Lone Calder Star (12 page)

As long as they kept coming at him one at a time, Quint was able to hold his own even though he was outnumbered. But they were bound to wise up any second and coordinate their efforts.

A head snapped back, rocked by a hard jab from Quint. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the cocked arm that was taking aim on his middle. It was pure reflex that turned him sideways, letting the fist ram itself into the side of the pickup. The man yowled and grabbed at the hand he jerked away from the truck. Quint had a split second to hope he'd broken a bone or two in it.

Someone jumped him from behind and wrapped his arms around Quint's shoulders. "Come on.

I got him," he called in quick excitement, his breath sawing near Quint's ear. "I got him!"

But Quint's hand to hand training stood him in good stead.

Without a concious thought, he seized the man by one wrist,ducked under his arm, and twisted the wrist behind the man's back. A quick chopping blow delivered between the man's shoulders sent him sprawling face forward at the feet of his cohorts. Both reached down to help him up.

In the brief interval of inaction, Quint was conscious of the heavy pounding of his heart and the heaving of his chest to draw air into his lungs. There was a roar in his ears. Blows had landed, hut adrenaline blocked any of the pain from them for the time being.

The street remained empty of traffic and no one had ventured out of the bar. Quint was dimly aware of the muffled noise from inside the building, but his focus was on the curses and muttered oaths of three men as they regathered themselves.

Quint tried a bluff. "Pack it up and get out while you can still walk."

"Like hell," one muttered.

The response seemed to galvanize the other two. As one they hurled themselves at Quint. As good as he was, three was more than he could handle at one time.

Fists flew. Knuckles smashed against bone, and the air had the tinny smell of blood in it. Grunts, gasps, and curses all mixed together in a seamless sound of confusion.

In the bar's makeshift storage room and office, Dallas dug through the jumble of papers that littered the solitary desk and uncovered the black telephone hidden beneath them. She picked up the receiver and punched the button with the blinking light.

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"Hello, this is Dallas."

"Dallas?" a woman's voice repeated on an incredulous note. "What are you doing there?"

The voice was a familiar one, but Dallas couldn't place it. "Who is this?"

"It's Kelly Rae. Kelly Rae Thomas," she added in clarification.

"Kelly Rae," Dallas said, recalling the brunette who had been one year behind her in high school.

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Tillie said I wanted to talk to you?" Again she sounded surprised.

"She just said I had a phone call."

"I can't believe this," Kelly Rae declared in disgust. "I told her I wanted to speak to Alice. Alice Mitchell. That old fool needs a hearing aid. If I wasn't so furious right now, this would be funny."

Dallas remembered the two girls had been almost inseparable during high school. "Let me see if Alice is here."

"No! Wait," Kelly Rae rushed. "Maybe you can help me. I'm trying to find out if Bubba Franks is there. Have you seen him?"

"I don't remember seeing him here, but I wasn't really looking for him either."

"What about the Poindexter brothers? Bubba usually hangs out with them."

"I definitely don't remember seeing them," Dallas answered with confidence. Both men, former defensive line standouts in football, topped six feet and three hundred pounds.

In frustration Kelly Rae launched into her tale of woe about a family get-together Bubba was supposed to attend, complete with a threat to return his engagement ring if he didn't walk through the door in the next ten minutes. A promise from Dallas that she would send Bubba on his way if she saw him finally satisfied the girl, and Dallas hung up.

The loud music and raucous voices hit her the minute Dallas exited the relative quiet of the back room. She hesitated, briefly toying with the idea of slipping out the rear door, avoiding any further attempts by Quint to persuade her to stay. But it smacked too much of cowardice.

Squaring her shoulders, she set out for the far end of the bar. As she passed the pool tables, John Earl intercepted her.

"Hello Dallas." His avid gaze devoured the close fit of her cotton top, "Don't you look sweet tonight?„

"Thanks." But he was easily the last man she wanted to notice that. Dallas continued past him with hardly a break in stride.

