Cowboy Sing Me Home

by Harris, Kim Hunt

  “Maybe you should wait until he gets here.”

  “I don’t want to take a chance on letting them get away.” He stood on the step and gave her a quick kiss. “Stay inside and keep the door locked.”

  He was gone before she had a chance to say anything, and as he moved away he heard her door lock and the chain slide back into place.

  He stayed in the cover of the trailers for as long as he could. The night was dark enough he doubted he could be seen, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  He’d had more than one nightmare about Broeker in the past week, and he’d wondered if he would be able to keep his cool, if and when the time came to face the man again. But now that the moment was at hand, all Luke felt was a healthy level of adrenalin, enough to keep him cautious and all his senses on high alert, but not so much that he felt like he might blow the situation. He looked forward to a confrontation, in fact. He wanted vindication for himself, and for all the people this group had fleeced.

  He moved quietly down the hill, avoiding rocks and bushes that were no more than darker smudges on a dark landscape. His foot slid in mud and he went down on his injured leg, and he bit his tongue as dull pain shot through him. He breathed deeply and braced himself, listening intently for a sign that he’d been heard. After hearing nothing, he rose and crept on down the hill.

  The cramp of pain was a reminder of who and what he was probably up against, and he took another deep breath to remind himself to keep his head.

  Dusty stood in the dark trailer, hands shaking as she pushed buttons on the unfamiliar phone.

  “Come on, memory, which one’s the memory?” The phone beeped in her hand, giving her options that were no good to her now. Finally she pushed a button on the side and saw the word ‘office.’ She pushed it again and ‘mom and dad’ came up. She pushed it a few more times before she came to ‘Toby.’ She pushed ‘send’ and gripped her waist with one hand while she waited interminably for the call to go through.

  Corinne finally answered.

  “He’s not here,” she said when Dusty explained the situation. “He’s gone out to his mom’s, about five miles to the north.”

  “What?” That meant he was at least seven miles away from them now.

  “It’s okay, I’ll call him right now. He can be there in a matter of minutes.”

  “Tell him to hurry.”

  Dusty ended the call and paced the small living area of her trailer. Seven miles was a long way, when Luke’s life might depend on his help. A lot could happen in the time it took Toby to drive seven miles.

  She sat on the sofa and shot right up again. She lifted the curtain and strained to see what, if anything, was happening. She called Luke every name she could think of, then gave up on obeying orders and opened the front door.

  The night was deadly silent. All she could hear was the rasp of her own breath, the thud of her own heartbeat.

  She closed the door again and gripped her hands together in front of her, reminding herself that Luke had been through training, he knew what he was doing. He could handle himself.

  “Screw this,” she said, and ran back to her bedroom. With a heave she lifted the platform under her bed. Beneath was a storage area, and she had another, smaller handgun there. She hadn’t used it in years, and wasn’t even sure if she had ammunition for it, but she grabbed the case and pulled it out. Her breath coming faster now – now that she’d made up her mind that she was going, she couldn’t get down there fast enough – she slammed the bed back down and threw the case onto it. She unsnapped the latch and withdrew the gun. There were bullets underneath, and she loaded the gun with shaking fingers.

  She felt, suddenly, as if it had taken her hours to complete this simple task. Luke was probably already there, already facing all three men, maybe even more than three, all alone.

  She closed her eyes and said a quick prayer. “Please.” It was all she could think of, so she said it again, feeling it fervently to the depth of her. “Please.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The back door to the Hammond place stood ajar. Luke stepped into the open doorway to listen. He still heard the voices, but they weren’t any louder or more alarmed than they’d been before, that he could tell. He took another step into the dark laundry room, and looked into the kitchen beyond. Enough light came through the window over the sink for him to see into the dining room and part of the living room. Both were dark and empty, but he could see enough to take in the mayhem that had been wreaked here earlier…bookshelves emptied onto the floor, sofa cushions tossed aside, and ceramic figurines dashed to the ground. A small clown figurine lay in the doorway, painted glossy colors, with its head stepped on and ground into dust in the carpet.

