Undercover Cowboy

by Beverly Bird

  His eyes flew over all of them. She was gone.

  For a moment, he was only stunned. Then he was furious. Then he was scared. He would have roared her name but he found he had no voice. The terror that hit him was so deep, so all-encompassing, it stole his strength.

  Scorpion wasn’t in this chasm. He had never been in here. Suddenly, Jack was sure that the man had found another ditch to shelter in. By now he was back on high ground.

  And so was Carly.

  The others turned to look at him when he reached them. Most of their faces were still slack with amazement over the tornado. They had no idea yet that they had far worse things to worry about.

  “She went up that way,” Rawley called out, pointing. “Looking for you.”

  A fist hammered Jack’s gut. She would have done that. Of course she would have. She might be angry with him, she might be hurt, but her heart was far more true than any of her resentments.

  “I need a gun,” he said hoarsely, and that started snapping the others out of their shock.

  “A gun?” Leigh bleated into the sudden quiet.

  “What for?” gasped Myra.

  “You’re going to shoot something? What in the world are you going to shoot?” Winston cried.

  Of them all, only the cowboys and Rawley seemed unsurprised by his request, Jack thought. And Reggie. Quiet, watchful Reggie.

  “It’s Brad, isn’t it?” that man asked shortly. “Something’s off about that guy. I’ve been thinking that for days.”

  “You’re going to shoot Brad?” Leigh wailed. “Who are you?”

  She looked like she was about to faint, Jack thought, but there was no time to explain.

  Plank was closest to him. He held out his weapon without question, and Jack grabbed it. Gofer and Josh tried to push theirs on him as well. He took Gofer’s for a backup.

  “You and Josh need to stay armed,” he told Rawley. “The same thing still goes. If you see Brad before you get clear of here, shoot him.”

  Leigh started sobbing. Rawley’s eyes sharpened.

  “So where exactly are we going?”

  “Ride to the nearest town.”

  “That’d be Buffalo. We passed it a little ways back.”

  “Good. Go out that way.” Jack thrust a thumb over his shoulder. “Through the back of this hole. Not here. And when you get there, call this number.” He gave it to them. Rawley repeated it, nodded, and Jack knew he would remember it. “Don’t go together,” he went on. “Scatter as much as possible. And take all the horses.”

  They nodded at him like a row of puppets. They started moving about woodenly, bumping into one another at first. Jack left them and started back down the chasm first.

  He didn’t dare go up right there. He had a strong suspicion that Scorpion had been right at the top, waiting for Carly. If Jack followed her path, he would stumble squarely into them and lose his only element of surprise.

  He reached a good spot and started climbing. Terror sang through him like a thrumming wire and he noticed almost dispassionately that he was shaking.

  Carly turned around slowly. Brad had a knife. He moved it just enough so that it came to rest at a place above her navel.

  No, not Brad, she thought wildly. Brett.

  Brett?

  But of course it was him. Who else had taken her father’s money to leave her? Who else had ever called her “babe"? She thought wildly that he didn’t look anything like what she remembered. Now it was even more difficult to tell, because his face was bloodied and bruised.

  How long had she known and hidden from it, she wondered helplessly, because it was just too much, because it was the one truth she found intolerable? Her child’s father. No wonder Jack had tried to shield her, even at the cost of her hating him for it.

  Brett must have kept that picture of her, though she couldn’t imagine how Jack might have ended up with it: All those sly smiles. No wonder he had passed through Oklahoma on his way to retirement. Dallas, she thought giddily. Jack had said that Scorpion’s first hit was in Dallas, where Brett had gone to take that “job.” More than ten coincidental years ago. She choked on crazed laughter.

  Maybe she’d even known, subconsciously, when “Brad” had said he couldn’t swim, when he had been so obviously terrified of that river crossing.

  “Why?” she croaked, swaying a little under the terrible magnitude of it.

  “That depends on what you mean,” Brett said equably. “Why did I leave?”

