by Texas Lover
The old woman frowned, shaking her head. "No, but now that Nita mentioned it, I did think it was strange when Merrilee asked for a basket to carry her apples. And last night I noticed a cup, knife, and fork were missing from the place settings she cleared."
A footstep touched off the creaking floorboard in the hall, and Rorie looked up to see Topher standing rebelliously at Nita's side.
"I ain't doing no woman's work."
Rorie might have smiled if she hadn't been so worried.
"Topher, where's Merrilee?"
"Oh, is that all?" The boy looked greatly relieved. Folding his arms, he pasted on a scowl. "Well, you know how she's always wandering off somewhere, saying her mama told her to go, because someone's hungry, or hurt, or something." Topher rolled his eyes.
"Yes? And?"
He snorted. "She said her friend would be afraid all alone in the storm, so she headed off for the cave at Ramble Creek."
"Dear God." Rorie hastily stood, only to regret it an instant later when the floorboards spun beneath her feet.
Fancy gripped her elbow. "Aurora, maybe you shouldn't be standing so soon."
"No, I have to, don't you see? Merrilee's been feeding Danny at the cliff."
"What?" Ginevee gaped at her.
Rorie nodded absently, her mind racing. Somehow, she had to find the children and bring them back before the storm hit. "I have to go after them."
She started to turn, only to have Fancy tighten her hold on her arm.
"Wait a minute. If this is the same Danny that Wes went after, he won't be at the cliff. Remember what his brother said? Danny's afraid of heights."
"Apparently he's more afraid of his father," Rorie said grimly.
Fancy's brows knitted, and her gaze flickered to the children. Catching her eye, Ginevee shooed Nita and Topher into the hall and closed the door after them.
"Aurora," Fancy said, "if that's true, do you realize what kind of danger you could be in? Not to mention the risks you'll be taking for yourself and your baby in a rainstorm when you're climbing some cliff?"
Rorie blanched, her hand flying to her womb. Still, the risks didn't matter. Merrilee was in danger.
"I have to go," she said firmly.
"But—"
"I have to go!" she shouted at Ginevee, who'd anxiously returned to her side.
Fancy's chin hardened. "I'll come with you."
"Don't be ridiculous, Fancy. You'll only be risking your own baby, and I can't have that. Merrilee's my child. I'll go. Alone."
"Do you have a gun?"
Rorie hesitated in midstride, the grim practicality of Fancy's question making her gut knot.
"Well, no, but—"
"My revolver's in my saddlebag. Take it and Frisco. She's gentle and a good climber, but she sometimes gets spooked by thunder. Keep a tight rein on her when the clouds burst."
Rorie nodded, glancing out the window. Forked spears of lightning were crackling ever closer, and the magnolia was shaking and moaning with the wind. She prayed the storm wouldn't unleash itself until she returned the children safely to the farm.
Her pulse jumping with every crash of thunder, she grabbed Shae's work slicker from the barn, shoved Fancy's .32 into a coat pocket, and mounted Frisco. The mare was none too pleased at the prospect of venturing out into nature's cacophony, but Rorie managed to spur her into a grudging canter.
The wind whipped her skirts and unfurled her hair; the sting of an occasional raindrop blurred her eyes. Or maybe that moisture was tears. Risking her baby terrified her, and yet she couldn't bear to think of losing the child she already knew and loved to lightning, a misstep... or Hannibal Dukker.
"Dear God, please keep Merrilee safe. Please keep Danny safe too."
Lightning crackled and popped above the canopy of trees, spooking Rorie almost as much as it did the mare. She had to grit her teeth and speak gently, threading her uneasy mount through the cedars and oaks. She wished there was some other route, but the grove was unavoidable. Dodging flying branches and wind-shorn leaves, she clung to the saddle with a will that defied even the wrath of the heavens.
At last breaking free of the grove, she urged Frisco faster beneath the roiling expanse of charcoal clouds.
"Merrilee!" She shouted the instant the cliff path came into view. "Danny!"
The wind ripped her cries from her lips. If they were dashed against the rocky walls, she never heard their echo.
"Help me, God," she whispered. "Help me find Merrilee."
"Mama!"
