The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  * * * *

  “Son of…” Matt felt the coming discharge as Malloy started to scramble onto the ridge next to him. He turned, not stopping to think his thanks he hadn’t had time to take his rigging off. There was only time to act. He shoved Malloy back, then threw himself with him, falling over the edge just before a shaft of light split the ground like the wrath of God.

  He hit his head against a rock outcrop and saw stars against the dark clouds as he dangled from his ropes.

  Matt shook his head to clear stars and water from his eyes, then grabbed Malloy.

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing.” Blood ran down from a gash on his temple.

  Matt reached up. He had to get back up top before Hayes killed Dani.

  * * * *

  Dani opened her eyes, not sure how long she had been out or even if she’d been out. Her sense of direction was gone. She didn’t know where Matt and Spook were and her brain was saying go!

  She didn’t stop to argue with it. If Matt was out there, maybe there were others. All she had to do was get far enough from Spook and close enough to them. Instead of sanctuary, Dani found the steep pitch of the Home Stretch.

  Behind her she heard Spook cry out. He sounded close, closer than the shouts that answered him. The incline was steeper than the devil’s nose, but it was away from Spook. Without stopping to think, she crawled over the edge.

  * * * *

  The Summit was the obstacle course from hell when Matt topped the rise again. Black as night, with pale figures darting here and there. He didn’t dare shoot at one for fear it would be one of his good guys or Dani. Hayes, on the other hand, could shoot at anybody. Everyone was his enemy.

  Keeping low and using the tumbled boulders, Matt started working his way across the top. The storm was moving away. A shaft of lightning hit the next peak over, illuminating theirs. He saw someone drop down the Home Stretch.

  He still didn’t dare use the radio to mark positions. Might as well put a big arrow over his guys heads if he did. He pulled it out, thought for a moment, then said, “Luke?”

  “Glad to hear your still with us, little brother. Didn’t fancy facing mom and trying to explain all this.”

  “Any idea where our boy is?” And our girl, he mentally added.

  “I saw someone heading home just a minute ago.”

  “Me too. What about Louis?” Would Luke recognize this shortened version of Louise and realize what he was asking?

  “I think he went down first.”

  He rubbed his face. “Any idea how close the home front boys are?”

  “No,” Luke’s radio crackled with static, “but I don’t think they’re close enough to be much use. At least the storm’s bailing on us. It’s gonna get real light up here soon. I say we get the heck out of Dodge now.”

  “Sounds good to me. I’ll meet you at the exiting end of town.” Matt stowed his radio, checked his gun, then rose and headed across the exposed top at a jog. Behind him, the first crack of sunlight broke through the dark clouds.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Dani had always been lost in rock and rain. Her other life was a dream. This was reality. She was glad she couldn’t see anything as she scrambled her way back down the trail she had so laboriously climbed such a short time before.

  Gradually the rain began to ease, the sky getting lighter. Above she heard the scrape of feet against rock and knew, the way she had always known, that Spook was almost on her again.

  Panic couldn’t be resisted. Dani fled into the Ledges, a maze of twists and turns with no way out. She looked up, then down. In her other lifetime, this kind of up scared her. Now it was her only reality. Was that Keyhole she could see up there? Had she climbed down that far? She couldn’t remember. It looked right and Spook was getting closer. She reached up, found a foot hold. In a few moments, she had reached the ridge, scrambled over it. Instead of the trail, she found a slope to nowhere.

  This wasn’t the right place, was it?

  It had to be. She scrambled down. Found an unequivocal dead end. Now what?

  As she hesitated, the now distant storm threw one last violent salvo, then broke against the peaks and let the afternoon sun pierce its clouds. Her spirits rose. It was a good omen. Maybe she would get her happy ending…

  Above her, she heard a rattle of stones. She looked up.

  Spook stood at the gateway to freedom, looking down at her.

  * * * *

  Matt faced Luke, frustration spiking in his veins. “Where could they be? This mountain isn’t that big!”