  Julie was not going to be happy when she got back from Ruidoso, Luke thought.

  He could see that a light was on down the hallway, probably from either one of the boys’ rooms or from Nate and Julie’s bedroom.

  “It has to be here somewhere. I know that kid had it. I should have chased him down that day.”

  Luke recognized Wayne’s voice. He wasn’t sure whom he was talking to, until he heard the rasped-voice answer. “You’ve got five more minutes to find it, or else we’re leaving without it. I’m not going to stand here all night while you dig through a bunch of action figures.”

  Luke tiptoed down the hallway toward the light. He strained his ears to listen for Kenny, but he would probably not be talking even if he were there. Quickly he checked the other bedroom and bathroom that also fed off the hallway, but they were empty.

  He stopped just outside the circle of light that fell from the open bedroom door and breathed shallowly. He was grateful that he felt only a sense of calm determination, sure that, no matter what else transpired in the next few minutes, Broeker was not going to escape again.

  “There’s no point in everything I’ve done in the past two years if we leave this house without that drive.”

  Wayne walked into Luke’ s line of sight then, ripping out desk drawers on the desk where Dusty had sat just two days before, talking to Jimmy Wayne and Billy Dale. He pawed through the stuff inside, spilling out papers and cards. Wayne’s eye was black, and he had a nasty looking cut and bruise on his left cheek. Evidently things were getting a little tense between the little band of outlaws.

  “So we’ll give them a drive. We’ll demand the money up front, hand them a drive, and be gone before they realize it.”

  “Do you really think they’re stupid enough to fall for that? Besides, if we don’t give them the program, they’ll never be able to beat IND to the punch.”

  “That’s not my problem. You’re the one hell-bent on beating IND. I don’t give a rat’s butt who wins this little contest, all I care about is the money. We’d have it and be basking in the sun in the Caribbean right now if you hadn’t let your ego get in the way.”

  “It isn’t ego, it’s justice,” Wayne said as he upended another drawer. “I built that company. I worked for that jackass when he couldn’t get anyone else to even take his calls. And now that the company is huge, he wants to shut me out. If I had just gone on my own from the beginning, it would be my face on the cover of Forbes, not his.” He slid the stack of comic books and colored pictures to the floor, then ran his hands through his hair. “Damn it!”

  “Chill out. We’ll just take them a blank drive and be done with it.”

  Wayne whirled around. “No! I am not leaving here without that drive.”

  “Then you’re not leaving here alive. Because I’m not going to hang around the scene of the crime like some kind of ego driven amateur, waiting for the law to catch up to us.”

  Wayne froze, then he slowly lifted his hands in the air. “Wait a minute, now. Wait a minute. You can’t – you can’t do this.” He backed against the desk, his hands shaking in the air.

  “Sure I can. They’ve been dealing through me the whole time, haven’t they? They won’t be a bit surprised when I come alone.”

  �
�They made it very clear that I must be the one to make the final delivery. Very clear. They’ll know something is up when you show up without me.”

  Luke stepped closer to the door, his gun drawn. He could see Broeker now, see the barrel of the .357 he held on Wayne, and see the careless way he shrugged at Wayne’s reasoning.

  “I’ve told them all along what a gutless wuss you are. They won’t have a hard time believing you freaked out and refused to come out from under your bed.”

  “It won’t do you any good,” Luke said as he stepped into the doorway.

  Both men whirled to face him.

  “The FBI has the drive, and they’re tracking down whoever the buyer was supposed to be. So even if you make it to your drop-off site, you’re probably going to be delivering to either an undercover agent or an informant wearing a wire.” Luke shrugged and smiled. “Looks like a real good time to surrender to me.”

  Broeker shifted the gun away from Wayne and onto Luke. “Man, am I glad to see you. I heard I shot you in the leg. I’ve felt like such an idiot ever since. I really meant for you to die.” He smiled. “Now I get a chance to make it right.”

