Clay kept his hand on his holstered pistol and stood to one side. “Come on,” he said to Jarrett. “Let’s go visit them ladies.”
Walking past him, Jarrett made his way back down the hall toward the bottom of a narrow staircase. “You really got a talent for getting under Dave’s skin,” Clay said from directly behind him. “That’s the sort of thing that may come back to haunt you.”
“I couldn’t care less about that.”
“Can’t say as I blame you considering the circumstances. And just between you and me, I enjoy watching him fret too.”
The second floor wasn’t as disheveled as the one below it, which was mainly because there were fewer items to toss about. A single little table near the top of the stairs was still upright, although it did shake a bit when Dave threw something heavy against a wall in the office.
“Where are those other men of yours?” Jarrett asked.
Clay surprised him with a quick answer. “Keeping an eye on the men we got tied up in the bunkhouse,” he said.
“And after this, you’ll turn them loose?”
“Those who want to go. Sure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You want to play guessing games?” Clay asked. “Or do you want to get a look at these two fine ladies?”
The tone in Clay’s voice was enough to make Jarrett reach for the nearest door. Whether that was the intention or not, he couldn’t open the first one quickly enough. It was the door to one of the smaller rooms that he’d been using mostly to store clothes and old trunks. When he pushed the door open, he found Jen tied to a cot that was rarely used. He wasn’t about to ask permission before rushing into the room and peeling down the scarf that was wrapped tightly around the bottom portion of her face.
“Are you all right?” Jarrett asked in a hurried whisper. “What did they do to you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right,” she said in a shaky voice.
Jarrett examined her by carefully turning her head and checking her arms for any bruising. Before he could do much more than that, Clay said, “You got your look. Now come on.”
“What’s happening, Jarrett?” she asked. “Where’s Grace? What about Norris?”
“Norris is all right. He’s been kept with me.”
She nodded. “And Scott? The baby? Have you checked on them too?”
“Not yet, but I will.”
“You’re bleeding. What have they done to you?”
He could have been bleeding from a shallow cut on his neck or from one of the gashes on his scalp, but Jarrett wasn’t about to waste time in checking to see which had caught her eye. “I’m fine,” he said.
“What about the bullet wound on your leg?” she asked.
Until that moment, Jarrett had forgotten about the nick he’d gotten when he was introduced to Clay and the others. He reached down to his thigh and felt several cloths had been tied around his leg. There was a bit of pain, but it was fully eclipsed by his circumstances. “They bandaged me up,” he said.
Jen nodded. “Good.”
“I’m going to check on Grace right now.”
“Don’t let anything happen to her,” she pleaded.
“I won’t.”
“Swear to me you’ll keep her safe. Whatever happens to me, I don’t care just so long as my children are safe.”
“I swear.”
She nodded again, appeased for the moment but far from tranquil.
When he stood up, Jarrett turned to face his captor. “Where are you keeping the children and the baby?”
“I guessed you’d want to see them as well,” Clay said as if he were soothing a wailing infant. “They’re up here too.”
Jarrett nodded and stepped into the hall. He was taken to the other two rooms in short order. Grace was being held in the next bedroom that was used for the occasional guest who came to visit the Lazy J. Scott and Autumn were comfortable in Jarrett’s own bedroom. The conversations he had with Grace and Scott were short, but he got a chance to relay the same basic information he’d given to their mother. “That’s plenty good enough,” Clay said. “Time to get back to work. Sounds to me like Dave isn’t having any better luck now than when he tried the first time.”
“I suppose he wouldn’t,” Jarrett said while looking down at the baby’s face. Autumn’s expression was so peaceful that he felt he could escape through her for just a moment. That moment was all he needed to gain the strength to keep plodding forward even if he didn’t know where he was headed.
“That’s a real sweet baby,” Clay said.
Jarrett straightened up, turned to face him, and saw that the outlaw had already drawn his pistol. “Don’t say another word about these children,” he warned, “unless you’re telling me you let them all go.”
“Not quite yet, hero. Get moving.”
“What’s the matter?” Jarrett asked as he started marching toward the door. “Losing some of that confidence?”
“No. I’ve just found that men in your position tend to gain a bit of confidence once they’ve gotten a look at them they care about. Sometimes they need to be reminded who holds the reins. That is,” Clay added, “unless you want these little ones to watch me blast a hole clean through you?”
Jarrett glanced back into his room to find Scott watching with wide, terrified eyes. “Don’t fret,” he said to the boy. “This man’s just blowing smoke.”
Although the boy nodded, he wasn’t about to be put completely at ease so quickly. When Jarrett started walking again, he did so at his own pace. It was the smallest of victories but felt good all the same.
“Feeling better?” Clay asked.
Jarrett didn’t even dignify that with an answer.
