Lois Greiman - [Hope Springs 02]

by Home Fires

  “Anyway, her camera’s got a flash. I’m sure of that, but I don’t know if things’ll show up good without there being a light on. And how we going to know what we’re taking pictures of in the dark?”

  Sophie swallowed, fear sloshing over her other emotions. “They’ll see us for sure from the house if we turn on the lights.”

  “Maybe we can find something that’s out of the way some. A room in back that’ll be harder to notice. I’ll go look,” he whispered, but it was practically impossible to let go of his hand so she tagged along.

  They stumbled over a threshold and into a larger area. The smell was stronger here. A horse nickered. There was the sound of heavy hooves shuffling.

  Then something exploded.

  Ty jumped. Sophie ducked. But nothing else happened. No shots were fired. No one screamed for them to leave. Neither did the noise cease. Instead, it became louder, more insistent.

  “Pawing,” Ty said, voice strained. “Just a horse pawing.”

  She nodded. They skimmed the wall to their left. A horse snorted and jumped, making them stop in their tracks, hearts racing.

  “Easy. It’s all right,” Sophie soothed, but her hands were unsteady. They had no way of knowing how far they were from the horses. Nor did they know if these particular animals would kick. If she was as mistreated as these animals surely were, she might be a little mean. Hell, she was mean anyway.

  Ty tightened his fingers and tugged her along.

  He stumbled suddenly, making her gasp. But in a moment he straightened. “Watch your step,” he said. “I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”

  She swallowed, not sure if that was good news or bad.

  Feeling their way along a wall, they stepped into what felt like a smaller room. She shut the door behind them, then felt around in search of a light switch. She found one at last and pushed it up. Light blasted on above them, seeming hideously bright. Sophie blinked and shielded her eyes, but in a moment her pupils had adjusted. They stood in what had once been a milking parlor. Barely a hundred feet square, it had only one small window facing the road.

  “You okay?” Ty’s eyes were dark and earnest, his voice very soft.

  “Yes.” Her own was barely audible.

  “You sure?”

  “Of course.” She cleared her throat and searched for strength. It was being pretty furtive. “Why?”

  “No reason. I just … I think I might be losing circulation in my fingers.”

  She dropped his hand like a hot poker and waited for him to laugh at her, but his expression remained unchanged.

  “It ain’t too late to get that truck outta here,” he said.

  She stared at him, grateful to the core of her being, lost in his eyes, drowning in his kindness.

  “Soph?” he said, and she jerked.

  “You can leave if you’re scared,” she said and hated herself for the words.

  He watched her for a moment in silence, then said, “I’m going to open the door a ways. You tell me when you think there’s enough light to take your pictures.”

  She nodded. Unable to look at him, she turned toward the interior of the barn as he pushed the door open.

  Dozens of horses stood in two long, ragged lines. Their shaggy heads were turned toward her. A harness was strapped to each mare. Even in the dim light, the chafing around the animals’ flanks was apparent. A narrow rope was tied around each tail and rubber tubing ran from under their docks and away. The stalls were too narrow for them to lie down even if their harnesses would have allowed it. Their bellies were distended with unborn foals.

  Sophie’s vision was still blurred with tears when she began snapping pictures. The pawing continued, a hopeless, metallic sound that gnawed on her nerves and ate at her soul.

  “Soph,” Ty hissed.

  “I’m almost done,” she said, but suddenly the overhead lights snapped on. She gasped and jerked toward the doorway. A giant of a man was silhouetted there. Or maybe it was the rifle in his hands that made him look so huge.

  CHAPTER 18

  “What the hell’s going on?” the giant growled at Sophie.

  Ty had ducked inside a stall like a cowering rabbit. Beside him, a nervous mare stopped pawing to lean away from him in terror. “Easy,” he whispered, then shifted his gaze to a narrow hole between the planks of the stall.

  Near the west door, the giant shrank to human proportions. He was just a man, just a man, Ty told himself.