He quickly caught up with her. "Not so fast. I was just going to buy you a drink."

"Sorry, but I'm with someone." Even as she made her claim, her glance skipped ahead. Her steps faltered when she failed to see Quint sitting at the far end of the bar.

"If you're talking about that stranger, he left."

Dallas wanted to take issue with that, but the evidence seemed to be all on John Earl's side.

Quint was nowhere to be seen. She hadn't expected him to walk out without waiting for her to come hack. She told herself that it was just as well he had. It saved her from having to deal with any attempts by him to get her to stay longer.

"Good," she said. "I have to be leaving anyway."

"You can't go yet," John Earl protested, catching hold of her arm before she could walk away. "I want to buy you a drink."

"No, thanks. I have to go home and study."

"And I said you're going to stay," he insisted with an angry scowl. "Forget about those damned books for a while."

"Why?" Dallas was suddenly suspicious. He seemed more anxious than eager for her to stay.

"Because I want to buy you a drink. Why do you think?" He turned a big smile on her, but there was an edge of desperation in his voice that was impossible to ignore.

"What's going on, John Earl?" she demanded.

"Nothing." The denial came a little too quickly. And the pause was a little too long before he remembered to say, "I just want to buy you a drink."

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"Where exactly did Quint go?"

"I told you he left." John Earl tried to appear cocky and indifferent, but only succeeded in looking nervous and uneasy.

"And rather suddenly, too. Did you have anything to do with that?"

"Me? Whatever put a crazy thing like that in your head? I don't even know the guy. Forget about him, and have a drink with me." He tucked a hand under her elbow and tried to turn her toward the bar.

Dallas pulled her arm free and bolted for the door.

"Hey! Where are you going?" a dumbfounded John Earl called after her. "Damn it, come back here."

Dallas knew without looking that he was coming after her. She broke into a run the last few feet.

But the flat of his hand pushed the door shut a second after Dallas had pulled it open.

"You can't leave yet." There was anger and something else in his eyes.

"Watch me," she replied and simultaneously gave the door a hard jerk before he had a chance to set his weight against it.

The suddenness of her action enabled Dallas to open the door wide enough that she could slip out before John Earl could recover. By the time he came charging out the door after her, she was halfway to the parking lot.

"Come back here, you damned, spooky broad!"

She threw a glance over her shoulder and saw that he had stopped to glare at her, jaw ridged in a tight, angry line. In that same second, he pivoted away and bulled his way back inside the building.

In the next breath, Dallas heard the hasty thud of running footsteps, more than one set, the sound mixed in with the hiss of whispers. She reached the parking lot's graveled lot in time to see the dark shapes of two hatted figures ducking behind the building.

"Quint?" she called in a low, hesitant voice.

There was a scrape of a foot on gravel somewhere close by, off to her left. She turned toward the sound. There, in the shadowy gap between the two parked vehicles, she saw him half standing and half leaning against the side of a pickup. A light from the street revealed the dark gleam of his hair and the glisten of a dark wet streak running from temple to jaw.

"My God, Quint. You're hurt," she murmured and rushed to his side.

"I'm all right." He brushed aside the hand she stretched out to him, and shifted to make his legs take more of his weight, but Dallas could see the effort it took.

"You are far from all right," she informed him.

Blood continued to seep from a nasty gash along one eyebrow. There was a swollen area along the opposite cheekbone that was already showing the discoloration of a bruise. One side of his mouth was puffy, with more blood trickling from the corner.

"It's nothing," he insisted and pressed two fingers to his mouth, winced, and stared at the coagulating blood on them with a kind of groggy recognition.

"Just the same, I think we'd better be safe and get you to a doctor." Dallas didn't like the vaguely dazed look he had.

He dragged in a deep, long breath, then slowly released it. "Nothing's broken, only bruised. I know the difference."

Unable to argue with that, she swung away. "I'm calling the police then."

"Don't bother," he said in a weary voice. "I didn't get a good enough look at their faces to recognize any of them again-unless you did?" His gaze sharpened on her when Dallas turned back to him.

