Wanted!

by Pam Crooks

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hell!” Ross scrambled over to Lark and flung himself on top of her, his body a shield against another bullet. “Are you hit?”

  “No.” Her head came up, twisted toward the direction of the shot. “Did you see anything?”

  “No.” He hadn’t seen a damn thing. But then, his attention had been on her. All of it. Which had nearly cost them their lives.

  “It’s Catfish. I know it is.” Lark pushed against his shoulders. “We have to go after him, Ross.”

  He didn’t move. He stared hard through the thin scattering of cottonwoods that gave them the barest of protection. This side of the river, there was only flat rangeland covered by grama grass and the occasional yucca, but beyond, a few bluffs, at the base of which stood a thicket, just like this one.

  And that’s where the shooter—Catfish—had been. Watching them. Waiting. They’d been wide-open targets, and from that distance, a bullet finding its mark would’ve been hard to do.

  But Catfish had come close.

  He’d wanted a shot at Lark real bad to risk revealing himself like he had. The shot was a warning to her—and Ross—that he was serious. Impatient, too, and time was running out.

  He hadn’t fired again, which only meant he was sitting back. Letting Ross and Lark make the next move.

  She had her hands full with him, Ross thought grimly. Most likely, Catfish had recognized him, would wonder why she was with him. But it was Lark he wanted, not Ross, and he’d get real trigger-happy to keep from getting captured.

  Ross eased off Lark, but kept his attention on those trees by the bluffs. She tried to sit up, her attention on them, too, but he pushed her back down again.

  “Does Catfish like to work alone?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know. It’s been so long—”

  “Is it his style to?” he persisted.

  “I think so. At least he didn’t have a gang with him back at the Turf Club. And he didn’t mention anyone when he attacked me in my room.”

  Ross nodded. “Good.”

  His gaze swung to the horses. Spooked by the gunshot, they’d bolted farther down the river. Unfortunately, the rifle was in the scabbard. Getting to it would make Ross an easy target all over again.

  The adrenaline for revenge stirred inside him. Been a good long while since he’d felt it. Even longer since he had the opportunity to satisfy it.

  But with the adrenaline came the old fear. His blind side. His weakness. Failure. His heart pounded. He could likely get them both killed.

  Lark followed his gaze, seemed to know what he was thinking.

  “I’m going with you,” she said.

  He turned toward her. “The hell you are.”

  Her brows shot up in protest. “I’m not staying here alone!”

  “It’s safer to stay put.”

  “It is not!”

  “You’re not armed. How’re you going to defend yourself?”

  “How am I to defend myself here if Catfish isn’t alone?”

  Ross couldn’t keep arguing with her. Time was ticking. He’d just have to have her ride as fast as she could to his place while he took care of matters without her. Getting her back on the piebald, though, would be the hard part.

  They had to risk it.

  Half-blind, he had to risk it.

  “All right. We’re going to make a run for the horses. I’ll cover you while you catch yours, then I want you to ride as fast as you can back home. I’ll distract Catfish while you do.”

  She gave him a brisk nod, pulled Chat’s hat onto her head and tightened the chin cord.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Ross marveled at how cool she was, how she distanced herself from the danger. He took her hand and tugged her to a standing position. Together they left the protection of the trees and sprinted toward their mounts.

  “Run!” he yelled as they drew closer to the sorrel. He pushed her toward the piebald and leapt into his own saddle, grabbing the rifle at the same time. He whipped the butt to his shoulder and twisted, raking his gaze across the distant thicket, ready to defend her against a charging attacker.

  He saw no one and chanced a look behind him. Lark caught the piebald and jumped into the saddle with an impatient yank on her skirts, then kicked the horse into a run toward him.

  “Get out of here, Lark!” he shouted. “Go!”

  “No! I’m staying with you.”

  She rode past him into the cottonwoods, giving him no choice but to follow. He drew up next to her with a terse pull on the reins.

  “I’m staying,” she said again before he could repeat the command. “We both want Catfish caught. We’ll work together to do it.”

