The Bequest (30 page)

Chad leaned his
rifle against a tree trunk and pulled his tee-shirt
over his head. With his teeth and one good arm, he ripped free a ribbon of
cloth. Working as best he could with one hand and his mouth, he strapped
it around his shoulder, tied an awkward knot, and pulled it tight. The
cotton strip turned red in just a matter of seconds, soaked with blood. The
pain throbbed, running down his arm to his hand, and pulsed across the
back of his shoulder, up his neck, and right into his brain, pounding,
pounding, pounding.

Veterinarians knew a little bit about human anatomy; large animal
vets knew even more than small animal vets. Chad knew that his wound
was bad but not fatal. At least not instantly fatal. The bullet was still
inside, probably lodged in his chest after passing through his shoulder. No
organs had been hit, but there was blood. Not so much that blood was
gushing, but enough that there was a steady flow. The bullet must have
nicked an artery. If he could keep that in check, he could buy time. But if
not,
or if the
pressure widened the
nick and
he
lost
too much
blood...well, he didn’t really want to think about that.

He heard the
zzzipp
of an angry projectile whizz by his head almost
before he heard the echo of a gunshot. Instinctively he ducked, though it
would have been too late had the shot been more accurate. He grabbed the
rifle and ran deeper into the trees.

The ground sloped upward, heading toward a ridgeline. Chad knew
every inch of his land, which had been in his family for four generations.
As a boy, he had roamed these woods with his cousins, playing boy-games
like cowboys and Indians, pirates, cops and robbers, and hide-and-seek.
He knew where the ridges were, where the valleys were, where the bluffs
were, and where the caves were. Should he hide in one of the caves or
seek higher ground to gain an advantage on his pursuers? He felt sure that
if he got to one of the caves, he could conceal himself as long as it took.
The sun would be down in a couple of hours, but darkness always
preceded the actual sunset in these thick woods as the sun drooped in the
western sky. When that happened, the two men would give up and leave,
defeated by lack of light.

Wouldn’t they?
The problem, though, was how long it would take for them to leave,
even once it grew dark. And how would he know if and when they did?
Especially if he were hiding in a cave. If it took too long, and if he couldn’t
slow the flow of blood enough to stay conscious, then maybe he would
simply stay hidden until someday a future spelunker in the caves found his
dry bones.
And what about Peggy? The armed men only cared about Chad
Palmer as a conduit to Peggy. Or Teri Squire, or whatever the hell her
name was these days. When the men stopped looking for him, they would
go looking for her. He knew that, after talking to her mom, she would
ride for a while, to clear her head, but sooner or later, she would return
to the ranch house, if she hadn’t already. If the men were still on the
ranch...well, he couldn’t let that happen.
He kept moving deeper into the woods, but at the same time higher,
to a ridgeline about two miles in that bisected the ranch. From there, he
would make his stand.

Teri barely felt the branches that scraped at her cheeks and grabbed at her
arms, their tips like fingernails, clawing at her flesh. The ground was
uneven, threatening at any moment to upend her. The biggest hazards
were small stumps of cedar trees that had been chain-sawed nearly, but
not quite, flush to the ground. Every step was an adventure, but she willed
her feet to almost float above the surface, to avoid the obstacles, to keep
her body upright.

The trees got thicker the deeper into the woods she ran. The ground
sloped gradually downward, but she knew it would soon start to rise. It
had been a lot of years since she had been here, but the Palmers and
Tuckers had been close ever since she was a little girl, and the Palmer kids
and Tucker kids had spent hours playing in these woods. Adam and Chad,
especially, neither of whom seemed to care if little sister Peggy tagged
along. She knew the hiding places, she knew the observation sites, and the
caves. And she knew Chad. He wouldn’t hide; he would protect her. She
knew where Chad would go.

Doug Bozarth paused and leaned back against a tree. They had lost sight of
the veterinarian shortly after the last shot. He wiped his sleeve across his
face, soaking up perspiration that bathed his temples. It pissed him off that
Dolan seemed immune to the heat. Though sweat had soaked through his
shirt, turning the denim dark blue, the man barely seemed out of breath. If
anything, he seemed bothered that they had to pause even momentarily to
rest. Goddamn Texans.

“Looks like an upslope that way,” Dolan said, pointing with his gun.
“My money says he’s headed for high ground. He’ll try to get an angle on
us.”

“He’s shot. He’s bleeding. He’s just looking for a place to lay low.”
Bozarth paused, painfully aware of the uplilt in his voice as he said it, as if
the sentence ended in a question mark instead of a period. An expression
of wishful thinking instead of a statement of confidence.

“If you say so, Chief,” Dolan said. “But I’d keep my head down if I
were you.”
Bozarth looked at this watch. The shadows were already starting to
lengthen in the trees. “How long ‘til the others get here?”
“Hour, give or take.”
Bozarth pushed away from the tree. “Let’s keep moving. Maybe we
can finish this before they get here.”

Chad crested the ridgeline and knelt behind a deadfall, a large oak that had
been uprooted years ago following a thunderstorm that generated nearhurricane strength winds. The roots stretched like tentacles at one end,
the massive trunk extending parallel to the edge of the ridgeline for a good
fifty feet.

Down below, at the start of the ridge, was a cluster of prickly pear
cactus, with a narrow opening in the middle. A parallel row of cedars
climbed the slope from the cactus, almost as if forming a fenceline on
either side of a path to the top. It would be nearly impossible for someone
down below to see through the cactus and over the tree, but with the right
perch behind the trunk, and at just the right angle, a person would have a
perfect funnel of vision from above to below.

