Chapter 31
The ambush occurred about an hour out of Sanderson the next morning. The first shot came from a clump of trees on their left that skirted a very steep ravine. The second came from the bottleneck up ahead that was caused by a pile of boulders the narrow trail passed through. It wasn’t the only way to get to Culthers, just the quickest route—and, at the moment, blocked.
But then, they weren’t being asked simply to turn around and find another route. Those were some serious bullets, serious enough to cause Casey to quickly seek cover and shout for Damian to do the same. Unfortunately, they chose opposites sides of the path, Casey diving behind one of the larger boulders on the right, while Damian headed into the trees on the left.
That prevented any discussion of strategy, but Damian didn’t appear to need any advice. He was already returning fire. Casey retrieved her rifle and did the same. She was expecting shots to be coming from five different locations, but could spot only two—which didn’t mean much, since she didn’t have a clear view of the entire area.
She hadn’t been expecting an ambush in broad daylight, though. A night raid, yes, but during the day, when there would be a good chance of spotting who was doing the shooting? Of course, if the shooters didn’t plan on leaving any witnesses behind, then night or day wouldn’t matter.
But she supposed, after everything she had learned about Jed Paisley and his cronies last night, she should have expected this. And since this could have occurred before they’d even reached Sanderson—there’d been plenty of time and opportunity—Jed had obviously waited before doing anything, just in case Casey and Damian had decided to move on instead of returning to Culthers. Jack must have given orders to stop them only if they were on their way back.
She sent off a couple of rounds into the trees, about twenty feet from where Damian had taken cover. That spot held the closest shooter to Damian, and therefore was the one she was most worried about. Of course, if she hadn’t been worried about someone sneaking up on him, she might have been more cautious of the same thing happening to her…
“Hello there, Kid. Shoulda took our advice and headed back to wherever ya hails from.”
She recognized that voice behind her instantly. John Wescot, the Sanderson dentist. It just didn’t make any sense to her that he would be here and aiming a rifle at her back—she’d recognized the sound of one being readied for firing, too, a minute before he spoke.
But when she started to turn around, to confirm his identity with her own eyes, since her mind was not accepting it, she got a “Don’t move—’cept to set that rifle down real slowlike.”
She did. The rifle was too cumbersome for any quick moves, anyway, and he hadn’t mentioned disposing of her six-shooter, possibly because her poncho had kept him from noticing it. Yet. Not everyone wore a gun strapped to his thigh—leastways, not “boys” as young as he thought her to be.
“You’re lucky it’s us and not ol’ Jed,” he went on to tell her in his nonchalant tone. “Fact is, he’s much worse’n we let on. He likes to torture his victims before he kills ’em. Finds something amusing ’bout it. Me, I get paid to kill, I just do it quick and clean. No need for extra suffering. It’s just a job, after all. So where would ya like it, in the head or the heart? Both are pretty quick in my experience, so shouldn’t hurt all that much.”
Casey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He spoke of death as if it were merely a small inconvenience. And how the hell would he know if it hurt or not?
“Answer me one question, if you will,” she said, managing the same casual tone he was using. “Did you get hired for this job before or after I joined you last night?”
“It was after you left us. Fact is, we enjoyed yer company, Kid. Ain’t often we get to brag about our friends like that,” he said with a chuckle. “It was purely fun. And if it’s any consolation to you, Bucky didn’t feel too good about takin’ the job, seein’ as how we got to know you and you’re such a young un. But a job’s a job. It’s nothing personal, you understand.”
Oh, she understood perfectly. Hired killers usually did take that attitude, to absolve themselves of any guilt that might trouble them. Of course, most of them didn’t have a conscience to begin with, so guilt never entered their small minds one way or another.
She asked another question, more to stall for time than out of any real curiosity. “You aren’t really a dentist, are you?”
“Hell, no,” he practically snorted. “What would I want a fool job like that for when this kinda work pays so much better? Now you answer my question, ‘cause time’s a-wastin’. Where ya want the bullet?”
“Between the eyes will suit me—if you’ve got the guts to look in them first.”
“Sassy-mouthed for such a young un, ain’tcha? All righty, turn around, but do it real slow, Kid. Don’t want this to get messy.”
Messy for whom? For her, of course. Either he had nerves of steel, or he really didn’t think he’d have any trouble from her, and her guess would be the latter. And it was John Wescot standing there. What she still found so incredible was her own gullibility, that these men had managed to fool her so easily into thinking they were just harmless townsfolk out having a good time on a Saturday night.
“Satisfied?” he said as he took more careful aim with his rifle. “Now it’s time—”
Casey dropped to the ground as she drew her weapon. But even as fast as she was couldn’t compensate for a rifle ready to be fired. All she did was mess up John’s aim some. She got a bullet off, but the explosion in her head at the same time kept her from seeing if she was at least going to take him to the grave along with her.
Chapter 32
Damian couldn’t see behind the boulder that Casey had claimed as hers, but he could see over it. And when he heard two shots fired almost simultaneously and saw two puffs of smoke float up above that same boulder, his heart seemed to drop into his belly.