  Luke looked around. “The False Keyhole? Be easy to get lost up here in the dark.”

  “I’ll check it out. Why don’t you head down to the Keyhole, see if you see them there? One of us spots them first, just radio it’s a bust.”

  “Right.” He started down. Matt looked up. The sky was clearing fast. He lifted his radio, “Bring in the birds, Riggs. I need some eyes up here.”

  He waited for Riggs to acknowledge the request, then started up the rock toward the False Keyhole, his mind blanked clear of everything but the hunt.

  * * * *

  There was no where left to go, very little left to do, Dani realized. No energy left to think of something. Fatalistic took over from flight-or-fight. She had fought the good fight. It was time for a little dignity.

  Her clothes were soaked. The wind had eased, but not enough. She wrapped her arms around her middle and leaned against the rock face so she wouldn’t shiver herself off her precarious perch. No sense doing the job for him.

  She didn’t even flinch when, with a small flurry of stones, Spook dropped down on the ledge next to her.

  “Willow.”

  The killer was still in his eyes. She didn’t care. “I’m not Willow. I’m Dani. Just—Dani.”

  He stopped, a momentary confusion altering the cold blankness of his face into something more normal. Or maybe she just wanted to believe it had.

  “Dani?”

  “Dani.” Water ran down her face from her hair, blurring her vision. Her teeth chattered with the cold. “Not Willow. Not Spook. Just Dani and Jonathan. Or do they call you Jon?”

  He frowned. “Jon. Only my mother called me that.”

  “Oh?” Was that good or bad? Did she care?

  Water poured from him, too, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He frowned. “You’re soaked. You should’ve put on your rain gear.”

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her upper arms and stamped her feet. This was way weird, but she didn’t fight the compulsion to respond to the strange script. “I should have.”

  “It was in your pack.”

  “I lost it.”

  “I tried to take care of you.” Frustration pulled down his features. “Why are you doing this? I was only doing what was right for us.”

  It didn’t matter if she pissed him off now, so she didn’t pull her punches. “Right for you, not me. This was all about what you want. It’s called being selfish, which can’t make anyone happy. Didn’t your mother ever teach you this? Or did you kill her, too?”

  He looked at her. “My mother still lives in Connecticut. In the suburbs.”

  “Connecticut?” Dani felt an insane urge to laugh. “Was she a liberal?”

  He looked sulky. “Actually, she was. What of it?”

  “I’ll bet she didn’t spank you when you were a poor, empty kid.” Dani sighed in frustration. “You’re such a jerk. Your problem wasn’t too much suffering. It’s not suffering enough.”

  “Who are you to lecture me? You can’t even decide if you want to live or die!”

  “As usual, you know absolutely nothing about me. It just so happens I don’t want to die, okay?” Dani glared at him. Water ran into her eyes. She pushed her dripping hair back and saw blood running down her wrist.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Yes.” Anger faded, leaving something that felt like peace. Had Spook’s mountain delivered what he had promised?

  “What do
you want?”

  Dani saw both the killer and the friend fighting for supremacy in Spook’s eyes.

  “Remember that guy you quoted once, the one who said, ‘We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe?’”

  “Newman,” Spook said, absently. “Cardinal Newman.” He nodded thoughtfully. “So you can’t—choose to believe what I believe—even if it means you’ll die?”

  “Can you really see me serving a fourteen thousand foot mountain?”

  His smile was rueful. “No. I guess I can’t.” His face turned sad. “I’ll miss you. You—lit up my nights.”

  No way to know if he’d just passed a death sentence—or given her reprieve. She pressed back against rock and made herself look down. At her feet the ledge sloped away to a really nasty fall. She closed her eyes. Be the final irony of her acrophobic life if she ended it by falling to her death.

  “What’s it going to be, Jon? Do you just push me or am I supposed to jump ala Last of the Mohicans?”

