Ransom Canyon (17 page)

Quinn looked back at the senator. He was preparing to talk to the reporters who’d gotten an anonymous tip that Senator Kirkland was in town on a family emergency. “Staten hates the press. He told me that even when we were kids.”

Lucas laughed. “I know he must hate reporters. The first time I was stringing wire for him he told me if I ran out of posts, just hammer in any reporter that stepped on the property.”

Quinn smiled and kissed the kid on the check. She could see that he respected his boss, and if he’d been the one Staten told about her, then the feeling went both ways.

Half an hour later Quinn walked into Staten’s hospital room. She’d never expected to see him like this. Some people just seemed strong enough to face any storm.

Lucas stood next to the bed. He looked up and saw Quinn at the door. “Miss O’Grady is here, Mr. Kirkland.”

Staten’s low voice answered, “Thanks for taking care of my lady, kid. I owe you one.”

“Anytime, sir.” He nodded once to Quinn and picked up his hat. “I’ll be outside the door for a few minutes making sure you’re not disturbed.”

Quinn slowly moved closer to the bed.

Staten’s eyes were closed and a bandage wrapped around his chest and shoulder. His left arm was tied into the bandage so he couldn’t move it.

She laid her hand over his heart and kissed him gently.

His eyes slowly opened. “I was hoping that was you and not the nurse.” His right hand covered hers. “When I was shot, all I could think about was making things right with you, Quinn. I didn’t mean what I said, and if I have to apologize every day for the rest of my life, I will. You just got to talk to me. Let me be part of your life. However you want it to be. I’ll—”

“You’re forgiven, Staten. You don’t have to keep apologizing. I figured out what you must have thought when you saw Dan over at my place fixing my tractor. I did a favor for his daughter, and he insisted on paying me back. We’re friends, that’s all.”

She smiled down at him and realized sometime in her forgiveness speech he’d fallen asleep. Maybe all he needed to hear was that he was forgiven.

“I love you, Staten. I think I have all my life.” She whispered her words to her sleeping man, knowing that she might never say them when he was awake. “The nurse says you’ll be out for the rest of the night, but if you don’t mind, I think I’ll sit with you awhile.”

An hour later she was almost asleep when she heard him whisper her name. She moved to the side of his bed and brushed her fingers along his jawline.

“Quinn,” he said without opening his eyes. “Don’t give up on me.”

“I’m right here, Staten.” It wasn’t a promise, but a fact. She’d been close to him always, even when he had no idea she was there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Yancy

Y
ANCY
G
REY
REALIZED
something was different the moment he walked into Dorothy’s Café. First, most of the tables were full, and it was supposed to be the dead time between lunch and dinner. Second, if he didn’t know better, it looked like someone had called a town meeting. Businessmen, farmers, shop owners and cowboys were packing the place like it was Sunday morning after a wild Saturday night, and Dorothy had the only coffee in town.

One look and Yancy started backing away. If there was trouble boiling, he was usually the one it spilled over on. In life’s lineup he guessed he was the only one with a Pick Me sign on his forehead, so he’d better be moving on.

“I saved you a place at the counter.” Sissy grabbed his arm. “You won’t want to miss this.”

Yancy thought of screaming that he really, really
did
want to miss this, but by the time he pulled free of the round little waitress, he was halfway across the room.

Looking over the crowd, he saw Cap and Leo right in the middle of the mob. “We got to do something,” Cap demanded, slamming his fist on the table so hard spoons jumped.

A man with a badge, the sheriff Yancy had avoided every time he’d seen him, held up his hand as if blocking Cap’s suggestion. “This happened outside the city limits. It’s a county problem. I’ve already called in backup, and a Texas Ranger is sitting up in my office as we speak. A man’s been hurt. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

One cowboy in the back yelled, “Your ranger is a brand inspector, Sheriff Brigman. We’re not talking about a cow being shot.”

The sheriff corrected. “He’s a ranger first. We think Staten Kirkland walked into a crime scene last night. He was shot because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Crime scene, hell, he was walking across his own land,” an old cowboy yelled before spitting a brown stream of tobacco into a cup.

“That better be a paper cup, Jake Longbow, or I swear there’s about to be another crime scene right in my café,” Dorothy shouted from the pass-through.

“It was, honey-pie,” Jake yelled back, not seeming to care that half the town was listening.

Several men fought down laughter. Jake Longbow had been courting Dorothy longer than most of the men in the room had been alive.

“What’s going on?” Yancy whispered to Sissy.

“A big-time rancher was shot last night. You’ve met him, Mrs. Kirkland’s grandson? Word is there’s not one clue. Could have been drunk hunters, but they’d have to be real drunk to mistake a man like Staten Kirkland for a deer.”

The sheriff stood on a chair. “All right, everyone, calm down. I called you all here to help. Someone was on the Double K Ranch last night, and the odds are somebody saw something. We’re asking those who can to help us walk over the section of land. We might just get lucky and find a shell casing or something.”