  Wayne eased to the left, further away from them both, and Luke let him. He didn’t have a gun, or else he would have used it to defend himself against Broeker. And if he was thinking about running, he wouldn’t get far, not since Toby would be here any second.

  “Drop the gun, Broeker,” Luke said, his voice and hands steady.

  “No can do, sorry. I’m afraid I never have been the ‘drop the gun’ type.”

  “You have absolutely no chance of making it out of this county. The sheriff is on his way, so even if you make it through me, he’s ready for you. And even if you make it through him, you have nowhere to go. You have nothing to sell. And you have a lot of people looking for you. You’re in a no-win situation.” Luke talked calmly and slowly, knowing that the longer he talked, the better his chances of keeping the situation on an even keel and resolving it peacefully.

  Still, when he heard a foot crunching onto the figurines in the room behind him, he breathed a silent breath of relief. Toby was here, and two against two was a much fairer fight.

  “Glad you finally made it,” Luke said, his eyes still on the gun. “See, Broeker, you may be able to make it through me, but you can’t make it through him, too.”

  Broeker laughed. “I’ve been on the road for a while, but I can still tell a woman when I see one.”

  Luke whipped his head around to see Dusty standing behind him, clutching another gun. She stepped up beside him.

  “Dusty, no!”

  Broeker laughed, and Luke turned back in time to see him shift the gun to her.

  Luke threw himself at Dusty, and they crashed into the wall behind her. He wrapped his right arm around her and began to turn, to put her safely behind him.

  Broeker took one step forward and kicked Luke in the right leg.

  Pain bloomed, hot and red, behind Luke’s eyes, then everything went black for a moment. He doubled over as his breath left him. He heard Dusty scream his name, and he tightened his grip on her.

  But the pain left him weak, and he felt her slip from his grasp.

  He straightened, his gun tight in his hand, and realized that she hadn’t pulled away from him; she’d been pulled. Broeker now had her back against him, his gun to her jaw.

  The room fell so eerily quiet that Luke could hear the refrigerator hum in the kitchen. His continued to aim the gun at Broeker, but they both knew he would never be able to pull the trigger, now.

  “Now then,” Broeker said with obvious satisfaction. “Put your little gun on the desk there.”

  Luke looked at Dusty, and his heart broke at the terror he saw in her eyes. Her hands shook as she did as she was told.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Luke.

  “It’s okay,” he said. He tried to smile, to assure her somehow that he was not going to let anything happen to her. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Yeah. Everything’s going to work out real good.” Broeker picked up Dusty’s gun and stuck it in the back of his waistband.

  Wayne had stood by silently, watching the interplay between the other three, his hands still in the air. When he saw that Luke had lost control of the situation and Broeker’s attention was on Dusty, he turned and scrambled for the nearest window.

  In one smooth movement, Broeker turned and shot Wayne in the stomach. He had the gun back to Dusty’s jaw before Wayne hit the floor.

  Dusty cried out, her breath coming in short, shallow sobs, and she cringed away from the gun. Luke could see her fight for composure and he silently willed her his strength to keep it together.

  “Your turn. Lay your gun on the desk and slide it toward me. Butt first,” he said with a cock of his head. “I’d hate to shoot my own hostage in the head.”

  Luke laid his gun on the desk, making sure he did as the man said. Wayne’s moans filled the silence in the room.

  Broeker took it and looked at it a moment. “Man, I am heavily armed and dangerous now!” He barked over his shoulder. “Quit your whining. You’re lucky I didn’t do that a week ago. But don’t worry. When you lose enough blood you won’t be able to feel it anymore.”

  He tucked the third gun in his pocket and looked at Luke, his eyebrows raised. “All righty then. I think I’ve covered everything. I have arms, ammunition, a pretty hostage. It looks like – oh yeah. I’ve gotta shoot the deputy. Again.”