  “You got guts, Dani.”

  Unless he splattered them across a couple of feet of rock. She braced, digging deep for her last bit of courage, then looked at him.

  “My guts want to go home.”

  Spook took the two steps to her side.

  Now she could smell him, earthy and slightly sour. Could feel the heat from his body and see the steam rising from his wet clothes. Saw his eyes reflect his battle for her life. Time slowed until she could feel the tick of each second passing.

  “It would have been—amazing.”

  “Only if we were both different.”

  “Even all beat up you’re beautiful.”

  Her smile wavered at the edges. “You are nuts.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

  Together they teetered on the knife edge of his madness, then his eyes shifted. In them she saw her death.

  He wasn’t going to let her go.

  * * * *

  Matt reached the ridge and crouched behind a boulder. He could hear voices, but he couldn’t see them without giving away his presence. He lifted his radio and whispered the signal, heard Luke respond. Matt checked his gun clip and loaded a bullet in the chamber with a quiet snap. There probably wouldn’t be time to take a look-see, assess the situation. Down there was a ledge, a deadly fall and a mad man who didn’t like to lose.

  When he showed himself, he would have the space of a heartbeat to find Hayes and act. He did a mental three-count, then stood up.

  First he saw Dani. Then Hayes standing too close to her for a clean shot. Hayes shifted his weight toward the edge. Matt pulled the trigger.

  * * * *

  Hayes leaned into gravity. His hand gripped her arm.

  Dani heard the flat crack of gunfire, the shots so close she wasn’t sure there had been more than one or just an echo.

  Spook flinched once, then again. His eyes widened, then turned dreamy. He tried to speak. Instead of words, blood bubbled out his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

  He swayed, his grip on her arm tightening. It was instinct to try to help. Then he started to pull her toward the edge. He was dying.

  He meant her to die, too.

  Now she fought him, clawing with hands and teeth to get away as life surged back in her heart.

  He didn’t let go.

  She tried to brace herself.

  There was no purchase on the wet rock. Nothing to grab as he arched out over empty space, taking her with him. A last, desperate wrench broke Spook’s hold. She fell to her knees far out on the curving rock.

  Maybe gravity would be satisfied with Spook.

  It wasn’t. Even as hope made a brief appearance, its hungry hold reached up to pull her forward as ruthlessly as if Spook still held her. She slid forward, in perfect position to see Spook go first.

  His rag doll body followed the line of the rock at first, but then gravity got more demanding. He arched clear, falling in a graceful somersault that ended against rock. On his back against the mountain he worshipped, Dani saw his empty eyes stare up at her in a mute invitation to join him.

  She wanted to refuse. Gravity wanted her to accept. She slid forward, faster now. Clawed at the rock face. Left bloody, fruitless trails against stone. An incoherent prayer whispered out her lips as she reached the point of no return.

  * * * *

  Matt was over the ridge before Dani broke free of Hayes. Too far away to help her as she slid down the sloping rock. He leapt onto the rock ledge, went down on his stomach. His hand just missed her foot.

  He cursed silently as he tore the coiled rope from his shoulder, all the while knowing it was useless. Hayes had lost his life, but won the final toss. He had finished what he started.

  * * * *

  I’m going to die, Dani thought, surprised even after all that had happened. The thought splintered as a stray bit of sun caught on something sticking out of the rock.

  A last, desperate stretch and her hand closed round it.

  She felt the shock in her joints as her body slid past and down, then stopped with a jerk that almost broke her grip when she slammed into rock.

  She wasn’t falling. She wasn’t dead.

  Not yet. Blood ran down her arm, warm and slick. The piton turned slick with it. And she was so tired.

  * * * *

  Matt couldn’t believe it when Dani stopped falling. How had she managed to grab that old piton, left in the rock years ago? The wave of relief left him light-headed. He rubbed his face, then found something to tie the rope around. A few quick turns and he was back on his stomach looking down. He dug deep for calm control, then called her name.

