8
THE DARK CLOUDS advanced, but not fast enough to explain Leigh’s uneasiness. She tried to identify the source of her worry. Maybe it was the bad business about the fish. She’d known in her heart that Kyle wouldn’t like the final outcome of fishing, but she’d pushed the knowledge aside and hoped she was wrong. Joe so desperately wanted something to share with his son.
Pussywillow seemed to share Leigh’s nervousness, but it could be a residual reaction to the fire. When Amanda and the baby had been trapped up in this canyon during the brushfire last month, Amanda had been riding Pussywillow. Leigh thought the gray mare had been cured of her fear of the canyon, but maybe not. Pussywillow balked on the trail several times and tossed her head.
“Leigh, what’s the matter with her?” Kyle asked. He was wedged in front of her on a saddle Leigh had chosen for its roomy seat.
“Oh, she just gets twitchy sometimes.” Behind them, thunder bounced across the mountain peaks, but the trail was still in sunshine.
At a switchback, Leigh glanced up at Joe following behind on Mikey. Joe had a tense set to his shoulders and a frown cut a groove between his eyebrows. The thunder rolled again, and he leaned back to study the clouds.
Leigh fought a sense of urgency. A good rider didn’t push a horse down a steep trail. There was plenty of time to make it back to the ranch before the storm hit, so she had nothing to worry about. But her instincts told her she did. She scanned the empty trail ahead of her for some sign that there was a problem but could find nothing unusual. A cactus wren scolded them from the top of a saguaro, and a chipmunk skittered away from the approaching horses and riders.
“I hope Dexter wants to play Junior Scrabble today,” Kyle said.
“I’m sure he’s counting on it,” Leigh replied. “That game really helps him remember words.”
“It’s fun talking to Dexter. Sometimes I pretend he’s an alien trying to learn our language.”
Leigh smiled. “He does have to learn a lot of things over again. They’re all locked in his head, and he can’t get them out.”
“I’m going to help him get them out.”
“Yes, I believe you are.” Somewhere above them in the mountains, lightning hit a tree with a loud crack, and Pussywillow threw up her head. “Pat Pussywillow’s neck,” Leigh told Kyle. “Tell her everything’s okay.”
“It’s okay, Pussywillow,” Kyle crooned. “We’re right here.”
Leigh watched him and felt a moment of unexplainable terror. Kyle was so small. A lump formed in her throat and she glanced back at Joe. She wished he were following a little closer. She drew in Pussywillow’s reins. “Come on, Joe,” she called. “You’re lagging back there.”
He looked over his shoulder at the storm, then turned toward Leigh. “Mikey’s doing his best. You know, I don’t know what it is, but I have this funny feeling that—”
Boom!
The explosion shook the ground and careened off the granite walls. Kyle screamed, and Leigh fought with Pussywillow to keep her head down as the terrified mare tried to rear.
“Leigh!” Joe shouted. Rocks clattered off the edge of the trail as he propelled Mikey toward them.
“We’re okay!” she shouted back, all her attention on her plunging horse. “Don’t run into us!” She brought the mare to a shivering standstill just as Joe skidded next to them. She wrapped an arm around Kyle, who had a death grip on the saddle horn and was whimpering softly.
“What the hell was that?” Joe asked, staring up the canyon in the direction of the explosion.
“Shh! Listen!” Leigh said. A soft roar grew steadily louder. When she realized what it had to be, her stomach pitched and she glanced wildly around them. They had to get up the side of the canyon. In less than a minute, a wall of water would reach them, sweeping away everything in its path.
She looked at Joe. “The dam just broke.”
Panic was allowed only a temporary place in his eyes before it was replaced with fierce resolution. “We’ll make it out.”
“You take Kyle with you. Mikey’s a stronger horse, and he’s better in chaotic situations.”
Joe’s jaw flexed. “Then you and Kyle get on him and I’ll take Pussywillow.”
“No.” The roaring grew louder, accompanied by ripping noises as undergrowth was torn from the canyon floor. “We don’t have time to argue. I’m a better rider.”
