“A man doesn’t need friends to commit a crime. Nor does he need to be particularly intelligent.”
Francis began rolling down the pickup window again. The crank was stiff and she bent her head as she moved it. She stopped when the window was a third of the way down and called to the old man who was just a little ahead of the slow-moving pickup. “Don’t worry. We’ll send someone back for you. And you should have a scarf in weather like this. Is there one in your pockets?”
The old man scowled. The woman in the pickup sounded like his mother. Scolding him for forgetting something like he was a little kid.
He’d show her who was a little kid, the old man thought in satisfaction.
“I don’t need a scarf,” the old man said as he took the barrel of his rifle and slapped it against the rump of the horse so that she nervously jumped into the middle of the road and reared up.
Flint swore as he pushed his foot hard into the brake pedal. Honey was practically on top of the pickup hood when she reared up like that. “What in blazes?”
The pickup stopped, and Flint instinctively put his right hand out to push Francis down in the seat.
“What—” Francis resisted the shove, more out of bewilderment than anything else.
But it was enough. The time he’d taken to try to shield her behind the metal of the pickup cost him. He should have gone for his gun first, he told himself later. By the time he brought his hand to his holster the harmless old man had swung his rabbit-hunting rifle around and had drawn a bead on Francis.
“Easy now,” Flint murmured. Francis was staring at the rifle. “Don’t move.”
“Throw the gun out of there.” The old man sat on the horse and yelled.
Flint put his hands up in plain view. Next time, he’d trust his spine. “Let me step out first.”
The first thing Flint needed to do was to put some distance between himself and Francis. Guns went with guns, and he’d bet the old man would swing the barrel of that old rifle around to follow him if he stepped outside the pickup. At least then, if there were any bullets fired, Francis would have a chance. An old rifle like that probably wouldn’t hold more than one bullet. If Flint could get the man to fire at him, Francis would be safe.
The old man snorted and steadied his gun. “I ain’t that stupid. You’ve got to the count of three.”
Francis was frozen. She told herself she should know what to do. She’d taken a hostage negotiation class at work. She was supposed to know what to do. But her mind was blank.
“One.” The old man called out the number with a certain amount of satisfaction.
“I’m putting it out now,” Flint said as he slowly moved his hand toward the holster. The defroster had been off long enough that the windshield on the pickup had a thin film coating it. In another five minutes, the view would be fuzzy from where the old man sat on the horse. But Flint didn’t have five minutes. “I’ll need to open the door to throw it.”
“Stick it through the window,” the old man ordered.
So much for that idea, Flint thought. He’d considered opening the door and swinging down to shoot at the old man from there. He’d be far enough away from Francis that the bullet from the man’s rifle wouldn’t be coming in her direction.
Francis was cold. She could feel her teeth start to chatter.
Flint could hear her teeth start to chatter. He didn’t dare look at Francis, though. He kept his eyes on the old man.
“Two.” The old man counted loudly.
Flint touched the butt of his gun as he unsnapped his shoulder holster smoothly. “Take it easy. It’s coming.”
“Handle first,” the old man instructed.
Flint drew the gun out with the fingertips of one hand. “No problem.”
Flint squeezed the barrel of his gun as he swung it around to the side of the pickup. The cold made the gun slippery, and he had to hold it tight.
“I need to roll my window down.”
The old man shook his head slightly. “Push it through the other window by Francis.”
Flint didn’t like reaching across Francis with his gun. It would keep the eyes of the old man focused on her. But Flint didn’t hesitate. He reached over to the few inches of open space in Francis’s window.
The gun slipped over the side and clanked against the side of the pickup on the way down.
The old man lowered his rifle a little. Not much, but enough so that Flint began to breathe again.
“It’s not too late to let us go, you know,” Flint called out the window to the old man. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you—we can talk about it.”
“Ain’t nothing bothering me,” the old man said. “I just need to get out of here.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Flint forced his voice to relax. The safe period in any hostage situation was the setting of the terms. “I’d be happy to take you someplace. Just put the gun down and we’ll see that you get where you need to go.”
The old man slid off the back of the horse right next to the pickup. The barrel of his rifle wavered, but Flint didn’t make any sudden moves. A gun in the hands of an amateur was always a potentially deadly thing. It was too easy to underestimate someone.
“I’m sure the boys in the bunkhouse have something to drink, as well,” Francis offered quietly. “Whiskey, for sure. Maybe some Scotch. I’m sure you’d like a little drink for the road.”
“Don’t have time for a drink,” the old man said as he reached out and opened the door beside Francis. “Move over. I’m coming in.”
The old man grabbed the inside back of the cab and started to pull himself in. He must have remembered Flint’s gun, and bent down to pick it up from the ground.
“If you want me to drive you somewhere—maybe Miles City—I’d be happy to,” Flint said calmly, not commenting on the other gun. He was afraid of this. His own gun made the man’s rabbit rifle look as harmless as a water pistol. “But we don’t need Francis to come along. Why don’t you let her get out and ride the horse back to her brother’s ranch.”