The word was nothing more than a murmur in the next earsplitting boom. Rorie reined in, pushing her hair from her eyes, and looked frantically around her. Tumbled slabs of limestone and scruffy sentinels of juniper were strewn all around. To her left lay an uprooted evergreen, rotting in a grave of scrubbrush and grass. To her right stretched the jagged rip in the earth that served as descent to the cave ledge below. There were hundreds of crevices and overhangs where a child could hide if he was afraid to venture down the slope.
"Merrilee, where are you?"
Only the wind responded, gusting past and carrying the scent of rain.
A tendril of dread wrapped around her heart. She urged her mount forward, toward the path, but a sudden icy prickle inched down her spine. The feeling was uncanny, like a primitive shiver of knowing, or an otherworldly finger, pointing her left instead of straight. It was compelling enough to make her rein in a second time. She peered toward the fallen juniper.
That's when she saw Danny and Merrilee sprint hand in hand from their hiding place among the browning needles.
"Run!" Danny shouted, tugging Merrilee behind him in spite of her stumbles.
Stunned to see the terror on their faces, Rorie dismounted, thinking to hurry forward and open her arms to them. Instead, she froze in her tracks. Rising out of the rocks behind the tree, like some creature from the bowels of hell, came Hannibal Dukker. His unbuttoned duster flapped around him like buzzard wings as he lurched forward, a sadistic, hulking monster who stalked the children in unhurried pursuit. He clutched a whiskey bottle in one clawlike hand, but his revolver, thankfully, was holstered.
Danny raced past her in stark panic, but Merrilee tore her hand free from the boys'.
"Mama!"
Rorie was knocked off balance when the child flung herself at her, locking trembling arms around Rorie's waist.
"It's the bad man! It's the monster!"
Tears threatened to steal Rorie's calm. She swallowed her fear, glancing at the sneering lawman as he advanced. "Merrilee, honey, I want you to run. I want you to hide."
Merrilee shook her head. "No. He'll hurt you! Like in my nightmare."
Dukker laughed, an eerie, rasping cackle that didn't sound human.
Rorie managed to detach Merrilee's viselike hold long enough to push the child behind her. "Hannibal," she said as firmly as her constricting throat would allow, "I have a gun and I'm not afraid to use it."
She drew the revolver, and he laughed again. The sound made her whole body stiff and clammy.
"So it's to be a shoot-out, eh, Aurora? You've been reading too many penny dreadfuls."
She didn't bother to contradict him.
"Merrilee, I want you to take Aunt Fancy's horse and find Danny. I want you to ride home."
Merrilee shook her head no, her slender arms practically squeezing Rorie in half.
"Stinking Injun cripple." Dukker took a swig of whiskey and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. "Now there's the thanks you get, Aurora, trying to raise Uncle Tomahawk's trash. You want the brat to mind you? Then backhand her 'til her lights go out. That's the kind of discipline a savage understands."
Merrilee's body quaked harder as she pressed closer, and Rorie battled her motherly instinct to hold the child and comfort her.
"Merrilee." She spoke more sternly, every word ripping a piece from her heart. "Do as you're told."
Merrilee cringed, raising anxious eyes to her, and Rorie nodded, pushing her toward the ma
re.
Dukker's lips twitched in a cruel little smile as he watched the tearful child gather the reins.
"You don't really think I'm gonna let your papoose ride out of here, do you? You don't really think I'm gonna let her grow up like you, to breed more trash all over this county?"
Rorie's gut clenched. He couldn't possibly know about the baby, yet his threat triggered deep, primal instincts she hadn't even known she possessed.
She forced her chin higher. She hoped her defiance would hide the tremor in her arms, as the weight of the .32 began taking its toll. "You are in no position to be threatening me, Hannibal."
His lip curled. "You know, for a live dictionary, you ain't too smart."
She wasn't entirely sure what he meant, but it didn't matter. She listened intently for the sound of hooves behind her, praying that Merrilee could handle such a large horse.
"It's like I always said," Dukker went on, his grating words distracting her. "When a woman starts filling her head with ideas, she disturbs the natural order of things. That's why a woman needs a husband, to put her back in her place. But your old man mustn't have been much good with his fists, 'cause you're the snootiest bitch I ever did meet, except maybe for little Miss Cockteaser."