  “That blonde…I always thought…”

  “She was convenient. I left her in Amarillo. I left for the money, really. For the opportunity.” He paused and laughed derisively. “What your father gave me wasn’t enough to make a difference. I was leaving anyway, and then the old man handed me a few thousand to boot. So why wouldn’t I take it? But there was no way he was going to let you go, either, not without a fight. So I figured I’d just get myself set and come back for you later.” His mad eyes gleamed. “I never gave up on you, babe. I knew you’d still be here, waiting.”

  Carly shook her head hard and fast. She felt sick. “Why…” she began again, then she trailed off. Why had he killed people? But she didn’t have to ask that because she already knew the answer. It had just been a way to get rich. He saw nothing wrong with it.

  She was going to be sick. She clapped a hand over her mouth, swallowing convulsively.

  “So here I am,” Brett went on. “Back to claim my wife.”

  “I divorced you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That’s just a technicality. I need you and my kid so I can retire. Let me tell you—she was a surprise.” His face darkened. “You should have told me, Carly. You should have told me about her. I would have come back to collect you sooner.”

  Holly. Oh, sweet God, he knew Holly was his daughter!

  Before she could react, he went on. “It was just a matter of getting together enough cash first,” he explained. He laughed, shaking his head. “Man, as fast as I earned it, I spent it. You’ve no idea how expensive it is, running around the globe, looking for work. That’s why it took me so long to get back here. Sorry.”

  He was crazy. But even before she’d known who he was, she had known he’d have to be.

  “This last score was big enough to keep us comfortably for a good long while.” He scowled, looking around briefly. “I think I can find that wagon. As long as it didn’t explode, we’re okay. I packed the money in good and solid. And even if I can’t find it, I’ll raise more cash somehow. The important thing is that I’ve got you now. Where would you like to go? We can’t stay here, in this country.”

  A scream finally began working its way up her throat. His eyes sharpened on her.

  “Don’t do anything ridiculous,” he warned her. “Don’t make me kill you now. I’ve waited a long time for this. I want to make it work. I’m even willing to forgive you for what you did with him. I mean, hell, I was gone a long time. I didn’t expect you to be a nun. And you didn’t know I was here. But he’s going to have to die for it.”

  Carly nodded helplessly. Play along with him. It seemed the only thing she could do. She had to wait for some chance to get away. He had that knife.

  “The others!” she gasped. “They’ll come. They’ll come to help me find Jack!”

  Brett pressed the knife into her a little harder. “I told you not to make me hurt you. Forget Jack. He’s history, babe.”

  Her voice broke off in her throat. Carly felt the blade prick, turn, and she reeled, knowing without looking that he had cut her.

  He had cut her. That was when she understood that he might have come back for her, but he would just as easily go on without her if she proved too troublesome.

  She stumbled backward, groping at the spot, her head spinning. Not enough blood to kill her, she realized. Not yet. It was barely a graze.

  Brett caught her arm. Pain shot through her shoulder as he began dragging her back toward the gorge. “We’ll join the others,” he decided. “Holly’s th
ere. Besides, that’s where he’ll look for you, and I have to take care of him before we can go anywhere.”

  “Jack’s gone. Jack’s already dead.”

  “No.”

  “You can’t know that!”

  “I know.”

  “How?” she demanded shrilly, stumbling.

  “Because he wants me too badly,” Brett answered. “It’s just like S?o Paulo. He can’t die. He can’t die until he stops me. He’s too damned self-righteous. I’m the thing that’s kept him going all this time.”

  Carly nearly fell again. So he had realized that, too. But then, Jack wasn’t really all that complicated, she thought, not once you got to know him.

  Brett frowned again. “I always thought he’d fall apart without me, but then he started getting soft on you. That’s okay. He’s going to lose both of us, but I’ll put him out of his misery.”

