Last Stand Ranch

by Jenna Night

  A little farther up the hill, into the thicker part of the forest, a rocky shelf jutted out of the earth. If she stood up there she’d get an even better view of the town. She headed toward it, soaking up the sun and enjoying just being outside.

  She was nearly there when she heard a cracking sound. Then another.

  No, not a crack. A rifle shot.

  Ice water swirled through her veins. She spun around, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. Which direction had the sounds come from?

  Her pulse hammered furiously and it was hard to take a breath. She tried to tell herself that in a wilderness area, gunfire wasn’t a big deal. People probably shot at things all the time. Rattlesnakes. Mountain lions. Rabid coyotes. No one was targeting her. She was overreacting.

  Then she heard another shot. This one was closer. Something tugged at the shoulder of her shirt. She looked down and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  Blood. Sprayed like a fine red mist across the stones. She put her hand to her shoulder and pulled it away. More blood. Her blood.

  FOUR

  Olivia’s legs felt as heavy and unwieldly as bags of wet cement. Dizziness sent her vision spiraling in such nauseating waves she thought she might be sick.

  Her injured shoulder burned like fire, but the arm below it felt strangely numb and useless. Blind panic propelled her forward. She didn’t have a destination. She just flung herself onward, driven by terror. He’s trying to kill me.

  Another shot cracked through the silence. From a different direction this time, but she couldn’t think where. Behind? In front?

  She clambered over the rocky hillside as best she could, between pine trees and over tall, yellowing grass. She stumbled over the stone shelves jutting up from the ground, narrowly avoiding a face-plant.

  Which direction had the shot come from? What if she was moving toward the shooter?

  She tried to clear her mind, but her senses were abandoning her. Except for her vision. That was improving as the swirling dizziness slowed and finally stopped.

  At that point a dormant part of her brain woke up. A part that told her she was smarter and wilier than she thought herself to be. Look! Use your eyes! Find a place to hide!

  She’d received safety training for her job at the shelter, but that focused on urban situations. Most of it didn’t apply here. Disoriented, she had no idea which way to run for help. Trees, rock outcroppings and tall grass surrounded her. A few minutes ago they had been beautiful but now they were terrifying. Any one of them could be hiding the shooter.

  Claudia’s house was downhill, but downhill which way?

  Think! If she kept stumbling around, the shooter was sure to find her. She was acting like panicked, witless prey. But that was not the true Olivia Dillon. It was not.

  She slid to a stop, ignoring the way her heart hammered. In the quiet stillness between her own raspy gasps for air she heard a snap.

  Not a gunshot. Something else. Coming closer.

  “Oh, God, help me.”

  The sound of her own desperate, whispered cry brought a fresh round of tears to her eyes. Her gaze lit on a rock shelf with a pair of short, slender pine trees in front of it. The hollow between the flat slab of stone and the dirt beneath wasn’t very big, but maybe she could lie down and slide in. It might be full of snakes but they’d just have to get out of her way. She was not going to just stand there and get shot. She was not going to give up and collapse in terror. Not this time.

  She dropped down and crawled forward toward the mouth of the opening, forcing her numb arm to do its share of work despite the searing pain in her shoulder. She refused to look behind her. If the shooter was there, she was already trapped. If that was the case, she didn’t want to know.

  As she crawled forward, her hand slid across a long, narrow tree branch that had fallen to the ground. She wrapped her fingers around the branch and held on tight. Inching forward, she reached the opening beneath the rock shelf and jabbed the tree branch into it. She braced herself for a snake’s venom-tipped strike—but it didn’t happen.

  Gritting her teeth, she reached forward, pushing aside the young pines in front of the opening and crawling into the small void formed between the rock and the dirt. She pulled her feet in last and let the limber young trees bend back into place to partly conceal her hiding place.