There was about forty feet of open, flat area between him and that boulder, but that didn’t stop him from racing toward it. Bullets hit the ground at his feet, flew past his head; he didn’t notice or care that he made such a big target, nor did the shots have anything to do with the fact that he’d never run so fast in his life.
What he found when he got to the boulder was one body sprawled on the ground and another leaning back against another boulder, standing there at a slight angle—dead. Blood was splattered everywhere.
Casey was the one on the ground and Damian couldn’t stand it. She looked just as dead as the other body, lying on her back, her arms spread out, her gun still gripped in her right hand. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. And she was covered in blood, making it impossible for him to pinpoint immediately where her wound was.
It would have helped his peace of mind to realize that most of the blood wasn’t hers, but came from the man she’d shot in the chest at such close range. However, Damian couldn’t determine that as he dropped to his knees beside her to gather her gently into his arms.
At that moment the ambushers could have moved in to finish him off, for he was focused only on Casey as he rocked her in his arms and dealt with his anguish. But since the remaining gunmen couldn’t see what had happened behind the boulder, they continued to send their bullets in that direction, chipping away at the hard rock, once even sending dangerous slivers of it down on the ground around him. But they didn’t approach.
This was all his fault, Damian thought. He had brought her here. He had tempted her with more money than she’d ever earned on a single job before. If he had been reasonable in his offer, she would have had no problem turning him down and going her own way, but he hadn’t wanted to take that chance, so he hadn’t been reasonable. And now…
Her heat should have told him she wasn’t dead yet, but he was too upset to even think of that. Guilt and recriminations were too easy to wallow in, and he could barely breathe himself for the knot in his throat as he did his wallowing, not noticing that she was still breathing.
br /> It took a pretty loud moan to finally break through his grief, a moan caused not from her wound but because he was squeezing her too tight. He let out a shout of joy as he carefully laid her back down on the ground. Her eyes fluttered for the briefest moment, though didn’t quite open. Yet she was alive—alive and possibly bleeding to death.
The thought sent Damian into a new panic, to find her wound and get it stanched immediately. Poking around her didn’t stir her, but as soon as he touched her head, she moaned again and her eyes flew open—just in time to shoot the man sneaking up behind him.
Damian swung around to see the fellow fall forward, face-first. Casey was unconscious again by the time he glanced back at her, her still smoking gun dropping from her lax hand this time. He quickly stuffed it in his own belt before he examined her head again.
There was about a three-inch bloody path where the bullet had slid by just above her right temple. Her hair was missing from the line, scraped off as if she’d been scalped in that narrow area. The tip of her ear had been singed black from the heat also.
The wound was still bleeding, but only lightly. It was her continued unconsciousness that had him most worried now. Blows to the head could affect people in many different ways. He had been fortunate that his own recent head wound had caused him only headaches.
He needed to get her to a doctor. And he needed to make sure that she wouldn’t get shot again along the way. That meant seeing to the remaining ambushers first—or the last one, since he heard fire from only one weapon. Of course, that didn’t mean much; there could be others. Finding where they’d left their horses would help to clarify the count, which was what he set out to do after tying his bandana around Casey’s head.
He crawled over and around the big rocks, sometimes on his belly, working his way toward the bottleneck up north. He figured the horses would be behind it, but when he reached the summit, no horses or sign that any had been hobbled there, so he worked his way back.
The gunfire had continued being directed to where he’d last been seen. But by the time he’d reached the bottleneck, it had stopped completely. Again, that didn’t mean much, since it could mean so many different things, but he nevertheless hurried to get back to Casey—only to find her gone.
The two bodies were still there, Casey and their weapons were not, and neither was her horse. Yet he knew she wouldn’t just leave him there. She’d have no reason to, unless she thought he was dead. But she’d verify if he was dead or not first—unless she had no recollection of him at all. And that was one of those peculiar effects he’d been worried about.
He had heard of head wounds that had caused someone to forget friends, even family, even a full lifetime of living. If she had regained consciousness and left the area, then what else was Damian to think? At the moment, she might not remember him at all.
Chapter 33
Casey awoke to find herself belly-down over a saddle on a horse that was pounding away at the ground and causing a piercing pain to streak through her temples. Her first thought was that Damian could at least have held her upright on his lap rather than in this ignoble position. She started to tell him so when she noticed the leg next to her wasn’t his—at least the boot wasn’t.
She had shot John Wescot. She wasn’t positive, but she thought she’d shot Pete Drummond as well. Did that mean it was Bucky, the last of that threesome, who was carting her off? But why? If he’d found her, why hadn’t he just finished the job they’d been hired for?
And if it’s any consolation to you, Bucky didn’t feel too good about takin’ the job, seein’ as how we got to know you and you’re such a young un.
She recalled those words now and took comfort in them. Bucky didn’t want to kill her. He was taking her away so he wouldn’t have to—if it was Bucky and not Jed Paisley or one of his boys.
