Jesu Cristo, protect that child from evil. And if you cannot grant this plea, then give me the strength to protect him. I will not let another child die.
THE WIND CONTINUED with such force that at times the rain actually blew parallel with the ground. It surrounded Virgil and Desiree with a cold vehemence that neither jeans nor slicker could withstand.
“Let’s dump the raincoats, Virg,” Desiree said. “This yellow is too bright.” She shrugged off one borrowed slicker and let it fall to the ground for retrieval later, though she did keep the other wrapped around the gun.
Virgil followed suit. Pride, Wyatt’s horse, shied as the wind caught his slicker and blew it into the air. Pearl Drop shied seconds later, but not because of the raincoat.
She’d reacted to the sound of a gun. Virgil saw the slicker jerk unnaturally as the bullet went right through it.
“Desiree, get down!” Virgil yelled. He hunched low on Pride, keeping his seat.
Desiree slid off the horse and hit the dirt rolling, Caro’s rifle, wrapped in the slicker, still in her hand.
Virgil’s chest tightened as he saw her go down. Lord, don’t let her be hurt. Please let her be all right.
“Drop the slicker!” he screamed, just as another report echoed.
He watched her roll, then stop, covered in mud. Is she hurt from the fall or a bullet?
“Desiree! Desiree!”
He tried to turn Pride and tried to backtrack, but Pride, already harassed by one stranger in the barn, and now carrying a strange rider, was eager to get back to his stablemates. He bucked hard, just as a third shot rang out.
LOZEN HEARD THE TWO SHOTS, then the third. Guns were foreign to her. She, like her daughter, had never touched a firearm. She didn’t believe in killing. As a surgeon, she had taken an oath to save all life. She had no clue where the report came from, but she did know what the sound meant. Travis is in danger! She took off at a full run toward the campground..
TRAVIS STRUGGLED with his captor outside in the storm. “Let me go!” he screamed. “Let me go!”
His captor grabbed him even harder and wrested the gun from his smaller hand. Travis kicked his hardest with feet that could balance a surfboard on a Pacific wave, calves that could skate for miles on beach boardwalks, thighs that could outrun those twice his size.
His kick worked. His assailant dropped him roughly in the mud, but then Travis received a kick in the ribs himself, which knocked the air out of him. The enemy grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the nearest tent. A second figure came out of nowhere. Travis saw a flash of white as a fiberglass cast struck his assailant in the back.
Travis tried to scream as Lozen clutched his shirt with her good hand and pulled him free. He’s got my gun! He was still gasping for breath. Get it! “He dropped the gun!” he managed to wheeze.
Lozen looked frantically at the boy, not understanding. Travis stared at the ankle-deep mud, trying to spot and retrieve the gun. Suddenly his assailant started to rise. Lozen ran, dragging Travis by the shirt. “Run, boy, run!”
DESIREE ROSE from her knees to her feet, spitting out mud as she grabbed Pearl Drop’s reins. Luckily the mare had stayed close to the stallion; she hadn’t bolted because he hadn’t. Virgil, you’re one hell of a rider. Desiree saw the horror in Virgil’s expression. The fear. Caro’s right. He does love me. It’s there on his face. She spoke quickly.
“I’m all right, Virgil. You?”
“Yeah. That was too close. I should never have let you put on that slicker.”
“Quit beating yourself up and tie the horses,” she said as Virgil slid off a nervous, shifting Pride. “We’ll have to go in on foot. You circle around and take the back. I’ll take it from the front.”
“The hell I will! No splitting up. We’re almost at the campground.”
“I may have the only functioning firearm,” Desiree said calmly. “Your gun’s wet.”
“Neither one of us can see to shoot in this slop, anyway.”
“Tell that to whoever put holes in my slicker!”
Virgil fought to retain his footing in the wet mud. “We have no radios, maybe only a single weapon. There’s strength in numbers. If he picks us off individually, there’s no one left to help Travis and Lozen. Or have you forgotten about them, Sheriff?”
“I haven’t forgotten a damn thing, Deputy!”
“Then we rush him together.”