Just perfect for a sniper. Assuming, of course, that the target entered
the field of vision at the bottom end of that funnel. Chad was counting on
it. The opening in the prickly pear virtually beckoned entry, as if it were
the gate to the easiest route to the top.

Chad rested the barrel of the rifle across the trunk, gripped the stock
tightly, and sighted down the funnel. He would have one shot, at the first
man who appeared. After that, the element of surprise would be gone.
Besides, his ability to work the bolt would be virtually non-existent for a
second shot.

He took the box of shells from his pocket and set it on the ground.
Eight bullets. He wasn’t sure how many were in the rifle. One-handed, he
put two into the magazine, but the effort of even that exhausted him. He
put the other six in his pocket.

Teri continued what she hoped was a flanking movement, of a sort that
would have made any military field commander proud. She wasn’t sure
where the armed men were, but she knew why they were here. If it had
just been two unidentified men with weapons, she would have assumed,
but couldn’t be sure, that they were after her; after all, it seemed like
everyone was these days. But Doug Bozarth was the dead giveaway. He
must perceive her as some kind of threat, although she couldn’t be sure
exactly what that threat was. Was he behind the murder of Leland Two?
She only had suspicions on that front, but maybe he viewed her as a weak
link in the chain of silence that would lead to him.

Or was it simply because the questions about ownership of the
screenplay would be brushed aside if she were to turn up missing? And she
had no doubt that, if Bozarth and his cohort found her, it would be the last
time anyone found her. She would end up buried somewhere on Chad’s
land, and the mystery of the missing two-time Oscar winner would be the
subject
of
future
documentaries
and
sensational
stories
on
the
Entertainment Channel or other tabloid
shows on television.
In the
meantime, he would count his back-end profits all the way to the bank.

Common sense told her to turn, get back on Gretel, and ride for
help. But Gretel had probably already run off by now, probably back to
Hansel at the barn. Besides, Chad needed her. He was bleeding and he was
hurt, and it was all because of her. Now it was time for her to stand beside
him as he had done for her all those years ago.

She increased her speed, the ground flying beneath her feet. Dodging
trees and rocks as if she were a running back covering a broken field, she
moved gradually higher, aiming for a ridgeline that she knew would give
her a vantage point even in the thickness of the woods, but maybe a half
mile beyond the track she believed the gunmen were taking. If she was
right, she would end up ahead of them, not behind, giving her the element
of surprise she desperately needed.

In San Antonio, California Highway Patrol detectives Nichols and Stillman
exited a Gulfstream III private jet that had been provided, at Swafford’s
request, courtesy of the chairman of Cinema USA, the studio set to release
Teri Squire’s new movie. An airport employee drove them in a golf cart to
the car rental counters, where they picked up a pearl-colored Toyota
Camry. Stillman plugged in the coordinates for Chad Palmer’s Bandera
ranch on the GPS device as Nichols got on his cell phone to call the
Bandera County Sheriff’s Department and announce their arrival.

“My guys have eyes on the Tucker place, but no sign of Ms. Squire or
anyone else, for that matter,” Sheriff Trey Waggoner said.
“We think she may have gone to Chad Palmer’s ranch,” Nichols said.
“Do you know where that is?”
“Sure do.”
“That’s where we’re headed.”
“I’ll meet you at the gate.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of sight,” Nichols said. “We don’t
want him to know we’re coming until we get there.”
“If he hasn’t done anything wrong, why’s it matter?”
“If Ms. Squire’s there, we don’t want to spook her.”
“You really think she had something to do with your killings out
there?” Waggoner asked.
“Our concern is that she’s the next victim. If she’s at the ranch, we
don’t want her running off before we can get there. Especially if the bad
guys already have boots on the ground.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you out on the state highway leading to the place,
and we’ll go in together. It’ll probably take you an hour, hour and fifteen
minutes to get there. I don’t figure anything much will happen before
then.”

An ancient Ford pick-up chugged across the meadow, kicking up dust in
its wake. It slowed briefly by the body spread-eagled on the ground, blood
soaking the dirt around it. The driver, a bearded man in his late thirties,
glanced at the body.

The clean-shaven passenger, a .38 resting on the seat beside him,
looked past the driver and shook his head. “Happy birthday, Morgan.”
“Today his birthday?”
“Yeah. Me and him was going down to the Riverwalk tonight to
celebrate.”
“Looks like you got your evening back.”
The clean-shaven man laughed. “Life sucks, and then you die.”
The driver eased down the slope and stopped next to the Dodge.
Both men got out, the clean-shaven man tucking the .38 in his belt while
the bearded man retrieved a rifle and a box of bullets from behind the
seat. He also wore a holster, just like an old west cowboy, a Colt .45 New
Frontier revolver riding low on his hip.
While the bearded man loaded the rifle, the clean-shaven man
checked the interiors of both trucks. “Got blood here,” he said, looking in
the window of Chad’s pickup. He scanned the ground around both trucks.
“Also got some prints. Looks like a horse.” He looked around, peered into
the trees, then back toward a ranch house in the distance. “Horse went
that way, but I got boot prints, too. Looks like the rider went into the
trees.”
The bearded man pulled a cell phone from his pocket and hit a speed
dial number as he approached. When he heard nothing, he tucked it back
in his pocket. “No signal.” He noted the prints on the ground, the blood in
the
truck, and
nodded his consensus
with the
clean-shaven man’s
assessment. “Boot prints are small. A woman.”
“The actress?”
“Let’s find out.”
The clean-shaven man pulled his gun from his belt while the bearded
man gripped the rifle in both hands. They disappeared into the trees.