Sky berated himself. He’d been expecting the man to come to his house. He had not expected this. The first rule he had learned as a young lawman was never to underestimate his enemies. Yet he had ridden off yesterday morning, sure that Brooke would be fine until he came home. He had trusted too much in the fact that his father would be there if anything happened, never foreseeing that Brooke would take it into her head to ride into town. Now she was missing, and the evidence before him said a murderer had her in his clutches.
Percival had led the horse carrying Brooke away from the trail. Sky followed the tracks, leading Geyser behind. Moving uphill, he picked out the clear trail with ease, walking quickly but soundlessly through the brush.
Brooke came to with a groan, opening her eyes mere slits. Bone-chilling coldness permeated her body, and she shivered violently. She tried to raise her head and gasped as numbing pain shot all through her. With every beat of her heart, pulse waves of agony throbbed through her head and down into her shoulders. The pain originated from a large gash on her forehead, but it was so intense that even the back of her head felt tender to the touch. And the dim light she could see only caused the pain to worsen.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember where she was. What had happened? Moving one hand carefully along the ground she tried to feel around herself to see if she might gain a clue as to her whereabouts. Although the ground was very cold, she laid on something semi-soft. Her hand came into contact with a hard object. Picking it up she pulled it to her face and eased her eyes open, not daring to move her head for the pain it caused. Focusing slowly she saw that the object in her hand was a pine cone.
She frowned. Sudden memory flooded in. Percival Hunter! She had been knocked from her horse while trying to get away. He had brought her here, and then this morning she had come to for a moment and seen him moving off up the hill. She remembered trying to get up but must have passed out again, because she was in the same location. Where had he gone?
She forced herself to sit up. Pain shot through her head, and her stomach churned with nausea. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on not passing out again. A low moan escaped her lips as the throbbing pain in her head sent a wave of dizziness over her. She leaned back against a tree trunk, bringing her fingers to her temples as though she might be able to massage the pain away. She paused, her hand running over the side of her face. From her forehead to her temple and spreading back into her hair on the right side of her head there was a sticky mass of drying blood. She pulled her hand away, gazed in shock at her reddened fingers, and began to tremble.
She must get away from here. But where was she? Glancing around, she didn’t recognize anything. Which direction should she go? Where was the nearest help? And where had Percival gone? How long had it been since she had seen him moving off up the hill? He couldn’t be far away.
This thought propelled her into action. She must escape while she had the chance! Turning slowly, she grasped the trunk of the tree and painstakingly pulled herself to her feet. Too exhausted with the effort to think further, she simply stumbled from tree to tree in the direction that her feet were pointed.
She headed downhill. Not knowing whether that was good or bad, only caring that she was moving away from this place and heading in a different direction than she had seen Percival Hunter going.
How long ago had she fallen from her horse? Where was Sky? Had she been gone long enough for him to miss her? Was he even now out looking for her?
With sudden clarity she realized just how much she loved him. She had denied it—to him and even to herself—but back in the recesses of her mind she had known. She must find him, tell him.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes at the thought and she prayed that God would give her another chance to talk to him. To tell him how much he meant to her. What a balm his gentle kindness and tender care had been for her wounded soul. To thank him for modeling the love of her Heavenly Father. To tell him that she loved him with all her heart. Please God!
She also wanted to get to town and explain what she had seen on that terrible night. She didn’t know if any of the Chinese prisoners were innocent, but she knew that if she didn’t tell what she had seen, she would always feel responsible if they alone were convicted. Percival had had something to do with this.
She had not gone very far when her foot came down on a large pine cone. Although she tried, her body was too spent to right itself, and she tumbled down the hill. It was not far to the bottom, but she felt fresh blood running down her cheek as she rolled to a stop. Excruciating pain pounded in her head.
She wanted to curl into a ball and let the blessed blackness claim her. To get away from the pain and the nightmare of this whole situation. But she forced herself to go on. She pressed her palms to the ground, slowly trying to push herself up onto her knees. As she lifted her head, she looked into the cruelly amused eyes of Percival Hunter.
Her heart sank. How did he get here? He had gone the other way, up the hill.
Terrified as he made her feel, it wasn’t until she peered past his shoulder that she gave a little moan of horror. There, only a short distance away, she could see five Chinese prisoners hanging. All of them were dead.
She was too late then. Had any of those men been innocent?
“Surprised to see me? I should have tied you up, I see. I underestimated you, but that won’t happen again.” Grabbing her roughly, he swung her up over his shoulder with surprising agility. Picking up a large duffel bag at his feet, he headed past the dangling bodies and up the other side of the ravine. “Come on. Let’s go set a little trap for that husband of yours. I can’t have any loose ends hangin’ around.”
As the pain coursed through her once more, Brooke, exhausted from her effort at escape, lost the fight against the incoming blackness. Her body slumped into the dead weight of unconsciousness.
Percival smiled and moved slowly up the hill with his burden, being sure to leave clearly evident tracks as he went. He didn’t want Sky to somehow miss the trail and ruin all his carefully laid plans. It was time to get this whole messy business over with and move on with his life. And in order for that to happen, Jordan needed to follow him.
