He pulled her head down and took her lips in a long drugging kiss. “Damn,” he whispered, “I can’t get enough of—.” The sound of a galloping horse stopped him. He reached for his cell phone on the table beside the bed. “This better be good, John,” he growled into it as he opened the connection. He was silent for a minute, watching Mesa’s face. Then he nodded, “alright. I’ll be there a.s.a.p.” He put the phone back on the table. “I gotta go. There’s a burglar alarm going off downtown and Montgomery is headed out to a traffic accident on the road to the rez.”
She nodded and slipped off him and then off the bed. She began pulling her own clothes on and was dressed by the time he was tucking his uniform shirt tail down into his jeans. “Wait,” he said as she started for the door. “We can go out together.” He lifted his gun belt and fastened it on and grabbed his hat.
Spur was waiting patiently at the bottom of the stairs and fell in beside Rafe as the two humans walked through the door and outside.
At her car, Rafe pulled Mesa into his arms one more time. “I hate to see you leave. I wanted to wake up next to you in the mornin’. Maybe make love again.” He kissed her gently but thoroughly. “Are you and Raale goin’ to church tomorrow…eh later this morning?”
She hesitated.
“Uci’s expectin’ me to meet her there but now, I probably won’t make it,” he added. “But I could meet you and Raale at The Tepee for lunch.”
“I doubt we’ll go to church.” She looked at him. “It would feel hypocritical after what you and I did tonight.”
He hugged her tightly. “Yeah, there is that.”
She shrugged. “Maybe we can just meet you for lunch.”
He nodded and kissed her again. “Now go home, while I can still let you.”
Chapter 10
The burglar alarm turned out to be a false alarm because the owner’s daughter had left her cell phone inside and didn’t know how to disarm the alarm when she returned to get it, but Rafe had done no more than return to the office and sit down behind the desk to write the report, when Montgomery called in from the traffic accident.
“Montgomery to dispatch! Shots fired, repeat, shots fired! I need back-up ASAP!”
Rafe heard the adrenalin in his deputy’s voice and hit the door running, Spur on his heels. “Send everybody you can find,” he called back over his shoulder to Mary Jernigan, the aged night dispatcher.
Tires squalled as his SUV tore out onto the road, his siren screaming into the night. “I’m on my way, John,” he spoke into his car radio. “Ten minutes out. Are you okay?”
“No,” came the quick reply. “I’m hit in the leg, bleeding bad. Pinned down behind my car. I think it’s Daryl Tall Tree and his wife, but I don’t know what the hell happened. I got here, saw him with a gun in his hand. I ordered him to drop it and raise his hands, and the bastard just started shooting like crazy!” He groaned. “I can’t tell where he is.”
“See if you can get a tourniquet on your leg to at least slow the bleedin’. I’m comin’ as fast as I can.” Rafe was furious because his deputy was all alone. He tried to push his vehicle faster, but he already had the gas pedal down as far as he could push it.
“John,” Levi’s voice came through the radio. “I’m three minutes from you, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” John’s voice sounded weak. “He’s walking over this way. I can hear his steps.”
Rafe’s hand pounded his steering wheel. “Damn, damn, damn!” he shouted.
Spur was pacing back and forth across the back seat. He sensed the urgency of the situation and sensed Rafe’s frustration. He whined.
“Yeah, I know, dawg,” Rafe muttered. “I know.”
“Here I come, John,” Levi’s voice was almost a shout. “Hang on. If that bastard comes around the side of your car, shoot him! You hear me?”
Rafe waited for John’s reply but heard only silence.
“John!” Krystal’s voice was on the radio. “John David Montgomery, you’d damn well better answer me. Can you hear me?” After a long second of silence, she repeated her question.
Rafe heard the terror in her voice and breathed a sigh of relief when Levi spoke again.
“I’m with John. No sign of Daryl’s car except tail lights fading in the distance when I got here. He must have run when he heard me coming. John’s breathing, got a good but not great pulse. But, he can’t hear you Krystal. I think he passed out.”
