Wild Hearts

by Sharon Sala

  “There she goes!” he yelled, pointing down the trail. He leaped off the rock onto the path, confident his long legs and greater strength—not to mention the fact that he was going downhill—would quickly lessen her lead.

  * * *

  Dallas heard them coming, but she couldn’t look back for fear she would stumble. At the speed she was running, it took every ounce of her concentration to stay upright.

  When the first tranquilizer dart flew past her and thunked into the tree beside her head, she panicked.

  She might outrun them, but at this distance they could still put her down like a mad dog, and she wouldn’t even see it coming.

  She only had one chance, and she knew without looking that now was the time, because he would be reloading the gun as he ran. She clenched her jaw, planted her feet and then crouched as she spun. Allowing for the incline, she aimed for the middle of his body and unloaded both barrels.

  She saw the surprise on his face as the buckshot hit. When he grabbed at his legs and crotch, she turned and ran.

  * * *

  Fraser staggered as the buckshot pierced clothing and flesh, and let out a roar of pain and rage as his body began to burn. The pain was piercing , like having fire ants in his jeans with no way to relieve the fury of their bites.

  “She shot me!” he screamed, as his hand came away bloody. “She fucking shot me!”

  Snake didn’t stop to visit. She was getting away, and Sonny Dalton would kill them. He ran past Fraser with his eye on the prize and a skinning knife in his hand.

  * * *

  Trey flew up the drive, fishtailing in the barnyard as he took the turn across the cattle guard, continuing to radio in the final details of his location. When he saw the blue van parked at the far end of the pasture beside Dick’s old pickup, he floored it. The ruts were muddy, but he was going too fast to get stuck.

  He slid to a halt behind the van and jumped out on the run with the rifle clutched tight in his hand. It was easy to see the footprints, and like Fraser and Snake, he followed them up the mountain, with the sounds of approaching sirens coming fast behind him.

  He was less than a hundred yards up the trail when he heard a shotgun go off somewhere above him and shifted direction, ignoring the men’s tracks. From the sound he knew she’d fired both barrels, so wherever she was, she was almost certainly unarmed now. Fear lent speed to his feet as he lengthened his stride.

  * * *

  Dallas’s legs were shaking. She knew someone was still in pursuit, and the extra ammunition for the shotgun was back at the dig. Her only hope was Trey.

  No sooner had she thought his name than she saw him running up the trail toward her with a rifle in his hand. For a heart-stopping second she thought she was hallucinating, and then their gazes locked.

  She caught a flash of joy on his face just before she heard him yell. When he motioned for her to drop, she took a fast dive forward, doing a belly flop in the moss and mud.

  * * *

  One moment he’d been on the trail alone, and the next she ran into view, coming toward him at breakneck speed. The fact that she was still free and breathing, with at least one man still in pursuit, was a miracle.

  Then she saw him, and the look of fear on her face stopped his heart.

  “Get down!” he shouted, and motioned for her to take a dive.

  She went belly first onto the ground without stopping, and she was still sliding when he took the first shot.

  Snake Warren feared two things: going blind and dying. Now they both happened all at once.

  Trey’s shot went through his good eye. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Fraser Pitts was in a pain-filled rage but he was still moving, and the minute Snake was no longer in front of him, he swung the tranquilizer gun up, aiming straight at Trey’s face.

  Trey fired the rifle again.

  The bullet shattered Fraser’s right knee and sent him tumbling over Snake’s body like a semi rolling over a skunk. He came to rest facedown, screaming in pain.

  Trey’s relief was instantaneous.

  He dropped down beside Dallas, who was still belly down in the mud.

  “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you!” he kept asking.

  “I hurt myself,” she moaned, as she rolled over onto her back, holding her stomach.

  “One’s still alive. Don’t move,” Trey said, and ran up to where Fraser was lying, confiscated the tranquilizer gun and Snake’s knife, then patted Fraser down and removed the other darts from his pocket.

