Julie sighed, smiled. It wasn’t an effort this time. “I think I follow,” she said.
Calvin opened his mouth, about to reply, but Julie’s cell phone rang at just that moment. Gordon’s name flashed on the screen.
“Hello?” Julie said.
“Julie? It’s Gordon.” He sounded happily apologetic. “We got a late start out of Dallas this morning, and then we ran into some traffic, but we’re almost there.”
Julie smiled, happy for Calvin. Although he tried to act blasé, she knew the little guy would have been crushed if Gordon and the others had been no-shows.
“We’ll wait,” she said.
“Good,” Gordon said. “Mom and Dad are so excited about meeting their grandson. They’ll probably want a million pictures.”
The voice of an older person sounded in the background on Gordon’s end. “A million won’t be half enough!”
Julie’s heart warmed. “See you soon,” she told Gordon.
Barely ten minutes later, the Pruetts arrived.
Gordon’s parents were sweet people, delighted with Calvin and cordial to Julie. They’d brought him a pile of presents, all cheerfully wrapped, and Dixie got out her digital camera, the way she’d done on the first visit, and started right in on getting those million pictures snapped.
GARRETT WANTED TO GET HOME, that was all, and the sooner the better.
Even flying seemed too slow.
A flash of something caught his attention, though, and he went to investigate, swinging the Cessna toward the dry riverbed, where he and Tate had taken a look around the other day.
There were at least two rigs parked down there, between the Quonset huts, one of them the property of the Silver Spur. He didn’t recognize the other, a sleek white extended-cab pickup, but that wasn’t strange. There were a lot of trucks in the county, let alone the state.
It was something else that bothered Garrett, something visceral, almost subliminal. A clenching sensation in the pit of his stomach.
Frowning, Garrett pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his denim jacket, and speed-dialed his brother.
The answer was brisk and businesslike, as usual. “Tate McKettrick.”
“I’m over the old camp,” Garrett said. “Did you send a crew out there to do repairs or something?”
“No,” Tate said slowly. “I thought you were still in Austin—or even Washington.”
“Well,” Garrett replied, swooping low over the camp, “you thought wrong. I’m back.”
“For how long?”
“That depends. I don’t like the looks of this, Tate. Something is definitely going on down there. You’d better call Brent, or even the state police, and get them out here quick—”
“Garrett,” Tate interrupted, “meet me at the airstrip. Don’t try to handle this by yourself.”
Garrett didn’t get a chance to answer.
Two men came running out of the Quonset huts, and they both had rifles.
He was in too low and too close to escape; the bullets ripped through the right wing, and the Cessna pitched wildly to one side.
“Garrett!” Tate yelled. “What the hell?”
Garrett’s voice was dead calm as he uttered what he was pretty sure would be the last words he ever spoke. “I’m going down,” he said. “Don’t sell the ranch.”
“Garrett!” Tate repeated, sounding panicked.
Garrett didn’t reply. He was too busy struggling with the controls.
He was in one hell of a fix. If he managed to set the plane down without the fuel tank exploding, the men with the rifles would finish him off for sure. If he botched the landing or fate didn’t cooperate, he and the Cessna would be blown, as the saying went, sky high.
He tilted the nose slightly downward, lined up with the riverbed, muttered a quick prayer and bellied out the plane.
The metal shrieked as it tore away, and cracks snaked across the windshield.
The machine ground to a deafening stop, and then there was silence.
Garrett waited, holding his breath, for the blast.
It didn’t happen.
One heartbeat, another.
A cold sweat broke out all over his body.
His head was bleeding, but nothing was broken, as far as he could tell.
Of course the riflemen were still out there, and they would come after him any second now. No doubt Tate was on his way by now, Austin with him, and Brent Brogan must have been called as well.
The figurative cavalry was coming, bugles blaring, but his brothers and the police weren’t going to get there in time, no matter how fast they were traveling.
He leaned down, felt under his seat until he found the trusty .357 Magnum he’d never had to use before.
Always a first time, he thought.
A face loomed in front of the shattered windshield.
Garrett gripped the .357, hoping it was out of sight. Let his head loll to one side and waited.
“I think he’s dead or knocked out,” Charlie Bates told his partner. “Open the door, though. We’ve got to make sure.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHARLIE BATES? GARRETT THOUGHT, playing possum while he waited for the door of the plane to be wrenched open. His palm sweated around the handle of the .357, but he had a good grip and the safety was off, so all he had to do was pull the trigger.
But, Charlie—a rustler? Maybe even the head of a whole outfit of cattle thieves?
Shooting a plane out of the sky definitely qualified as a desperate act; the rest was supposition on Garrett’s part.
Time seemed to grind by on sticky gears, halting and then restarting again.
Easy, Garrett told himself. All you need to think about right now is staying alive.
You have so many good reasons to stay alive.
Julie.
Calvin.
Tate and Austin, Libby and the twins, and the Silver Spur Ranch.
Reasons aplenty, Garrett figured.
Listing them helped him to calm down and to stay focused.