  He spat a savage oath. The woman needed a good tongue-lashing on the importance of following orders. But he knew her side of it. Capturing the outlaw would mean a heap of worry off her mind. “Stay behind me, then. Don’t do anything until I tell you to, you hear me?”

  Her glance jerked toward the thicket. “He’s not shooting at us. He’s waiting us out, isn’t he?”

  “I suspect so. We’ll circle around. Make him think we’re running for home. Maybe we can catch him from behind.”

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  He was as ready as he’d ever be. No time to think otherwise, and they broke into a fast gallop past the stand of cottonwoods. Once over the low rise of a bluff, they rode a wide circle back toward the thicket and slowed their run before going in.

  Still no gunfire. No horse and rider that they could see, either. Ross puzzled over the possibility Catfish might have slipped through their fingers after all, satisfied with his warning shot declaring he was on to them, but too skittish to stick around.

  They dismounted and took cover in front of a large outcropping of rock which seemed to have been belched from the earth, the only jagged protrusion on the sprawling grass-covered range. Over time, the brush had crept up from a ravine and spread into the prairie. Fed by the Maple River, a tangled copse had formed.

  “There are more trees here than I thought,” Lark said. She’d taken a position on his right, he noted. His blind side. “Catfish could still be in there and we wouldn’t know it.”

  Ross ran a slow assessing glance around the perimeter of the grove. “Yeah, more woodland than thicket. Could hide a rider real easy.”

  “You got a plan, Santana?” Lark asked softly.

  His heart took on an uneasy rhythm all over again. He’d never been a coward, but he could taste the bitter temptation to be one now.

  “I’m going in. See what I can find.” He leveled her with a hard look. “Alone.”

  Suddenly, a bullet slammed into the rock and ricocheted off. Ross lunged toward Lark and shoved her to the ground.

  “Hey, Santana!” a voice bellowed out. “I know you’re out there!”

  He strained to hear. All those trees muffled the words. Laying low made it hard to figure where they were coming from.

  He didn’t respond, not until he knew where Catfish was hiding. Ross inched up around the rock, dared a careful inspection of the woods again. Lark touched his arm, pointed to the left, and he shifted his glance.

  A faint spot of yellow appeared through the leaves. Ross lifted the rifle, slow and easy.

  “C’mon out, then. We’ll talk,” he yelled back.

  “Let me see Wild Red first.”

  Alarm flitted across her face. Ross caught the look, gave her a single negating shake of his head. What did she think he’d do? Give her up?

  His gaze slid along the trees, one side to the other.

  “Not until we make a deal,” he said, not finding the snippet of yellow.

  He didn’t like the sound of the silence. He stared hard for any sign of movement, listened for the slightest noise. Lark, too, close beside him, as tense as he.

  Abruptly, she gasped. “There, Ross! On your right!”

  He swiveled, heard the pounding of hooves before the horse and rider bolted out of the wo
ods. Ross swung the Winchester around, finger on the trigger. The outlaw came fast, hunched low in the saddle. He barely cleared the brush before he started shooting.

  Thwap! Thwap!

  The business end of those bullets lodged in the dirt, too close to suit Ross, and he fired back with instinctive split-second speed. Catfish jerked, let out a high-pitched yelp and dropped from his horse.

  Ross kept the rifle trained on him. The bastard didn’t look in any shape to retaliate, but Ross wasn’t taking any chances. He strode closer to have a better look. Lark followed, on his heels.

  The outlaw laid face down in the grass. The revolver was gone, lost somewhere in the brush. Ross flipped him over with the toe of his boot. Blood soaked the front of the yellow cotton shirt, but it sure as blazes wasn’t Catfish wearing it.

  Lark sucked in a breath. “Oh, my God.”

  “Who is he?” Ross asked, as taken aback as she.

  “Jo-Jo Sumner.”

  He tossed her a sharp glance. “Eb Sumner’s boy?”

  “Yes.” She let out her breath, long and miserable.

  Ross had slaked his thirst at the Hungry Horse only a few times over the years. He’d never seen the kid before. No question, though, the kid knew him. Lark, too. Had a vendetta against them both, and Ross intended to find out why.

