Winsor, Linda

by Along Came Jones

  "Yeah, thanks." Sitting against the building for back support, Voorhees put a fresh clip in the automatic weapon he'd dragged with him.

  Shep hitched the tourniquet tighter, in case his suspicion of a nicked artery was right, then rose. "Got enough ammo to make them think twice about sneaking up behind you?" Maybe he should ask if the wounded man thought he could maintain consciousness.

  Another exchange erupted, a single shot followed by a hail of bullets. Then came a single shot, a calculated pause, then another.

  "I got this end. Now get out of here," Voorhees said.

  "Right," Shep said. "Plan B—hold them off until the cavalry comes."

  Leaving the wounded agent behind, Shep hurried toward the hotel, pausing only to be certain the coast was clear in each alley between the buildings, before moving to the next. Plan A—taking the horses to the safety of the Double M—fell through when the helicopter touched down.

  Even though Voorhees had taken out the chopper, the horses did no good when Shep couldn't get Deanna to them. They'd be like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery between the house and the livery Using the horses as cover, which Shep would consider only as a last resort to save Deanna, defeated their purpose. Big cover equals big target equals no transportation.

  "Coming up," he warned as he entered the back of the hotel lobby and ran around the desk to the wide steps leading to the second floor.

  There was nothing to do but wait for the police and make certain Dusault's men didn't cross the open area between the house and the buildings opposite the stables. At least they had plenty of ammunition. It was made for big game hunting, but it would stop a man as quick as Old Bull. Deanna was safe as long as she listened to what he'd told her and stayed put.

  "Where's Mr. Secret Agent man?" Ticker asked over his shoulder as Shep emerged from the staircase.

  "Watching our rear I hope. He took one in the leg. Pretty nasty."

  Another report of gunfire came from the general store across the street. From the direction of the livery a few doors away from the hotel, a horse screamed amid the splintering sound of wood.

  "Good thing you closed the barn doors. That mare is raising thunder."

  "Heh," Ticker snorted. "She helped me get one of them gun-totin' buzzards. He took a notion to make a break to this side o' the street. 'Bout halfway across, she musta kicked off that door you just fixed. Mr. Buzzard flew back to his cover. I blew that fancy bullet spitter right out of his hand."

  The older man pointed with no small amount of delight to where the weapon lay in the street. "Winged him in the foot before he reached the store." Lost in triumphant review of the moment, Ticker savored the taste of his ever-present wad of tobacco and swallowed. "What with Charlie sending the police, I didn't see no need of killin' less I had to."

  The seasoned hunter had the eye of an eagle and an aim just as sharp. Shep could envision the grizzled old man firing one unhurried shot, shifting his tobacco from one cheek to the other, taking aim, then firing another.

  "What about Gretsky, the tech guy in the trailer?"

  Ticker chuckled. "Every time that four-eyed cuckoo tried to pop his head out, I put another hole in his clock."

  Shep gave in to a wry smile. "Well, try not to enjoy yourself too much."

  When being in the Marshals was all new, Shep had been the same way. Problem was, he'd survived long enough to grow weary of it. There was a connection between time served and enjoyment. As time went up, the other went down. Of course, as in Voorhees's case, ambition threw off the curve.

  Another sharp crack of splintering wood echoed down the empty street from the livery. Alarm stiffened Shep's spine. Patch would be nervous but fine. Molly probably had shivered out of her saddle by now. But the mare from the Double M was just broken and not at all accustomed to gunfire.

  "I'd better go down and see what I can do with that mare before she hurts herself."

  Ticker held up his hand, signaling Shep to wait. Cocking the gun as he raised it to his shoulder, he pulled the trigger and grinned. "The cuckoo again."

  "Hold your fire!"

  Tickers head pivoted toward the man's voice at the opposite end of the street from the trailer. "What in tarnation...?"

  Despite the command, an automatic hiccoughed two rounds, then stopped. The bullets tearing into the age-hardened siding around the balcony door dug out chunks but failed to penetrate it.

  "I said hold your fire, idiot!"

  Tick glanced at Shep and back to the house at the head of the street. "He ain't talkin' to us."