As he walked back down the hall, Jarrett looked for an opening that could be exploited to earn his freedom. When he got to the stairs and started walking down them, he thought of a few different things he’d like to do. Setting those plans into motion, however, meant putting his family in even more jeopardy. That was simply something he wasn’t about to do.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Clay said as they reached the first floor and made their way back to the office.
The moment he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, Jarrett shook it off.
“You did the right thing,” Clay went on to say. “That run you took at me before when we first got here . . . that was natural. Expected. Doing it again would’ve only gotten you hurt. And them ladies upstairs . . . the boy too . . . they would’ve been hurt worse.”
“So you keep saying,” Jarrett snarled.
Long before he could see inside the office, Jarrett could hear Dave struggling with the desk. It did him a little bit of good to hear frustration building to a boil within the gunman. Even though it hardly seemed possible for the office to be put in any worse condition than when he’d last seen it, Dave had managed to do just that. The previous mess had been jumbled even more, leaving Dave standing in the middle of it like a rabid dog that had just ripped through its muzzle.
“He’s lying through his teeth!” Dave said while leveling a finger at Jarrett. “There ain’t nothing hid in that desk. There’s nowhere left for me to look!”
Jarrett strode right past the fuming outlaw and stepped around his desk to stand in the spot where his chair would normally have been. Reaching down beneath the middle section of the desktop, he felt for the head of a nail that was a hair’s width from being flush with the bottom of the surface. It was actually a recessed switch that he pressed inward and slid toward him. The simple yet hidden latch came loose and allowed him to slide out a thin drawer that was almost as wide as the desk itself.
“There’s your damn money,” Jarrett said.
Dave was speechless. His jaw hung open as he looked over to Clay and then back to the desk. Both of the gunmen approached the desk as Jarrett stepped as
ide to allow them to see what had been uncovered. Spread out to fill every bit of space within the wide, shallow drawer were several small stacks of hundred-dollar bills, an array of gold and silver coins, and the deed to the Lazy J.
Chapter 7
Once again, Jarrett found himself in the dark.
It was only his familiarity with every inch of his home that saved Jarrett from breaking his neck when he was shoved down the stairs leading into the cellar. Once Dave followed him with a lantern in hand, he rewarded Jarrett’s feat of dexterity with a sweeping kick to the back of his knees that dropped him to the floor. The gunman wasted no time before tying Jarrett up once again and securing him to the same post where he’d awakened not too long ago.
“Thanks for the money,” Dave said before pounding his fist into Jarrett’s side. “And this is just because I feel like it,” he added before driving another punch into the same spot.
“Leave him be!” Norris said as he strained against the ropes that held him in place.
After thumping a boot against Jarrett’s lower body, Dave took a few steps toward Norris and snapped his head toward him as if he were teasing an animal in a zoo. “You don’t want none of this, boy,” he said.
“Come closer so I can be sure of that.”
Dave might not have been the sharpest knife in the kitchen, but he knew better than to take Norris up on his offer. Instead he chuckled and climbed the stairs. The little bit of light from the lantern he’d been holding disappeared as the cellar door was dropped into place.
“How you doin’?” Norris asked with a tired sigh.
Jarrett struggled to sit fully upright but could only make it to a lazy slouch with his back against the post and one leg stretched out in front of him. Since nobody could see him even if he did manage to regain his posture, Jarrett allowed himself to slump. “I been better,” he replied. “What about you?”
“Better than you.”
Despite the pain in his side, Jarrett still allowed himself to enjoy a laugh with his brother.
When he caught his breath, Norris asked, “Did they actually take you to see Jen or the children?”
“Yes, and they’re all fine.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes,” Jarrett replied.
“Would you tell me if they weren’t?”
“Why would I hide it?”
“Because you know what it would do to me if I lost them.” Norris pulled in a deep breath and tried to play off a sniffle as though he were clearing his throat. That trick hadn’t worked when he was a kid, and it didn’t work now.
Jarrett let it pass without confronting him about it, though. “They’re scared,” he said. “Tired. But that’s about it.”
“The baby?”
“Actually she’s sleeping like she doesn’t have a care in the world.”
Norris let out a little chuckle. “Now I know you’re not just trying to make me feel better. That girl could sleep through a windstorm. She has slept through a few big storms, in fact. What about your men? Did you get to see them as well?”
“I didn’t want to push my luck,” Jarrett explained. “I only offered to help them so I could check on Jen and the little ones. Actually I was surprised I got to see as much as I did. Besides, if my men were in any immediate danger, I’m sure Clay or that other one would have been quick to tell us about it.”
“I suppose they were busy greeting those others that came along.”
“What others?”
“The ones that arrived a bit after you were taken out of here,” Norris replied. “I heard a bunch of horses outside as well as a good number of voices I hadn’t heard before. Thought for certain you would’ve noticed something like that.”
“I was a bit distracted by handing over everything I own. How many men arrived?”
“At least three. Could have been more.”
Just then the cellar door was pulled open and heavy feet thumped down the stairs. Jarrett hadn’t been expecting to see anyone for a while, so the sudden entrance caused his entire body to flinch in surprise.