“This is starting to sound like an episode of
CSI
.” Sissy giggled. “Only I don’t think they have a ranch unit. Most folks in America probably think crime only happens in big cities like on TV.”

Yancy tried to listen to what was going on, instead of to Sissy, but he smiled at her, so she wouldn’t know he was doing his best to ignore her.

Everyone, including Leo and Cap, was willing to go out and help. Yancy didn’t want any part of this. Too recently he’d lived on the wrong side of the law and this didn’t feel right, but if he didn’t volunteer, someone might ask why. He had to think. He had to do what a normal man would do, even if the ex-con jitters were threatening to take over.

“Do we go on horseback?” Jake Longbow asked. “I can have a dozen mounts saddled and ready at the Double K’s headquarters in no time.”

“No. It’s a nice day. We walk. We’ll need a few riders to move back and forth, but any man riding needs to stick to the road as much as possible so he doesn’t contaminate evidence.” Brigman pointed to another man with a badge. “Load up two or three evidence kits we can strap to saddles.” He turned to the rest of the men. “We meet at the cattle guard coming on to his ranch from the north in two hours.” The sheriff climbed down and began talking to Cap and Leo.

“Evidence kits,” Sissy whispered. “We’re into big-time crime now.”

“Sounds like it,” Yancy admitted. The urge to run was strong, but he was too far from the door, and he didn’t want to look like a coward.

By the time Yancy worked his way over to Cap and Leo, both were busy taking down names.

“Sheriff left us in charge of keeping up with who goes onto the land. What time they walk on or off. It’s an important job, or he wouldn’t have taken us out of the field,” Cap said after he noticed Yancy standing beside him. “It’s a big responsibility, but we can handle it. Leo and me will have to stay at the gate in my car to make sure we don’t miss anyone.”

“Mind if I ride out and lend a hand with the walking?” Yancy asked, feeling like a fish offering to cut bait.

Mrs. Kirkland’s grandson was always polite to him when he stopped by. Even took the time to tell Yancy he thought he was doing a great job around the place. If Yancy was going to step into being normal, now seemed a good place to start.

“No, we don’t mind. The sheriff needs all the able-bodied men we can find.” Leo shook his head. “This isn’t going to be an easy case to crack. Did I tell you that I once thought of being a forensic investigator? I could have done it, too. Read all about blood spatters and beetles aging in dead bodies. They say the average criminal makes a dozen mistakes while he’s committing a crime. All we need to find is one.”

Yancy was starting to consider this an educational field trip. If he failed at this normal stuff and went back to a life of crime, he’d know what not to leave behind.

Cap interrupted Leo. “Tell us about it in the car. We need to get up there.” He turned and yelled, “Dorothy, load us up a couple of thermoses and some fried pies if you got them.”

“Will do.” She laughed. “This is just like the days when you were captain of the grass-fire division over at the fire department. You always ordered me around when an emergency came.”

As most of the men moved out, a lanky cowboy limped to the counter. “You better not be ordering my Dorothy around, Cap.”

Dorothy stepped through the swinging kitchen door with three thermoses. “Oh, hush, Jake, this is official ordering and nothing more.” She set two containers in front of Cap and handed one to Jake Longbow. “This one’s for you, Jake. Bring it back when all this police business is over.”

Jake grinned. “It might be late, sweetie-pie.”

“I’ll be up waiting.” She turned to the others. “You all be careful.”

All three men nodded and headed out.

Yancy left a dollar tip, even though he hadn’t had time to order anything. There were half-empty cups of coffee everywhere and water glasses spilled across tables in the rush to get out. If Cap would have waited on him, Yancy might have stayed to help Sissy clean up, but the old guys were ready to march.

Two hours later a slow-moving army began to walk across the far pasture of the Double K. The day was warm, but the earth didn’t lend itself to straight lines. Mesquite trees, rock formations and ravines where water flowed every time it rained were all in the way. Every man walked the mile from fence to fence, with a stick in his hand and his eyes alert and focused on the ground. No one knew exactly what they were looking for. The sheriff just said they’d know it when they saw it.

Yancy saw more piles of manure than anything else. Weeds and cactus brushed against his jeans. The warm sunshine brought out a few spiders and bugs he’d never seen before, but he didn’t find anything that looked like it didn’t belong to nature.

It took him over an hour to walk the first mile, and then he had to move fifty feet over, turn around and walk back. Only now, the sun was in his eyes and he couldn’t see the next step, much less any evidence. He almost tumbled to the bottom of a dry creek bed, and when he managed to climb out, he was relieved to find a stretch of flat, treeless pasture.

Three quarters of the way back to the road where Cap’s boat of a car was parked, Yancy noticed something shiny next to a cluster of rocks about a foot high. Beyond the rocks there was a ridge where someone hiding out would have a clear view of the road—a clear shot at a man standing in the pasture below.

Having been told to call out and not touch anything unusual, he tried to brush what looked like a spent shell an inch away from the rock.