Charlie was no longer looming in front of the plane’s shattered windshield—no, he was on the ground now, with his buddy, the two of them cussing and pulling to get the door of the plane open. It must have been dented in good, that door, because they didn’t seem to be making a whole lot of progress.
They were creative cussers, though.
In the distance, Garrett thought he heard the faintest sound of sirens, but when the door finally started to give way, the scream of bent metal drowned out every other sound except that of the blood pounding in his ears.
Then Charlie stuck his ugly mug into the cockpit, and Garrett stuck his .357 under the man’s chin.
“Don’t move,” Garrett told him.
The scrambling noise of somebody getting the hell out of Dodge indicated that Bates’s partner was already on the run. Of course, there could be more of the sons of bitches out there—he’d only seen two, but that didn’t mean the tally was right.
With Tate and Austin, the cops, and half the hands working the Silver Spur on their way, whoever it was wouldn’t get far.
And Charlie Bates wasn’t going anywhere at all.
Not with the business end of a .357 under his chin.
“You wouldn’t shoot me,” Charlie said. His Adam’s apple bobbed up to the end of the pistol barrel and then back down, and he put on a sickly grin. “Why, I’ve known you since you were knee-high—”
“You know, Charlie,” Garrett said, with rueful ease, “up until a few minutes ago, I would have said pretty much the same thing about you. That you wouldn’t shoot me, I mean. But damn if you or your buddy didn’t blow my airplane out of the sky with a deer gun.”
Charlie gulped again.
“How long have you been stealing our cattle, Charlie?” Garrett asked, to pass the time of day.
He could hear a rig tearing toward the road—it was probably the white extended-cab he hadn’t recognized—and there were definitely sirens, coming closer.
“It started out, we’d just take a cow here and a cow there,” the older man finally said. “Sell ’em for cheap and pocket the cash.”
Garrett nodded. “Go on.”
Charlie’s gaze shifted nervously to one side; the sirens were almost on top of them now, but someone else had gotten there ahead of the law and the paramedics.
Garrett heard Tate yell his name.
“I’m all right,” Garrett yelled back. His gaze was locked on Charlie’s. The old rustler stood on what was left of the wing, and his foothold might have been a little shaky. “Watch out for Charlie here, though. I’ve got a pistol all but jammed down his worthless, thieving gullet, but he might be armed.”
“I ain’t armed,” Charlie whined, sweating now. “I had a rifle, but I set that down when I climbed up onto the nose to see if you were gonna give us any trouble or not.”
“Guess you know the answer to that one,” Garrett said. There was no pain, but he was starting to feel a little light-headed, as if he’d been riding horseback under a hot Texas sun without a hat.
Tate must have dragged Charlie down off the bent wing, but it was Austin who climbed up and stood in Bates’s place.
Eyes scanning the length of Garrett’s body before landing on his face, Austin carefully relieved him of the .357. There were other voices outside the plane now—all around—cops, cowboys and God knew who else.
It was over.
“You hurting anywhere in particular, brother?” Austin asked.
“No,” Garrett answered honestly, “but I’m sure as hell numb in a few places.”
“Maybe you ought to sit tight ’til the paramedics can check you out.”
Garrett shook his head. He smelled gas and engine oil. “The fuel tank could still go up,” he said. “Let’s get clear.”
Austin nodded, waited a beat, then moved aside.
Garrett made it out onto the wing, but he would have fallen into the stony bottom of the riverbed if Austin hadn’t grabbed hold of his arm just as his knees buckled underneath him.
Tate hurried over to help, and each of them got under one of Garrett’s shoulders to hold him upright.
Garrett felt it coming.
Either Tate or Austin yelled for everybody to get as far from the plane as they could.
The three of them hadn’t covered more than fifty yards when the explosion back-blasted them, sent them sprawling in the dirt.
Garrett swore, turned his head to look back. Heat scalded his eyeballs dry, and he had to avert his gaze again, blink to make them stop burning.
Flaming debris rained down from the sky.
“Shit,” Austin said, clearly impressed by the experience. “We damn near bought the farm that time.”
Tate was already getting up off the ground. He’d lost his hat, and his clothes were dirty and torn. He put a hand out for Garrett, and Garrett took it, let his brother haul him to his feet. This time, he was able to stand on his own, though he swayed a bit before he steadied himself.
“Yeah,” Garrett agreed. “We damn near did.”
Brogan approached, shaking his head. He watched the plane burn for a few moments before he spoke. “Either somebody up there likes you,” he told Garrett, “or you’re one lucky son of a gun.”
Garrett laughed. “I figure it’s both,” he said. “There was another guy with Charlie—in a white pickup?”
“We’ve got him,” Brogan replied, with a smile. He gave the burning plane another glance, shook his head again. “Damn,” he said. “That is a sight to see.”
Garrett rubbed his chin. He beard was coming in again. “I guess my career as a crimefighter has probably peaked,” he quipped.
The chief grinned. “I reckon we can take it from here,” he said. “Though there will be plenty of questions for you to answer down the road a ways, after the paramedics check you over and your brothers take you home so Esperanza can fuss over you and all.”
The sky tipped, landed at a crazy angle.
Garrett passed out.
