Lone Rider

by Lindsay McKenna

  Grunting, Tara flailed her arms, trying to strike out at Cree as he jerked her out of the truck. In seconds, she was flying through the air, away from the burning truck.

  Landing hard, Tara rolled a few feet across the rocks before stopping near the rear of the truck. She saw Cree scowl and come after her, the knife in his right hand, anger leaping to his tense face. Trying to scramble to her feet, she made it, but dizziness felled her. With a cry, she pitched to the right, throwing her hands out, trying to escape Cree.

  Too late!

  “Damn you!” he breathed, grabbing her shoulder, yanking her around.

  Tara stumbled in the rocks, falling against Cree’s hard body. She grunted, struggling. “Let me go!” she screamed. Lifting her knee, she jammed it up into his crotch.

  Cree howled, releasing her.

  Run!

  Gasping, Tara clawed herself upright, weaving, stumbling, trying to get off the slope and onto the smoother, dirt berm. Frantic, she looked for any traffic either way. There was none!

  God! No! No! Not again!

  Dizziness assailed her as she stumbled. She heard Cree grunting and cursing behind her. She’d seen him fall to his knees, his hands grabbing at his crotch, bent over. She’d meant to mangle the son of a bitch. And she hoped she had. It would be the only way to stop him from capturing her.

  Making it to the berm, she dug the toes of her cowboy boots into the soft, gravely dirt, straining, pushing herself, wobbling unsteadily. She fought the dizziness. Jerking a look over her shoulder, adrenaline spurted into her bloodstream. Cree was getting up, his face dark with rage, his eyes on her, lurching to his feet, his lips drawing back from his teeth.

  No! No! Faster! Run faster!

  Tara’s mind wheeled. She ran hard, running away from Cree, following the empty highway. If only a vehicle would come by! If only! But the road was utterly deserted. The look in Cree’s eyes told her he was going to kill her. He’d taken up his knife again, holding it in his fist, launching himself in her direction.

  Breath tearing out of her, she had to think. As she ran, she jerked the snap off her leather sheath, pulling the Buck knife out. Her fingers were so trembly, she had a hard time pulling out the one-and-a-half-inch blade. It was her only defense. Her cell phone was still in the truck.

  She heard the heavy footfalls of Elson coming upon her.

  Tara knew she couldn’t outrun him.

  It took everything she had to stop, suddenly turn around and face him.

  Cree was running hard, hatred in his expression. He hadn’t been prepared for her to suddenly stop and face him.

  Tara gripped the knife, closing the gap as he suddenly stumbled and tried to halt his hurtling toward her, surprise in his eyes. She knew from combat that surprise could make the difference between living and dying. And she knew she was going to die if she didn’t face her attacker. Never again would she be his prisoner! Never!

  She’d had good training from the black-ops groups she’d worked with. Tara knew you never extended your knife hand toward the enemy. Instead, you closed the gap with their body, holding the knife at your side, ready to strike when close enough. That way, the enemy couldn’t knock the knife out of your hand. She saw Elson’s face twist, hatred combined with shock as she launched herself at him. Tara knew she had nothing to lose. A momentary thought of some driver finding her lifeless body lying beside the highway gave her the superhuman strength she needed. There was no way she was going down without a fight. Teeth clenched, her lips lifting away from them, she used her left shoulder, slamming heavily into Elson.

  He woofed out a loud sound, his arms flailing outward like a windmill as she knocked him off his feet.

  Her hand came forward and she jabbed.

  Elson twisted.

  Her knife slashed into his left upper arm, ripping through the T-shirt, blood flying as the point sank deep into his upper biceps.

  Cursing, he landed on his ass, sprawling, yelling curses.

  Tara turned, spun around and continued to run. She hadn’t hurt him enough! A short blade like hers could never kill someone unless she got to his heart, and that had been impossible under the circumstances. She knew a blade could be turned aside when it met bone. Had she wounded him enough to stop him from chasing her?

  Barely turning her head, she saw him sitting on the berm, utter shock in his face as he tried to stop the bleeding from his upper arm. His knife was sitting beside him on the highway.