  “What you doing here?” he asked and shifted his gaze from side to side, searching for others. Ty held perfectly still. Sophie, too, remained exactly as she was, poised between the two rows of horses. The camera was lifted halfway to her face. Her eyes were round and rimmed with white. She looked very small suddenly. Small and fragile and alone.

  Ty knew he should save her, should grab her and run, but he was immobilized, frozen in the tight confines of a chestnut mare’s stall. And that’s where he remained, where his courage abandoned him completely.

  “Christ, you must want it bad to be stumbling around in the dark like a damned ghoul.” He scowled. His head was bare, his hair thinning, though he couldn’t be more than forty years old. “Who sent you anyways?”

  She stared at him, face pale in the glaring light. “No one sent me.”

  He cocked his head a little, thinking. “Then how did you hear about us?”

  “I saw you on the news.”

  His brows shot up. “You’re lying,” he said and took a step forward. “I wasn’t on TV.”

  She skittered back a step. “Not you,” she said and jerked her head to the right as if indicating the place at large. “The farm.”

  “What you talking about?”

  Sophie lifted her chin. “It’s not right,” she said.

  He snorted. “It’s not my fault if people shoot up, then—” He stopped himself. “What’s not right?”

  “The horses.” She all but spat the words. “You can’t keep them in these conditions.”

  “Horses,” he said and laughed. “Christ, you’re just a kid, ain’t you?”

  She didn’t respond. Ty dipped a little lower and forced himself to glance to the side, to try to marshal his senses in an effort to plan a means of escape. There was another door at the far end of the barn, but there was no way to guess if it would even open. Lots of these old buildings had been boarded up tight.

  A scrape of noise snapped Ty’s attention back to the farmer, who propped his rifle against a nearby beam. He raised his hands as if to say he was harmless, smiled as if to assure her they were friends, and took a step toward her. “Listen, honey, let’s start fresh. My name’s Pete Whitesel. What’s yours?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He smiled. “Okay. How about this one? How’d you get here?”

  Sophie shook her head, her gaze never leaving the man. They were only about forty feet apart. “What you’re doing is wrong,” she said.

  He narrowed his eyes at her, tilted his head a little. “You a friend of Vick’s?”

  She scowled at him. “They deserve better,” she said, but her usual bravado was missing, her voice barely audible.

  “Guy’s gotta make a buck,” Whitesel said, “and it’s not like we’re shoving bamboo slivers under their little hooves or something. They’re perfectly content. Except for that one,” he said, nodding to the chestnut beside which Ty crouched. “She’s one crazy bitch.”

  Sophie darted her gaze toward Ty’s hiding place and away. “I’d be crazy, too, if you kept me caged up twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Maybe you are crazy,” Whitesel said and grinned a little. He was short and stocky with a slanted grin and a round face. “How’d you get here, anyway? And who are you?”

  Ty held his breath, willing her not to answer. But Sophie Jaegar was nobody’s fool.

  “I’m the voice of the horse,” she said.

  Whitesel paused, maybe taken aback by her melodramatic tone. “Really?” He chuckled. “I thought a horse’s v
oice would be …” He shrugged. “Taller.”

  She pursed her lips. “I don’t think this is funny.”

  “Well, maybe not,” he said and settled a beefy shoulder comfortably against a nearby post. “But at least it’s legal.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not doing nothing illegal,” he said, nodding toward the rows of confined mares. “I’ve got all the appropriate paperwork in the house if you’d like to see it. Listen, these animals is kept fed and dry. Hell, they’re not even going to be eaten. That’s more than can be said for half the animals in this state.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  He shook his head as if amused by her fervor. “Where did you come from, honey?” he asked. “I didn’t hear you drive up.” He cocked up one quizzical brow. “Are you even old enough to drive?”

  “I’m old enough to know an injustice when I see it,” she said.

  He smiled. “A little girl with convictions.” His eyes looked very bright. His mouth twisted up a little. He sighed. “Listen, why don’t you come on up to the house? We can have some coke … a glass of Coke,” he said, smiling as if he had made a joke.