“All the more reason for you to take him on Mikey! We’re not going to argue, because I’m telling you—”
“I wanna stay with Leigh!” Kyle wailed.
“See?”
“Just do it, Joe. I don’t think I have the strength to hold him while we go up.” Birds flew down the canyon, animals sought higher ground as the earth trembled.
His expression was grim. “All right. Come here, Kyle.”
“No!”
“Now, Kyle!”
Leigh leaned close to the trembling boy. “This is an order from your captain, Mr. Spock,” she murmured, holding him tight, trying to convey strength. “The success of the mission depends on it. I’m counting on you. And you’ll have to be very quiet, so you don’t scare Mikey.”
After a tense moment, he nodded.
She lifted him from the saddle and into Joe’s arms. She had to shout to be heard above the deafening sound of the water that was nearly upon them. “Get Mikey up the side of that hill! I’ll be right behind you!” She hoped. Mikey was steady and well-trained enough to go up the hill. She wasn’t so sure about Pussywillow.
Joe clamped an arm around Kyle, pointed Mikey at the hill and dug in his heels. The horse plunged upward, scrabbling to gain its footing on the loose rock. Leigh held her breath and silently urged them on. She’d made the right decision. She didn’t have Joe’s upper-body strength and she would never have been able to keep her seat and hold on to Kyle at the same time.
Snorting and heaving, Mikey gained a yard, two yards, slid back a foot, gained another two. Joe’s shoulder muscles bunched as he kept a tight hold on Kyle with one arm and grasped the reins in the other hand.
After what seemed like hours, enough room opened up behind them and Leigh pointed Pussywillow in the same direction. The mare wouldn’t budge. Leigh stroked and patted, crooned and demanded. The sound of rushing water grew close, very close.
“I should leave you here, you bag of bones,” Leigh muttered. “But I won’t. We’ll try this another way.” She dismounted and started up the hill, the reins in her hand. They tightened as Pussywillow continued to balk. “Come on, girl,” Leigh called. She clucked and whistled, promised treats and apologized for calling the mare a bag of bones. Then the roar became deafening, and she looked up the canyon and saw the water.
Suddenly, all she could think of was the old movie clip of Moses parting the Red Sea. The water advanced down the narrow canyon, a ten-foot-high blade scraping everything clean as it passed. Nothing could survive being carried along in the torrent.
“Come on!” Leigh shouted, yanking on the reins.
Pussywillow took a step forward, then another.
“That’s it!” Leigh climbed higher, pulled harder. Pussywillow followed, but she was going too slow. “You stupid horse,” Leigh cried, pulling until she thought her arm would come out of its socket.
Then a strong hand wrenched the reins from her. Joe was beside her, hauling the horse up the slope, yelling at her to go on up to Kyle.
She glanced at the wall of water bearing down on them and shook her head.
Joe’s eyes blazed. His shout was nearly obliterated by the oncoming water as he tugged on the terrorized horse’s reins. “Go! He needs you more than he needs me!”
“That’s not true, you bullheaded dope! There’s no dealing with you, is there?”
Joe stared at her. Then his mustache twitched as the corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile and he shook his head. “Go,” he murmured. For good measure, he gave her a swift whack on the behind.
Recognizing the stubborn Scorpio will in actio
n, she started up the slope. Kyle couldn’t be left alone, and Joe would wrestle with that horse until the water arrived. She knew that more surely than anything else in the world. Grasping at bushes and outcroppings, she climbed toward the ridge where he’d left Kyle and Mikey. She could see a portion of the bay horse, but no sign of Kyle. He must be petrified.
“We’re coming, Kyle!” she called, not knowing if he’d be able to hear her over the crash of the torrent below or if the term we was accurate.
When she was nearly to the ledge, she looked back. Joe had made some progress, but not enough. The water surged just below him, gradually slicing the ground from beneath Pussywillow’s hind feet.
“Joe! Leave her!” she screamed.
He dropped the reins, but instead of abandoning the mare, he lunged for the bridle and yanked. For once, Pussywillow acted in her own interests and leapt forward just as the last bit of support slid from behind her. Horse and man scrambled, slid back, scrambled some more.