But what would be Bucky’s alternative? Just let her go? She doubted it. He’d accepted the job, even if he hadn’t liked it. She couldn’t imagine what he intended to do instead. For that matter, how should she deal with him? Be outraged? Blister his ears for trying to kill her? Appeal to his guilty conscience? That might backfire on her.
The pain stabbed at her head again, reminding her how serious the situation still was. She refrained from trying to feel the wound to determine how bad it was. She didn’t want Bucky to know she was awake yet. But it couldn’t be that bad, since she had all her thoughts about her…
That was it! She could play dumb, pretend the wound had damaged her memory. He’d have no reason not to let her go, then, if she had no memory of him, Culthers, or anything else. She’d be solving his dilemma for him. That is, if he was smart enough to figure that out for himself, which she certainly hoped would be the case, since she couldn’t help him do that if she didn’t know why she’d been shot.
Now, if he’d just get to wherever he was taking her before she lost the contents of her belly all over his boot…
From her upside-down position, it looked as though they were headed to a farm, though not one that was currently being worked, but had probably been bought cheaply from a farmer who’d given up and moved on. A nice place for someone like Bucky to call home—that is, if he wasn’t wanted by the law. He might even have shared it with his two deceased buddies. The house itself was certainly big enough for three to live comfortably.
He didn’t even check to see if she was awake before he dismounted and hefted her over his shoulder to carry her inside the house. It was all she could do to keep from grunting as her belly met his bony shoulder. And then she was dumped, quite literally, on the floor. Maybe she’d been harboring false hope. He’d carried his lack of concern for her condition a bit too far, but it did give her an excuse to wake up—groaning.
Her eyes fluttered open to see it was indeed Bucky Alcott hunkered down next to her, peering at the blood seeping through the bandana still tied around her head. “Who are you?”
“Don’t be pullin’ my leg, Kid. You know me well enough from the other night.”
“You are mistaken, mister. I’ve never set eyes on you before.”
“Now look here, boy, I’m not stu—”
“Boy?” She mustered an offended tone for her interruption. “What do you mean, boy? Are you blind? I’m a woman, as if you didn’t know.”
He squinted his eyes at her, then shot to his feet and velled, “Hell’s fire and damnation, a woman! Then what in tarnation are you doing in them clothes, lookin’ like a fresh-off-the-farm fifteener?”
She glanced down at herself, but all she noticed was the blood, and her surprise was natural and made her forget for a moment the role she was playing. “I’m dying, aren’t I? With this much blood—”
His snort cut her off. “Don’t think that blood is all yours.”
She recalled herself in time to play dumb again. “Whose, then?”
“Beats me,” he lied. “It’s what you were wearing when I found you.”
Was he making a joke? She chose to think not, and got back to what she was actually wearing, saying with a frown, “As for these manly-looking clothes, I don’t rightly know why I would be wearing them, to tell you the truth. I suppose because I’ve been doing a lot of riding. I wear jeans on the range, I’m sure of that.”
“You say that like you ain’t sure.”
Her frown got deeper. “Well, I’m not exactly. I seem to be having a little trouble recalling some things. Have I been given some kind of medication? Is that why my memories are suddenly so fuzzy? And why the devil does my head feel like it’s on fire?”
He coughed. “I—ah—think you got yourself shot in the head, missy.”
“I did what?! Who would dare!”
“Now, don’t be flyin’ off the handle. Fact is, you oughta be dead. ‘Nuther fact is, I shoulda done the killin’. But with both John and Pete—”
She was immensely disappointed that he’d admitted that. Obviously, he hadn’t yet figured out the benefits of her memory loss. But she continued to play dumb. “You s
hot me?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said in a low grumble. “But like I said, I shoulda.”
“Why? What could I possibly have done to you to warrant something so outrageous as—”
“You didn’t do nothin’ to me. It were just a job I got paid for. Nothin’ personal, you understand.”
My, how friends did tend to have the exact same philosophies to ease their consciences. “Then you still intend to kill me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You’d be dead already if that were my intent. I brought you here to talk you into stayin’ away from Culthers so I won’t have to kill you.”
“Who is Culthers?”
“Who? It’s a—never mind. If you don’t know, all the better.”
Finally he was figuring it out. She was beginning to wonder…
“Do you know who I am?” she asked him. “I can’t even manage to recall where I come from. Damn, but this is so frustrating!”
He didn’t look very sympathetic, in fact looked downright glad to hear it. “I noticed the K.C. brand on your horse. That’s a ranch over in East Texas. Might be, you could ask around if anyone knows you there.”
She was amazed that he knew of the K.C. Ranch this far west. Thinking of the brand was actually nice detective work on his part. And for him to even mention it meant he was letting her go.
“That’s an excellent idea. I never would have thought of it. But—just where is this ranch?”
“Over Waco way, I think. Never been that way myself, just heard tell of it ’cause it’s a big un. Easiest just to take the train east.”
“There’s a train near here?”
“Oh, yes, and I’ll be glad to put you on it,” he assured her.
“How kind of you,” she replied. “But shouldn’t I see a doctor first?”