  Let a car come by! Winded, Tara pushed herself, the dizziness making her weave unsteadily. Her vision blurred. And then it sharpened. Dammit! Her heart felt like it was going to leap out of her chest. The cool air tore by her as she continued to run as fast as she could. There was nowhere to hide. It was the flat of the valley floor. She could see half a mile ahead of her and there were no vehicles coming toward her. It was so early in the morning. No one was up and about yet.

  Her breath was tearing out of her burning lungs. Her legs felt wobbly. She turned, looking back.

  Elson was on his feet, picking up his knife. He was coming after her. This time, she saw murder in his face. If he caught her, he was going to kill her. There would be no mercy.

  Helplessness, terror and knowing she was going to die roared through her as she heard his heavy footsteps approaching. For a split second, Tara thought of Harper, thought of his tenderness toward her. She’d never see him again. Never be able to tell him she loved him.

  A blow came, striking her in the neck, hard.

  Tara grunted. She was flung forward, flying off her feet, releasing the knife. Cree had struck her as hard as he could with his fist right between her shoulders, deliberately stunning her. Tara heard herself scream as the ground came roaring up at her.

  And then … darkness …

  *

  “Charlie, is Tara at your store?” Harper’s hand tightened around his cell phone. He stood in the broodmare barn. It was eight a.m. Something felt wrong to him and he couldn’t explain the dread surrounding him. He’d decided to call Charlie because Tara wasn’t answering her cell phone. That didn’t make sense either; she always answered when he called her.

  “No, she’s not here, Harper. Why? Was she comin’ to pick up that horse feed for the Bar C?”

  “Yes, she was. She left at seven a.m. this morning. She should be there by now.”

  “Maybe she got a flat tire on the way here?” Charlie asked.

  Grimly, Harper said, “She has her cell phone with her. She’d have called me.” His mind spun. What the hell had happened to Tara? He tried to tamp down his wild emotional response, the fear starting to nip at him.

  “Oh,” Charlie said. “Gosh, Harper, I don’t know. Can you get in your truck and come this way? Maybe she broke down on the side of the road? Maybe her cell phone isn’t working?”

  “I’ll go find out, Charlie. Thanks for your help.” Harper had no sooner clicked off on that call when another came in. It was Sheriff Sarah Carter calling. It felt like his stomach fell out of his body.

  “Harper here,” he answered, holding his breath.

  “Harper, we just had a motorist along Highway 89 call in to say there was a truck accident and fire. We asked her for the license number and she gave it to us. It’s your truck. Are you all right?”

  Terror screamed through Harper. “Sarah, Tara was driving that truck to Charlie’s to pick up some feed at seven this morning.”

  “The motorist called the fire department. I have a deputy on the way out there as well.”

  “I’m leaving now,” he said. “Did the motorist see Tara?”

  “No … the truck is fully engulfed in flames.”

  Harper violently slammed the door shut on his emotions. “Is the motorist there now?”

  “Yes. She pulled up at a safe distance. But as she drove up, she saw a man dragging a woman with him into another truck. A rusted, red-and-white Ford, and he took off at high speed. He raced past her, heading north on 89.”

  Harper stood paralyzed for a
second. “That’s Cree Elson, Sarah. He’s kidnapped Tara.” The words came out low and tortured. His eyes blurred momentarily and he fought back the reaction. He was gripping his cell so hard he thought he was going to snap it in half.

  Sarah’s voice changed. “There’s no positive ID yet, Harper. Why don’t you drive to the scene? I’ll meet you there. We have to figure this out.”

  “I’ll tell Shay and Reese before I leave,” he growled.

  Harper didn’t know what to do with his emotions. It was a quick fifteen-minute drive to where he saw the black, thick clouds of smoke rising from his overturned truck. The vehicle lay on its side far below the rocky slope. The fire department was there, quickly putting out the fire. He saw the motorist standing beside her car, spotted Sarah and the other deputy talking with the eyewitness. Pulling up behind a Toyota Camry, he quickly got out.

  Sarah greeted him as he came up. “Good news. Tara is not in that truck of yours. Fire department just put out the fire and there’s no body in the cab.”

  Nodding, Harper’s gaze moved to the young woman.