Desiree bit her lip, the rainwater streaming down her face. I’m the sheriff. But Travis is his son! What to do? “Agreed—we stay together. But we don’t go in without a diversion in the campground.” She patted Pearl Drop’s neck. “How about it, girl? Wanna kick up your heels and stir up some hell?”
Virgil focused on her wet, muddy face. “Sweetheart, I love your style.”
LOZEN AND TRAVIS RAN through the maze of tents and rusty pickups and trailers, their outlines blurred in the growing dark and rain.
“He’s got a gun!” Travis gasped.
“Keep running.”
“He wants to kill us!”
“No way!” The sight of the boy, a frightened child, melted her heart and freed the maternal urges she thought had died with her only son. She had to save Travis. She had to forge a new bond with her daughter. I have the birth of my first grandchild to see. The father of my daughter still loves me. There is too much life ahead to die now.
“He’s catching up!”
“Shut up and run! Stay on the concrete!”
They ducked behind a trailer, then circled around a pickup before doubling back to the outhouses, leaving a confusing trail with as few footprints as possible. Lozen went to the unused outhouse with no door and shoved the boy forward. She lifted the oversize toilet seat, then pointed toward the water-logged murky area beneath.
“Jump,” Lozen ordered.
“No way! It’s gross down there!”
“It’s only mud and rainwater—the door’s broken on this one.”
“I don’t care. It’s still gross.”
“You wanna see gross? How about your blood splattered all over your chest!” she hissed in his ear, pushing him again.
Travis climbed up on the splintered wood, hesitated, then slid down.
“Move away from the light, tight against the wall!” Lozen commanded. “Stay here until I or someone you know comes for you.”
Travis did as she ordered. “But what if—”
“I’ll be in the next outhouse. Be silent and listen for help. If you want to live, Bodine, not a sound!”
Lozen ran to the other outhouse, the one with the broken door. She ignored her throbbing arm and jumped down into the wet depths beneath, landing off balance in the muck. She felt the bones in her ankle snap and fell into an agonizing ball of pain. She didn’t need an X ray to know it was broken.
Jesu Cristo, protect us from our enemy. Keep this piece of coyote dung away from Travis. Keep Travis quiet. His impatience is dangerous. Lozen bit her lip hard to keep from sobbing aloud: Rogelio, my heart, where are you?
VIRGIL AND DESIREE approached the campground with its sodden tents and shabby trucks, coming as close as they dared. Gun and rifle in hand, they lifted the long western reins and, in tandem, whacked them hard across their horses’ rumps. The horses charged forward through the small campground, eager to escape back to the warmth of their bam. Virgil and Desiree rushed Jondell’s tent, Desiree covering Virgil with the rifle.
Virgil reached the entrance and burst through. Jondell shrieked as Virgil, still holding his gun, grabbed his shirt with one hand and lifted the smaller man off his feet.
“Where’s my son, you bastard?”
“I—”
“And the woman with him! Where are they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Desiree dashed into the tent just as Virgil lifted his gun to Jondell’s head.
“Virgil, no!”
TRAVIS’S ATTACKER WAS panicked, but not so panicked that he didn’t know it was time to leave. Wild
rain, running horses, two cops—it all meant he wouldn’t find the brat and the woman. Stealth and secrecy were his allies; he didn’t do his fighting in the open. He’d return and finish his business some other time.
Not today. Right now he’d hike to the rented truck he’d hidden a mile or so up the road, then drive back to his Tucson hotel. He’d lie low for a while. When the rain stopped, when the storm cleared and the mud dried, he’d be ready to strike again. Slow torture was his specialty. He’d done quite well today.
“VIRGIL, No! He’s not the one!” Desiree screamed.
“Yes, he is!”
“Look at him! He’s not even wet. This tent’s not wet inside.”
Virgil barely, just barely, reined in his killing instincts.
“Put the man down, Deputy, and put away your gun! That’s an order!”
Reality filtered through his rage. He released Jondell, bolstered his gun.
A shaken Jondell tottered backward but managed to keep his feet. “What’s going on?” he gasped.