  There was barely enough room for her to turn her head to face the opening. She breathed in dirt, tasting its metallic tang on her tongue. Her exhalations stirred up a small cloud of soil and tiny bits of decaying plants. The dusty mess stuck to the sweat on her neck and to the blood on her shoulder and arm.

  She tried to hold her breath and listen, but her body seemed starved for oxygen and she couldn’t stop panting. From where she lay she couldn’t see much of anything outside her little cave. But after a few minutes she heard something. It sounded like someone walking. Then the footsteps stopped.

  Moving very slowly, she lifted her head and saw a man walk by, carrying a rifle and wearing a knitted black ski mask. Was it Ted Kurtz? She couldn’t tell.

  A cold chill shot through her body and she started to feel dizzy again. She had to drop her head back down and concentrate on staying conscious. A few deep breaths, a few seconds of willing her mind to stay focused, and her thoughts finally cleared.

  Was the man with the rifle still out there? Had he wandered off, still looking for her? While fighting the wave of dizziness, she’d lost track of where he was. She was afraid to try to lift herself up and look back outside again.

  The hiding place she’d been so happy to find suddenly seemed too tight and confining. Too much like a grave. Her panting breaths turned to shallow gasps. She thought she might be hyperventilating.

  What if she passed out? Even if Claudia had heard the rifle shots and sent someone to look for her, they might not ever find her if she stayed in this hole in the ground.

  Straining to listen, she heard only the breeze rustling the pine branches. Then she heard a voice. A man’s voice. She held her breath and listened very hard. It sounded as if he was calling her name.

  “Olivia! Are you out here? It’s me, Elijah. It’s okay. I’m going to help you.”

  “Here!” Olivia tried to call out. “I’m here!” But the sound she made wasn’t very loud.

  She tried a second time, straining to make her voice louder, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her thoughts started turning woozy again and she felt cold.

  She reached for a branch on one of the little pine trees at the opening of her hiding place and tugged it, hoping the rustling would draw Elijah’s attention. The tree barely moved. She gritted her teeth and put every ounce of her strength into tugging it again.

  Suddenly Elijah’s hand was clasping hers. Tears of relief flooded her eyes.

  He dropped down so that he was looking at her from just a few inches away. “Hey, what are you doing in there?” he asked in a gentle voice so at odds with his usual tough, unsmiling expression. Even now, he didn’t offer her a smile. He just looked at her with a world of tender compassion in those obsidian eyes and said, “Let me get you out of there.”

  She held out her other hand, the one covered with blood and dirt. He took hold of it without hesitation and helped her out.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Sh-shot.” A chill shook her body, but at least her voice was back. “My sh-shoulder.”

  “Yeah, I heard it. I was afraid it was you.” He started at the top of her head and quickly patted down her body. “Let me see if you got nicked anywhere else,” he said. “I’ve been shot and didn’t know it until later.”

  “How could you not know?”

  He got out his phone and dialed 911, asking for EMS to meet him at Claudia’s, and quickly explaining what had happened. He was so calm and cool that Olivia started to get angr
y. She’d been shot. He’d found her bleeding and hiding in a hole in the ground. Shouldn’t he be freaking out a little bit? Didn’t she deserve that?

  He helped her to her feet, and then peeled off the light flannel shirt he was wearing over a T-shirt and wrapped the flannel around her. Then he tucked his arm around her shoulder and they started down the hill in a direction that didn’t look at all familiar.

  She had to be in shock because she was on the verge of laughing. But then, almost as quickly, she was on the verge of tears again. She had been shot. She could have died.

  Feeling insignificant in a cold, hard universe, she stumbled down the hillside until they reached Elijah’s motorcycle.

  He helped her onto the seat, sat down behind her and cranked up the engine.

  “What kind of cowboy are you?” Olivia muttered. “Why don’t you have a horse?”

  “I do have a horse.” He pulled her back so she rested against him. She melted into his muscled chest, soaking up his strength and feeling safe for the first time in a long while.