Merrilee, please hurry. Please find Danny and ride...
" 'Course, there's other ways to put a woman in her place." Dukker began advancing again. His glazed gaze ran down her breasts and hips as if she were a piece of beefsteak sizzling on his plate.
"That's far enough, Hannibal."
"Yeah? So stop me."
He tossed the whiskey aside. At the tinkling crash, she flinched, her heart catapulting to her throat. For a moment, one chilling, numbing moment, her eyes locked with his. She could read his intent there as clearly as a sentence in a book.
"Can't shoot me, can ya?" His bowed legs stumped faster, closing the yards between them with alarming speed.
Dear God. She pulled back the trigger. Or rather, she tried. In panic, she dropped her eyes to the unfamiliar weapon to see what was wrong. That's when a fist lashed out, striking the gun from her hand.
"Told ya you were stupid."
She yelped. Another fist lashed out, colliding with her jaw.
"You never took off your safety."
Pain slammed next into her shoulder. She staggered, trying to duck and escape, but he caught hold of her fallen hair and spun her back for more.
"Pa! Stop it, Pa! Don't hit her like Ma!"
Suddenly pebbles were pelting her, and Dukker roared a curse. She reeled blindly away from the hail of stones even as Dukker's blows ceased.
"You little bastard!"
Danny had circled behind them, she realized dimly, and was now flinging every rock he could find at his father. To her horror, she saw Dukker draw his gun.
"No!" She lunged for Dukker's arm, and the revolver fired with a bone-jarring reverberation that rattled every tooth in her head. He tried to shake her off, but she managed to hold on, kicking and clawing and ramming a knee into his groin. He howled, doubling over. The gun dropped and skittered across the ground. She gave frantic chase, but it slid over the cliff.
"Mama!"
Skidding dangerously close to the edge, Rorie caught her balance, whirling in time to see Merrilee run for the .32.
"Merrilee, no!"
The child had reached the revolver. Merrilee, who had never even stepped on an ant in her short life, was aiming and trying to fire. Dukker saw her, too, and he cursed, limping toward her.
"Dukker!"
Rorie scrambled after him. She grabbed the jagged neck of the whiskey bottle even as Merrilee figured out how to unhook the safety. The hammer clicked and fire spat. The bullet zinged wildly off a rock, and the recoil slammed Merrilee into a boulder.
She crumpled, lying still.
Rorie's cry was lost in the echo as the explosion repeated again and again. Danny ran to Merrilee, and Rorie caught up with the hobbling lawman. Slashing at his back, his neck, his gun arm, she was desperate to distract him from the children and the .32. He rounded on her with a snarl.
The heavens chose that moment to rip open. Rain sheeted down, pounding her face and hands like tiny hammers.
"Bitch!"
The glass grew slippery, too hard to hold. She had to get to the gun, but Dukker stood between it and her, and she had no choice but to run. She could hear him panting, his boots scrabbling ominously over the rubble behind her. She stumbled on her clinging skirts, praying for a miracle, praying for the life she held inside her. The cliff was narrow and jagged at this end; she tried to veer back the way she had come.
That's when he tackled her, and they crashed into the uprooted juniper.
* * *
Wes reined in hard. Water poured off his hat brim. Rain rolled down his upturned collar, despite the protection of his slicker. He hardly noticed. Something was wrong. Dread was like a thousand needles stabbing at his gut.
"What's the matter?" Creed shouted over an earth-shaking crack of thunder.
Wes gazed to the east, toward Ramble Creek. They'd had no luck finding Danny or his tracks, and they'd decided to circle back to the house in the hopes that Cord and Zack had fared better.
"I was just remembering..."
Monsters. Nightmarish creatures with buzzard wings. They descended from the cliff during thunderstorms to hurt Miss Rorie.
"...the Jenkins's puppy," Wes shouted.
"What are you talking about?"
"The children found Danny with it at Ramble Creek."
"I told you, Rawlins, Danny didn't steal—"
"I don't give a damn whether he did nor not! But Danny has been to the cliff before, and he might have gone there again!"