  Shep hardly heard him. His stomach knotted at the sight of Deanna walking onto the porch swinging a white pillowcase from side to side. Behind her was C. R. Majors, but the voice of authority belonged to a man behind them and not yet visible.

  But how? Shep leaned his head against the wooden doorframe.

  How didn't matter. What he did about it was all that counted. God, help me. It was a lame plea, but it was all he could do while fighting to keep his fear for Deanna's life from making jelly of mind and muscle. For her sake, Lord, not mine. Just show us what to do.

  "Agent Voorhees, I have your witnesses," the gunman shouted into the empty street.

  Ticker sucked a breath through his teeth and gave Shep an apologetic look. "Maybe I'm an idjit after all," he fretted. "I swear, I never seen a soul slip by to the house. Maybe when I stopped to reload—"

  "You couldn't cover both ends of the street at once." Voorhees's heroics had actually helped the other side. "Voorhees?"

  Keep the man talking. Find out what he wants. "Voorhees is hit bad," Shep shouted down in answer. "Who am I talking to?" Reassess the situation. Four men got out of the chopper before Voorhees played Rambo.

  "Victor Dusault. Are you Jones?"

  The boss man himself. Jay Voorhees could take some satisfaction in that, if he lived long enough. "I'm Jones," Shep answered, calculating on another track. Voorhees got one. Tick crippled one. "What have you got in mind, Mr. Dusault?"

  "Simple. Throw out your guns and step into the street."

  That left two, counting Dusault.

  "Voorhees can't walk," Shep told him.

  "Then you'll have to bring him out. Mr. Jones."

  Shep grimaced. With Deanna in the formula, the overwhelming odds were in Dusault's favor now—even if the authorities did come up on them. "Look, Jones," Dusault shouted. "I don't care about you and your ranch hand or the girl. I want Majors, Voorhees, and the pickup."

  Deanna was Dusault's passport back to Canada... which meant, shooting her would be a last resort.

  Ticker said something in a tobacco-thick mumble.

  Shep glanced at his partner, unable to help his annoyance. "What?" Surely Tick wasn't complaining about his truck?

  Tick spit the whole wad of his tobacco out. "I said wait till they ask, then tell 'em I was headed for the barn and you don't know what happened to me." The older man slung his other rifle over his shoulder. "I'm hurt... in the barn."

  At least one of them could think. If negotiation and compliance didn't work, there would be backup. "I owe you, partner."

  "I expect to be best man," Tick told him. "And I ain't wearing no tuxedo neither."

  "So what do you say, Jones?" Dusault shouted. "I think I'm being more than fair."

  Ticker's smirk of distrust reflected Shep's. His throat too tight to express either apology or gratitude, Shep clapped Tick on the shoulder. As Tick slipped into the hall, quiet as a shadow, Shep looked up at the cobweb-draped ceiling. Lord, I feel about as worthless as a colicky calf but I'm going with what I know. You sent Deanna to me to protect. What work You have begun in me, You will see finished. . .somehow. My heart and my hands are Yours to command.

  "Okay, Dusault. But I'll need a few minutes to get Voorhees." Armed with faith and determination, he started down the steps.

  ***

  Deanna stepped off the porch and into the street. Things hadn't changed much in the last hundred or so years. Hopewell was a ghostly
witness to the gold fever that infected men with greed and criminal conscience. Now the weather-bleached buildings watched through indifferent dusty glass eyes of their windows, as twenty-first century counterparts faced off in the empty dirt ribbon of street. It felt as if she'd slipped into a "Twilight Zone" version of the O.K. Corral as she waited for Shep, Ticker, and Agent Voorhees to surrender their guns and show themselves—except one of the gunslingers looked like Dracula in Armani and the other a battered clown.

  If she weren't so scared that Victor Dusault would notice the weapon she packed in her baggy trousers' pocket, she'd laugh at the picture they must present. Only God gave her the presence of mind to slip the pistol from the radio desk and into her pocket while the conscienceless man beat the exact whereabouts of the money out of C. R. Majors.

