be any problems.”

He scowled. “I don’t think I like you.”

“Well, then you better hope you don’t die because you’d like Doctor-Doctor-Doctor Travis even less. He wouldn’t be nearly as nice about pointing out your character flaws as I am.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” My arms were getting tired from the strain so I tried to shift around to make myself more comfortable and keep pressure on his shoulder at the same time. I kept my fingers as steady as possible as I moved, but he groaned a little anyway. “Sorry,” I said sincerely. I hated anyone having to be in pain, even a jackass.

“So your mother says I’m a liar.” He closed his eyes again. “I don’t even know who your mother is.”

“That makes one person in two counties,” I muttered. “Lucille Jackson. She owns what’s left of this cabin.”

“Oh. Her.” He frowned but kept his eyes closed. “She’s probably the one who shot me. She threatened it often enough when we were working out behind her house. Bob just said to ignore her so we did.”

“I’d blame her too except that she was on that helicopter that just left. The cabin blew up and nearly killed her.”

“So that’s what happened,” he said. “She gonna make it?”

In medical terms, I couldn’t say for sure, but in Lucille terms I could. “Oh, she’ll make it. She’s gonna be really pissed off if her hip is broken, and someone may very well die because of it, but it won’t be her.”

He snorted a little, understanding exactly what I meant. Then the reality of the situation dawned on him. “Where’s Bob?”

“I haven’t seen him,” I said truthfully.

“Was he in the cabin?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, again, truthfully. I didn’t like holding back what I knew, but in this case he had enough to worry about. “So why are you here?”

“I’ve known Bob for years,” he said. “I knew he was staying out here for a while so when I heard an explosion then a helicopter over this direction, I figured I’d better come check on him.”

“What were you doing for him out behind my mother’s house?”

“Test well,” he said, his voice getting softer. “Gas pocket. Big one.”

The faint siren had turned into at least two loud sirens that were getting very close. Of the pickups parked along the road, the two that I could see had backed up, clearing the driveway. A sheriff’s car with blue lights flashing and siren blaring wheeled off the road and zoomed down the driveway toward us. He stopped a few feet away, sandwiching us between the two vehicles. Leroy jumped out and crouched down beside us, eyeing Gilbert. “Ambulance is right behind me. Lucky it was already headed out here after the first call. Couldn’t have gotten the helicopter back here that fast.”

Yes, it was very lucky, and I was incredibly relieved about that part.

Leroy jumped back in the car and made a call to the guys up on hill, telling them to get down here to us when the ambulance came.

“Leroy, the guy who shot Gilbert is still out there. Jerry’s gone to look for him. There were gunshots at first, but not in the last couple of minutes. You’ve got to go help him.”

Leroy nodded, his jowls jiggling with every bob of his head. “Which way?”

I told him where the shots had come from and he scurried back to his car and grabbed a shotgun. As he headed out, I felt compelled to urge him not to shoot Jerry. He seemed to take it okay, just nodded and scurried toward the same patch of trees that Jerry had. They did not provide as much protection for Leroy, but no shots were fired so he made another run for it and was out of my line of vision.

Other sirens wailed and as I looked up the road, I saw that an ambulance had turned down the drive and was now backing in behind Leroy’s car.

“Looks like your ride is here,” I said to Gilbert.

“Good thing,” he said. “Because you ain’t worth shit at comforting a man who’s dying.”

“And here I thought we’d sort of bonded, kind of a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ thing.”

He grunted and turned his face toward me then reached up and squeezed my arm. “Thanks for helping me.” He stared at me, or maybe through me, for a few long seconds. “You tell Sheriff Parker that he’s a lucky guy to have you. You tell him I said that.”

“I will,” I said, smiling. “It will be a refreshing change from what he usually hears.”

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Two EMTs, a man and a woman, jumped from the back of the ambulance and knelt down beside us. Once again, I told the professionals what had happened. They checked Gilbert over as I talked, letting me continue to hold the pressure as they did what they needed to otherwise. They were moving so fast I really don’t know what all they did, I just saw a pads and wraps coming toward his shoulder and then they told me to move away. I did and they somehow had him trussed up and ready to move in mere seconds.

From out of nowhere, other people appeared, including the volunteer firefighters who’d been at the top of the road. Apparently, once the ambulance arrived they had gotten word on what was going on and took the chance to come down as well.

“We’re going to get a stretcher for you, Mister Moore,” the female EMT said.

“Like hell you are,” Gilbert said, shaking his head. “There’s a sniper in the trees ready to pick us off. I can walk.”

I had doubts about the walking part, but he was definitely right about the exposure. The less time anyone was between the car and the back of the ambulance, the better.

“You’re to come with us,” the man said to me as he helped Gilbert to his feet. “Sheriff’s orders.”

“No,” I said automatically then I realized that if I did, I could be with my mother. I also realized I would be leaving Jerry in the woods with a killer. I knew I couldn’t really help him, but I wouldn’t leave him either. “No, I’m staying here. Now hurry.”

The woman ran to the back of the ambulance and jumped inside. The other EMT and the two firefighters helped Gilbert to his feet. Technically, they didn’t seem to need me anymore, but I wanted to stay close just in case. If he did start going down, having an extra set of hands would still help.

Once he got his balance, he seemed to get a burst of energy and hurried toward the ambulance. I followed, but stayed out of the way as the three men climbed with him inside.

Pop.

I heard and felt the trace of the bullet as it whizzed past my ear. I automatically dropped to the ground and scuttled back to my hiding spot beside the Expedition. The EMTs and firefighters stared at me for a moment, as if they wanted to grab me and hurl me inside with them. I shook my head and motioned for them to go on. One guy jumped out and ran toward me as the other slammed the back doors on the ambulance. Within seconds it was zooming up to the road.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

“Get in the car,” he yelled.