  “How can you live with yourself?”

  He laughed. “You’re a real Girl Scout, ain’t you?” Something pinged on the metal roof. Ty jumped, but Whitesel just canted his head. “Sounds like it’s starting to rain. Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  She hesitated. For a moment Ty thought she would glance toward him, would reveal his presence, but she was far braver than he. Brave enough to stand alone. “You’re not going to get these pictures,” she said.

  He laughed again. “I don’t want your pictures, cutie. Like I said … ” He motioned to her to hurry. The rain was louder now, making it hard to hear. “This is all good and legal.”

  “So you’re not going to try to stop me?”

  “What do I look like? The big bad wolf?” His teeth looked yellow in the sharp overhead lights.

  She didn’t answer, and he laughed at her reticence. “Come on,” he said again. “Before all hell breaks loose out there.”

  She remained where she was.

  Ty swallowed, desperately trying to coax up a modicum of courage.

  “Seriously,” Whitesel said and stepped forward, “I’m not gonna hurt you. Why would I? You’re just one girl voicing her opinion. Right?” He was only a few yards from her now. “Right?”

  “I think I’ll walk home,” she said.

  “What’s going on?”

  Ty jerked his gaze past the chestnut’s hindquarters as someone stepped through an unknown door behind him.

  “What took you so damn long?” Whitesel asked.

  Maybe it was the dark timbre of his voice that made Ty act. Maybe it was some instinct older than time. But whatever the case, he suddenly snapped to his feet. Panicked, the chestnut reared back, and in that second Ty reached forward and jerked her tie loose. She reared, pivoting wildly. For an instant she was stuck in the stall’s narrow confines, but then she jolted away, ripping her tail loose of its rope, tearing the catheter free. The falling apparatus only frightened her more. She leaped from her stall like a loosed torpedo. Racing around the corner, she charged for the door at the east end of the barn. Whitesel dove out of her path just as Ty jumped over the stall into the wide aisle.

  With freedom in her sights, the mare careened past Sophie, then skittered onto the wet concrete outside. Ungainly and terrified, she crashed to the ground. The sound was sickening, deafening. But Ty was already beside her. He grabbed the flapping leather tie out of sheer instinct and steadied her as she lurched to her feet, but Whitesel was already coming, racing toward the door, rifle in hand, eyes wide with fury.

  Terror spurred through Ty at the sight. “Let’s go!” he yelled.

  Sophie turned toward him in silent questioning, but he was already pivoting toward the mare. Grabbing her tangled mane, he swung aboard. She half reared, but he reached for Sophie’s hand. “Come on!” he rasped.

  There was a moment of hesitation and then their fingers met. Whitesel raised his rifle. A bullet exploded. The mare pivoted away in panic, nearly ripping Sophie from Ty’s fingers, but somehow their grips held. The momentum snatched Sophie from the ground. Reaching for his waist with her left arm, she swung up behind him.

  One moment they were standing still and the next they were galloping, racing across an open field, holding on for dear life, cursing and praying as they sped north, directly away from old Puke.

  There were garbled shouts from behind them. “Get the car.”

  “… busted my leg.”

  “Don’t be—”

  But the rest of the words were lost in the wind, in the rain.

  “Turn her around!” Sophie ordered. Her lips all but brushed Ty’s ear. Her breasts bumped his back. But he couldn’t even think about that. Staying aboard was all consuming. “Hurry. Turn her.”

  It took all Ty’s strength to get the animal turned around, all his teetering balance to stay astride. But the mare was game. She plowed off toward the south, leaping through the night like a wild mustang. Stumbling up the ditch, she nearly fell to her knees as she skittered onto the gravel road thirty yards from the horse trailer. She was huffing. Her heaving ribs felt like wooden lathes against Ty’s calves. He pulled her in a tight circle. Headlights raced down the drive, then turned east before careening north.

  Sophie slipped to the ground. Ty followed suit, his legs barely supporting him as he reached solid footing. “Let’s go,” he said, and setting the mare free, pivoted toward the truck, but Sophie had already grabbed the mare’s lead and was tugging her toward the trailer.