  He lowered the rifle and crouched at the kid’s side to yank open the shirt. One look at the scrawny chest told Ross the bullet wound did some serious damage. Jo-Jo moaned, which meant he wasn’t dead yet, but he didn’t have much time left.

  “Jo-Jo.” Ross gave him a slight shake.

  Glazed eyes fluttered open. Recognition cleared them.

  “Santana.” His wheezy breath carried the heavy odor of stale beer. Ross figured he must’ve been drinking most of the day. “He warned me…you carried a mean gun…wasn’t afraid to use it, neither.”

  “Who?” Ross pulled a clean bandanna from his pocket, pressed it to the wound. “You working for Catfish Jack?”

  “Guess I won’t…be no more.”

  “We’ll get Doc Seeber for you,” Lark said quickly. “I can ride to town. I’ll hurry.”

  Ross’s hand snaked out, grabbed her wrist before she could leave. “Won’t do any good.”

  She paled, but managed a jerky nod, and stayed put.

  “Why’d you come after us, Jo-Jo?” he asked. He noticed a brown beer bottle wedged in the waistband of the kid’s pants; Ross pulled it out, saw that it was still half-filled with brew, and tossed it aside in disgust. “Catfish tell you to?”

  “I was gonna get a cut of…the money.”

  “Yeah? What money?”

  He had a pretty good idea, of course. The Muscatine heist. He just needed Jo-Jo to say it so he’d be sure.

  “Ask Wild Red.” The glaze came back in the kid’s eyes. His lids fluttered down. “She knows…everythin’.”

  Lark pressed her fingers to her mouth. Real hard for her to hear the words, Ross knew. Her secret not being a secret anymore.

  “You were going to get a cut of the money if you found her and brought her back to Catfish. Is that right?” Ross demanded.

  Jo-Jo didn’t move, didn’t speak. His lungs rattled with every labored breath.

  It wouldn’t be long for him. Minutes, if that. Not much time to get the kid to spill his guts, but Ross had to keep trying.

  “Might as well talk, Jo-Jo,” he said, pulling no punches. “You’ve got nothing to lose, you know that? Catfish Jack won’t help you. No one can.” He slid his arm beneath the kid’s head to help him breathe better, give him some comfort, too, if nothing else. “You tried to kill her, Jo-Jo. Is that what Catfish wanted you to do?”

  The kid grimaced. “Didn’t matter if I hurt her…just bring her to him so she…could tell him where she hid the money.”

  “You tried to kill me, too.”

  “…promised me a bigger cut if I did.”

  “Oh, Jo-Jo,” Lark whispered.

  As if he only now realized she was there, Jo-Jo blinked up at her. “We was goin’ to South America, Wild Red.” He managed a slack-jawed grin. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth when he did. “Goin’ to have our own gang down there, me and Catfish was…”

  Then, his eyes rolled back, his head sagged limp and Ross let him go.

  Lark sat on the ground and hugged her knees to her chest. She stared at the Maple River flowing in the distance, numb, unable to bear another look at the lifeless young man lying in the grass behind her.

  It was her fault Jo-Jo Sumner was dead. It didn’t matter that Ross’s finger pulled the trigger or that Catfish Jack had bribed him to hunt her down. It didn’t even matter that Jo-Jo wanted her hurt. Or Ross dead. The fault came back to her in the end.

  The immensity weighed heavy on her. She’d been all kinds of a fool to think burying the loot from the Muscatine County Treasury would make the consequences of stealing it go away. Now, Jo-Jo was dead before his time. She’d have to account for her part in it.

  The grass rustled behind her. Without turning, she knew that Ross approached, paused, stood over her. Watching her. She didn’t have to look at the hard set to his jaw, the grim line of his mouth, to know the condemnation he’d be feeling.

  “Lark.”

  His low voice penetrated the despair that all but made her physically ill. She didn’t move, couldn’t speak. It was all she could do to keep breathing.