  “This is Cindy Long,” Sarah said, “a tourist driving through. Let me tell you what she saw,” and she launched into the details of the woman’s report. Harper stood there, knowing full well it was Cree Elson who had rammed his truck to get to Tara. When Sarah mentioned a pool of blood on the berm that had soaked into the soil, it got Harper’s attention.

  “Blood?” he said, numbed by the thought it was from Tara. Harper knew she wouldn’t go down willingly to be kidnapped again by Elson.

  “Yes,” and Sarah pointed in the direction of where the blood was located. “My forensics team is on their way out here. They’ll get samples. I found out from Taylor that Tara’s blood is at her clinic, so we can quickly see if there’s a match or not.”

  Mouth tight, Harper peered at the smoking remains of his truck. “Can you positively identify it was Elson?”

  Sarah said, “I showed Cindy a photo of Elson and she said the man looked like him. She was about a quarter of a mile away when she saw what happened.”

  Harper looked at Cindy, who was short and slender, her face white, her eyes dark with worry. “Did you see the woman he had?”

  “Y-yes … she was pretty tall and she was unconscious. He was dragging her along by her jacket. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to do,” and she gave him a look of apology.

  “You called us,” Sarah told her gently. “You did the right thing, Cindy.”

  “Did you get a good look at the woman?” Harper asked again, trying to get more details. He wanted to scream but knew he couldn’t.

  “N-no, not really. I just saw her blond hair over the denim jacket she was wearing. I—I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you more, I really do.”

  Harper realized he was scaring the hell out of her. Reaching out, he briefly touched her tense shoulder. “No, you did fine, Cindy. We really appreciate your help.”

  “The woman? Tara? Is she your wife or something?” she asked Harper.

  “Not my wife … but someone I love very much,” he admitted, his voice rough with emotions.

  “Well,” Sarah told him, “I’m assuming it was Tara. I put out an Amber Alert already, Harper, along with her photo and Elson’s photo. If he’s on any major highway, someone will call us. It’s not hard to identify a rusted red-and-white Ford pickup.”

  “Yeah,” Harper rasped, taking the hat off his head, pushing his fingers through his dark hair, “but what if he takes a back road? There are so many of them in this valley.”

  Sarah nodded. She thanked Cindy and had her deputy finish up with the questions.

  Taking Harper by the arm, she led him toward her cruiser, near the fire truck. “Listen,” she told him, “we’re moving ahead with this. As far as I’m concerned, unless proven otherwise, Elson rear-ended Tara’s truck, throwing it off the road. There was a scuffle, because you can see deep toe prints dug into the berm. There are places along the berm for a quarter of a mile where there was a struggle. I’m hoping the blood belongs to Elson, but we can’t be sure yet. I’m sorry.”

  Settling the cowboy hat on his head, he rasped, “What do you think Elson will do to her?”

  “I don’t know, Harper. I honestly don’t. The fact there’s blood on the berm,” and she gestured toward the blackened truck down below them, “and he rammed her to stop and kidnap her? He’s violent this time. The last kidnapping, he didn’t hurt her until he had her in the cabin up in the mountains and she tried to escape. Then he struck her in the face, breaking her nose.”

  Swallowing hard several times, Harper wiped his thinned mouth. “What do we do now?”

  “Pray that a motorist sees that pickup and calls our office. I have three other deputies on Highway 89 from Jackson Hole southward. If he’s on that stretch, one of my deputies will see him and call it in.”

  Helplessly, Harper studied the serious-looking woman sheriff. She was competent and on top of things. For that, he was grateful. “What can I do, Sarah?”

  She reached out, her hand on his slumped shoulder. “Go back to the Bar C. Wait to hear from me. Until we can locate Elson, we have no idea where she’s at. I’ve alerted the Highway Patrol in Idaho, as well as Utah. All the information, the photos, are out to them. Everyone is on a manhunt for him and Tara. We just have to wait for a break, and that’s the hardest damn thing in the world to do.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harper sat with everyone from the Bar C around the wooden trestle table in Reese and Shay’s kitchen. Everyone was grim. He saw the worry in their eyes. They sat with coffee in hand, the tension thick.