And made it.
Leigh sat down where she was, covered her eyes and began to weep. Slowly she became aware of a small arm around her shoulders, and a hand patting her arm.
“Don’t cry,” Kyle said, sounding as if he would burst into tears himself at any moment. “Don’t cry, Leigh.”
She sniffed and wiped at her eyes just as Joe reached the spot where she sat.
He adjusted his grip on Pussywillow’s bridle and gazed down at her without speaking. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Why aren’t you two up on the ledge with Mikey?”
Kyle looked up at his father. “I came to be with Leigh.”
An immense sadness filled his eyes and he looked away. “Yeah, I can see that, buddy. I can see that plain as day.”
* * *
THE DANGER WAS OVER so quickly it seemed incredible to Joe that it had ever existed. In a matter of minutes the water level began to recede, until finally only the creek bed ran full. But a shadow passed over the sun, and Joe remembered that they still had an impending thunderstorm to worry about.
“Let’s go.” He started the laborious process of turning Pussywillow around.
“The trail will be wiped out,” Leigh said. “Want me to lead?”
“I can handle it. You bring Kyle on Mikey.” He made himself say it, feeling the pain of knowing that Leigh was a better choice for taking care of his son than he was. If she hadn’t told him to, Kyle wouldn’t have ridden with him up the hill. Kyle depended more on a woman he’d known three days than on Joe, his own father. Sometimes Joe found it difficult to believe Kyle was really his son, although he didn’t doubt the biological fact of it. But there seemed to be nothing of Joe’s spirit in this boy, nothing to connect them except for a last name. And Emerson Pope would love to change even that. Maybe Joe was wrong to fight it.
The trip back was tough as they worked their way around uprooted trees, their roots reaching into the sky like sea anemones, and boulders the size of sedans wedged against piles of debris. Any minute, Joe expected the thunderstorm to strike, but instead the clouds edged north along the mountains, moving gradually out of range, grumbling as they departed.
When the bedraggled group was nearly out of the canyon, Joe heard a shout and answered it. From around a dislodged boulder Ry and Freddy came riding toward them, their faces taut with strain.
“Thank God!” Freddy cried, urging her horse forward. “We heard the explosion and rode out to investigate. When we saw the water in Rogue Creek, and no sign of you...” She swallowed. “Where were you when the dam gave way?”
“On the trail coming back,” Joe said, his gaze swinging toward Ry, who looked grim as death.
Freddy gasped.
“Hey, sis,” Leigh said, coming up beside Joe. “Am I glad to see you.”
Freddy’s eyes brimmed. “I’m pretty thrilled about it, myself. Come on, let’s get you all home again so I can have a nervous breakdown.”
Joe glanced at Ry. “It doesn’t look as if we’ll have that storm this afternoon, so if you have the time, I’d like you to come back up the canyon with me,” he said.
“Sure thing. Freddy can go back with Leigh and Kyle.” Ry sounded casual, but Joe knew by the set of his jaw that he was anything but relaxed.
Freddy looked from her husband’s stern expression to Joe’s determined one and nodded. “Let me switch mounts with you, Joe. Pussywillow looks done in. You’ll do much better on Maureen.”
Joe rubbed the gray mare’s neck. “I’m sure Pussywillow would appreciate that. She’s had a bad day.” He swung down from the saddle.
Kyle turned wide blue eyes on him. He hadn’t spoken since they’d climbed down the hill and started home. “Will the water come back again, Dad?”
Joe paused. “No, Kyle. That was all the water from the pond, and it’s drained now.”
Kyle drew in a sharp breath. “The fish! What about the fish?”
Joe heaved a sigh. He didn’t believe in holding out false hopes to anyone. It only prolonged the agony. “I don’t think they made it, buddy. I’m sorry.”
“Daddy!” Kyle’s cry was almost an accusation. “Can’t you save them when you go back up there?”
“I don’t think we can, son.”