  Carly dragged frantically against him, trying to hold him back from the chasm where Holly waited. He jerked her arm angrily, impatiently, and she cried out. Think! Do something! Don’t fall apart! But she couldn’t stall enough and before she knew it, they had reached the edge of the chasm. Carly looked down.

  Everyone was gone.

  Holly was gone. Her knees nearly buckled with relief. Jack had been here already! He had done…something.

  She screamed suddenly and plunged over the rim. She took Brett by surprise. He was half a step behind her and reacted too late to grab her. Where was Jack? She leaped over an uprooted bush tossed into the chasm by the tornado and landed on her bottom, skidding, tumbling, rolling the rest of the way. When she hit the floor, she scrambled to her feet again and began running.

  She heard Brett scrambling down behind her. He would gain on her. He was bigger, stronger, faster than she was, and his legs were longer. Hysteria clawed at her.

  Then she realized that she no longer heard his footsteps.

  She twisted around, looking back, and fell over a boulder. She landed with a cry of pain, the breath jarring out of her, but she saw Brett go back up the wall again. He was moving away from her and she looked after him for a moment, dumbfounded.

  Then she got to her feet again and kept running. He would come back. She knew that. But somewhere in here there had to be a place to hide. She scrambled over the rough canyon floor, then she heard the first gunshot.

  It came from inside the gorge.

  Jack was halfway down the slope on the side nearest the bend when he saw her. He hadn’t found them on high ground and he had returned to the chasm out of sheer desperation. When he saw them, his heart staggered and air filled his legs. He had to force himself to move again. She was still alive.

  But what the hell was Brett doing?

  Carly reached him, but when she would have gone into his arms he pushed her behind him. She fell just as another gunshot sounded out from overhead.

  Carly screamed and cringed behind Jack, but it was a wild shot, pinging off a nearby rock. When she looked up again she saw that Brett had returned to the top of the chasm. Both he and Jack held guns, they had each missed a shot, and for a long time they only watched each other.

  Jack spoke first. “That’s my gun, buddy,” he called out. How had the man ever found it? Clearly, it was what he had gone back for, but Jack couldn’t believe that the twister hadn’t taken it, as it had obviously taken Brett’s own. He wondered if the assassin had some fallen angels watching over him.

  It didn’t matter, he thought, not as long as he had Plank’s and Gofer’s both.

  “Let Carly go,” he called up to him. “Let her leave.”

  Brett laughed. “She’s the prize. That’s rich, isn’t it? That we end up finishing this over a woman? But then, you’ve wanted her since you took my picture, haven’t you, Gemini?”

  Carly felt her mouth go dry at that. Her heart started moving too fast. How long had Jack had that thing, anyway?

  She looked up at him. He was grinning like a hungry cat who had just found the key to a canary cage. If what Brett had just said was true, if he had that kind of soft spot, then it didn’t show now. Jack’s expression chilled her to her soul…and it bolstered her, warmed her, made her feel safer, because she could only thank God that she wasn’t the one on the receiving end of that glare. The man who was was in deep trouble.

  “That’s right,” Jack said. “So let her leave. One of us is going to walk out of here alive, buddy, and he can go get her easily enough. If she stays in here, she could get hurt.”

  The assassin was quiet for a long time. “Okay,” he said finally. “Okay, she can go. I’ll hold my fire. You sent the horses away, so I guess she can’t get far.”

  Jack felt breath escape him. He hadn’t been aware of holding it. It rushed out of him, leaving him hollow and weak. “Go on,” he said quietly, and his voice was strangely thick.

  “I don’t want to,” Carly said from behind him.

  Jack’s eyes widened. He spoke grimly, without taking his eyes off Brett. “Don’t start, cowgirl. Not now. Go. Get.”

  “No. I’m safer down here. If I go up there and you stay down here, he could grab me before you could even think of getting out of here and back to the top.” And that, she realized now, was what he had been protecting her against all along. That was why he hadn’t let her out of his sight. Something inside her melted.