  “The sheriff’s department will need help searching the countryside for any sign of Kurtz. After I get you to the hospital, I’ll go home, saddle up my horse Churchill and ride back over here. If Ted Kurtz is out here, we’ll find him.”

  “No!” Fear shot through Olivia. She gripped his shirt and shook her head. “I don’t want him to shoot you, too.”

  “It’s okay.” He brought his arms closer together, held her a little tighter and revved the engine. “I’m not the one you need to worry about.”

  * * *

  After making sure Olivia was safely transported to the hospital, Elijah joined the other volunteers who’d gathered near the shooting site and started combing the hillside, looking for any clues left behind by the shooter. Five hours later, he was still looking.

  “Elijah! Hold up!”

  He turned his buckskin in the direction of the voice. Churchill was so sure-footed he practically moved like a cat. “What did you find?” Elijah demanded, as Jonathan rode up.

  Jonathan, Elijah’s younger brother, was also searching the ridge between Claudia’s ranch and the Morales ranch. Deputy Bedford rode beside him. Discovering the deputy rode had improved Elijah’s opinion of him.

  “Nobody’s seen anything since you found the bullet casings and those footprints,” Jonathan said. The footprints had led to a rocky stretch of land that went on for miles. Elijah had been riding at the edge of the rock outcropping for hours, trying to pick up the shooter’s trail.

  “Sheriff Wolfsinger is wrapping up the search.” Jonathan rubbed the newly grown tuft of hair below his bottom lip. A “soul patch” he called it. Apparently to a nineteen-year-old it looked cool. Elijah thought it looked ridiculous.

  “The sheriff says it’s getting too dark,” Jonathan added.

  “It’s not dark yet.”

  “I told him you’d say that.”

  “We might as well stop,” Bedford said. “Everybody’s just riding over each other’s tracks at this point.”

  Elijah’s phone rang and Claudia’s name came up on the screen. Last he’d heard from her, she was at the hospital with Olivia.

  “How are you?” Claudia asked when he answered.

  “How are you? You’ve been at the hospital all day. You must be tired. I’ll have Jonathan pick you up and drive you home.”

  “You mother’s coming to get me in a little bit.”

  “Good. How’s your niece?”

  “She’s doing well. Doc Beamer was able to get her shoulder sewed up. No serious injuries, no fractures, nothing like that.”

  “Glad to hear it.” And relieved. Seeing her bleeding and shaking had worried him. She hadn’t looked particularly healthy even before she got shot.

  “They were going to discharge her, but the doctor changed his mind at the last minute. He thinks she should stay overnight. She’s pretty run-down.”

  He heard Olivia say something in the background, but he couldn’t make out the words.

  “It’s for the best, honey,” he heard Claudia say. For the next few seconds the two women argued. Both sounded polite, though he could tell by Olivia’s tone she wasn’t very happy. He didn’t envy Claudia having to be with Olivia at that moment.

  Then again, maybe he did. A little. Just because there was something fascinating about Olivia Dillon. Even when she was cranky. Which, as far as he could tell, was all the time. She wasn’t insulting or cruel. She’d just been rubbed a little raw by life lately, and Elijah could relate to that.

  “So, yes, Olivia’s okay,” Claudia said to Elijah, directing her conversation back to him. “Are you finished up there on the ridge?”

  “Almost.”

  “Well, you be careful.”

  “You, too.” Elijah disconnected and slid the phone back into his pocket. He reached down to give Churchill a couple of pats on his neck while looking around at the nearby hills and the purple mesas in the distance. “I hate to leave without figuring out how that shooter got up here and back out again.”

  “He must have hiked or driven along a main road, then crossed Aunt Claudia’s land or ours,” Jonathan said. Elijah frowned at him. If it were true, whoever was hunting Olivia was skilled and stealthy.

  “I don’t want to believe it, either.” Jonathan glanced around. “But there’s no other explanation. Unless he rode a horse or a bike to the backcountry and hiked down here.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the fat-cat lawyer Miss Dillon’s worried about,” Bedford muttered. “Sounds more like hired firepower.”

