The man pushed past her, exaggerating his limp as he headed toward the guest cabins.
Becca turned, looking first at Hazel. "Did you reach the Aldens?"
The plump older woman nodded. "They're on their way."
"Call the sheriff, too—in case they want to register a complaint."
"Already done."
Becca's gaze swept across the crowd and landed on Mish. He realized suddenly that he'd come all the way out of the barn, toward her, ready to jump in if Brown had tried to strike her.
"How's Stormchaser?" she asked, heading directly toward him. "The poor baby's going to have to go into therapy after this."
"He doesn't seem to want me to touch him," Mish admitted, following her back into the barn.
She gave him an odd look over her shoulder. "She doesn't know you. She's bound to be a little spooked."
She. The horse was female. He hadn't even thought to look. He'd simply assumed that since the animal was so big and powerful... Thou shalt not assume. He'd broken one of the biggest rules, and he'd given himself away.
Rules. Rules of what? God Almighty, it was back there, just out of his line of sight. All of the answers, dancing at the edge of his mental peripheral vision. He wanted to close his eyes, to somehow grab hold of the truth, of his identity. But Becca Keyes was talking to him.
"Why don't you get her cooled down," Becca said, obviously repeating herself as she gazed at him with her seemingly average brown eyes.
She was challenging him. Her words were a test—she wanted to know if he could do it.
But he couldn't.
Mish met her gaze levelly, honestly. "I'm afraid that's a little out of my league. But if you tell me exactly what needs to be done, I can—''
She'd already turned away from him. "Perfect," she was muttering. "Incredibly, amazingly, stupendously perfect." She spun back to face him. "You're telling me you don't know how to cool down a horse, aren't you?"
"I'm a quick study," he said quietly. "And you're short of hands—"
"Short of brains, too, obviously." There was a flare of that hot-burning anger in her eyes, but the heat was weakened by her frustration and disappointment. "Dammit. Dammit!"
The disappointment was hard to take. He would have far preferred her anger. "I didn't intend to deceive you." He couldn't explain. How could he?
She just laughed as she took the saddle blanket from Stormchaser's back. "Right. Go and make sure Brown's packing his bags. He's in cabin number . Walk him back to the office, finish up the stalls, then stay out of my sight for the rest of evening. I can't handle this right now—we'll talk in the morning."
Mish may not have known a thing about horses, but he knew when a situation called for silence.
He turned and left the barn. He'd awakened again this morning with no past, no name, no sense of self. Yet somehow he now felt even emptier inside.
Chapter
It was after two o'clock in the morning, and someone was pounding on her apartment door.
Becca sat up, groping for her flashlight in the darkness and coming up empty. The pounding continued—a frantic tattoo accompanied by a high-pitched voice calling her name. She flung herself out of bed and nearly stumbled as she made her way to the light switch on the wall.
Grabbing her robe from the hook next to her closet, she moved toward the noise and opened the door.
Fourteen-year-old Ashley Alden stood on the other side of the screen, her face streaked with tears. "Chip's gone," she said.
Becca pulled the girl inside and shut the screen before the entire mosquito population of New Mexico came into the kitchen with her. "Gone where?"
"I don't know! I was in charge, and I fell asleep, and when Mom and Dad came home, Chip was gone! He took the blanket off his bed—I think he's playing cowboy and
sleeping outside somewhere." Ashley was trying her best to hold back her tears, but a fresh flood brimmed in her eyes. "And now they're fighting, and a storm's coming and someone's got to go find Chip before he's struck by lightning!"
The girl was right. A storm was coming. Becca could hear the ominous rumble of thunder in the distance. Although dangerous, lightning was the least of their worries. If Chip had set up his bedroll in one of the arroyos, or on the gentle valley of the dry riverbed... It didn't have to be raining here for the arroyos and river suddenly to flood. It only had to be raining upstream.