“The ambulance is on the way, but they have to come from Liberty.” Mary had dispatched them as soon as she heard John say he was hit. “The EMT thinks they’ll be another fifteen minutes. He said get a tourniquet on that leg and apply direct pressure to the wound,” she instructed.
“10-4,” Levi replied.
Rafe kept the accelerator of his SUV to the floor and even though it took longer than he wanted, soon the lights atop the distant patrol cars was flashing brightly, lighting the night. Then, it was only seconds before he slid his vehicle into a skidding rest and both Spur and he were out as it rocked to a stop. He rushed to Levi’s side and dropped down onto one knee to see John’s eyes looking back at him.
“Can you say a few words to Krystal?” he asked. “She’s on the way out here and is worried about you.”
John nodded and Rafe put the hand held speaker to his deputy’s mouth. “Krystal, baby, slow down. I’m gonna be alright.”
“Oh, John, are you sure? Sweetheart, I need you to be alright,” she was hyperventilating and her voice reflected her fear.
“Yeah, just don’t crash coming to me, okay?” He paused for a minute. “I love you sweetums.”
Her reply was something between a sob and a laugh. “I love you, too, snuggles. I’m slowing down, but I’ll be there before you know it.”
Rafe put the mike to his mouth. “I think Snuggles has talked enough for now, Sweetums. Just drive careful. We’ll be here when you get here.”
“You can go to hell, Rafter Storm Horse,” she snapped back at him, knowing that from this point forward, she and John would be called Sweetums and Snuggles by everyone in the Sheriff’s Department, if not half the county. But without a doubt, it would be teasing, reflecting affection from their coworkers, so then she added more softly. “Thanks, boss.”
Seeing that Levi had followed the EMT’s orders, Rafe stood up and cast a quick glance around the area. The first thing he noticed was Spur off the far verge of the road, nosing around a mound of something next to the fence. “I hope to hell he ain’t found a skunk or some rotten road-kill.” He stalked toward the dog.
He had to cross the shallow ditch and climb the bank to where he could now hear his dog whining softly. “What you got there, dawg?”
Looking down he realized that Spur was nudging the body of a man. Obviously, the dog hoped the human would get up and play with him, but from the bullet hole just above the level of his eyes, right smack in the middle of his forehead, Rafe knew that would never happen. He squatted down and looked closer at the man even as he motioned the dog away. “Get back. The crime scene techs will be really pissed when they find dog hair and slobber all over the victim.” The man looked familiar and it took a minute for Rafe to put a name to the face, but then he realized it was Hal Cartwright, one of Mesa’s cowboys. He swore softly. This was just freaking wonderful! A murdered man to add to the two attempted murders and all three victims were connected to the Rocking H. What the hell was going on?
Making sure Spur followed him; Rafe returned to his SUV and called Mary at the office. “You need to call Liberty and get a CSI team and the coroner’s tech out here. We’ve got a dead body to deal with now, and no, it’s not John.”
He got his flashlight from his vehicle and casting the light around, soon found the wrecked remains of a motorcycle, not too far from Cartwright’s body. Maybe the dead man and Daryl Tall Tree had been in an accident. The bike was pretty much demolished, but why was there a bullet hole in Cartwright’s head? Okay, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that someone
had pulled a trigger and put it there, but why? Daryl Tall Tree was a happy drunk, not prone to violence.
Rafe checked again on John and was glad that he was still alert and the bleeding appeared to have slowed significantly. In the distance they could hear the wailing of an approaching emergency vehicle. Rafe winked at John. “I’m willin’ to bet a month’s pay that it’s Krystal and not the ambulance.”
John managed to shake his head negatively. “No bet. That’s my woman for sure.”
And he was right. Krystal’s hair was loose and didn’t look like she’d combed it, her face wore no sign of make-up, but when she knelt beside him and leaned her face down to his, John Montgomery knew she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. He smiled. “It’s alright, sweetums. Just a leg wound. I guess Tall Tree heard Levi coming and left.”