When he came around again, he was lying on his back on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask on his face.
One of the ambulance attendants—Garrett didn’t recognize him, so he must have been new in Blue River—was beside him.
Austin was at his other side and the rig was moving, eating up road at a good clip.
Garrett tried to take off the mask, but the paramedic—Al, according to the name stitched on his shirt—stopped him.
Austin knuckled Garrett lightly in the shoulder. “Relax, cowboy,” he said. “We’re just taking you to the clinic, so the docs can look you over. Maybe take an X-ray or two.”
Garrett nodded and closed his eyes.
THE VISIT WITH GORDON AND HIS PARENTS lasted for a couple of hours, and by the time it was over, Calvin’s batteries were starting to run down. Julie explained that he had just recovered from a stomach flu and they all left the restaurant at the Amble On Inn together, Gordon carrying a now-sleepy Calvin, his father lugging all the presents they’d brought.
Since it was a fairly long drive back to Dallas, Gordon and Dixie, along with the elder Pruetts, of course, planned to spend the night in Blue River. It was agreed that they would all get together again for breakfast in the morning, this time at the Silver Dollar Saloon, provided Calvin was well enough.
Julie had planned to leave her son in Paige’s care again and spend the rest of the afternoon packing over at the cottage.
The county ambulance, not the local one, streaked past as she was waiting to pull out of the motel/restaurant parking lot, and at the same moment, Julie’s cell phone jangled in the depths of her purse.
Julie didn’t dig for it.
Tate was behind the ambulance, in his truck, and Libby was with him.
Every instinct Julie had kicked in. Instead of making a right, toward the cottage and Paige’s apartment across the street from it, she took a left, and followed Tate and Libby and, ahead of them, the ambulance.
Calvin, buckled into his car seat in back, had already nodded off. He must have been pooped, Julie thought distractedly, not to be awakened by the shrill screech of that siren.
Two nurses and a doctor were waiting at the entrance to the clinic with a gurney.
Tate parked nearby and leaped out of the truck, and Julie pulled up alongside. Libby, seeing her, rolled down the window.
“It’s Garrett,” she said. “He’s all right, really, but—”
Garrett.
Julie’s heart seized like a clenched fist. It was actually painful, like being grabbed from the inside.
She turned, saw the paramedics unloading Garrett from the back of the ambulance. Austin jumped out after him.
Julie tried to get a good look at Garrett, but he had something over his face and there were too many people in the way.
She shoved open the door of her car. “Will you look after Calvin?” she asked Libby, breathless.
Libby smiled faintly and nodded.
Julie followed Garrett and the others into the clinic.
“What happened?” she asked, snagging hold of Austin’s shirtsleeve when he would have gone right into the examining room with the rest of them.
“Some rustlers shot his plane down, that’s all,” Austin said.
And then he was gone.
Some rustlers shot his plane down.
“That’s all”?
Julie swayed.
Libby came in with Calvin, who was baffled, blinking away sleep. “I’m not sick,” he said. “Why are we at the clinic?”
Libby squeezed her nephew against her side. “Stay calm,” she told Julie, in her cheeriest big-sister voice. Then, after a beat or two, she asked, “Do you want me to call Paige? See if she can come and pick Calvin up?”
Was he dying?
Surely he would have been airlifted to Austin or even Houston or Dallas if he’d been so seriously injured, wouldn’t he?
On the other hand, the man had been in a plane crash, according to Austin. He could be so badly injured that there wasn’t time to take him to a city hospital. Maybe he needed immediate medical care just to survive.
Maybe it was touch and go.
Life and death.
“I still don’t understand why we’re at the clinic,” Calvin said, looking up at his fretful mother.
Julie didn’t want to tell her little boy that Garrett, one of his all-time favorite people in the world, had been brought here—he was sure to freak out and besides, she didn’t have enough information to explain what was happening.
“Your mom is visiting somebody,” Libby said, as she and Julie exchanged glances. “That’s all. Just visiting.”
“Oh,” Calvin said. “Like when Gramma had to spend the night here at the clinic in a hospital bed after she drove your car through the front wall of the Perk Up Coffee Shop and put you out of business for good, Aunt Libby?”
“Like that,” Libby said, giving him a tender smile. Then she bit her lower lip. “Sort of.”
Tate came out of the back, and he was so focused on Libby that he might or might not have noticed Julie and Calvin standing there.
“We’ll be here for a while,” he said to Libby. “They’re taking X-rays.”
Libby nodded.
“Who?” Calvin demanded. “Who is getting x-rayed?”
Tate looked down at the child, registered his identity, then rustled up a faint smile. “One of my cowboys took a spill,” he replied. He was perceptive, for a man, it seemed to Julie, dazed as she was, but then, he was also a father. A good one.
He knew bad news about Garrett might be more than a little guy could process.
She felt a rush of appreciation for her future brother-in-law.
And tears of worry scalded her eyes.
Libby got out her cell phone and went to the other side of the lobby to call Paige.
“This—cowboy,” Julie choked out, staring up into Tate’s blazingly-blue eyes, “is he going to be all right?”
McKettricks of Texas: Garrett Page 31