by Leona Karr
THE HORSEBACK RIDE across the snow-covered ranch was slow going for Hal and Zack. They tried to avoid the deepest drifts, but both horses were often belly-deep in snow as they headed toward the frozen riverbed snaking along the bottom of a rocky draw. The wind had fashioned snow sculptures out of every fence post, rock, tree and boulder. Hal squinted against the brightness of sun breaking through the clouds. In every direction the landscape glistened with specks of diamond brightness. Beautiful, he thought, and misleading. Snow like confectioner’s frosting lent a deceptive softness to the rough ground and craggy hills.
Hal gave a wave of his gloved hand to Zack, motioning him toward the outcropping of rock where the pilot had said the cattle were trapped in the riverbed.
Zack nodded. The frown on his face made it plain that he resented being forced to come along.
Tough, thought Hal. Zack could damn well do his job one more time before taking off. Then he could be on his way. Hal was surprised it hadn’t happened before now. He’d never expected the young cowboy to settle down for long. In a way, he was sorry. There was a lot he liked about the young man. Oh, he knew Zack did some carousing in town and had girls out in the bunkhouse, but as long as he did his work, Hal wasn’t going to play the father figure. If Zack hadn’t pushed himself on Jill and gotten crosswise of Kirby, things could have been smoothed over. But not now. Once they got back to the house, he’d hand over Zack’s motorcycle keys. Hal was sure now that Zack had been the one who had gone through Jill’s things, and spooked her the night the lights went off. He cursed himself for not seeing it earlier. He was glad he had not left Zack at the house with Jill. He’d send him on his way fast enough when they got back.
Which wasn’t going to be very soon, Hal thought wearily when they got to an elevated ridge just above the riverbed. Looking down, he saw that the situation was as dire as the pilot had said. About a dozen steers had crowded together against a wall of rock, trying to get out of the wind and blowing snow. Unfortunately, a wide fault in the hillside had allowed the blizzard winds to sweep downward and make a wall of snow on one side of the rock outcropping. High drifts and brittle trees weighted with snow had broken and fallen across the riverbed around the cattle, adding to the barricade that trapped the animals.
Hal silently groaned when he saw a couple of dead steers in the snow. Probably trampled underfoot when the helicopter went over, he thought. He’d lose even more if he didn’t get them free and back in the pasture as soon as possible.
Zack reined his horse beside Hal’s. “Looks bad. No way just two men are going to dig ‘em out,” he said flatly. “Better leave them there.”
“Leave them there? For how long? Till it thaws?” Hal asked sarcastically.
“Digging through all that snow will take hours.”
“Then we’d better get started.” He motioned for Zack to follow him down the hill to the frozen river.
JILL SAT UP on the bench and drew back against the wall of the camper. Her mind refused to believe what was happening. Her thoughts whirled in every direction like dried leaves in a violent wind. On some detached level she noticed the row of Stephen King books on a nearby shelf. But Scotty couldn’t be the stalker. Not Hal’s friendly neighbor. Not the congenial fisherman. There had to be some mistake.
But as the Scotsman stood over her, a satisfied hardness in his eyes, she knew there was no mistake. None at all. He’d only been a heavy breather on the phone until this moment. Now she had a face to put on the nameless stalker—a sandy-haired, blue-eyed, middleaged fisherman, who had been only inches away from her for four days. She shivered.
“Cold?” he asked solicitously.
“No.” She forced her stiff lips to answer, eying the door. He had shut it but not locked it…yet. There was still a chance she could bolt for it if he turned his back on her.
“Let’s get those wet things off,” he said as if speaking to a child. He sat down on the edge of the bench beside her. His movements were calm, unhurried, and his large hands were deceptively gentle. Her skin prickled as he purposefully removed her scarf and took off her jacket.
“It’s nice and warm in here, don’t you think?” he asked in the conversational tone she knew so well. What a perfect mask he wore—congenial, helpful, and ever so considerate. There had been nothing to give him away. Nothing. Bitter bile seeped up into her throat.