“I’m not stupid,” Mr. Gossett snapped as he shoved himself into the cab and slammed the door behind him.
“No one ever said you were,” Flint murmured soothingly.
The heat inside the cab was beginning to warm the old man’s clothes, and they were starting to smell.
The old man eyed Flint and Francis. “Nobody’s leaving here, and you’ll drive me where I tell you—but it won’t be Miles City. The road past Dry Creek is closed. I heard Highway 89 is blocked off until the snowplows get through. Don’t think a pickup will get through.”
“Maybe your best bet is the horse, then,” Flint said. Sorry, Honey, he thought ruefully. You take him away, and I’ll come get you both—and I’ll bring you some of those apples you like. And not just the small bunch I have in the back of the pickup. I’ll shake down a whole tree for you.
The old man snorted. “Couldn’t pay me to get back on that animal—she’s practically worthless. Stubborn as a mule. Almost had me setting out on foot a time or two.”
Flint smiled inside. He could always count on Honey.
“If no one can drive you and the horse won’t take you,” Francis said, “then you need to decide whether it is really important that you go. If it’s groceries you need—or something more substantial to drink than tea—or anything else—”
“What I need is to get out of the state!”
“Then you’ll need to wait,” Francis said calmly. She had hoped he was just a fool in search of alcohol. The alternatives were not as pleasant. “There’s no way to go today.”
“There’s the plane—the plane that flew in to bring the lobsters for the party,” the old man said with satisfaction in his voice. “The plane that that millionaire fellow owns. That’s where I want you to take me.”
“I don’t know where the plane is.” Flint stalled. “He might have even flown it out of here.”
“Just follow them tracks,” the old man said as th
ough that settled the matter. “I was starting to follow them when I spotted you. Decided no point in riding on that old horse. Especially when you’ve got a warm pickup that’ll get us there just as good.”
Flint looked over to see the wide tracks of the plane that ran on the other side of the fence. Why couldn’t Robert Buckwalter have driven his plane deeper into the pasture instead of along the fence?
The old man nodded. “You can go now.”
The roads were frozen, bumpy, and Flint needed both hands to control the steering on the pickup. But he still curved his shoulder slightly away from the seat so that Francis could nestle close to him. Francis sat with her legs on the driver’s side of the stick shift. Flint knew her decision to be so close to him was made because she wanted to be as far away as possible from the old man, but he welcomed her presence anyway. It felt right to have her sandwiched in next to him.
Francis watched Flint’s hands on the steering wheel. He’d taken off his gloves so that he could grip the wheel more securely, and the cold made the skin on his hands whiter than usual. They were strong hands, the fingers big and agile.
She had a sudden recollection of the last time they’d sat this close in a pickup.
“Whatever happened to that old pickup of yours?’ Francis asked softly.
The old man hadn’t said anything since he climbed into the pickup. He’d just sat there with one hand holding Flint’s gun and the other steadying the rifle against his leg closest to the door. Francis tried to pretend he wasn’t there.
“My grandmother finally sold it to some other kid.” Flint smiled. Until he’d met Francis, he’d poured his heart into that old pickup. “Wonder if he ever got our initials off the door.”
Francis smiled. She had forgotten about the initials Flint had painted on the door. Two swirling black Fs with lots of extra curlicues.
“He did.” The old man surprised them both by speaking. “Jim Jett bought it—painted it black all over. That took care of the initials.”
“I don’t suppose there’s much in Dry Creek you don’t know,” Flint began tentatively. He wondered how the man would respond to flattery. “You being a pillar of the community and all.”
The old man snorted. “You know I ain’t no pillar of nothing.”
“Well, your father was,” Flint continued the conversation and prayed the old man had liked his father. “I heard what he did in the big drought—getting people to stay and make a town. He was a real hero in these parts.”
“He was a fool. He should have left Dry Creek when he had a chance. The whole town never amounted to anything. And my father—all he ever had to his name was his few acres in Dry Creek, Montana.”
“He had friends,” Francis added softly. “And the respect of his neighbors.”
“It took me two years to save up enough money to buy a decent headstone for his grave,” the old man muttered bitterly. “After that, I figured why bother.”
“But you never left the area?” Flint asked softly.
“Where would I go?”
For a blinding moment Flint envied the old man his certainty about where he belonged in his life. Love it or hate it, Dry Creek was the old man’s home. Flint had bounced around for years, never feeling connected to any place.
The old man pointed out the window. “There’s the plane.”
Flint could just make out the dark shape against the white snow ahead. No, wait. There was more than one black shape.
“There’s another pickup there,” Francis said, her voice neutral. Her mind was busy calculating the odds. Another pickup could be a problem or it could be a solution. She wondered which Flint thought it would be.
There was a time when she would have known what he thought. Would have comfortably finished his sentences for him when he talked. At the time, she had thought it was because they were so much in love. Now she wondered. They had been young and foolish. The fact that they had run off to Las Vegas without planning enough to even have luggage with them showed just how foolish.
“You’ll stay in the pickup when we get there,” Flint ordered Francis as he drove closer. He didn’t like the fact that the old man was holding Flint’s gun closer now. That gun had altogether too many bullets in it waiting to be fired.