  “Help me.”

  He stopped in his tracks and flashed his gaze toward the speeding headlights. “No.” He knew what she was thinking. Knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. “They’re going to find us in a second.”

  “Open the trailer!” she barked.

  For a moment he considered arguing, but agreement was the quickest way to depart. He swung the door open. Sophie jumped into the vehicle, tugging as she went, but the mare resisted, hauling against the lead.

  Ty swore quietly. The headlights were out of sight now, but it wouldn’t be long until they circled the whole farm and found them in the middle of the road. “Let her go,” he said. “Just let her go.”

  But Sophie didn’t even seem to hear him. Instead, she stepped down from the trailer and raised a soothing hand toward the mare. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s all right.”

  Ty swore in silence this time, although it clearly was not all right; that man had a rifle!

  “Sophie,” he said, trying to keep his tone level, “we gotta go.”

  “I know it’s dark,” she said, her tone smooth as satin as she continued to ignore him. “I know you’re hurt. But if you’ll just trust me … just for a little while … I can help you.”

  The mare took a tentative step toward her.

  Ty turned his attention to the north. The headlights appeared again, swinging wildly to the left, heading west.

  “Sophie …” he warned.

  “Get some grain,” she said.

  “Wh—”

  “Oats!” she said. Though she didn’t raise her voice or change the smooth cadence, the words were clearly a command. “I think there’s some in the back of the truck.”

  Ty squeezed his eyes shut, gritted his teeth, and galloped off to do her bidding. Lightning cracked overhead, illuminating the contents of Puke’s truck bed. Yanking the cover off a feed can, Ty scooped up some grain.

  The mare jerked and snorted as he reappeared around the trailer door, but the headlights were getting closer and there was no time to lose. He shoved the pail under the mare’s nose. She took a tentative taste. He pulled the bucket toward the trailer and she followed.

  “Thatta girl,” Sophie said. “Thatta girl.” In a moment she had stepped back into the trailer. “Holy crap, I’d give a kidney for some lights,” she said.

&nb
sp; “Lights!” Ty’s voice was as soft as hers, but breathy with unbridled fear. “If you’re going to be giving up internal organs at least trade them for something useful.” He stepped up beside her. Rain struck the metal roof in a loud patter, soaking his right shoulder as he leaned into the onslaught, offering the grain again. The mare stretched her neck.

  “Like what?” Sophie asked. “Come on, mare. You can do this.”

  “Like a hard-ass attorney,” he suggested, and in that second the mare stepped into the trailer.

  Sophie hurried backward and the mare hopped in. Nervous, but game, she thrust her head back into the bucket.

  After that it was just a couple heart-thumping seconds before she was locked inside and they were racing toward the cab.

  “You drive!” Sophie rasped and pressed the keys into his hand. Then, yanking the passenger door open, she dove inside.

  There was nothing he could do but follow suit. His hands were still shaking as he shoved the key into the ignition. The engine rattled to life.

  “They’re coming!” Sophie said.

  He slammed into first. Gears ground, but they jerked forward.

  “Lights!” she said, but he was shaking his head.

  “No lights.”

  “What?” She swung around to stare out the back window. “I can’t see anything.”

  “It’s not like we can outrun them,” he said. Their tires spun on the gravel.

  “Hurry up!”

  He shifted into second, ground into third. The headlights had almost reached the crossroad behind, just about to turn toward them. They looked close enough to spit on. It was darker than hell. But there had to be a side road to turn onto soon. Maybe just past the stand of trees that grew beside—

  “Turn right!” Sophie shouted.

  “What?”

  “Turn!”

  He did so without thinking, without seeing. They careened off the road. Ty gasped, Sophie shrieked, the trailer bumped like a bucking bronco and then the engine died, spilling them into silence.

  They held their breath. The car behind them fishtailed into the turn behind them. Headlights filled their mirrors. Their pursuers screamed up to them … and tore past.