Ride the Thunder (46 page)

The longer Brig studied the tracks Jordanna had left in the snow, the more worried he became. If Fletcher came across that trail, it would lead directly back to him. He needed a place that offered more concealment, yet kept him within view of this spot, so he could signal Jordanna when she returned.

Brig looked back over the ground they had covered to reach this point. A thick stand of pine trees was behind him. Among them was a tangled deadfall. It looked more secure than the jumble of rocks that surrounded him. Ricocheting bullets could tear him to pieces, bouncing off these rocks, while the fallen timber would absorb them.

Scraping the snow from his wound, he saw it had stopped bleeding, but the numbed and sore muscles had begun to stiffen. Brig pushed painfully to his feet, laboring the first few steps. The wind blew stiffly in front of the trees. It had almost succeeded in wiping out their previous tracks. Brig moved carefully toward the deadfall, trying to walk only where the snow was thin in order to make fewer tracks for Fletcher to trail.

At the first tree, he paused to lean against it and
take some of the weight off his left leg. The bark near his head exploded, driving splinters into his cheek. Brig dropped to the snow-covered ground as the rifle shot echoed through the mountains. His heart was thundering in his chest. He crawled on his belly to the deadfall.

“D
ID YOU HEAR
that?” Jordanna reined in her horse sharply and glanced worriedly at Kit.

He had stopped his horse at the sound of the rifle shot. His head was tipped at a listening angle. “Jocko said he’d fire two shots if he found you.”

No second shot followed the first. The significance of that drew a sharp breath from Jordanna. She tugged once at the reins of the horse she led. When it strained in resistance, she let go and kicked the horse she rode into a canter. Kit was right behind her.

Brig waited behind the fallen timber. Sweat had broken out on his forehead as his eyes and ears strained to find his assailant. The carpet of powdery snow would silence any footsteps by one who knew how to walk on it. And he’d had plenty of opportunities to observe Fletcher’s stalking skill. Brig wasn’t that well concealed, but he didn’t dare move. The snow hid the brittle branches in the deadfall. While trying to get into a better position, he might break one of them and
he couldn’t risk any noise that would draw attention to his location.

His cheek began to smart from the sweat trickling into the tiny cuts made by the splintering bark. Brig ignored it and moistened his dry lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move downhill and focused on it.

Fletcher was slowly moving toward the stand of trees. Brig guessed that the hunter probably wasn’t sure whether his bullet had dropped him or not. In a moment, Fletcher would see there was no body at the base of the tree and would start combing the woods for him. Brig silently cursed his lack of a weapon. His knife would only be good for man-to-man fighting and Fletcher would never let him get that close.

As Fletcher moved onto the wide path the wind had swept free of snow, he stopped. Brig’s throat was dry. He glanced at his cover. As long as he didn’t move, he would be difficult to spot. He watched Fletcher search the trees with his gaze.

“McCord!” he called. “You might as well come out. I know you’re wounded. I found the blood on the ground the other day. Let’s make this as painless as possible. You can’t travel far—not far enough to escape me. I promise you I’ll end it quickly.”

Brig didn’t answer. The deadfall was an obvious place to hide and it would be the first place Fletcher would investigate. He looked around to see if there was someplace else. Time—he just had to buy a little time. Maybe Fletcher would make a mistake.

“Nobody is going to help you, if that’s what you’re hoping, McCord!” Fletcher called again, working his way slowly up the slope. “Jocko is on the other side of camp. I watched him leave this morning. Even if he heard the rifle shot, he’d never make it in time to help you. He’s a long way from here. Jordanna might be leaving camp now, but she won’t help you. It’s just you and me, McCord. So, come on out.”

There was a tree to one side of him and Brig inched toward it, moving only when he was certain Fletcher
was looking in another direction. Using its wide trunk as a shield, he straightened and flattened himself against it. Each second he gained became precious.

“I know why you have to kill me, Fletcher!” he called to the hunter. “But why did you kill Max?”

“Come out where I can see you.”

“No! Not yet!” Brig shouted, aware the hunter was moving, now that he had located his prey, but he didn’t know in which direction. “If I’m going to die, at least give me the peace of mind of knowing all the answers!”

“The bastard thought he could take my wife and my money.”

Fletcher’s voice came from the left and Brig inched in the opposite direction, keeping the tree trunk between them. It mattered little that his first suspicion about Max and Fletcher’s wife had been right all along.

“You are a fool, Fletcher,” Brig declared.

“No, you are the fool for dragging this out! Step out here where I can see you!”

“You can still get out of this, Fletcher. You can buy yourself some attorneys and probably get off with a light charge and a couple years’ probation for Max’s death. But if you kill me, you are compounding everything. They’ll hang you for this. It’s premeditated murder and you know it.”