  Luke backed into the hall, his arms up, taking a chance that Broeker would want to look him in the eye when she shot him.

  “Now where do you think you’re going?” He shoved Dusty forward and stepped into the hallway.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Luke said, keeping his voice even, his hands in the air to be as non-threatening as possible. He kept backing until Broeker was in the dining room.

  “Of course I want to do this,” Broeker said jovially. “I’ll get the money, and I’ve got the girl. What’s not to like about this?” He leaned over to look at Dusty. “Ever been to the Caribbean? I hear they have lots of tiny islands, you can just get in your boat and cruise from one to the other.” He smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

  Dusty pulled away, her lip curled. She looked at Luke and said again, “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded, helpless rage roaring through him. Once he got her out of that jackass’s hands…

  “Close your eyes, sweetheart, unless you get turned on by the sight of blood.”

  Dusty looked at Luke with tear-filled eyes. “Don’t let him do this,” she whispered. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” he whispered back, his heart thumping in his chest. “I love you, too.” He could hear Wayne still groaning in the bedroom, could see Dusty’s red-rimmed eyes. He held his breath, not sure he could keep his nerves steady enough to pull off the only hope he had.

  “Oh, that is so sweet!” He leaned back over Dusty. “I’m so happy for you, really I am. Time to go.”

  “They won’t let you get away, Broeker. Not with a hostage.” Still talking, he pivoted slowly. If he could just keep him talking, keep the man’s attention until his back was to the kitchen… “You might have some hope if you let her go, but with her you’ll have every law officer in this part of the country looking for you. And I know where you’re going.”

  “But you’re gonna be dead, remember?” He leveled the gun at Luke.

  Now. Luke looked over Broeker’s shoulder. “Thank God you’re here!”

  Broeker whipped his head around and looked back into the kitchen. Luke put all his might into an excruciating kick to the hand that held the gun, connecting with a force that knocked it from his hand and sent it crashing into the wall.

  Broeker whirled back around, his face contorted with rage. Luke was already there, and he shoved Dusty out of the way as he crashed into the man. Before Broeker could recover his balance, Luke had pulled his own gun out of Broeker’s pocket and held it to the man�
�s head while he knelt on his stomach.

  Slowly, Broeker lifted his hands. “Man, I can’t believe you got me that way. Very smooth.”

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the gun at your back. When I move my knee, you are going to sit up, real slow, and Dusty’s going to get it. And I swear to you, if I so much as think you’re going to make a wrong move, I will shoot you. Do you understand?”

  He spared a quick glance at Dusty. She was obviously and understandably shaken, but he thought she was going to be okay. “It’s all right, sweetie. It’s almost over.”

  “You two are gonna make me cry,” Broeker said.

  Luke dug his knee in a little harder, then let off gradually. He no longer held any hesitation about shooting. “Roll up, and keep your hands in the air.”

  Broeker groaned. “Man, my abs aren’t that strong.” He put a hand to the floor to brace himself.

  Luke kicked it out from under him. “I said keep your hands in the air. You can do it. And don’t worry. I hear the Texas prison system has some real nice workout equipment. You’ll have plenty of time to get in shape.”

  Broeker glared at him, but slowly rolled to a sitting position. His eyes and gun still trained on Broeker, Luke said to Dusty, “Stand to the side and reach around to his back. Don’t get directly behind him. If I have to shoot, I don’t want it to come through and hit you.”

  He wanted desperately to look at her and see how she was doing. But he knew Broeker was waiting for him to slip up, and he wasn’t going to give it. From the corner of his eye, Luke saw Dusty’s arm stretch out, then draw back and she said, “I have it.”

  “Roll over and put your hands on the back of your head. Dusty, see if you can find something to tie his hands with.”

  Broeker was silent as he rolled over. Luke didn’t trust him not to put up another battle, but he also knew he would not hesitate to shoot if that happened. Whatever hesitation he felt was erased when Broeker held a gun to Dusty’s head.