  She didn’t move, didn’t look up.

  If he startled her, she might fall, but she needed to know he was here, that help was at hand.

  “Dani!” He saw her body jerk. She didn’t fall. Her head tilted back until he could see her face. She looked like she had been in a street fight. Her mouth was bruised and swollen. A cut on her forehead bled sluggishly. Her eyes were wide and empty of recognition. “It’s Matt.”

  Matt? She blinked. The lonesome lawman?

  “What you doing down there?”

  It hurt when she smiled up at him. “Oh,” her grin wavered on both sides, “just hanging around.”

  “How bout I join you?”

  “If you don’t,” she tried to get a better grip on the piton, “I’m gonna ask Luke to kick your ass.”

  Matt laughed, kicked the rope over the edge, and started rappelling down to her.

  He had better hurry. Her arms were bunching with the strain of holding on. This wasn’t over yet. In a rush he dropped the last few feet, jerked back on his brake rope when he was below her. She couldn’t stop her hand from opening…

  She cried out. Then again when his hand closed round hers with punishing force.

  Matt took the full force of her falling weight in his shoulder. They spun in a circle, first scraping, then smacking into the rock face. Matt tried to cushion Dani, but couldn’t with one hand on the brake and the other holding Dani’s blood slick hand.

  She grabbed his coat sleeve, twisted her hand around it. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

  “Can you grab my legs, or even better, my belt?”

  “I’d have to let go.”

  “I won’t let you go.”

  They hit rock again. She let go of his sleeve, missed the first time, made the edge of his pocket the second time.

  “Good girl. Can you wrap your legs around mine?”

  Dani laughed breathlessly. “This is hardly the time for that.”

  Matt’s laugh was just as breathless. “I can’t do this forever.”

  “I think…” Dani hooked one leg around his “It’s very mature of you to admit you can’t do it forever.”

  Matt chuckled. He could now that the strain on his shoulders eased. “I’m going to spank you when we out of this. Then I’m gonna prove I can.”

  “Promises, promises.”
>
  “I want you to get up where you can put your arms around my neck. Use my shoes.”

  “Shoes. Right.”

  Dani grabbed his belt, got one foot under her. Her weight came down on one foot, then his other foot. Her body scraped along his. Dangling over rock didn’t slow his body’s response one iota. He hoped she wouldn’t notice.

  Her arms slid around his neck. She wrapped her legs around his middle, settling right where he didn’t want her to. Okay, he would think the problem away.

  It was hard to think with her face inches from his. She looked like hell. She felt like heaven.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He cleared the husky out of his voice and added, “What are you going to do for your next trick?”

  A smile broke across her face like the sun on his mountain.

  “I’m going to live.”

  Before he could think of a response, Luke dropped onto the ledge above them. They both looked up. He grinned.

  “Gravity’s a bitch, ain’t it, Louise?”

  “No.” She laughed, a full throaty sound that worsened his problem. “Gravity’s a guy.”

  Luke looked severe. “I think we’ve just been insulted, little brother.” He looked over his shoulder. “The cavalry’s arrived. How about we get you up here?”

  Dani spun in a slow circle in Matt’s arms. It was over.

  The sun was back for a last hurrah before setting. Somewhere some birds were probably singing. She felt like singing. And laughing out loud. She was hanging by a rope halfway between earth and sky, and she’d never felt more at home.

  The only thing that would make it better was him kissing her. Her kissing him back. His mouth, his hands erasing the memory of Spook’s touch from her mind and body.

  When someone up there began pulling them up, the sun dimmed a little. It dimmed a little more when Matt’s eyes turned professional and detached. Hands reached out to help her onto the ledge. She didn’t want to leave the safety of his arms, but she did. She could still do hard things. Her poor lungs still weren’t getting enough oxygen to satisfy and there wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t hurt, but with or without Matt, she had told the truth. She was going to live. And she was glad.