“I love you, Charlotte,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, unheard by the bickering men. At first she found it endearing, but then she knew, she knew why he had said it and her heart nearly quit beating.
He’s going to do something.
“No, Owen!” she protested. “Don’t do it!”
But it was already too late.
Owen sprang forward when he felt Clyde’s and Del’s attention was squarely focused on each other and not on him. He moved quickly, hoping that even if he was noticed, they wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to stop him. His focus was on Clyde, hoping that Del would be more reluctant to fire on a man who had worked beside him. He’d get Clyde away from his gun or die trying. Either way, once he had moved, the chance had been taken.
If he were to die here, gunned down by these devious men, he could only hope Charlotte had the good sense to run, to try to save herself. If it meant sacrificing himself so that she could live, that was good enough for him. He’d told her that he loved her, words that couldn’t possibly be truer. Protecting her was all that mattered now.
“What in the hell!” was all that Clyde managed before Owen slammed into him, his shoulder ramming him in the midsection, barreling into him with such overwhelming force that the both of them were carried hard to the floor, grunting as they struck.
“Owen!” Charlotte shouted from somewhere behind him.
Run, damn it! Run!
Pushing himself up on his hands, Owen readied himself to again attack Clyde, to beat him senseless for what he had done to the ranch, for what he had said about his mother, but especially for threatening Charlotte. But he was instantly disappointed; Clyde had crashed to the ground as Owen had intended, but he had somehow managed to hold on to his gun.
“Goddamn it all to hell!” he bellowed, and began firing his gun while lying on his side.
Fortunately, from the moment Owen had gone after the two men, everyone else in the barn had begun moving, so Clyde’s bullets had more difficult targets to hit. The first slammed into the barn wall, opening a hole out into the storm in a shower of splinters. The second ricocheted off a saw blade, shooting sparks into the dark afternoon before finally thudding into a bale of hay.
But the third…
When all hell had broken loose, Hale had grabbed hold of Hannah and shielded her with his enormous body. The bullet struck him in the meat of his shoulder, blasting through skin, muscle, and bone. Blood instantly drenched his shirt. Hale shouted in pain, but he never went down, refusing to expose Hannah to danger.
“Hale!” Hannah cried.
“I’ll kill you all!” Clyde shouted. “Every last—”
Another gun blast echoed around the barn, but this time the bullet had not been shot from Clyde’s gun; smoke drifted from the barrel of Del’s pistol. The bullet tore into the ample flesh of Clyde’s midsection, the impact of the collision forcing the weapon from the man’s grip and sending it flying across the ground. Dark red blood poured from the wound, the pain so great, the fact that he was going to die from the wound so obvious, that Clyde made no move to staunch its flow.
“Enough of this,” Del said, dropping his gun at his feet. “Enough…”
Clyde coughed, a mist of blood painting his face. “You’re… you’re… you’re finished… Grissom…”
“I was finished the moment I agreed to work for a bastard like Carter Herrick.”
“See… see you… in Hell…” Clyde managed to curse before he died.
Charlotte ran to Owen’s side, threw her arms around his neck, and held him close. “It’s over, Owen! It’s over!”
But even as he comforted her, Owen knew better. Carter Herrick had raped his mother, chased her off to Colorado, and ruined her life. Herrick had taken away the family he and Hannah could have had, leading them across the country in a misguided desire for revenge. He had sent men to ruin John Grant’s life, to destroy his ranch, because Caroline Wallace had dared to choose to love him. Owen wondered if there had ever been another man who deserved to be punished more. He would never rest, could never rest, until Herrick had gotten what he deserved.
Carter Herrick was going to pay for his crimes.
Chapter Twenty-seven
CHARLOTTE STEPPED OUT of the doors of the horse barn and into the afternoon. The weather had changed dramatically. The rain and wind that had lashed the countryside had disappeared, replaced by a calmness the likes of which she had not seen before. The air had taken on an almost greenish tinge; she seemed to be viewing the world through a thin, colored cloth. Everything was deathly still, no branches swinging, no birds flying, as if the world had momentarily stopped turning.
“This is gonna be bad,” John said, stepping up beside her and peering out over his land. The gun Del had used to kill Clyde Drake, the one he had dropped on the ground afterwards, was tucked into the waistband of John’s pants. In the immediate aftermath of what had happened, Del had resigned himself to his fate; he had vowed to go with John to Sawyer and tell the sheriff all that he knew about Carter Herrick’s plan. For his part, John had already appeared to have forgiven Del, but he held on to the gun all the same.
“What’s going to be bad?” Charlotte asked.
“The weather.”
“But the storm is lifting,” she replied.
“No, it ain’t. I’ve been livin’ in these parts long enough to know when a storm is in the air, and now is one of them times. This is the calm before the real storm. This is the sort of weather where folks get killed. There’s a cyclone or one of them tornado’s is a-comin’.”
As if to validate John’s words, a wall of wind came rushing toward them; Charlotte could see it coming, a shift in the clouds, rain falling in the distance, followed by the scraggly grasses dramatically bending until they nearly touched the ground. When it hit them, a howling keen that whistled hard in their ears, slamming the barn doors back with a tremendous crash, Charlotte had to struggle to maintain her balance, to prevent being blown off her feet.