She wanted to fight off his touch, but some flicker of caution made her resist the panicked impulse. Better to wait, she told herself. Make any physical resistance count. Better to try to defuse the situation with talk. She moistened her dry lips. “I don’t understand, Scotty. You made those calls? Sent me those things? Took my picture? Why?”
He reached under the bench and pulled out a wooden box with brass hinges. In spite of herself, she was caught by a bizarre interest in whatever was in that box.
He opened the lid, then thumbed through papers and photos of various sizes until he found a small snapshot of two people. He held it out to her.
Jill blinked. For a moment she thought she was looking at herself. A young woman stood with her hands on the shoulders of a young boy as they smiled at the camera. She was a brunette with a long braid falling over one shoulder, slender build, and wearing jeans, a white blouse and a pink scarf. A cold chill snaked up Jill’s back.
“You see the resemblance, don’t you?” Scotty’s eyes fastened on Jill’s face. “The first time I saw you walking down the street, I couldn’t believe my eyes. And when I followed you home and saw Billy come out of the house—”
“Randy,” she automatically corrected. The boy in the photo didn’t look anything like her son, but there was a hint of a resemblance between herself and the woman in the picture, the same build, the same braided dark brown hair. “Who is she?”
The freckles on his face darkened like black pox. “My wife, Angie…and that’s my son.”
Jill scrambled mentally to remember what Hal had said about his neighbor. Lived alone. Moved here from Texas a few years ago. Something about a wife and son. “Where are they now?”
His face hardened. “Dead.”
She recoiled from his expression but couldn’t keep from asking, “What happened?”
“She left me. Took the boy and ran out Said I wasn’t a good father. Too much a loner.” He gave a short laugh. “She said I never followed through on anything, but I showed her. In the end, she knew different. I saw it in her face just before my truck sent her car off the road.” His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know Billy was lying down in the backseat till later. I might have chosen a different way if I’d known.”
Dear God, he killed them. She must have made a breathless gasp, because he glared at her. In the depths of his eyes was unresolved guilt and lingering hatred. As if the past had somehow been superimposed upon the present, he looked at her with hatred. “I thought I could make things up when I found you. But you’re just like her. I could tell my little gifts meant nothing. I was in town when you left in the Jeep. I finished up as quickly as I could and tried to catch up with you. It was difficult to see—what with visibility down to practically zero—but I managed to make out your Jeep, that other car, and Hal taking you horseback to the ranch. I decided then to pretend my electricity went out so I could show up at the ranch and be with you. I drove around to the front of the house, parked halfway down Hal’s driveway, and waited until the snow thickened. Then I called the house on my cell phone, pretending I was at my place. I knew Hal would invite me over.”
“You were the one who went through my things. And scared me the night the lights went out. And I bet you cut the telephone line, too.”
He nodded. “All the time I was trying to be nice, you ignored me. You gave more attention to those other fellows than you gave to me. But all that’s going to change.” He reached out and stroked her hair. “It’s going to be just you and me. Nobody else.”
She stiffened inwardly against his touch but tried not to let him see her repulsion. Her only chance of handling him
was to try to play along as best she could. “I’m sorry, Scotty. I didn’t realize that I was hurting your feelings. There were so many things going on. I had my hands full with Sue and the baby, and then I bumped my head.” She knew she was babbling, but she didn’t know what else to do. “You understand, don’t you? Let’s go back to the house and—”
“No! Don’t try to sweet-talk me. I know what’s going on with you and Hal. I’ve got eyes in my head. Well, it’s not going to happen. I’ve got one of my cabins all ready for you. Nobody’ll think of looking for you there. My place is shut up for the winter. Nobody around. Eventually they’ll find you buried in a snowdrift, but not until we’ve had a little time together. You and I have some unfinished business.” He glared at the photo in his hand as if speaking to the woman there.
“I’m not Angie!” Jill’s voice broke.
“I know that,” he said calmly. “You’re Jill Gaylor, a city lass who thinks she can make a fool of a good-old Texas boy and get away with it.”