  Fraser rolled over onto his side, clutching his knee with both hands.

  “She shot me up with buckshot. My legs are on fire, and my pecker hurts. You busted up my knee. I’m bleeding to death. Someone get me a doctor. I don’t wanna die.”

  Trey yanked the big man into a sitting position and handcuffed his hands behind his back while Fraser continued to curse him and scream.

  “Did Bobby Ramsey beg for his life?” Trey asked, as he locked the second cuff around Fraser’s wrist.

  “I don’t know who that is. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fraser insisted.

  Trey yanked the handcuffs. “The ranger, you fucking coward. You shot him in the back.”

  “No, no, no, we didn’t do that,” Fraser moaned.

  Trey aimed his rifle at the other knee.

  “I’m going to ask you again. Why did you kill him?”

  Fraser shuddered, rocking back and forth in mindless pain.

  “He shouldn’t have been there. If he’d minded his own business it wouldn’t have happened.”

  Trey felt sick. It had happened to his father like that—dying between one heartbeat and the next just because he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  He pointed at Dallas. “Why were you chasing this woman? What does she have to do with you?”

  Fraser moaned.

  Trey pushed the barrel of the gun down on Fraser’s injured knee.

  Fraser screamed.

  “I asked you a question,” Trey said. “I want an answer. Why were you chasing this woman?”

  “She killed Sonny’s dog, damn it! She killed Zeus, and Sonny said since his dog was dead, he wanted her in return. Please! I need a doctor. Don’t let me die.”

  Dallas had been sitting there listening, and when she heard the man tell Trey why they’d been after her, she thought her hearing was playing tricks. She crawled to her feet, screaming out in fury as she started toward him.

  “All of this happened because I killed a dog to save my life? Are you serious?”

  Before Trey could stop her, she swung a fist and punched Fraser in the face. He fell backward, bawling, as he rolled from one side to the other.

  “She broke my nose! She broke my nose!”

  “Whoa now!” Trey yelled, and sat Fraser back up so he wouldn’t drown in his own blood. Then he grabbed Dallas around the waist and swung her out of harm’s way. “You can’t hit an unarmed felon, even if he deserves it,” he said.

  Dallas was shaking with rage. “Yes I can! I’m not a cop!”

  Trey grinned. “Well, just don’t hit him again, okay?”

  She was mud from her chin to her knees, and there was a bleeding cut over one eye, but the fury on her face was clear.

  “Whatever,” she muttered, then sat down with a thump, suddenly too weak to stand.

  The sirens they’d been hearing stopped abruptly.

  “Backup has arrived,” Trey said.

  “You saved my life,” Dallas said, and then put her head between her knees to keep from passing out.

  Trey cupped the back of her neck as he crouched down beside her.

  “I’m damn proud of you,” he said. “You kept your head and saved yourself.”

  She looked up. He grinned at her and winked, just like the first time she’d seen him.

  “I was so scared,” she said, and then she started to cry.

  He gave her a quick hug, and as the sound of running feet came closer, he laid the
rifle at his feet and stood up. Moments later, plainclothes FBI and uniformed officers from the county sheriff’s office reached them.

  Trey held up his arms and his badge, standing between Dallas and the chaos.

  * * *

  While the FBI were taking Dallas’s statement, Trey went up looking for the ginseng patch, and when he found it, he could only stare in disbelief. From where he was standing, dark leaves and red berries dotted the side of the mountain as far as the eye could see. It was a miracle it hadn’t been poached.

  Then he remembered what he’d come to do and began gathering up her things. On his way back down he got a phone call from Lonnie Doyle, with an update on Earl.

  “He’s out of surgery,” Lonnie said. “He’ll be off work for at least six weeks. He had a bullet in his shoulder, broken ribs and a pretty severe concussion. But Carl said Earl woke up and knew him.”

  “That’s great,” Trey said. “I tried to call the station earlier to check, but no one answered the phone. Did you shut the place down?”