Dave strode down the stairs and once again went through the motions of cutting the ropes wrapped around one of the support posts. This time, however, he freed Norris instead of Jarrett. Still standing behind the post, Dave kept his knife in an easy grip while slamming the heel of his boot between Norris’s shoulder blades. “Get up those stairs,” he grunted.
“Where are you taking him?” Jarrett asked.
Norris motioned for his brother to stand down and said, “I want to see my family and then I want to see the men who work for my brother.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Dave replied, “Sure.”
“And I want food for all of us,” Norris added.
Dave was impatient as always but nodded while shoving Norris forward. “I’ll scrape something up for you.”
Norris continued with his list of demands as he was pushed up the stairs and outside. Jarrett couldn’t hear much more than that because the cellar door was slammed shut to leave him in the shadows. For the next several moments, he sat still so he could focus all of his attention on whatever sounds he could detect through the heavy wooden barrier between him and his brother.
There were definitely more men outside apart from Norris and Dave. Jarrett didn’t have to listen for very long before he picked up the grating tone of Clay’s voice as well as a few others that didn’t strike him as familiar. Norris shouted something at them, which was met by a tense silence.
“Give ’em hell, little brother,” Jarrett whispered.
A wind blew through the property, scraping unseen hands against the outside of the cellar doors.
There were a few more voices: icy calm and barely loud enough to be heard.
Then . . . a gunshot.
Jarrett’s heart sank. His eyes snapped open and darted back and forth, even though there was nothing for him to see in the all-encompassing shadows.
Another shot was fired, followed by a third. Each one made Jarrett even more certain that they were being fired from no more than a few paces away from the cellar’s entrance.
“Norris!” he shouted.
Jarrett waited for a response, listening for any sound that might possibly be his brother’s voice. Outside, there was plenty of movement and none of it had anything to do with the wind.
“Norris! What’s happening out there? Answer me!”
First one horse thundered away and then another followed. Their hooves pounded against the ground in a drumbeat that Jarrett could feel through the post and all the way down to the soles of his boots. A third horse rode off in the same direction as the first two. Men’s voices rose into the night with sharp hollers and cries. After a few more seconds, an even deeper rumbling sent tremors through the dirt surrounding Jarrett on almost every side.
The herd was being moved.
As the world beyond the cellar churned without him, Jarrett was left with nothing else to do other than pull and struggle against his ropes with everything he had. When he was testing their limits the first time, he’d bloodied his wrists enough to make the rope slick. That was before he’d been brought out to see Jen and the children. When he was brought back, the ropes had been replaced.
Jen and the children.
Just thinking about them made Jarrett struggle harder. The sound of more gunshots in the distance could have been his fears wreaking havoc with a clouded mind. Outside, more horses galloped in different directions and men shouted back and forth. A woman screamed. It could just as well have been the high-pitched voice of a child, but the difference was inconsequential. Either option tied Jarrett’s innards into knots.
It wasn’t until the pain shooting through his shoulders and wrists became unbearable that he realized he’d been thrashing against his restraints like a wild, enraged beast. When the cellar door was opened, he saw
it through a murky haze that seemed to fill his entire head like smoke.
“You didn’t think I forgot about you, did you?” Clay asked as he ambled down the stairs.
Jarrett opened his mouth as if he was going to howl like a demon. Instead he barely managed to form the words “What did you do to my brother? Cut us loose! All of us!”
So far, Clay had barely shown more than a hint of emotion. This time was no different. He drew his pistol, thumbed back the hammer, and took aim, all with the same expression he might have worn if he was pulling on his boots. “You’ve been real helpful, Jarrett. Time to part ways.”
Jarrett thought he might have seen something else beneath the gunman’s surface, possibly some hint that he was something more than a skinny edifice. The instant Clay narrowed his eyes, Jarrett tucked his head down low and to one side.
A plume of smoke exploded from the barrel of Clay’s gun, accompanied by a roar that filled the cellar as well as every inch of Jarrett’s head.
He was knocked brutally to one side.
Jarrett’s back smashed against the post behind him.
Everything faded into murky, muddled silence.
Chapter 8
Jarrett’s senses were dimmer than a candle with a wet wick. As he tried to pull himself up from the cool dirt floor, he learned that his muscles weren’t in much better condition. He drew a breath, only to feel a pain so intense that it crumpled him quicker than a swift punch to the stomach. Since he’d had more than his share of those recently, he’d become something of an expert in that area.
Shifting his weight to one side, Jarrett attempted to prop himself up. The jolt of pain stabbed all the way through the back of his head and neck, threatening to knock him out. He wasn’t certain if he’d been unconscious after being shot, but wasn’t about to allow himself to fade away again.
His eyes snapped into focus and his body became still.
He’d been shot.
That piece of information came back to him after being lost amid the confused turmoil that had enveloped him.
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