  Since Dusault had just shot his own man with an indifferent, "He's been incompetent one time too many," it hadn't taken too long to convince C. R. to give up his blackmail story and admit where the money was. Then Dusault had turned his attention to Deanna, as incredulous as C. R. had been when she'd flushed the key down the john.

  "So what would you do if some jerk set you up and then had the nerve to ask you to run away with him?" she'd retorted in indignation.

  Instead, he laughed. "Hell hath no fury," he quipped to no one in particular. "Which is why," he added for C. R.'s benefit, "I don't let females in my inner circle... can't separate emotion from reason."

  Deanna had the urge to shove her gun in the pig's face with a "Reason this," but she couldn't find the blooming safety with her finger. Besides, his gun was bigger. As for C. R., much as she'd like to throttle him for what he'd done to her, she'd cringed when Dusault struck his face with the butt of the pistol. It would take stitches and plastic surgery before he'd charm another unsuspecting heart.

  "Mr. Dusault," she asked, "do you have a handkerchief?"

  "Why?"

  "Because if someone doesn't bandage that gash over C. R.'s eye, he's going to bleed all over you and anyone else in that truck."

  Victor reached in his jacket and withdrew a handkerchief. "Women," he said to C. R.

  "Hey, I hate to clean up messes. It's a woman thing," Deanna protested. "I read in Home Digest how suicidal men will blow their brains out anywhere—the recliner in the living room, wherever. But a woman will take pills and lie down in the bedroom, no mess."

  Not the least interested in her chatty dissertation, Dusault looked at his watch.

  "But if she does use a gun, she does it in the bathtub where no one will have to clean it up."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  Deanna didn't know which was colder, his gaze or his voice. "You said you weren't interested in me or the others," she reminded him. "We'd probably slow you down anyway."

  "Miss Manetti, enough."

  "Sorry," Deanna heaved her shoulders. "When I have a gun at my back, I get chatty. Not that I've ever really had a gun at my—"

  She halted at a slight waver of her captor's attention. Looking ahead, she saw Shep bring out some rifles and a couple of handguns, tossing them out into the street at the far end.

  "I'm going back to help Voorhees," he called out, before focusing on Deanna. "You okay?"

  "For having a gun at my back, sure." If she could somehow get the pistol to Shep—

  "Where's Deerfield?" Agent Gretsky called from the door of the trailer.

  Like a creepy little mole, it was the first time Deanna had seen him come out since the men arrived. He'd been too busy eavesdropping and feeding information to his real boss.

  "He's not come out?" Shep appeared puzzled. "He left me to cover the house from the livery."

  Had Ticker been shot? Catching up with the conversation, Deanna closed her eyes. Lord, no, please.

  "Mr. Deerfield," Dusault hollered, voice echoing through the channel of the street. "If I so much as hear one shot, Miss Manetti will get the second."

  The cold poke of the gun at her back hastened the end of her prayer. God, I'm holding You to that never leave or forsake me bit. Amen.

  'Toss your weapon out first, then show yourself."

  The crime lord received no answer aside from the horses' nervous snorting and pacing, stopping at one end of the stalls as though listening, then pacing back.

  As though a heavenly finger had let the button up, a sense of reassurance released her panic-seized breath and pulse.

  "I'll get Voorhees, then go look for him," Shep offered. "Ticker's an old man... could have fallen or taken a stray bullet."

  "Just bring Voorhees out," Dusault ordered. "My men can look for your pal."

  On cue, two gunmen left the cover of the general store, one helping the other. The latter dragged his right foot, which had been wrapped up in a piece of burlap.

  "Gretsky!"

  Deanna nearly jumped out of her skin at Dusault's outburst at her ear.

  "Get the truck. Hotwire it if you have to. This won't take long."

  Thirty-two

  He was going to kill them all. Deanna could see it in Dusault's eyes as he watched Shep all but carry Jay Voorhees up the street. She had to do something. They wouldn't have given in so easily if not for her. It was her fault Shep and Ticker, wherever he was, were going to die. And all because they'd taken her in and tried to protect her.

  "Lean him up against the barn door," Dusault instructed, halting them a few yards away. He jerked his head toward the prisoners. "Gris, Berman, pat them down, then slip around back and see if you can find the old man."