“But you are the only one who does!” Fletcher laughed. “And you’ll be dead!”

The jangle of bridle bits and laboring horses reached Brig’s hearing, followed by the thudding of galloping hooves. His head jerked in the direction of the sound as Jordanna and Kit crested the rise, a loose horse galloping with them, its head held to one side to avoid the trailing reins. Jordanna slid from the bare back of the horse.

“Brig!”

He heard the panic in her voice. “Stay back, Jordanna!”

“Get out of here, Jordanna,” Fletcher ordered. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“No!” she protested stridently. “No, you aren’t going to kill him! Dad, stop this!”

“You heard me. Now do as you are told!”

“Who is next after me, Fletcher?” Brig challenged. “Jordanna is a witness. So is your son. Are you going to kill them, too? And what about Jocko? He can read signs better than you. Do you think he isn’t going to know what really happened here? You kill me and you’ll have to keep killing and killing. It won’t stop with just me!”

A bullet whipped the tree near his head. Brig ducked to avoid the spray of bark. The man was beyond reason, driven over the edge, beyond reach of any logic.

At the shot, Jordanna whirled around and grabbed the rifle from her brother’s hands. This time the tree had protected Brig, but unless she stopped her father, it might not turn out that way again. She rammed a bullet into the chamber. Before the reverberations of the first shot had died, Jordanna was firing her rifle in the air, then swinging the muzzle down to point at her father.

“I won’t let you kill him,” she warned.

Her father turned to look at her in surprise. Out of the corner of her eye, Jordanna saw Brig limp to a different tree, one that brought him closer to the windswept slope. But she didn’t let her gaze become distracted from her father’s stunned face.

“You won’t kill me.” He relaxed slightly, a faint smugness entering his expression.

“I don’t have to kill you, Dad.” There wasn’t more than thirty yards between them. “At this distance, I can hit you anywhere I want . . . in the leg, the shoulder, the knee. You taught me how to shoot. You know what I can do. Drop the rifle, Dad.”

“You don’t understand.” A frown gathered on his face. He seemed about to argue with her; then he
pressed his lips tightly together and turned to take aim on the tree where Brig had been.

Jordanna fired and the bullet kicked up a patch of snow in front of him, whining into space. A handful of rocks tumbled down the slope from the rocky crags above, dislodged by the reverberating percussion of the rifle shot. “Don’t make me do this.” The rifle barrel wavered when she brought it to bear on him again. Despite her outward show of calm, she was crying inside. This man had once been the object of her hero-worship.

“Jordanna, he’s been shot.” Her father’s voice was on a reasoning note. “I have to finish him, put him out of his misery. Don’t you see the forgiveness in his eyes?”

“No!” She nearly screamed the word.

There was a crunching sound and Jordanna thought it was her world being stepped on. Behind her, Kit shouted, “Dad, look out!!”

Her first thought was Brig, and her gaze flew to the tree that hid him. She had a glimpse of him looking up before Kit roughly pushed her aside to run toward her father. As Jordanna stumbled backwards, she saw the huge boulders rolling silently over the snow. As they picked up speed, the earth began to rumble.

Brig heard Jordanna’s scream as she realized her father was in the path of the boulders. He stepped from behind the tree and cupped his hands to this mouth to shout above the roaring avalanche of rock.

“This way, Fletcher!”

The gray-haired man was staring at the rocks rushing toward him. He didn’t hear Brig call, but he saw Kit running toward him. Instead of running toward the trees, where he had a chance of escaping the slide, he started toward his son. The smaller rocks were already under his feet. The first boulder clipped his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. The rest
crashed and rolled over him, dragging and rolling his limp body along with them.

It was a short, violent slide. When it subsided, Brig limped across the wide path, strewn and scraped with rocks. Kit was scrambling down the slope to where the body was wedged between two boulders. Jordanna had dropped the rifle and buried her face in her hands. When Brig reached her, she had just begun to realize it was over. She uncovered her eyes to stare down the slope.

“Daddy?” she cried brokenly and took a step toward the body Kit was uncovering.

Brig hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her back. “No. It’s better if you don’t look.”

She lifted her tear-streaked face to stare at him. “He’s . . . dead.”

“Be glad the mountain took him, Jordanna. No one has to know what happened or why. Your father is dead. There isn’t any reason for you, your brother, or your mother to suffer through a lot of dirty publicity. Do you understand?” he asked gently.

“Yes.” She began sobbing and wrapped her arms around his neck to cling to him.

“We’ll get through this.” Tenderness surged through him. “We’ll make it together.” He held her close, absorbing her tremors.

A horse and rider crested the ridge and paused. The horse tossed its mane and chewed at the bit. Jocko took in the scene at a glance and rode down to the young man bent over the still form.