Jason rode hard. Driven by his newly reclaimed peace with God, he wanted to be able to clear his conscience of one last thing. He wanted to tell Chang, the man who had caused his mother’s death, that he forgave him. And make sure Chang understood he was able to do so only with Christ’s help.
Rounding a corner in the trail he suddenly pulled rein. His horse skidded to a stop on its haunches. Jason turned unbelieving eyes to the scene before him. The five prisoners hung from a pole suspended between two trees, their lifeless bodies swaying in the early morning breeze.
Hadn’t Carle said they’d only left fifteen minutes before he did? How could this have happened so quickly? Where were the guards who were supposed to be protecting these men? Were they the ones who had done this?
A sadness overwhelmed him as he studied the face of Lee Chang. He had spent a good portion of the last several years hating this man, but now in his death Jason could only feel sorry for him. He had gone to meet his Maker, and Jason could only hope he’d taken time to make his peace with God before he died.
The thought that it could have been him who did this to these men made Jason sick inside. Even to think that he had contemplated such an act shamed him, and he now thanked God once more for protecting him from himself.
Sorrow gripping his heart, Jason moved toward Chang. “I came out here to tell you that I forgive you for all the pain you caused my mother and our family back when I was a kid,” he said to the lifeless form. Emotion clogged his throat. Blinking, he looked away. “I only wish I had gotten here a few minutes ago. Maybe I would have been able to save your life.”
Then, realizing he was wasting precious minutes, Jason turned his horse back toward town, leaving the bodies as they were. “I forgive you, Chang,” he said quietly.
He was not really spe
aking to the dead man, for he knew he could not hear him. Jason needed to hear the words for himself, to seal them in his heart.
Sky stopped and bent down. “Dear God,” he muttered. Reaching down, he touched the thick carpet of pine needles and raised his hand to examine the tips of his fingers. They were red. Brooke was bleeding again! From the evidence he could see, she had lain here for quite some time and then had attempted to rise, but had fallen. The fall must have started her wound bleeding again.
He glanced around. She had been here not too long ago. And she had headed downhill.
Frustrated by the fact that she had gone down the opposite side of the hill he had just climbed, he moved after her, following the footprints.
Brooke suppressed a groan when she again awoke. She felt light-headed and feverish. Red-hot coals of pain pulsed outward from her forehead, and her right eye was so swollen she couldn’t see out of it. She lay on her side once again on the bitter-cold ground. A hard lump pressed painfully into her hip.
Rolling onto her back, she stared at the rocky ceiling above her, her one good eye taking a moment to adjust to the dim light. She lay in a cave of some sort, perhaps a tunnel. Light emanated from somewhere in the direction of her feet and she could smell the musty fragrance of freshly turned dirt.
With a heavy heart she realized how much she missed Sky. Had it been only two days ago that he had come home and she had told him of her salvation? Lord, help Sky to find me before it’s too late. How she wished she had simply told him the truth in the first place.
She knew now that Percival had planned to come for her all along. He hadn’t planned on letting her live, no matter what. Maybe if she had told Sky, things would have turned out differently somehow. Well, it won’t do me any good to dwell on that now. She forced herself to think on something else.
Feeling to see what the lump she had been laying on might have been, she was puzzled to find nothing on the ground under her. Her hand moved slowly to the skirt of her dress, and she felt something there. Memory flooded in like brilliant light. The gun! Percival hadn’t found it! She reached into her pocket to pull it out but heard movement and stilled.
“You’ve come around again, I see. I really should just kill you and be done with this whole mess, but I can’t trust to the fact that you didn’t mention anythin’ to your dear husband. Of course, I could kill you and then go to his place and finish him off, but he has visitors out there, doesn’t he?”
He stared at the rock ceiling overhead. “No. If I went out there, I wouldn’t be able to trust to the fact that they had not seen me. Then I would have even more people to kill, and this business of killin’ people is gettin’ a little bothersome.”
He dusted his jacket and straightened his sleeves, talking on as though he were merely discussing everyday politics. “The best way to deal with you two is to get you out here alone. You’re the bait for my trap, see? First I’ll shoot him and then—” he rubbed his hand slowly across the uninjured side of her face, his voice turning lecherous—“you and I are goin’ to spend a little time together. But I’m afraid I will have to finish you off soon, my dear. Too bad. I really found you quite enchantin’ that day we first met. Such a pity I can’t keep you around.”
Brooke, revolted by his touch, jerked her head away. She sucked in a sharp breath and closed her eyes as searing shards of fire coursed through her at the abrupt movement.
“Now dear, it’s no use tryin’ to get away from me. You are in no condition to be movin’ about.” Starting toward the entrance to their hiding place he said, “You just lie here awhile. I have to go watch for your Mr. Jordan. But—” he looked down, an evil glint in his eyes—“don’t worry, I’ll be back.”