“We’ve got to get to the storm cellar!” John shouted to be heard. “Go now!”
In the aftermath of Clyde Drake’s assault, all their senses had been thrown out of kilter. Back inside the barn, Hannah was tending to Hale’s wound, the bullet still painfully lodged in his huge body. He hadn’t complained much, though it was obvious he was in agony. That he had saved her life, taking the bullet meant for her, was a fact that was not lost on the woman he loved.
“Get to the cellar!” John shouted at them.
“Hale can’t make it!” Hannah answered.
“I can so,” Hale disagreed, although it was obvious he was struggling to stay conscious.
“You’re gonna make it, son,” John reassured them. “Del, you get on the other side of Hale and give him some help! With you supportin’ him, he can walk, if only for a short ways. Take him and go to the storm cellar. You’ll be safe there.”
Without hesitation, Del did as he was told and, with Hannah doing her best to support Hale’s other side, they started to limp back toward the main house.
Owen stood just inside the door, his eyes never wandering from the truck. Ever since she had embraced him just after Del had shot Clyde, Owen hadn’t said a word, keeping to himself. At first, Charlotte had wondered if he had been hurt in his attempt to stop Carter Herrick’s hired gun, but she slowly began to understand that he had learned an awful lot about his origins in a very short time: what horrible tragedy had befallen his mother, as well as who was responsible. But when she ran to him, he never even glanced at her.
“Owen!” she shouted. “We have to go! We have to get to the cellar!”
“I’m not going,” he said simply, his voice nearly swallowed by the wind.
Charlotte couldn’t believe what she had heard; she hoped that it had been a trick of the ever-increasing gale. It was just as John had said; what she had seen was the lull before the true fury of the heavens could be unleashed. The air was thick with dirt and whatever else c
ould be swept up in the storm’s path; brush, leaves, and even a man’s hat sailed by in front of them.
“The weather’s getting worse!” she shouted again. “We have to get to the main house before it’s too late!”
“You don’t want to be out here any more’n you have to,” John added. “There ain’t no tellin’ how much worse this’ll get.”
“I’m not going,” Owen said more firmly, turning so that they could see the resolve in his eyes, his determination to do what he wanted.
“But we—”
“Listen to me,” Owen snapped, not allowing Charlotte to protest further. “I’ve waited my whole life for this day, have spent years looking for the man who was responsible for ruining my mother’s life. For most of it, I blamed an innocent man,” he said as he looked at John, “but now I know the truth and I’m not waiting a moment longer before making sure he gets what’s coming to him.”
“Carter Herrick can wait,” John said.
“He’s already enjoyed far more time than he deserves.”
“Owen,” Charlotte said. “Please don’t go.”
“I have to.”
It seemed ridiculous to Charlotte that Owen was fixated on getting his revenge at a time like this. They had all been threatened; Hale had been shot. The storm had escalated to a point she could not have imagined, and John thought it would only get worse. To go out there in search of Carter Herrick, a vindictive man who had sent his thugs to try to kill them, would be risking his life. Yet Charlotte could see that he was serious, that he was intent on doing right by his dead mother. She had trouble understanding it; revenge was an emotion with which she had no personal experience.
“You can’t go out in this weather, son,” John argued. “Anyone caught out is gonna be swept away faster than they’ll know what hit ’em. Goin’ out there now is riskin’ your life.”
John’s warning pushed through the dense fog that had enveloped her ever since the moment Owen had lured them inside the barn. It lifted in an instant, her heart thundering.
“Sarah!” she shouted into the wind. “Sarah is out there!”
“Oh, Lord!” John exclaimed. “If this storm comes anywhere close to that old cabin, they’ll be findin’ pieces of it a couple of towns away!”
Charlotte imagined the meager belongings the Becks possessed being scattered to the winds as the tin roof was peeled off, the cracked windows gave up what remained of their resistance, and the thin walls were flattened. Even the cast-iron stove would be pushed and prodded, moved until it plunged down a hill, forever destroyed. Sarah’s picture of her mother would be lost, along with all trace of its owner, who would surely die.
“We have to go for them!” Charlotte pleaded, her face searching both John’s and Owen’s for some sign that they agreed with her. “We have to get the Becks out of that shack before it’s too late!”
“It might already be,” John answered gravely.
“No!” Charlotte shouted, running toward the truck. The wind was so fierce that every step felt as if she were trying to make her way through water, its current tugging and yanking at her. Grit and sand pecked at her face, stinging her skin and forcing her to keep her eyes nearly closed, daring to take a look only when she felt she might be heading in the wrong direction, her hands extended in front of her in case she were to run into an unexpected obstacle. She couldn’t say if John or Owen had shouted for her to stop, since the incessant roaring of the wind was the only sound she could hear. Though the truck was only a matter of feet away when she started, it felt as if the journey covered miles.