  Lonnie chuckled. “No, but Dwight has the runs. Said it was something he ate. He’s kept the path hot between the dispatch desk and the bathroom, that’s all.”

  Trey had to chuckle. “Oh, okay. I know the schedule is all messed up right now, and it’ll be tomorrow before I can go in and work it out. Just consider everyone on duty until further notice, okay?”

  “Yes, sir. I wanted to ask, is your girl okay?”

  “She’s still in one piece. If I can keep her that way long enough, she’s bound to heal up one of these days.”

  “Tell her we all asked about her,” Lonnie said.

  “I’ll do that, and thanks for holding down the fort. If a big emergency comes up, just call. I can be there quick.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lonnie said, and hung up.

  Trey dropped the phone into his jacket, anxious to get back to Dallas and take her home.

  By the time he got back down to the scene, she was sitting off to one side with her head resting on her knees. From where he was standing he could see her body shaking, most likely from the adrenaline crash.

  After a quick confirmation from the lead investigator that she could leave, he helped her up.

  “Think you can walk, baby?”

  “You mean I can go home?”

  “Just hang on to me,” he said, and started leading her away.

  Dallas clung to him all the way down the mountain. When he loaded her into his car, a couple of agents helped them get her old pickup home. One parked the pickup in the shed and then hitched a ride back with his buddy, who’d followed in his own vehicle.

  The hens were scratching and squawking as Dallas hobbled up onto the back porch. “My poor little chickens,” she said.

  Trey kissed her forehead and then tucked a wild strand of hair behind her ear.

  “I’ll feed them and shut them up, and I’ll put the ginseng in the cooler. You can fix it like you want tomorrow,” Trey said. “For now, you need to go soak in a long hot bath.”

  She was watching his lips move, but she couldn’t focus on a word he was saying. He was her anchor to sanity, and all she wanted to do was latch on and never let go. Her head was spinning as she leaned against him, pressing her muddy cheek against his chest.

  “You saved my life.”

  He pulled her close, resting his chin on the crown of her head, and focused on a spot on the wall to keep from crying.

  “I waited a long time for you to come back to me. I couldn’t lose you again.”

  “They had nothing to do with Dad’s murder, though, did they?”

  “Unless some revelation happens at a later date, I don’t think so.”

  He felt her body wilt and understood her despair. She needed all this to be over.

  “Do they have enough to arrest the boss who caused all this hell?”

  “You mean Sonny Dalton?”

  She nodded.

  “Then I would say yes. Fraser Pitts was offering up all kinds of testimony against Dalton in trade for a lesser sentence.”

  “But he murdered Bobby!” Dallas said.

  “And West Virginia doesn’t have the death penalty,” Trey reminded her. “Go take your bath. All of that will happen without us.”

  “I’m filthy,” she said, as she unlocked the door.

  “Leave your clothes in the utility room. I’ll put everything in the washer after I come back inside.”

  “Thank you, Trey...more than I can say.” She stopped inside the utility room and stripped. It was beginning to become routine.

  “Oh, totally my pleasure,” Trey said, as he watched her jacket, shirt and bra hit the floor. He paused a moment longer to admire the scenery and then went out to do her chores.

  Twenty

  They ate leftovers in the living room, watching the televised news conference regarding the murder of Bobby Ramsey. The FBI spokesman announced that they had identified the two men responsible, and stated that one man had died during the arrest and the other was in custody.

  At Trey’s request, no mention had been made of his part in the event, or of the Mystic police in general. No one needed to know that his officer was the one responsible for locating their whereabouts, or that he was the one who’d taken them down. He wanted Sonny Dalton behind bars without him ever knowing who was really responsible.

  While Trey was watching the report, Dallas fell asleep beside him eating Betsy’s apple pie. The plate was sliding out of her lap when he caught it and set it aside. He cradled her hands, looking at her battered palms, and the scratches on her arms and legs, and wondered how much more she could actually take.

  She moaned, and he couldn’t bear it. He scooped her up and carried her to bed.