AFTER A FEW MINUTES of fruitless effort to make any kind of progress through the high snowbanks, Hal-knew that Zack was right. There was no way two men were going to lift that much snow with the small shovels they had brought along. A fallen tree blocked the only span of snow that was less than five feet high. Its branches were half buried in the snow and reached several feet across the riverbed.
“Hopeless,” Hal muttered and motioned to Zack. He led the way up again up a snowy slope above the riverbed where they reined in their horses at a spot over-looking the stranded cattle. Once again, Hal tried to examine the situation from every direction. There was only one low spot in the snow pocket and that was where the tree had fallen.
“Ready to give it up and go back to the house? Zack asked in an I-told-you-so tone.
Hal narrowed his eyes as he continued to survey the scene below. “No, I have another idea. Come on.” He kicked his horse and led the way again down the bank to the riverbed.
IN A SURGE OF PANIC, Jill tried to get up but Scotty shoved her back down. “You had all of them fighting over you, when it was plain as day you had your sights set on Hal. I tried to warn you. I told you to back off and leave him alone. Gave you every chance to see he wasn’t the one for you. But you hooked him anyway. I can’t stand by and watch you treat him the way Angie treated me.”
“No, you have it all wrong.” Jill grasped at anything that might keep Scotty’s truck parked where it was as long as possible. She prayed that Hal had gotten back to the house and was looking for her. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Hal.”
“Lies. Lies. I’ve heard ‘em all before. You can save your breath. Hal’s been a good friend to me, the only one I have. But he’s plain dumb when it comes to women. It made me sick to see the way he was taken in by you. I was glad that I’d already decided what had to be done.”
“If you care about Hal’s friendship, you won’t do this. Stop this now. I promise I won’t say anything. He’ll never know that this has happened. I’ll keep quiet about everything. I was going to go to the sheriff and report the calls, but I won’t.”
“I know you won’t, ‘cause you’re not going to be doing any talking to anybody. I’ll keep you hidden as long as it suits me, and then you’ll have an unfortunate accident. Too bad, a city girl like you wandering off by yourself.”
“No one will believe it!”
“Yes, they will.” Scotty grunted in satisfaction. “Don’t you see that bump on your head made you go a little crazy? You must have decided to go outside while Hal was gone. I have an idea that they’ll have to dig through a hundred snowbanks before they find you. Such a shame. I’ll be the first one to console Hal. He won’t know about the hours I had you in my cabin. It wouldn’t be right to taunt him about the pleasures meant just for me.”
Jill was stunned. Her mind couldn’t handle his twisted reasoning. Sexually enamored, intending to enjoy himself with her while at the same time filled with diabolical vengeance to end her life.
“Time to get rolling,” Scotty said as he put the photo back in the box and was about to close the lid.
In desperation, Jill stayed his hand. “I bet there’s some pictures of you in there. Let me see.” She reached for the box.
“No.” He slammed down the lid. “I’ll get you tied up and we’ll head out.” He bent over slightly to return the box under the bench.
Wild panic shot through her like a prairie fire. She shifted positions, raised a booted foot, and kicked him in the side of the head as hard as she could. He was looking down and didn’t see it coming. Miraculously, the blow knocked him off his seat on the edge of the bench and sent the box flying.
She was up in a split second.
He reached for her legs and missed..
Bounding to the door, she flung it open.
“You bitch!” He would have caught her in the doorway if his feet hadn’t slipped on the tracked-in snow melting all over the slick linoleum.
She was down the steps and around the corner of the truck before he was on his feet again and out the door after her.
AS HAL AND ZACK herded the cattle toward the home pasture, Hal was damn pleased with himself. His idea born of desperation had proved successful. The snow-buried tree lying across the frozen riverbed had provided the answer for freeing the cattle. Hal had grabbed at the idea that it wouldn’t take much of an opening to get the cattle through if they could pull the tree back a few feet. Viewing the fallen tree from above, he visualized it as a gate swinging open and its branches sweeping the snow aside as it moved to one side.