Brooke knew she must act now. Her hand was still on the pistol in her pocket, and this might be the only chance she would have to use it. She didn’t know where she found the strength, but she eased the .22 from her pocket and pulled back the hammer.
Percival spun, wide-eyed, at the click of the gun.
Brooke jerked the gun toward the general vicinity of his legs and squeezed the trigger. She hoped only to maim him and give herself a chance at escape.
Percival frantically dove to one side.
The bullet flew harmlessly out the opening of the cave. “Why, you dirty little—!” He lunged toward her.
23
Following Brooke’s trail down the hill, Sky came to a place where she had slipped and fallen. Her tumble down the hill had left a wide path of broken vegetation. Dread tightening his chest, he trotted down the hill, eyes fixed on a dark splotch of blood that showed where she had come to a stop. He glanced down at the ground, back up the hill, then turned forward to see where the trail led next and froze.
“Dear God, no,” he muttered. The five Chinamen’s bodies dangled before him in a grim row.
Futility and grief washed over him. Lifting his hat from his head, he raked his fingers back through his hair in despair. He had risked his life to save theirs—and all for naught.
Who had done this? He scanned the area. The large splotch of blood at his feet caught his eye. The answer to that question would have to come later. He could do nothing for these men now, and immediate danger threatened Brooke’s life.
He shoved his hat back onto his head, bent, and examined the footprints more closely. He grimaced. Percival had, once again, picked Brooke up and carried her off. He’d been hoping she had escaped him. Sky continued on, following in the direction Brooke had been taken.
Coming to a clearing he stopped and eyed the open hillside before him.
Up until this point Percival’s tracks had been very obvious—almost as though he wanted Sky to be able to follow them with ease—but suddenly the trail seemed to vanish.
A long bare slope rose before him, its surface covered only with low, sparse foliage. If he stepped out he would be clearly exposed to anyone who wanted to take a shot at him from above.
Keeping well back into the covering shadows of the trees, he searched the hillside for any sign of movement but saw nothing. Still he did not step out. Something didn’t feel right about this, and he wasn’t about to move out into the open until he knew what he was facing.
Leaning his shoulder into the trunk of a tree, he methodically began a sweeping search of the slope. And then he saw it. Three quarters of the way up the hill a dark spot indicated there must be a small cave or tunnel of some sort there. Piled around the entrance were numerous mounds of rock and shale that at first glance had appeared to be no different from the other small rocks and boulders that littered the hillside.
The spot was a good three hundred yards from where he now stood, but he had seen enough diggings to know a mine entrance when he saw it.
Hunter must think that Brooke told me all about him being in town that night. Without a doubt, Sky knew Percival had Brooke in the mine. And this was a trap, set to lure him out into the open where he would be an easy target.
As he considered all his options, he recognized that the trap was well laid.
The mine was situated in such a way that in order to get to it he would have to be out in the open for quite a ways. Anyone sitting in the shadows of the cave would be able to clearly see him. However, he wouldn’t be able to see anything but the black opening and he couldn’t fire randomly into the entrance for fear of hitting Brooke. He scanned the top of the hill. Even if he eased around and approached from the top he would have to move out into the open for at least ten yards before he could get to the entrance of the mine.
Squatting down, he pressed a fist to his mouth as he weighed his options.
He glanced over at his horse, ground-hitched a ways back in the trees. Ears pricked in the direction of the hill, Geyser stood still, listening, then raised his head to the breeze, nostrils flaring, but his eyes intent on the slope. If Sky had had any doubts about Percival and Brooke being in the mine, they vanished. The horse’s manner confirmed his notion.
Suddenly Sky knew what he would do. Experience
had shown Sky that a man grew overconfident when he thought he knew his opponent’s only options. The best way to capture such a man was to catch him off guard.
There was usually more than one way to skin a coon, no matter how outlandish it might be. Sky remembered his father’s motto, “‘Expect the unexpected and act accordingly.’ Don’t ever do what they are expecting you to do,” he had told his boys on a number of occasions. “You have to put yourselves in that other man’s shoes and learn to think like he does. Don’t make your move until you know exactly what he thinks you’re going to do. Then do something totally different.” The element of surprise worked almost every time, and Sky prayed that it would work this time.
He stopped to think about Hunter. And as he eyed the terrain around the entrance to the mine, he began to see what the man expected.
Percival had convinced himself that Sky would walk out of the trees at the bottom of this hill scouting the ground for the trail he had suddenly lost and not notice anything further up the hill. He thought Sky would come traipsing right up into the sights of his gun.
But as Sky scrutinized the hillside above the entrance to the mine, he saw another option. Moving around the base of the hill, being careful to stay hidden in the shadows of the trees, Sky came to a ridge that would take him up the hill, but keep him out of sight from the mine entrance. Skirting around, he came out above the tunnel so that he now looked down on it.
From this angle he could not see the entrance, but he was within thirty feet of it and could hear voices, although he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
He would have to move carefully here. Any misplaced pebble that rolled down the hill would alert Percival that someone stood above them, and would ruin his advantage of surprise.
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