She looked at the kitchen clock. Two-fifteen. No doubt the Aldens had stayed at the local roadhouse, drinking until the two o'clock last call. And if that was the case, they weren't going to be a whole hell of a lot of help in finding their son.
Thunder crackled again, closer this time.
Still, she was going to need all the bodies she could get.
"Go get your mom and dad," she commanded Ashley, already on the cordless phone to Hazel. "And wake up as many of the other guests as you can. We'll meet in front of the ranch office."
Ashley disappeared out the door.
Hazel sounded dazed as she answered her phone, but she rallied quickly.
Becca pulled a pair of jeans on over her nightshirt as she rattled out a stream of orders to her assistant. ' 'Wake up Dwayne and Belinda—tell them to saddle up the horses. The search' be easier on horseback." She yanked on her boots and jammed her hat on her head. "I'll wake the hands in the bunkhouse."
* * *
The bus ride was interminable, but as the driver pulled up to the checkpoint at the first of the fences, Mish didn't want it to end. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the gate shutting behind them, locking him in. He kept his eyes closed. There was no point looking at the security. No point studying the watch towers and the fences. He was here. And he'd stay here until Jake got him out.
The bus jolted to a stop, but Mish didn't move until one of the guards approached and unlocked him. He had been wearing both arm and leg shackles.
Mish stood up, and the guard roughly pulled his arms behind him, cuffing his hands behind his back. He still wore a tether, a short length of chain that connected his two ankles. It was hard navigating the steps down from the bus, and he jumped the last two, landing lightly in the dusty prison yard.
Prison. He was in prison. He felt sick to his stomach as he looked up at the harsh gray buildings towering above him.
"Move it," one of the guards barked. "Inside. Let's
go."
Mish started to sweat. Out here was bad enough, but at least out here he still had the sky, open and free above him. Inside would be only walls, only bars, only these chains that marked him as a very, very dangerous man.
The guard shoved him and he stumbled, but he forced himself not to react, to find serenity from deep inside, that same serenity that had saved him so many times before. He was here. He didn't have to like it. He just had to endure it. Jake was counting on him. Jake needed him to...to...
The answers were there—who Jake was, and what he needed Mish to do there in prison—but they were just beyond his grasp.
Everything shifted then, the way dreams often do. And then Mish was in an alley, thunder rolling as the first huge drops of rain began to fall. In an instant, he was soaked.
He pushed his wet hair back, out of his face, wishing he had a ponytail holder. Dim light gleamed on the barrel of his side arm and he ducked into the shadows, waiting for the footsteps to come closer. Closer...
"Casey! Come on, Casey, wake up!" Rough hands shook him, and Mish opened his eyes, instantly awake,
Rebecca Keyes leaned over him, her hair tousled from sleep.
He was shocked. What was she doing in his bed? Not that he didn't want her there, because he did. Badly. But he couldn't remember how she'd gotten there. And he couldn't imagine acting on his attraction for this woman. It would be flat-out wrong to become intimately involved with anyone until he'd reintroduced himself to himself.
He couldn't imagine Becca allowing herself to be seduced, either. She'd been so frostily angry with him. How had that happened? He couldn't re
member how he'd convinced her to warm up and sleep with him. And maybe worst of all, he couldn't even remember the sex. And that was shockingly alarming.
Was this more amnesia? It didn't make sense. He could remember going to bed—alone—and turning off the light. He could remember the way Becca had looked straight through him during dinner. He could remember waking up in the shelter, his head pounding. He could remember Jarell, the motel, the bus ride to...
Prison.
He'd dreamt about prison. Being cuffed and chained. Remembered someone named Jake...
She shook him again. "Snap to, dammit! I need you to help."
Reality crashed in. Mish was lying in a cot barely large enough to sleep one, let alone two. And Becca wasn't dressed for a night of one-on-one—unless her idea of one-on-one was a cattle-roping contest. She was wearing jeans and boots and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat on her head.