“A woman and young child are missing,” Desiree said, clasping Virgil’s arm. He’d become a dangerous predator; his body language still threatened Jondell. “Have you seen them?”
“No. Unlike you two, I have sense enough to come in out of the rain.” Jondell took in a deep breath. “I’ll help you look. I haven’t heard any cars leave. They must still be on foot.”
“You’ll help me?” Desiree echoed.
“Hey, I got kids of my own, you know.”
Desiree saw the love on his face for family, the concern for a child not his own. She saw him as a man, a very flawed, damaged, even dangerous man—but a man, not a monster. “Stay inside,” Desiree said. “It isn’t safe out there.”
“As if you care,” Jondell said in a shaky voice.
Desiree paused. “If I didn’t care, sir, I wouldn’t have pulled off my deputy.” They stared at each other, and for a split second, there were only the two of them in the tent. “I’m sorry about what I did to you,” Desiree said. “It was wrong. I was wrong.”
Jondell couldn’t speak. He turned his head away, then lifted it again. “So was I.”
“Just like that? Instant remorse?” Virgil scoffed. “After everything you’ve done?”
Jondell shrugged. “Why not? It’s the Tombstone way.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Virgil demanded.
When he spoke again, Jondell’s voice was painfully serious. “Old Tombstone’s chirches and schools were built by its prostitutes. Doc Holliday was a wanted man, a cold-blooded killer, before he hooked up with the Earps. You know all that. What I’m saying is...if others can reform, why not me?”
“Reform might be an old-fashioned Tombstone tradition, but what about rape? That isn’t.”
“I know. I know. I—I can’t tell you how much I regret everything I did. But I’ve done enough damage, made enough mistakes. I have a family I love. I want them back.”
“What about your plans for revenge against my sheriff?”
“Stupid. Stupid. I don’t want her to suffer anymore. I don’t want anyone to suffer. Maybe I’ve got religion. Maybe it’s something about Tombstone. I don’t know... I want to get some counselling, whatever it takes. And I want to go home.”
This time, even Virgil didn’t doubt the man’s good intentions.
“But first, I want to help.” Jondell added.
“You stay here,” Desiree said. “Your kids don’t want to see you dead. Neither do I.”
“You...don’t?”
“No, not anymore. It won’t change what happened to Linda. It won’t help your children, either. Come on, Virg. Let’s find Travis.”
Virgil gave her an incredulous look as she left the tent and motioned for him to follow her.
“I gotta hand it to you, Sheriff. You never give me a dull moment.”
“Things’ll calm down once we find Travis and Lozen. You’re the tracker. What next?”
Virgil stepped out into the middle of the camp. The wind had let up and the rain was now falling perpendicular to the ground. The marks of earlier violence were still visible. The campsite was a sodden mess of horses’ hoofs, footprints and mud, but that wouldn’t last long. Even their own recent footprints were fading into puddles to blend with the desert surface. A few residents peered out from their battered campers or patched tents, but no one emerged to help.
“I’ll sweep the outer circle of the camp first,” he said.
“I’ll search the tents and trailers. It doesn’t look like anyone’s in the office, but I’ll try there, too.”
“Be careful,” Virgil warned.
“You, too. Hurry, Virg. It’s getting dark fast.”
Virgil was quick. There wasn’t much ground to cover. He rejoined Desiree just as she finished searching the last of the tent sites.
“I found the tracks of one person leaving the camp. It’s him,” Virgil said grimly. “And he’s alone.”
“Who is it?” Desiree demanded. “Do you know?”
“Maybe. But Travis and Lozen aren’t with him.” The desperation and anguish as he spoke his son’s name were unbearable.
Desiree stopped, the rain washing down her uniform. Her bare feet were almost numb with cold. “I might be crazy, but I think I know where they are,” she said. “If I was going to hide someplace, I’d—”” She almost laughed.
“You pretty sure of this? Where?”
She told him. “Coming?”
Virgil shook his head. “No. I’m going after him, before I lose his trail.”
“You get Travis and Lozen. I’ll get our man. That’s my job.”