She dropped her face to his and kissed him soundly. “Well, Daryl Tall Tree can run far and hide well, but when I see him, I’m kicking his ass!”
The ambulance was arriving and Rafe watched quietly as they loaded John inside. Krystal jumped in with him and then they left with sirens screaming through the night.
Rafe and Levi walked the area trying to figure out exactly what had happened, but when the crime scene techs arrived, Rafe pulled Levi aside. “I’m goin’ to the rez and see if I can locate Daryl. He’s probably found someplace to sleep and I think I know where that’ll be. I need to get him and his wife down to the station and find out what the hell happened here.”
“I suppose you want me to wait with the crime scene techs?” Levi sounded disappointed.
Rafe shook his head. “No. Once they finish, there’s not much point in tryin’ to keep this site secure, and they can do it while they’re here. One of them can drive Krystal’s patrol car back to town. I want you to follow me to the rez and when I find Daryl and his wife, you can bring her in. I’ll wanna keep them separated until we know what brought this on. I’ve known Daryl for years and so has John. He’s always been a happy drunk and I’ve never known him to carry a weapon.” He shook his head negatively again. “This makes about as much sense as somebody tryin’ to kill Rance or Shirley.”
Levi lifted a quizzical brow. “So you’re sure somebody tried to kill Rance?”
Rafe nodded. “Yesterday I got to the Rocking H ahead of everyone else and Bob showed me where he found Rance. I used the metal detector over the horse’s remains and located a bullet in one of the rear femurs. Looks like it came from a 308.”
Levi swore softly. “Rance don’t have any enemies. He’s one of the best liked people I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, and he’s one of the most skilled horsemen I’ve ever known. Having an accident like he had just never felt right to me,” Rafe said. “None of this makes any sense.”
“What about the dead body?” Levi didn’t want to second guess his boss, but he’d known Daryl Tall Tree all their lives. In fact, Daryl’s wife, Willow, was a distant cousin of his. He didn’t feel Willow or Daryl could be involved in a cold blooded murder and Rafe had told him the dead guy was shot right between the eyes. “Do you have any idea who the dead man is?”
Rafe hesitated before nodding affirmatively. “Yeah, he works at the Rocking H. I think his name is Cartwright. I guess I’ll have to go talk to Mesa after we locate Daryl and Willow. See if he has any family to notify.”
Chapter 11
Fisher had been sitting silently in the darkness for a long time now. The darkness wrapped around him and made him feel safe and confident. He could see what happened around the lights on the highway, but couldn’t be seen by the people there. He resisted the urge to laugh because he didn’t want the dog to hear him, so he continued to sit silently.
If that damned Indian couple hadn’t hit the kid’s motorcycle parked beside the road all this would be over with and he’d be sitting in the bar on the other side of the rez, celebrating another job, well done. The boss wouldn’t like this but there wasn’t a hell of a lot either one of them could do about it. The kid had wanted out. Well, now he was out. Permanently. Problem solved. Except for the Indian couple. He knew they hadn’t seen him, but the man had found Cartwright’s handgun and started shooting at the cop when he showed up.
He watched the CSI team load their gear and drive away and gave a sigh of relief. Nothing and no one left in the area but him. He slowly unfolded his legs and stood up making sure his circulation was restored before he turned and walked away from the scene, his rifle hanging from his shoulder, moving through the field where he’d been hiding, away from the highway. In the trees a half mile away, his dirt bike was waiting to take him to his truck. He’d left nothing at the crime scene because he’d never gotten any closer than a hundred and fifty yards. There wasn’t much chance of anyone finding the bullet that took down Cartwright, because as flat as this area was, the bullet had gone through his head and kept going. God only knew where it was now. He chuckled softly. The Indian probably thought he’d killed the cop he shot and would be in another state by daylight. All in all, it wasn’t too much of a disaster. Nothing to tie the shooting to him or the boss, just the Indian.