He sat up, the blanket sliding off of his bare chest, and Becca took a step back, as if afraid he wasn't wearing anything at all beneath those covers.
He was. Boxers. He also remembered keeping them on last night.
"Chip Alden's gone AWOL," she told him bluntly, "and we've got a storm moving in. I need all the manpower I can get—searching for the kid before the riverbed floods."
Mish nodded, clearly reading her silent message. She needed all the help she could get—even from a low-down, good-for-nothing, lying snake such as himself.
He swung his legs out of bed and pulled on his jeans and the T-shirt he'd worn yesterday, slipping into his boots as she turned and sprinted away. He followed her, quickly catching up. Thunder continued to rumble as the crowd of guests and employees gathering outside the ranch office glanced worriedly up at the dark sky.
Becca quickly split them into groups, sending them off in different directions, some on horseback, some on foot.
"Check the barn and public buildings," she ordered Mish before easily swinging herself up onto a horse and riding out.
He could hear the echoing voices of the search parties as they headed into the darkness, calling loudly, hoping to awaken the sleeping boy.
His was a throwaway job. He knew Becca didn't think they'd find Chip in the barn or the dining hall or even the
arcade room. But someone had to look there, and he was that someone.
He went into the barn.
Stormchaser was the only horse left in the stables, and she cocked her ears curiously at him, as if amazed by all of the predawn activity.
It had been Stormchaser's stall that Mish had been cleaning when Chip had come into the barn just that afternoon, to try to con him into saddling up a pair of horses.
Mish froze, suddenly hearing an echo of Chip's pre-pubescent voice. There's this place, about a half a mile east of here "where there's these big, creepy-looking rocks, kind of like some giant's fingers sticking out of the ground....
There was a relief map of the ranch on the barn wall, and Mish quickly measured the scale with his fingers, trying to find those rock formations Chip had mentioned. He knew how to read maps, and he easily found something six-tenths of a mile east-northeast that might've been those rocks. It was right next to a low-lying area—the dry riverbed.
Thunder cracked, closer this time, and the first plump drops of rain began to fall, hissing on the dry barn roof.
If Chip had set up camp in that riverbed...
Mish ran out toward the corral, but everyone was gone. He could hear their voices in the distance. Most of them had headed south.
He went back into the barn, where a huge flashlight hung by the door. But even using that, it would be impossible for him to achieve any real speed running more than a half a mile over the rough terrain.
He turned and looked Stormchaser directly in the eye.
She whinnied nervously as another bolt of lightning flashed, the boom of thunder close behind.
"Yeah, I don't like this weather, either," Mish said to the horse, opening the stall door, "but I know where this kid is, and I've got to get out there, so what do you say we make this a team effort?"
Stormchaser didn't disagree. Of course, she didn't exactly agree, either.
"I've never done this before in my life." Mish took a bridle down from the wall, speaking in a low, soft, soothing voice, the way he'd heard Becca talk to the horse. "But I spent most of yesterday watching the procedure, so let's just give it a try, okay?"
As Mish drew closer, the mare clenched her teeth.
"I think this bit thing is supposed to go behind your teeth, not in front of them," Mish told her, still in that low voice. "And I think I saw the other guys touch you back here a bit, and just kind of wait until you're maybe not paying quite so much attention and then...slip it in. There we go. Good horse. Atta girl. Way to go."
Stormchaser snorted, chomping disgruntledly on the bit.
"I can't imagine that feels very pleasant," Mish continued, slipping a saddle blanket onto her strong chestnut-colored back. "I can't imagine any of this is a whole lot of fun for you, especially after the way that idiot treated you this afternoon."
He took a saddle off the wall, gently placing it in the center of the blanket, and secured the belt around the horse's belly. As he'd seen the other ranch hands do, he waited until Stormchaser relaxed, and then tightened it several notches.
The stirrups seemed to be about the right length for his legs, so he looped the reins over the horse's head and led
her out into the night, tucking the flashlight under one arm.