“I’ll say who stays where,” the old man protested heatedly.
“She stays in the pickup.” Flint ignored his words.
The old man grunted.
“Maybe we should all stay—just turn around and go where we need to go in the pickup,” Francis offered. She didn’t like the thought of Flint being alone with the crazy old man. “The roads might be open. You know those weather people—they’re always behind the times. Maybe the roads have been cleared by now. We could drive to the main road and find out.”
Francis’s leg had pressed itself against Flint. And her scent—she smelled of summer peaches. He didn’t dare turn and look fully at her because he didn’t want the old man to get nervous.
Besides, Flint didn’t really need to see her to know what she looked like. He had memorized her face over twenty years ago and he could still pull the picture out of his mind. Her eyes were the color of the earth after the first fall frost, full of brown shadows and dark green highlights with shimmer that promised depths unknown. Her eyes were usually somber. He had loved to tease her just to watch that moment when her eyes would turn from serious to playful indignation.
Flint moved his hand to the knob of the gearshift even though he had no further gears left and wouldn’t be shifting down. He just wanted to rest his hand closer to her.
Francis had never been more aware of Flint than she was at that moment. Maybe it was because of the danger around them. Maybe it was because of the long years she’d spent missing him.
Whatever it was, she had to slip her hand under her leg so that it wouldn’t reach out and caress Flint’s wrist. His arm was covered with the sleeve of a bulky winter jacket. His hands had been without gloves long enough now that they would be cold. But his wrist was the meeting place between cold and warm.
The pickup was bumping along closer to the plane. Without the four-wheel drive, the vehicle would have been stuck in at least a dozen different snowdrifts since they’d started following the plane tracks.
Flint had considered letting the pickup accidentally get stuck, but he didn’t want to annoy the old man. Especially since staging a delay wasn’t the best way to stop Mr. Gossett. Fifty years of progress would take care of that. Flint was confident the old man would take one look at the sophisticated instrument panel on the plane and give up any hope of flying it out of here. Even if the old man had flown a plane once in his youth, he would be bewildered today.
The fact that someone else was at the plane complicated things. Flint suspected it was Robert Buckwalter who had come out to the plane. If it was, the old man had a pilot. That would change the odds on everything.
Francis sensed Flint’s worry. Nothing in his face had changed since they spotted that pickup, but she gradually sensed the tension in him. We’re really in danger, she realized numbly. Dear God, The thought came to her almost unbidden. We need help.
Francis was tired of worrying about the problems between her and Flint. Just like she instinctively turned to God when she needed help, she also wanted to turn to Flint. They were in trouble, and she didn’t want to face it alone. She slipped her hand from under her leg and brought it up to lightly touch Flint’s wrist.
Flint’s hand responded immediately. It moved off the gearshift and enclosed her hand.
I am home, Francis thought. His hand was cold. Ice cold. But it didn’t matter. His hand could rival the temperature of the Arctic Circle and she’d want to hold it. She could face anything if they were together hand in hand.
Chapter Eleven
If a person didn’t know better, this could be a view on a postcard, Francis mused.
The morning sun was bright on the snow-covered hills leading up to the Big Sheep Mountain Range. The mountains themselves
were low and didn’t have any of the peaks that were found in other mountain ranges in Montana.
There were no houses on the horizon and no trees. Usually there were no signs of civilization up here except the thin lines of barbed-wire fence that divided the various sections of land that had belonged to her father and now belonged to her brother, Garth. Some of the land would be planted in wheat this coming spring. Some of it would be left for free-range grazing. Right now, it was empty. All of the cattle had been brought closer to the main house because of the storm.
The only mar in the otherwise peaceful picture was the tracks in the snow. There were now two sets of tracks. One set was partially filled in with drifting snow. The other set of tracks was newer. Both led to the small twin-engine plane that was parked next to one of the barbed-wire fences that followed the country road. Past the plane was a piece of land that had been scraped clean of snow. Either a snowplow had done it or it had been shoveled clean by hand.
“It must be Robert,” Flint said softly. There was no one standing outside in the area between the plane and the Jeep, but it must be Robert. Who else would care enough about an airstrip to make one on a day like this?
Flint felt a twist in his stomach. With an airstrip and a pilot, there would be no stopping the old man from flying.
That’s what Flint had been afraid of— He didn’t want the old man airborne. Not that he knew for sure they would all be safer if old man Gossett had no hope of getting that plane in the air. But gunfire was much more likely if the old man even thought he could get them in the air.
“I’ll do the talking,” Mr. Gossett announced suddenly. “Don’t want you two scaring them off.”
Flint stopped the pickup as far away from the plane as he felt he could. Whoever had driven the Jeep in here must be inside the plane. “They haven’t got any place to go, anyway.”
The old man renewed his grip on the two guns he held. “This won’t take long.”
“You’ll want to be careful with that gun of mine,” Flint said softly. “It’s federal property. Use it to commit a crime and they’ll lock you up and throw away the key.”
A Bride for Dry Creek Page 14