  He had just been trying to spare her. He’d been trying to keep Brett away from her.

  “I don’t want you to climb up right here,” Jack explained slowly, holding on to his temper. “Walk back around the bend and do it there. Stay behind me.”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, Carly—”

  “I’m not going anywhere if you’re not with me.”

  “I’m not going to let him grab you!”

  “You might be good, Jack, but I guess you’d have to walk on water to stop him if I leave here. That’s assuming that you even want to shoot him, and I’m still not sure you do.”

  He went very still. “I want to. Oh, cowgirl, I want to very much. And as soon as you’re clear, I’m going to start firing.”

  She snorted. “You missed the first time.”

  “I wasn’t aiming at him the first time! I was just letting him know that I was in here.”

  “I don’t want to go, Jack. I want to stay with you.”

  “I’ll be with you. He’ll be dead before you take two steps and I’ll follow you.”

  “How can you shoot him? He hasn’t done anything yet. He’s just standing up there talking to you. Are you just going to start blasting away at him in cold blood? That’s not like you, Jack.” She realized in that moment that she knew him pretty well after all. “You need him to do something first.”

  Jack’s voice got very quiet. “Do you still have a soft spot for him, cowgirl?”

  Carly recoiled, then her eyes flared. “No. Is that why you didn’t tell me who he was, because you thought I would help him?” She started to come to her feet, enraged.

  “Stay down. No. I didn’t tell you because there was no reason to do that to you.”

  She knew that. She believed him. Her fury ebbed again almost as suddenly as it had lit through her.

  “And,” Jack went on, “I don’t particularly want to make you watch me shoot him now. This could get ugly, Carly.”

  “Is she going?” Brett called out impatiently, interrupting them.

  “She’s going,” Jack answered.

  “No,” Carly yelled at the same time.

  “Damn it, cowgirl, if you don’t start moving now, I’m going to choke you myself!”

  “No, you won’t. You’d have to take your eyes off him to do it.”

  Okay, Jack thought, holding on to his temper. He’d just change direction. He couldn’t stand here arguing with her.

  “You’re done, buddy,” he called up to Brett. “You’re done. You can’t disappear this time. Even if you killed both of us, you’re still trapped. It’s a long walk out of here, and you’re not going to make it. Before you could
manage a mile, a chopper’ll come and find you. I gave the others the agency emergency number. Uncle Sam will look for you from up there in the sky, buddy, and he’ll find you, too, in all this emptiness. You blew it this time. They know where you are and you can’t hide from them and you can’t get away.”

  “What are you doing?” Carly whispered.

  “If you won’t go up, then I need him to come down. I’m going to try to finish this without guns.”

  “Why?” That sounded even more dangerous. She didn’t want Brett to get close to them.

  “Because somebody else could get shot if bullets start flying,” he snapped. “Namely you, and you won’t get the hell out of here.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brett yelled at them. “What are you planning?”

  “Hear the choppers, buddy?” Jack taunted. “Listen. They’re coming.”

  Brett made a sound of derision, but after a moment his gaze flicked up to the sky warily.

  “Come on down here,” Jack said. “We’ll finish this one on one, the way you first said.”

  The assassin had decided there were no choppers. “No, thanks. I have an advantage up here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s a lot easier to aim downward than upward. Isn’t that one of the things they teach you guys?”

  Jack shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’ve got the lady. I’d think you’d worry about me getting her away before you could shoot me down.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Brett said pleasantly. “I’ll manage.”

  Now, Jack thought. Brett wouldn’t expect him to shoot since Carly hadn’t left the canyon. Carly didn’t expect him to shoot at all. Jack finally admitted that a week ago he might not have been able to do it, not unless it was life or death. Oh, yes, Scorpion had been his security blanket.

  And he didn’t need him anymore.

  He roared a sound of rage and brought his gun up. Brett pulled his own trigger half a breath sooner.