“Not this time. As for Travis, I entrust him to you.”
“What?” She was astonished-and moved—by what he’d said, and by the formal way he’d said it. Like a blessing. Or a promise.
“I said I trust you with my son. And with my life, my heart. I love you, Desiree.”
He pulled her close for a kiss that was as brief as it was desperate. Desiree almost dropped her rifle.
“Take care of them. I have business to finish.”
Before she could say another word, he was gone, jogging through the rain.
VIRGIL RAN through the saguaros and over soil dark with rain, remembering hibiscus blossoms growing over Italian tiles. He remembered the sneakers that a young man in California had worn. He remembered the shocked expression of the boy he’d shot and captured. He remembered the boy’s armload of stolen clothes, the starlet’s birds he’d killed. He visualized Onyx’s slashed tendon, Oscar’s bleeding tail, the dead kitten.
He ran even faster, kicking off his moccasins, his bare feet running and blending with Silver Dollar soil.
For the first time in many years, he felt as though he were one with the land, with the stormy sky, with the rain-laden air. He had always been a protector. But this was different. Virgil was on his own land. This time, the advantages are all mine. He saw the culprit up ahead and ran even faster, gun in hand. The prey couldn’t hear his footsteps in the rain. Closer...closer still...until he was almost close enough to strike.
Some instinct made the prey turn. Eighteen-year-old Mitchell Gibson reached under his baggy T-shirt with a motion Virgil had seen once before. The stalker pulled out his gun, but Virgil was quicker. Pistol in hand, he aimed for the same shoulder he’d wounded the last time and pulled the trigger.
The trigger connected with the bullet, but the wet powder didn’t ignite. The bullet didn’t leave the gun. Virgil didn’t take the time to pray or swear—he let his reflexes take over. He threw the loaded gun into the face of Gibson just as the teenager pulled the trigger on his own gun—and fired.
DESIREE HURRIED to the outhouses, or, more specifically, the outhouse without a door. The hiding place seemed so obvious now. “Travis? It’s Desiree. Are you here?”
A muffled sob reached her ears. She peered down into the hole and smiled. “It’s safe to come out.”
She flipped on the safety and set the
rifle down behind the two potty holes. “Give me your hands,” she said. It took only seconds before Travis was out and in her arms.
“Hey, kiddo. It’s okay.”
Travis held her tight, his thin body shaking. Desiree smoothed his hair.
“Where’s Lozen? The other outhouse?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on. Let’s go get her.”
Desiree and Travis hurried to the next outhouse. The rain was slowing, the sunset near. If it wasn’t for the splash of yellow, Desiree would never have seen Lozen. She might not even have heard Lozen’s whispered, “I’m down here,” if she hadn’t been looking, listening.
“Are you okay?”
“No. My ankle’s broken.”
“I’ll get help. Travis, you stay here with Lozen. I’ll get Mr. Jondell. He can lend us his car.”
Desiree ran through the rain, quickly returning with Jondell. She had to trust him, rely on him; she had no choice. She didn’t have time to ponder the ironies of her situation—Jondell, her friend’s rapist, now a rescuer? She’d think about it later... They’d just managed to get Lozen out of the middle outhouse when Desiree heard the gunshot.
“Splint her leg, Jondell, and get her to your tent. Then call for an ambulance. You have my permission to break into the office if you have to. Just get help. Travis, you stay with me.”
“Where are you going?” Travis asked fearfully.
“To your father. Mr. Jondell, I need your car keys.”
VIRGIL’S THROWN GUN WAS enough to deflect the stalker’s aim. A bullet whizzed by his ear as Virgil threw himself on the other man, knocking his gun into the muck. The two wrestled and rolled in the mud. Virgil was stronger, but the stalker was more desperate. At first they were evenly matched, but Virgil’s experience in hand-to-hand fights soon gave him the advantage.
“That’s for hurting my family,” Virgil said as he got in a punch, quickly followed by a second. “That’s for hurting my horse.” The stalker reeled. “And this...”
She's The Sheriff (Superromance Series No 787) Page 22