That was exactly where I was headed and I didn’t need him to tell me. I jerked open the passenger door and crawled inside, another burst of adrenalin sending my heart racing.

The firefighter climbed in beside me. “Stay down.”

I crawled forward and scooted myself upright where I could pop my head up and see out the windows if I needed to. “Hi, I’m Jolene,” I said. “Come here often?”

He shook his head and shushed me.

Fine. I can be quiet if I need to. I hugged my knees to my chest, letting my thoughts go where they would.

The last three shots had sounded different—distant, not directed at me, and maybe even from a different gun. But who had fired them? Jerry? Leroy? The sniper? I had no way of knowing. Maybe it was because of all I’d been through in the last two days or maybe I was just tired, but I didn’t panic. I had plenty of reasons to, I just didn’t. I also, for once, didn’t consider mounting a rescue for Jerry. Adding my unarmed and unskilled presence would be a liability to him not an asset, so I stayed put, trusting that he could take care of things just fine without me.

A flash of light bounced off the windows inside the car. I sucked in my breath as fear shot through me yet again. So much for my bold statement about having panic under control.

“Jolene!”

“Jerry!” I peeked up from between the seats so I could see out the window to my left. There, in the glow of the mercury vapor light was the sheriff, walking toward the car. He held a rifle in one hand and a small statured person with the other. Leroy followed behind, carrying his own shotgun. I jumped out of the car, realizing that the unfriendly firefighter had already vacated his spot.

As Jerry came closer, his captive’s face became clear. It was Damon Saide. The weasel held a bloody hand close to his chest and hopped on one foot, howling and crying.

So Saide was our shooter. On the one hand, I wasn’t surprised at all. On the other, I couldn’t see how it made any sense. Why had he shot Gilbert? He’d only barely missed me… I’d been marching up to confront Gilbert as the shots were fired. Same thing had happened at the ambulance. I’d just stepped back when the bullet whizzed past. “Oh, my God,” I muttered. “He was after me.” I ran toward Jerry and Saide to demand an answer.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to demand anything. The second I cleared the back of the car, Saide started screaming. “I should have killed you when I had the chance. If I’d known you were going to get everything I would have. It was perfect. And you ruined it, ruined everything!”

Jerry jerked him up the driveway and kept walking, Saide hobbling and hopping along beside him.

“What are you talking about?” I said, following along.

“It’s not right!” he howled. “This deal was going to work. I’d done everything exactly right. There was no way anybody could screw me over this time. I had a contract! And then you ruined it, you… you… greedy… bitch.”

Okay, the bitch part I get, but greedy? How? Once again, I was talking to a crazy person who made no sense, so I quit. Damon Saide, however, did not. He just kept repeating that it was his deal and he deserved and things along that line. Maybe at some point it would make sense, but it sure didn’t at the moment. And, I really didn’t care. I just wanted this all to be over with.

Walking up the hill behind Jerry and his wailing captive, I realized that another ambulance had arrived at some point. Several other vehicles had as well since there were more cars with flashing lights and armed people in all kinds of different uniforms positioned along the road, and those were the ones I could see. I glanced around behind me and saw several more uniformed types with weapons still drawn coming out of the trees behind us.

The back of the ambulance was open and Jerry shoved Saide toward it. He told Leroy to keep an eye on things as the EMTs worked with the still-howling weasel.

Jerry turned around toward me just as a woman stepped out from behind a black vehicle. “Why thank you, Sheriff,” Iris said. She flashed him a badge and ID with what looked like the letters F, B and I prominently displayed. “I believe we can take it from here.”

“You’ll have to do better than that and you know it,” Jerry said, not acting at all surprised.

The woman I knew as Iris was dressed in black, something between a cat suit and a business suit. She nodded to his phone on his belt. “Call Perez.”

Jerry did and confirmation was swift and not to his liking. He snapped his phone closed. “I want answers. I have several open cases that I want closed, and obviously I need Saide to do that.”

“You’ll get your information, Sheriff, but we get him first. The ATF boys will get a go as well.”

“All right then. You get Saide and you get everything that goes with him. The entire situation is yours. Bob Little is down in the crappie house. Take a body bag and a winch.”

Iris crossed her arms but kept her face just as flat and blank as ever. “Are you telling me that Bob Little is dead?”

“No, Bob was just fishing and caught a big one,” I said. “Needs help getting it up the hill.”

“I don’t like you,” Iris said, cutting her eyes toward me.

“Take a number,” I said, not caring who she was or what she could do to me if she wanted to. “I don’t like you either.”

“Jolene, honey, it’s okay.”

Oh, it was anything but okay. I’d said that phrase no less than a hundred times tonight and I could no longer convince myself of the lie. If you find yourself in the same vicinity as any three-letter government-sanctioned mafia group, you can be assured that nothing is okay. You may think you live in the home of the free and the brave, but you do not. These people can and will do whatever they want and there is nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t care about any of that at the moment. I knew they would insist on interrogating me tonight, but I was just not in the mood. “Here’s the deal, Iris, I know very little, if anything, about the reasons for anything that happened tonight. The squealing weasel did admit to kidnapping me and expressed regret at not killing me when he had the chance, which he apparently intended to rectify tonight but missed. Twice. I have no idea why he wanted me dead or why he wasn’t a better shot. I have nothing else to say and I am not going anywhere but the hospital to check on my mother.” That said, I turned and walked back down the hill toward the Expedition.