When she finally managed to reach the truck, Charlotte desperately pulled at the door, but she couldn’t open it. Over and over she tried, her anger and fear rising with every failed attempt, but still the door remained shut. Tears began to race down her face as she struggled to stay upright. Her mind was filled with the imagined horrors that would strike Sarah Beck if she were unable to reach the pregnant girl in time.
Strong hands grabbed her, holding her upright just as she felt herself falling. Owen held her close, turning her to his chest so that she might be shielded from the storm. John stood beside him.
“We have to go to her,” she pleaded. “We have to help her.”
“I’ll go with you,” John offered, extending his arm toward the truck’s door.
“No,” Owen answered him.
“Damn it all! It might be a fool’s errand, but we gotta try!”
“And we will,” he said calmly, “but I’ll be the one going.”
“You don’t know the way!” John protested.
“But Charlotte does. Besides, if this storm is going to be as bad as you think, you’ll be needed here at the ranch. You know it better than anyone. The folks here will be depending on you.”
John looked like he wanted to argue the point further, but finally nodded and said, “I reckon you’re right, but if you’re gonna go, you best hurry. There ain’t much time.”
They’d only just left John behind, Charlotte watching through the rear window as he struggled to make his way toward the ranch house, the truck’s old engine sputtering loudly to life, when the rain began to fall in earnest. Sheets of heavy raindrops were whipped horizontal to the ground by the wind, slamming into the truck with abandon. Huge drops pelted the windshield.
“Can’t see a damn thing,” Owen muttered, peering into the gloom.
“Be careful,” Charlotte said as the tires slipped in the mud, her breath catching in her throat.
“There isn’t time for careful.”
Even though they were driving into a storm, possibly even heading to their deaths, Charlotte couldn’t help but be glad Owen was with her. She knew that it must have been hard for him to set aside his desire to go for Carter Herrick. But that was what he had done, he had made a choice, and she knew it had been to be with her. While she wouldn’t have wavered in accompanying John Grant to the Becks’ cottage, she was glad that it was Owen sitting beside her.
“How much farther?” Owen asked, his face knit deep in concentration.
“I’m not sure,” Charlotte answered. She had been out to the shack many times, familiarized herself with the quirky landmarks that dotted the way, but with the weather as bad as it was, she wasn’t certain where they were or how long it had been since they left.
The truck turned sharply to the left, then back to the right. They dropped down into a depression, making Charlotte’s stomach sicken, before rising rapidly. The road was so narrow, so bumpy, that she was thankful that it would eventually end at the Becks’ cabin.
“That’s twice today we’ve put our necks on the line,” Owen observed.
“It’s not something that I want to make a habit of doing.”
“Me neither.”
“When the storm is over and everybody is safe,” Charlotte said, stressing the positive outcome of their journey, “I want to go back to the pond, just the two of us, and take a swim.”
“It’ll be a lake by the time this storm is over.”
They both laughed, the sound strange in the cramped interior of the truck’s cab. But their grim laughter was suddenly cut short; just ahead of them on the road, barely visible through the rain-streaked window, a tree that had been felled lay in their path. It wasn’t much, not a bit larger than a young stripling in Charlotte’s Minnesota, but if the truck was to hit it…
“Watch out!” Charlotte screamed.
Owen yanked the wheel hard to the side and the truck lurched off the road and down a sharp decline. Charlotte’s hands gripped the dashboard. The truck’s tires bounced off large rocks, slid in the slick mud, and finally splashed through the water of a creek that had been formed by the runoff from the storm. The effect was jarring for the truck’s passengers.
“Hold on!” Owen shouted, and Charlotte did her best to oblige.
Just as fast as the truck had gone down a hill, Owen straightened the wheel so that it would climb another. With the engine straining hard, whining as it struggle
d to maintain the uncertain footing beneath its tires, they slowly, surely picked up speed. When they crested the low hill, they were going so fast that the wheels left the ground and they hurtled into the air. They landed with a thud, a bone-jarring knock that bounced Charlotte around the cab. By some miracle or out of blind luck, they had landed back on the road.
For a moment, neither of them could make a sound save for the raggedness of their breath. Charlotte was so frightened that she could barely focus her eyes and her temples throbbed.
Then, up ahead of the rapidly diminishing road, she suddenly spied the cabin that Sarah Beck shared with her father. While the afternoon had definitely darkened as a result of the storm, Charlotte could see its distinct form outlined against the persistent gloom. Relief welled in her heart to find that it was still, miraculously, standing, though a portion of its tin roof had been peeled back by the relentless wind. Light shone through the cracked window. The cabin looked even smaller than normal in the face of the storm.
“Stop the car!” she shouted. “I see it! I see the cabin!”
Owen jammed down hard on the brakes and the truck began to slowly skid, listing to its side for so long that Charlotte began to worry that they would be unable to stop, that they might drop down into yet another depression or, worse, they might flip over. But somehow the truck held, the wheels locking.
“We need to be fast,” Owen said. “Let me go in and get them.”
“I’m coming with you,” she cut him off defiantly.
“We don’t have time to argue!”
“So don’t!”
Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] Page 25