"No," she admitted.

"Then it would be a waste of time and paperwork." He frowned and lifted a hand to his bare head before making a scan of the ground near his feet. "Where's my hat?"

Dallas found it lying half under the pickup and retrieved it for him. He took it and eased it
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carefully onto his head. Then he seemed to focus on her for the first time.

"You'd better get out of here and go home," he told her.

Dallas hesitated. "What are you going to do?"

"The smart thing , go home and nurse my wounds." He brushed past her and angled across the lot while fishing a set of keys from his pocket. Dallas watched, half expecting his gait to ee a staggering one, but he walked a slow but straight line to the rear of a black pickup, then took aim on the driver's side. She saw the interior light come on when he opened the door.

There was a slight pause between the time he opened the door and pulled himself into the cab.

Then the light went off, and the engine rumbled to life, tail and headlights coming on.

When the black truck reversed out of the parking slot, Dallas started toward her own vehicle.

Despite all his assurances, she wasn't totally convinced that Quint was okay. Rather than he nagged by her conscience, she followed him at a discreet distance all the way to the entrance of the Cee Bar.

She slowed as she approached the gate, and caught a glimpse of his taillights disappearing around a bend in the drive. Satisfied that he would make it safely the rest of the way, she turned around and headed home.

An evening star,

A Texas moon,

A Calder trusts,

But is it too soon?

Morning light streamed through the windows as Boone entered the Slash R's formal dining room. He winced at the bright light that flooded from the huge chandelier above the table. The harsh glare of it sharpened the pounding in his head, the lingering result of one too many whiskeys last night.

To avoid the light's direct assault, Boone tipped his chin down and crossed to his usual chair, situated midway on one long side of the table, grateful for the plush area rug that muffled the heavy tread of boots. As usual, the hangover made his hearing much too acute, magnifying the smallest sound.

As he took his seat, he slid a glance at his father, already ensconced at the head of the table, then reached for his napkin, shook out its folds, and dragged it across his lap. A connecting door to the kitchen swung open and a servant glided into the dining room, carrying a steaming bowl of oatmeal on a serving tray. Boone's stomach rolled a little at the sight of it.

"None for me, Vargas," Boone stated, intercepting the servant's quick look at him.

"I suspect Boone needs one of the cook's tomato juice concoctions before he tackles any food,"

Max informed the servant. The servant nodded, placed the bowl in front of Max, and left the dining room. The stirring scrape of a spoon across the bottom traveled up Boone's back like the screech of chalk on a blackboard, setting his teeth on edge.

"I understand it was after three o'clock when you finally staggered home." The comment had an offhand quality to it, but Boone heard the underlying tone of disgust.

"That's probably about right," he agreed and took considerable pleasure in adding, "I know it was right around two o'clock when I got back to the ranch."

"Two?" The single word carried a demand for an explanation for the hour's difference in time.

"Two," Boone confirmed as the servant swept back into the room and placed a tall glass of the cook's personal hangover antidote, the ingredients of which he refused to divulge, before Boone. Boone downed a healthy dose of it and felt the spicy bite of it on his tongue and throat,
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its fiery flavor burning away much of the dullness in his head.

"If you were back by two, why did it take you an hour to get to the house?" Max eyed him with sharp suspicion.

"When I pulled into the ranch yard, I happened to see Tandy struggling to get one of his buddies out of his pickup. I figured the guy had probably passed out, so I stopped to give John Earl a hand." He paused deliberately, savoring that rare feeling of knowing something his father didn't.

"That couldn't have taken you an hour," Max stated with certainty. "What did you do-tip a few glasses with the boys?"

"You always told me that whiskey is a sure way to loosen a man's tongue." Boone was well aware that whiskey hadn't been necessary. Tandy, Saunders, and the other two had been only too eager to tell their story. "And it was an interesting tale they had to tell about how they got the cuts and bruises, black eyes, and cracked ribs they sported."