Wes wheeled Two-Step, every nerve in his body firing. He couldn't have said what made him so god-awful certain he'd find Danny at Ramble Creek. He couldn't have explained why he was giving a child's nightmare far more credence than it deserved. All he knew was that he heard a voice, an urgent whisper, begging him to hurry, before it was too late.
Creed thought he was an idiot to ride a mile and a half out of their way, and the boy minced few words in telling Wes so. Still, Wes noticed that Creed kept his horse racing neck and neck with Two-Step. He noticed, too, that Creed looked uncommonly wan in the drenching gloom.
The storm raged around them in all its elemental fury. But the risk Wes courted with each crackling blaze of light paled in his mind when compared to the mortal peril that might lie ahead for Danny. Wes squinted, trying to pick out landmarks through the opaque veil of water. There was the meadow, the fringe of woodland; now came the rocky rise, the tumbled boulders. He glimpsed the split in the cliff and the winding black ribbon of darkness that led to the cave below. Beyond it, tilting precariously over an eroding shelf of limestone, he spied the uprooted juniper.
A frenzied flailing grabbed his attention next. It looked as if two people were wrestling. They fell into the brittle branches, rolling dangerously close to the lip of the cliff. Wes had an impression of wet skirts and tawny hair; a flapping duster and muddy boots, then lightning slashed out of the heavens. It struck the tree's browning canopy, igniting it like tinder. The man screeched, rearing back, his coattails bursting into flame. The woman screamed, kicking frantically to rip her skirts free of the evergreen.
"Pa!"
"Rorie!"
Two-Step leaped forward even as Creed raced to extinguish his father's coat.
"Rorie, hang on!"
Wes's shouts were lost in the ominous cracking of wood. The rotted tree split, listing under her weight. He watched in horror, helpless to do anything more than spur Two-Step faster, as Rorie slid over the cliff edge in a hail of twigs and stones.
"No!"
He hit the ground running, his heart slamming into his ribs.
"Rorie!" He skidded to the lip, shouting again and again. He could see her rolling down the slope, banging against a bush or two, before she finally came to rest on a shelf about fifteen feet down. Limp
and motionless, she sprawled a bare arm's length from the final plunge to the creek, a good fifty feet below.
"Dear God." He fought back a rush of panic. "Rope. I need rope."
He ran to Two-Step, wrenched open his saddlebag, and started to drag out his rope.
"Rawlins!" It was Creed's voice.
Wes spun, his right hand dropping to his .45. Creed was fighting his father now, rather than helping him. They were grappling over Creed's revolver, and Dukker, far heavier than his son, was about to roll on top of the boy and club his head with a rock.
"Creed!" From out of nowhere, Danny appeared, flinging himself at his father's back. The impact threw Dukker sideways. Creed's revolver went off.
Wes cursed. He couldn't tell if either boy had been hit, but he could hear Dukker bellowing like a wounded bull.
His heart in his throat, he ran to circle them, his clear shot foiled by the windmill of arms and legs.
"Drop the gun, Dukker!"
Dukker ignored him. Or maybe he hadn't heard. Lighting splintered and thunder cracked, making everything about Dukker's murderous intent more macabre. Danny yelped, rolling from the tangle. Creed slumped, and his father raised the gunbutt for another blow. Wes gritted his teeth and fired.
The bullet should have dropped Dukker. At the very least, it should have slowed him. But Dukker was maniacal. His shoulder blackening with blood, he staggered to his feet. Wes could see the bastard meant to kill somebody, and he called to Dukker again, reluctant to gun the man down in front of Danny's terrified eyes.
"Drop the goddamned .45!"
"You ain't taking me alive, Ranger!"
Dukker raised his weapon, and Wes fired again. This time, the bullet struck the lawman's knee, and he shrieked, buckling. His gun skittered into a crevice.
Wes bounded forward, grabbing the older man's collar and landing a cracking blow to his jaw. At last Dukker's head lolled, and he sagged.
Wes flopped the moaning lawman over. "I'm taking you alive all right," he ground out, snapping manacles around Dukker's wrists. "I'm even going to see you get medical help for those wounds, 'cause I want you to be healthy—perfectly healthy, you bastard—when you hang. Danny!"
The boy jumped.
Wes found Creed's pulse and released a ragged breath. "See to your brother."