  “We’ve decided not to tell Garret and Kira about this,” Shay told them quietly. “They just started on their honeymoon. We want them to enjoy their time together.”

  “Yeah,” Noah said, “because Garret would be back here in a flash if he knew what had happened.”

  “Kira wouldn’t be far behind him,” Dair muttered, frowning.

  “For now,” Reese said, “let them enjoy their happiness. I know they love Tara like a sister and they would be back here in a heartbeat.”

  “We still have no proof it was Tara who was taken,” Noah said.

  Harper knew his friend wanted to give everyone hope, so he didn’t argue with him, but he knew without a doubt Tara had been kidnapped.

  He moved the thick white ceramic mug slowly around between his hands, sitting opposite Dair and Noah. It had been an hour since Harper had returned to the Bar C, called a meeting and told them what had happened. They huddled together, as if feeling there was strength in the team being one at times like this, and Harper appreciated that. He knew there was so much daily work that needed to be done, but everyone was sitting with him until Sarah called with news. He could barely sit still. He wanted to do something—anything—to end this waiting. Tara was out there with Elson, who would hurt her, might kill her. The sour taste in his mouth turned bitter as he shut his mind off from going down the dark, haunted path of her being raped and murdered.

  Shay sat nearest him and placed her hand on his forearm, “This is so hard on you, Harper.”

  Shrugging, he said, “We all knew Cree Elson was in the background, like a coyote circling his prey. We were aware that he might try to kidnap Tara again. At least she and I thought it was a possibility.” He felt her fingers grow firmer around his arm, and he saw tears in Shay’s blue eyes. He wanted to cry himself but didn’t dare because if he started, he wouldn’t stop.

  Glumly, Shay whispered, “I know…. Reese and I talked about it, too. Elson is unstable. He’s proven that over and over again.”

  “Probably all of us willed that thought away,” Dair said. “None of us wanted to believe Elson would come after her again.”

  “We didn’t want to think of it,” Reese agreed. “Part of it is that the Bar C is a place of safety. We can let down here. Heal.”

  Harper swallowed hard and took a sip of his coffee, burning his tongue. There was no q
uestion his friends were just as deeply upset as he was.

  The phone rang.

  Harper jerked, snapping his head up, his gaze whipping to the wall phone. Everyone at the table jumped, the tension tightening in the kitchen.

  “You take it,” Reese told him, gesturing toward the phone.

  Quickly rising, Harper answered it.

  “Sarah here. We’ve gotten a piece of luck. Cree Elson’s truck was spotted going into Prater Canyon in the Salt Mountain Range. On a hunch, I called the Forest Service right after you left the scene, Harper. I asked one of the civilian employees who has an RV and parks out in the parking lot of different Forest Service camping sites to drive over to Prater Canyon. The reason I asked him to do that is because the first time Elson kidnapped Tara, he took her to a cabin up above Prater Canyon. I asked him to keep an eye out for Elson. I gave him a description of the truck and told him to keep his cell phone available in case he drove into that lot.”

  “And?” Harper growled.

  “Elson came into the parking lot and he has Tara with him. My office assistant is sending photos to all your cell phones right now. The good news is that Tara’s alive, but she’s injured. One photo shows a lot of blood down her left temple and the side of her neck. Elson is wounded, too. He’s got a bandanna wrapped around his upper left arm and there’s blood down his left arm. Was Tara carrying a Buck knife on her? Most wranglers do.”

  “Yes,” he breathed, “she was.”

  “That explains Elson’s wound, then.”

  “What about her head wound? Was she walking okay?” Being a medic, Harper had to know.

  “We think she got the injury when the truck flipped. Our contact, who’s in his sixties, said she was walking but appeared dazed. Check your phones for those photos now.”

  Harper turned, his heart beating hard in his chest, telling everyone to pull out their cell phones to look for the pictures. He went to the table and retrieved his and brought it back to the wall phone, picking the receiver back up. “I got the photos,” and he zeroed in on them. Cree had tied Tara’s wrists with rope in front of her. He was gripping her by her right arm, practically dragging her along. The man was wearing a dark green knapsack that probably weighed close to fifty pounds on his broad back. Harper felt his gut turn icy as he studied the photos. “He’s got a pretty big knapsack.”