“Get your rope,” Hal had ordered. “Lasso that top branch and I’ll get the limb below it.”
“You aiming to drag the damn tree down the river?” Zack’s disgusted look had told him what he thought of the idea.
“No. We’re going to make a gate out it. If we pull on the end of it in a fanlike motion, the trunk and branches should sweep enough snow aside to make the drift low enough to get a horse in the pocket and drive the cattle out.”
A reluctant smile had broken through Zack’s frown. “Pretty smart, boss, if it works.”
They looped the desired tree branches with one end of their ropes and wrapped the other end around their saddle horns. Backing up their horses, it took the strength of both mounts to move the tree and make a wide-enough sweep of trunk, branches and snow to create an opening to free the animals.
“Yahoo!” shouted Zack.
Hal laughed loudly. “We did it!”
Savoring the success of their efforts, for a moment all friction between them was forgotten. They were two men who had won over nature. In a matter of minutes they had the steers moving across the snow-covered ground toward the corrals.
“Pretty sad-looking,” Zack commented as they drove them toward the house.
Hal nodded in agreement. The animals were in bad shape. The mouths of several steers were frozen shut. Four days out in the storm had taken its toll, and they’d left three carcasses in the riverbed. It could have been worse, he told himself. With the storm over, all’s well that end’s well, he thought as he rode behind the slow-moving cattle.
JILL SPRINTED toward the house. Terror sent adrenaline rushing through her body as gasps of cold air burned her lungs. Could she outrun him? Her arms and legs moved frantically as she ran as fast as she could toward the front door of the house. The snow still held the footsteps she and Scotty had made earlier, but now the shoveled path stretched before her in a seemingly unending line. The house seemed miles away instead of a few hundred yards.
Dear God, don’t let me fall. She knew how quickly her feet could go out from under her. One false stumble and all would be lost. She could hear Scotty’s faint heavy breathing behind her, but she didn’t dare turn around to see how close he was. She wanted to cry out for help, but the frigid air forced every breath back down her throat. She had no heavy coat to weigh her down, but only a few minutes in the freezing temperature could be disastrous.
With gasping brea
th she reached the front door, grabbed the knob, flung the door open and bolted inside. Slamming the door behind her, she raced down the hall to the kitchen, shouting, “Kirby! Kirby! Help!”
Only silence greeted her frantic cries.
The kitchen was empty. No sounds from upstairs.
As the front door slammed open, she realized too late that she should have bolted the front door.
Kirby. Where was Kirby? He must still be out at the bunkhouse. She heard Scotty’s heavy steps in the hall.
Run. Run.
She was out the back door before he reached the kitchen. As she ran down the snow path, she knew that she’d never make it to the bunkhouse before he caught up with her. Her only chance was to hide, and the barn was the only place that offered any chance of concealment She tried to scream, but the cold air drove the sounds back into her throat
Frantically, she jerked open the small door and darted inside. After the pristine white outside, the sudden darkness momentarily blinded her. Horses stomped restlessly, and she heard Gypsy’s welcoming meow as she fled past the stalls.
Where to hide? In one of the empty stalls. The loft? Should she run out the back door and try to get away like the man Hal had shot? From nowhere came the memory of Hal saying he kept a rifle the tack room to stop would-be predators.
Maybe the gun was still there. The fact that she’d had next to no experience firing a gun was lost in the moment of desperation.
She darted into the tack room, slamming the door behind her. Quickly her eyes swept the small cluttered room. Saddles, bridles, grain sacks, and watering buckets stacked everywhere. She despaired of finding the rifle when, at the last minute, her eyes lit on it propped up in the corner.
She grabbed, swung around, and clumsily pointed it at the door. She didn’t even know if it was loaded. She waited. Every second, the rifle grew heavier and heavier in her hands. No sound of muffled footsteps. Maybe he hadn’t seen her come in the barn? Or maybe he was looking in the stalls, trying to discover her hiding place?