  “Are you coming to bed with me?” she mumbled, her eyes already closing again as he pulled the covers up over her shoulders.

  “I’ll be in later,” he said, as he kissed her good-night. “I have some calls to make.”

  “’Kay. Love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said softly, and turned out the light.

  He went back into the living room to clean up their dishes, but his thoughts were in free fall. He needed to find a way to help her. At this rate, her body wasn’t going to hold up to digging that much ginseng alone in such a short time, and even worse, now everyone knew it was there.

  He started the dishwasher and was cleaning off the cabinets when his cell phone rang. It was his mother.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hello, honey, I’m not going to waste time with chitchat. I’m calling about Dallas. I know you said earlier she was all right, and that those men didn’t hurt her, but is she really okay? She looked so worn-out yesterday when I was there. Is her shoulder paining her so much she isn’t getting any rest?”

  “It’s not that,” he said, and took the phone into the living room, where he plopped down in the recliner. “We’ve been keeping a secret, but since the gaggle of Feds and most of the officers from the county sheriff’s office were on the mountain today, word is going to spread like crazy, which means the secret is basically out.”

  “What secret?” she asked.

  “Long story short, Dallas found out how Dick was planning on saving the farm. He had a secret ginseng patch that hadn’t been harvested in something like forty or fifty years. He was going to pay off the farm with the money, upward of a hundred thousand dollars, or so the buyer told Dallas. She’s been digging it by herself, wanting to pay the bank back her dad’s way, and being up there alone nearly got her killed. She’s so worn-out right now she can barely move, and the kidnap attempt today about finished her off. I put her to bed like a baby, but I know she’s planning on getting up tomorrow and doing it all over again.”

  His mom was crying, and Trey heard it.

  “God bless her sweet heart. Dick and Marcy raised themselves a real good girl. So how many days does she have left before the loan comes due?”

  “Less than twenty, I think, and that’s if we don’t ha
ve a bunch of poachers getting into her crop. I think the park service has someone watching the patch tonight out of gratitude for our help in catching Bobby Ramsey’s killers. But that’s a onetime thing.”

  “I think I can fix this,” Betsy said. “You tell Dallas not to leave the house in the morning until she hears from me, okay?”

  Trey was leery. His mom could come up with some real harebrained schemes. “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. Just make sure she doesn’t leave.”

  * * *

  Trey was already gone, and Dallas was dressed and waiting for Betsy’s call when she heard a car coming up the drive. She sighed; it was likely someone wanting eggs, which would delay her even more. She went out on the porch to wait for their arrival, then recognized Betsy’s car as it came into sight. And then she saw another car right behind her, and another one behind that one, and another and another, plenty of them pickups and SUVs, so many that she lost count and simply stared in disbelief.

  Betsy got out with a smile as Dallas came to meet her.

  “It is so good to see you’re still in one piece,” Betsy said as she hugged her carefully.

  “What on earth?” Dallas asked, watching woman after woman getting out of their vehicles, people she’d known all her life, coming into the yard.

  As soon as they had assembled, Betsy made her announcement.

  “We came to dig with you, girl. You’re trying to move a mountain a teaspoon at a time to honor your Daddy’s memory, and that kind of thinking sits good with us. Every woman here knows what to look for and how to dig. Most of them dig their own sang every year, and we’re not leaving your place today until yours is out of the ground.”

  Dallas was stunned. Her eyes began welling.

  “I don’t know when I’ve ever been so grateful,” she said, and then went through the crowd one by one, personally hugging everyone and thanking them for what they were about to do.

  “You’ll want water,” she added.

  Betsy threw up her hands, laughing. “Oh, honey, we came prepared. We brought bags, digging tools, first aid kits, and enough food and water for a picnic. You get your stuff and give us a few minutes to shift our loads. We’ll leave the cars here and pile into the pickups and four-wheelers. All you have to do is lead the way. You’ve got girl power behind you today.”