He might still have to take care of the older Howell woman. He didn’t understand what had kept her from being killed when her car hit that tree. Hell, it should have caught fire and burned. He should have thrown a lit match in it when he emptied that can of beer all around her. He shrugged, pushing the shoulder strap holding the 308 against his back into a more comfortable position. He’d wanted to use the gun then, but the boss wanted it to look like an accident from driving drunk. Like the accident that put the old cowboy out of commission. A good clean accident aroused no more notice than the sad shaking of a head. By all rights, the old man should have died, as well, but for now, he wasn’t a problem. He was just an old man in a wheel chair and would never be able to run the ranch again. According to Cartwright, Rance Howell didn’t even remember his accident. Didn’t remember why he was riding along that part of the ranch or anything else for days before the accident.
Cartwright could have been a good clean accident, too. Fisher had wanted to take a couple of shots at Cartwright to make him pick up speed, then shoot out a tire, but the boss wanted his death to send a message to anyone else who might be thinking about wanting out. Well, it was going to do that. One clean shot between the eyes made quite a statement.
Now, there was that pretty young Howell woman to think about. The boss hadn’t thought she’d ever be a problem. She’d been gone for years, but now she was back. Fisher grinned. She was a looker. He hoped the boss wasn’t going to be picky about her. If it came down to killing her, he never minded doing his job, but that would be a job he’d want to decide how to do. She could be enjoyed for a while before she had to die.
Chapter 12
Mesa drove home and slipped into bed. She must have been out of her mind to go to Rafe’s house, but she couldn’t make herself feel any regret. Not yet. That might come later, but for now, she just wanted to remember the warm intimacy they had shared. How would she feel tomorrow walking into The Tepee to meet him in public? How would Raale react to this new relationship between her parents? Lord, she thought silently, I hope this doesn’t hurt my little girl.
She and Rafe hadn’t reached any great solution to their situation, and even the sexual tension between them had been only temporarily sated. She knew that by tomorrow, she would be as drawn to him as she had been her entire life. She smiled into the darkness. It had been so good, being in his arms again.
She didn’t realize she’d even closed her eyes, but Jory called her name as he knocked on her bedroom door. “Mesa, get up. The sheriff is here to see you,” he paused but only for a second, “officially. It’s important.”
She threw back the sheet, snatched on her robe and almost ran to the door. Jerking it open, she looked at Jory. “Is my mom alright?”
“Yeah. It’s one of the newer hands. Just come on down. I’m fixing coffee and Rafe is waiting.” He winked at her. “By the way, he l
ooks like hell.”
Mesa frowned imagining she looked just as bad. She nodded. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”
Closing the door, she quickly pulled on her clothes and ran a brush through her hair. Looking in the mirror, she was surprised that she didn’t even look tired. In fact, she looked as well rested as she felt, and without the benefit of even the little makeup she wore, she didn’t look bad. A smile melted across her face. Her time with Rafe had done that.
When she walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, her eyes automatically sought him first. He smiled, in spite of the seriousness of the situation, and stood up as she approached the table. He pulled out the chair next to him and Jory sat a cup of coffee on the table for her.
She saw her mother and Uncle Rance already at the table and returned her speculating look to Rafe’s face. “This is serious?”
He nodded and sat back down in his seat. “Yeah, it is. What can you tell me about Hal Cartwright?”
Mesa shrugged. “Not a lot.” She looked at Uncle Rance and then at her mother. “He was already here when I came home. I don’t know anything that everyone else doesn’t know.”
“You were dancing with him last night. What did the two of you talk about?”
She frowned. “I don’t really remember. I think he told me he had a couple of my CDs and that he liked working here. Why are you asking about him, Rafe?”
He could feel her anger rising and it was easy to see the tension slipping into her body. Without any forethought Rafe covered one of her hands with his. “Sugar, last night, Hal was murdered. John Montgomery responded to a traffic accident that turned into a shootout and when I got there, I found Cartwright’s body. He’d been shot between the eyes.”
Mesa’s face blanched of all color. “Oh my Lord! He was dead?”
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