The rain was falling heavier now, and Stormchaser tried to back away, into the barn.
'No, you don't," he murmured to the horse, pointing her in the direction he wanted to go. ' 'What kind of tough-as-nails Western cow horse are you, anyway?" He put his left foot into the stirrup and held onto the pommel. 'Tm probably doing this all wrong and backwards, so I appreciate your patience," he said as he tried to imitate the move Becca had made, and swing himself into the saddle. He landed with a thud, nearly going over the other side. "Whoa!"
Stormchaser snorted, pricking up her ears as Mish took gentle hold of the reins. He had to remember that these things were attached to the horse's tender mouth.
Now, what was the opposite of whoa? "Giddyap!" he said.
Lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and Stormchaser bolted.
Becca couldn't believe her eyes. Lightning flashed again, and again she saw Stormchaser, running like a bat out of hell with Casey Parker lying low and flat along the mare's neck, riding like a seasoned rodeo cowboy. She felt a flash of annoyance—the guy had led her to believe he didn't know the least little thing about horses—including riding.
She moved to cut them off just as Casey reined Storm-chaser in.
"I know where Chip is," he called out, seemingly unaware of the rain that was now falling steadily, streaming down his face.
He nudged Stormchaser's sides, and the horse took off again. Becca followed, pressing Silver hard to keep up.
She had her flashlight on, and in its bright beam, she could see that Casey wasn't riding like a professional cowboy—he was holding on for dear life.
"I talked to him this afternoon," the man shouted to her, "and he wanted to go out to this place where there were some rock formations."
Finger Rocks. God, that was right on the edge of the dry riverbed. Only, with all this rain, it wasn't going to stay dry for long—if it wasn't already flooded from the rain up in the mountains.
Becca gave Silver his head, letting him fly across the ground, praying they weren't too late. Please, God, let them find this little boy still alive....
She heard it before she saw it.
The river was running.
Lightning flared, and Finger Rocks appeared out of the darkness, looming crazily over them. The water in the riverbed was dark and frothy, and filled with bobbing logs and debris being washed downstream.
There was no sign of Chip.
Becca slid down off Silver, using her flashlight to illuminate the banks of
the river.
Casey was still atop Stormchaser, and he pointed out into the rushing water. "There!"
She saw it, too.
She saw what might have been the top of a small head near a branch that had been snagged on an outcropping of rocks.
"Chip!" she shouted over the roar of the river and the bursts of thunder. "Chip!"
The head moved and became a small, pale face that reflected the light from her torch.
It was Chip. He was clinging for dear life to the end of a weathered old branch.
As Casey slid down off Stormchaser, Becca saw him take in the situation with a glance. The branch Chip was holding on to was wedged between two rocks at the river's edge, right before the water took a hard loop to the left and swept even faster down the hill. The white water down there told of rapids—rocks that could crush the life out of a ten-year-old flung against them with the water's raging force.
It was only a matter of time before the debris knocked Chip free from his perch and swept him downstream.
The tumble of rocks at the side of the river made it treacherous going. Casey slipped and slid over them, turning back to give Becca a hand.
She didn't need or want his help. "I'm fine," she shouted at him. "Keep going!"
Finally, they were both there.
"Hang on, kid," she heard Casey call to Chip. "We'll get you out of there!"
"I want my mom!" The little boy was weeping. "Please, I want my mom!"
"Just let us pull you out of there, and we'll find her right away," Casey told him, his voice reassuring. They would get the boy out of the river. And if he was feeling any doubt about it, he wasn't letting it show. He tugged at the thick end of the branch Chip was clinging to, but it wouldn't give. Becca set down her flashlight and helped. It didn't take long to realize that the damned thing wasn't going to budge. They weren't going to be able to free the branch to pull the kid out of there.
Suzanne Brockmann - Team Ten 08 - Identity Unknown Page 4