  He squatted down behind her, and her skin prickled at his nearness. Odd she’d be so aware of him when the grief burned inside. The warmth of his body soaked into her back, though he’d yet to touch her.

  “I’ll find a way to help you,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can.”

  Her eyes misted that he wanted to help her at all. Considering the man he was, and all he stood for, she didn’t deserve it. “It should be me lying back there dead.”

  “It almost was.”

  “He was only a boy, just barely—”

  “He was a man, with a man’s gun in his hand, Lark,” Ross said roughly. “How many times did he need to shoot at you before you can understand that?”

  She rebelled against his logic. The thinking of a bounty hunter. “I was his age when you shot me at the Turf Club. Remember?”

  Ross’s arm slid around her shoulders, pulled her back against him. His jaw pressed at her temple. “Sweet mother, yes.”

  His chest rumbled with the admission. Did the memories haunt him still? As they did her?

  She shuddered. God, but she wanted him to hold her. To scoop her up into his embrace and surround her with his strength. She had so little left of her own.

  Instead, she sat stiff in front of him and curled her fingers around his forearm, satisfying her need for his touch. “I know the glamour of riding with a gang, Ross. I found it exciting. And I felt invincible. All of us did. Jo-Jo felt the same way. I know it.”

  “Don’t make excuses for him.”

  She twisted toward him. “I’m not.”

  “What he did was wrong.”

  She let go of Ross’s arm. “He was young and impressionable, like I was at that age.”

  “Damn it, Lark!” Abruptly, Ross released her and straightened to his full height in one fluid, angry motion. “Catfish knows you’re hiding out with me. It doesn’t matter how he found out. He’ll finish what he sent Jo-Jo to start.”

  She went cold inside. “I know.”

  “You can’t hide anymore.”

  “I know that, too. You think I don’t know that?”

  Restless, frustrated, she stood, the fear and dismay roiling inside her all over again. She crossed her arms over her chest and shivered, though the summer sun shined high, bright, in the sky.

  “We have to talk,” Ross said.

  She refused to look at him, knew what he wanted to hear. “I can’t.”

  “You have to tell me what Catfish wants. It’s the only way I can protect you.”

  “I can’t.” She hung on tight to her resolve. “I won’t.”

/>   He had to understand that. Revealing the location of the buried loot would be the clear, the final, admission to her guilt, which meant she’d have to go back to jail, lose everything she had, and she couldn’t do that.

  Not ever again.

  “Catfish wants the Muscatine County Treasury money, doesn’t he?” Ross asked quietly.

  Lark stilled.

  “You helped the Renos steal it back in ’67. December nineteenth, to be exact.”

  The dread in her built, higher and higher.

  “Would you like to hear the amount, Lark? Because I can tell you, right down to the last dollar.”

  The shock rolled through her. He knew more details about the case than she did. But then, she’d stuffed the crime away inside her, crushed it so deep that, until Catfish stormed back into her life, she’d almost forgotten it was there.

  In the time she’d been with him, Ross had never let on how much he knew about her crime. He strung her along, helping her, winning her trust. Oh, God, he’d even kissed her. He’d made her think of him in ways different than she’d thought of a man before.

  And wasn’t that just like a bounty hunter?

  Rebellion stirred inside her. She tried to hate him for it.

  But couldn’t.

  Would she have done the same if she were him?

  “How can you be sure I rode with the gang that night?” she taunted.

  “I’m not. No one is.” He regarded her with a long, measuring look. “You and the rest of the gang were good at breaking the law. You blew the safe open in the middle of the night, and all that money was gone by dawn. Without a trace. No witnesses. Nothing.” As if he suspected she’d bolt, he took a careful step toward her. “But my gut told me it was you. The Reno gang. The scenario, your style, it all fit.”

  Now, with Frank dead, John locked away in prison, there was only Lark left to deal with the consequences, Jo-Jo being dead only one of them.

  Her rebellion, the futility of it, died.

  “I don’t want to see that money ever again.” The panic came back, hot and biting. “I want to leave it right where it is.”

  “You can’t. Catfish won’t let you.”