  "I can't walk on this foot. I need to wait for the truck," the wounded gunman protested.

  Dusault exhaled his impatience. "Berman, there's not enough room on my team for a whiner."

  Although she watched Dusault swing the gun toward his henchman and pull the trigger, Deanna yelped in concert with the single shot he fired. The crippled man covered the hole the bullet plowed into his chest with both hands, all the while staring at his employer in disbelief... until he slumped over.

  Then the muzzle of the gun, warm with the kill, returned to Deanna's back. "Hold it, Jones."

  Shep abandoned his charge in midlaunch. As he straightened, the other man shoved him against the paint-roughened planks of the livery. Next to him, Voorhees witnessed the progression of events, but his impassive stare suggested he wasn't really seeing what happened. Pale as the chipped paint sprinkled in his thinning hair, he was in shock from blood loss—unconscious with his eyes open.

  "Look at this pig sticker," the man searching Shep exclaimed as he removed the hunting knife Shep had hidden in his boot. With a sling, he buried it in the stump of an old hitching post a few yards away.

  Neither Deanna nor Shep bothered to look. Her eyes locked upon his, she mouthed, I love you.

  Shep answered, his eyes saying it all. Anger, frustration, and concern tossed on the bottomless sea of his emotions, anchored by steadfast love.

  This couldn't be the last time she delved into their dark amber depths. I have a gun, she mouthed, praying Dusault was too engrossed in watching the search to pay any heed to an emotional, reasonless woman. She wriggled the hand she wrapped around its rough, nonslip grip in her pocket.

  If Shep understood, he gave no indication.

  "Clean as a whistle," the gunman announced as he finished searching Jay.

  Deanna froze her attempt to manipulate the weapon that kept hanging in her pocket lining. At the moment, she'd shoot off a toe.

  "But if you intend to kill him," the man added, "you'd best do it quick." Wiping Jay's blood on his trousers, Gris reached for the handle of the sliding barn door next to the men, but the sound of an anxious horse huffing and pawing on the other side gave him pause to reconsider.

  "I wouldn't be surprised if all that shooting didn't cause them to kick down their stalls," Shep drawled, mouth curling without humor. "That's the main reason Tick split from me, to see to the horses before they hurt themselves. They just go berserk."

  "Maybe I should try the back, huh?" Gris
asked his employer.

  From the alley that housed Ticker's trailer, the truck engine gave a faint cough and sputtered out, distracting the man.

  Something gave on the gun. The safety? Dear heavenly Father, help.

  "That could be just what the old man wants you to do." Dusault motioned the man away, reaching around Deanna with the automatic. "But there's more than one way to handle a horse." He aimed the gun at the closed door.

  Realizing what Dusault intended, Shep seized Gris by surprise and slung him into the line of fire. His desperate no! was drowned by the thunderous rat-a-tat of the gun beside her. In horror, she saw the spray of bullets cut across the barn door and the two men in its path.

  Time moved into slow motion as Shep recoiled, losing his grasp on the crumbling figure of the startled gunman. The bullets that tore into his shirt slammed him against the door behind him. Desperation strengthened Deanna's grip on the pistol. Wrenching it from her pocket, lining and all, she heard its thunderous report and waited for the bullet to plunge somewhere in her flesh, but before it could happen, she was body slammed by Victor Dusault.

  As his weight carried her to the ground, her pistol and his coughing automatic took flight like a pair of deadly birds, lighting in the dirt a few feet away. Deanna struck the ground much harder, the wind knocked from her by her captor. Clawing her way out of the ensuing scramble of arms and legs, she crawled without regard away from where C. R. and Dusault grunted and swore at each other, toward the place where Shep lay, still as—

  No, she wouldn't think it. God, it can't be. Please, it can't be.

  "Shep!" His name tore from her throat as she shook him with all her strength. "Shep, darn your picture, I just blew a hole through a hundred dollar pair of pants for you, so you better wake up now, do you hear me?"

  A gunshot drew her attention to where C. R. staggered away from a sprawling Victor Dusault. It didn't matter to Deanna who shot whom, not when she was losing her heart and soul.