It rolled the wrong direction, and the stick was too thick to fit beneath the rock. He didn’t want to shout if it was nothing. The sheriff or the ranger would simply rush over and probably yell at him for wasting their time.

Leaning down, Yancy slipped his hand into the slice of an opening. Once under the rock, he could wiggle his fingers, so the opening must widen.

He pushed deeper, digging dirt away until his hand was almost completely under the rock. He’d just brush whatever the shiny metal had been out into the sun. He wouldn’t pick it up. As soon as he saw it might be a clue, he’d yell.

Pain suddenly shot up his arm, and Yancy jerked his hand away as he yelped in panic and fear.

The men on either side of him came running, asking questions.

“I thought I saw a spent shell, but it rolled under the rock.” Yancy stared at blood dripping from his first finger. “When I reached to get it, something bit me.”

“We’ll get that shell out of the hole,” a cowboy smart enough to be wearing gloves said as he slapped Yancy on the back. “You go over to Cap’s car. I’m betting he’ll have a first-aid kit. Bites are nothing to mess around with.”

Yancy did as he was told. All the way to the car, he stared at his finger, dripping blood like the leaky pipe in Mrs. Kirkland’s sink. It didn’t really hurt that badly, but the thought that something bit him freaked him out. Mosquitos or flies were one thing, but something big enough to take a hunk out of him was serious.

Five minutes later, when he reached the car, Leo and Cap took over as if they were handling a major emergency.

Just as he settled onto the fender of the car to wait for them to find the first-aid kit, a tiny little Volkswagen pulled up. Ellie Emerson, Cap’s niece, jumped out, looking all serious in her almost-professional nurse manner.

“Glad you’re here, Ellie,” Cap yelled from the back of his car where he and Leo were tossing things out while they searched. “We got us an emergency here.”

With her cape flying, she rushed to Yancy.

He tried to smile but must have looked brain-damaged, because she held his chin and stared into his eyes. “Where’s he hurt?” she asked as if he wasn’t conscious. “Any sign of blurred vision or vomiting?”

Yancy thought about yelling back that his ears hurt, but Cap beat him to the answer. “Figure it out, Ellie. We’re busy. I know the kit is in here somewhere.”

Lifting his first finger, wrapped with Cap’s questionably clean handkerchief, Yancy gave her a hint. “Something bit me.”

“Spider, snake, prairie dog?”

“I don’t know.”

Examining the wound from every angle, she gave her diagnosis. “If it’s a snake, we need to get you into the clinic, but this doesn’t look like a snake bite.”

“You seen a lot of snake bites?” He swallowed hard and fought to keep his eyes from crossing.

She met his gaze. “Two. Both were puncture wounds about half an inch apart. This looks like something was planning to have you for lunch.”

“Then you’re the expert. I was simply on the menu.”

Ellie managed a half smile as if she wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. “If it’s a spider, you’ll be dead before we can make it to the hospital.”

Now he gave a half smile, having no idea if she was joking.

The wind whipped up, circling her cape around her plump little body. “Get in the backseat of this car. We don’t want any dust in the wound.” She pushed on his shoulder, almost knocking him off the fender. “If you feel faint, let me know. If you pass out, we’ll have real trouble getting your long body inside.”

He followed orders, thinking she had the worst bedside manner he’d ever seen. But she sure did smell good.

She climbed into the other side with her bag in one hand and a first-aid kit probably older than Yancy in the other.

There wasn’t much room in the backseat. She had to put her bag behind her to get close enough to him to work. “I can clean the wound.” She captured his forearm between her elbow and her breast as she began wiping the blood off his finger with a square of wet tissue she’d pulled from a sealed packet.

Yancy felt light-headed. Every time she breathed, something very soft pushed against his forearm. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He’d never told anyone in prison that he’d never touched a girl. They would have thought it a great joke. But, between age fifteen and twenty he’d been in and out of reform schools or on his own. The few girls in his world weren’t the kind he wanted even if they’d been dumb enough to want him. So, when the guys talked about women, he’d played along, retelling stories he’d heard in other places.

“Are you all right?” Ellie pressed closer as she lifted one of his eyelids.

“I think I’m dying,” he whispered.

“If a prairie dog bit you, you’ve probably got rabies. That could kill you if we don’t get you to a doctor. I’ve heard rabies shots are no fun to take.”

Cap leaned in the open window. “Give him some water and see if he starts foaming at the mouth.”

The rusty voice of Jake Longbow came from somewhere behind Cap. “Looks like he stuck his hand in a prairie-dog hole. Dunk the wound in alcohol and tape it up. He’ll be fine.”

“But—” Ellie began.

“No buts. Prairie dogs don’t carry rabies. Unless he starts running a fever, he’s fine.”

Cap bristled. “How do you know, Jake? You’re not a doctor, and my Ellie is almost a nurse.”

“I’ve been bit or stung by every kind of animal, insect and plant on this place. I finally just started biting them back.”

Ellie grinned, and Yancy thought she looked pretty but he wasn’t about to say anything. He had a feeling she was only slightly more friendly than the prairie dog.