  If that was true, Olivia was especially fortunate she’d survived. Elijah glanced upward. Thank You, Lord.

  “Anyone trying to help Miss Dillon might be crossing some very dangerous people,” Bedford said to Elijah. “I know about your military service, and I’m not saying you can’t handle yourself. But this might require more extensive resources and backup than you’ve got. You don’t want to hunt this guy on your own.”

  Elijah wasn’t exactly on his own. But he wouldn’t ask his friends in Vanquish the Darkness to put themselves in harm’s way. They were organized to provide spiritual comfort, particularly for veterans and their families, and to reach out to people in hospitals and other facilities who might have been otherwise forgotten. The riders had crossed paths with a few unsavory people along the way—it couldn’t be avoided—but they weren’t some personal protection group under Elijah’s direction.

  “How well do you know Olivia Dillon, anyway?” Bedford asked.

  “I just met her last night.”

  “Why such a personal interest?”

  Elijah shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Mrs. Somerset,” Jonathan said quietly.

  Bedford glanced at Jonathan and then back at Elijah as though expecting an explanation. He wasn’t going to get one. Mrs. Somerset was only one name on the long list of war casualties Elijah knew personally. In her case, she was a woman he should have protected but didn’t.

  Jonathan knew the whole ugly story, yet the kid still looked up to his big brother. Sometimes his admiration made Elijah feel like a fraud.

  “We just going to sit around here?” Elijah said gruffly, aware he’d started to drift into the past again. “If we move out, form a wide perimeter and look closely one more time, maybe we can find some tracks or trampled grass we missed earlier before we call it a night.”

  “Worth a try,” Bedford agreed.

  Jonathan nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  They rode until full dark, staying in contact by phone, but found nothing. “If I hear anything I’m authorized to tell you, I’ll let you know,” Bedford promised.

  When he got home, Elijah cooled down Churchill and made sure he was fed and watered. Then he got in his truck, drove to the hospital an
d found Olivia’s room.

  Olivia lay in bed, sleeping. With her bruises and bandages, she looked as if she’d gone a few rounds with a prizefighter. In a way, she had.

  She needed somebody to look after her, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

  Elijah dropped his tired body into a chair at the foot of her bed to keep watch.

  FIVE

  Olivia opened her eyes. In the pale blue early-morning light she saw Elijah slumped in a chair in her hospital room. In weathered jeans, a black T-shirt, a jean jacket and heavy black motorcycle boots, he looked out of place with the pale fuchsia wall behind him holding a framed print of two white poodle puppies chasing a butterfly.

  The last time she’d woken, Claudia had been sitting in that chair. Before that, Olivia had opened her eyes to a nurse in recovery asking her silly questions about the current month, the time of the year and how many eggs were in a dozen. And before that, she remembered a doctor telling her that she might end up with an impressive scar on her upper arm, but otherwise she would be okay. Time seemed to be moving both backward and forward.

  “Hey,” Olivia called out.

  Elijah stirred and lifted his head. He must be a light sleeper. Olivia’s voice hadn’t come out much louder than a whisper.

  “Hey,” he answered back, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  “Sleeping in that chair will give you a stiff neck.”

  “I can sleep anywhere.” He had an appealing scruff of beard going. He rubbed a hand over it and through his bristly black hair before standing up and walking toward her bed.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She glanced at her bandaged shoulder and back at him. “Right now? No pain.” The pain medicine was still in her body, making her feel as if she was wrapped in a cocoon. “But I have a feeling it’s going to sting when the medicine wears off.”

  “Only when you laugh.”

  She laughed. And as her laugh died out, the memory of what had happened came rushing back. Along with the feelings of sheer terror and hopelessness. She was still shaken by the unnerving realization that someone had actually shot her. Had tried to kill her. She felt her eyes tear up and her face begin to crumple.