“Your father saved us, Kyle,” Leigh said. “And didn’t you see the way he pulled Pussywillow up the hill? If he hadn’t done that, she would have been swept away too.”
Joe knew she was only trying to help, but it was humiliating that she even had to try. He sought her gaze. “I’d appreciate it if you’d just get him home for me,” he said softly.
“I will.” Her eyes were deep with unspoken sympathy.
“Thanks.” He turned away. Taking the reins that Freddy handed him, he swung up on Maureen and followed Ry up the canyon.
Viewing the damage after the adrenaline rush was gone made his stomach turn, especially when he thought of what could have happened to Kyle and Leigh. In the Bronx he’d seen the rubble left when a tenement house had been bombed as part of gang retaliation. This was a little like that, except the bodies were of animals caught in the destruction instead of people. Joe could easily imagine people instead. Specific people. That was the difference between a cop’s imagination and a civilian’s, he thought. A civilian might be afraid of death, but in general terms. A cop had seen enough to make those terms very specific.
“What do you think we’ll find when we get up there?” Ry asked over his shoulder.
“I hope we’ll find evidence of dynamite. Maybe some footprints, hoofprints of a horse. I saw something when we were up there for our picnic, something I thought was a deer. I think it was our guy.”
“Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to prove much from footprints or hoofprints. The True Love has traditionally given hikers and trail riders access into the mountains through Rogue Canyon. Matter of fact, I think Duane brought a breakfast ride up this morning. The pond’s a popular spot. At least it was a popular spot.”
“Then Duane could have planted a timed explosive?”
Ry didn’t reply right away. “I guess he could have.”
“Whoever did this is a reckless bastard,” Joe said. “Maybe he’ll also start getting careless.”
“I hope this incident convinces you it couldn’t have been Freddy or Leigh.”
Joe had been giving that some thought. He didn’t answer right away.
Ry swiveled in his saddle. “Joe? Come on, man. Leigh could have been killed today, along with you and Kyle. You saw how Freddy reacted, too. And you just suggested the person is a man.”
“I don’t think either of them executed this, if that’s what you mean. But suppose they started something they don’t know how to stop? Suppose they hired somebody in the beginning, and that person has decided to take command of the operation?”
Ry shook his head. “Freddy couldn’t keep something like that from me this long. I’d sense it, or she’d break down. If I thought she was capable of hiding a secret that horrible, I’d have to question the vali
dity of our whole relationship.”
Joe gazed up the canyon. Was it the aftermath of battle, or only the beginning of the fight? “I hope that won’t become necessary,” he said.
“It won’t.”
“And maybe Freddy doesn’t know anything. Maybe it’s Leigh who started the ball rolling.” The words sat bitterly on his tongue, but he had to say them.
“You’re wrong, Joe. Leigh has a reverence for life. Even if your original supposition was true, and Leigh had hired someone to make mischief around the True Love, she’d have exposed that person after the brushfire, no matter what the consequences to her.” Ry swept his arm to encompass the battered canyon. “She’d have gone to jail before she would have allowed something like this to happen.”
Joe wanted to believe him, but Ry wasn’t a reliable source. He’d fallen in love with the ranch and its foreman. “Well, this joker has my full attention, now,” Joe said. “I’m on this case full-time. I’m even considering sending Kyle back to his mother, since I can’t spend time with him.”
“I would hate to see you do that,” Ry said. “I know how much it meant to you, bringing him out. Maybe you’ll wrap this up quickly. Belinda and Dexter can keep an eye on him, and Leigh seems to have taken a real shine to him.”
“Yeah. A real shine.” Joe hesitated. “The thing is, even if I could spend time with Kyle, he probably wouldn’t want me to.”
“Hey, I doubt that.”
“We just don’t operate on the same wavelength, Ry. I’ve tried, but we keep missing the connection. I’m making us both miserable.”
Ry didn’t respond right away, and the silence was filled with the crunch of the horses’ hooves in the streambed. Finally, he said, “This is going to sound corny as hell, but I’ll say it, anyway. The True Love has a way of helping you sort out stuff like this.”
“Now you sound like Leigh.”
The Lawman Page 9