Swept Away (27 page)

Ruthy dragged herself up the last few feet of the red-striped cliff and rolled onto solid ground. Panting for a few seconds, she dragged up the supplies tied to the bottom of the rope. Then she went to check on the watchmen and the ranch.

Slipping along, crouched down and silent, she made her way to the line of scrub brush and saw both sentries in place.

A bang drew her attention to the ranch and she saw Greer rushing out of the house. He’d already been inside? This early? Had Glynna and the children gotten a chance to hide?

She was too far to hear what Greer was saying, but she heard his angry tone. Greer’s horse stood saddled in the yard. His shouts didn’t break his stride. He swung up on a dark red horse and wheeled it to head down the road that would take him to Broken Wheel, running flat-out.

Three men loafing around the ranch yard ran for the
corral. Greer yelled to his sentries as he galloped by. They answered but it was all just noise. Ruthy couldn’t make out the words, though she didn’t need to.

The guards vanished from their posts. They were abandoning the ranch. She didn’t have to hide here for a single minute. Whirling, she raced down the faint trail Luke had shown her that led in a winding path toward the house.

She was halfway to the ranch when she heard more riders racing away. Dodger would either have the drop on the rest of them or they could be trusted. Either way they should all be out of sight and neither see nor hear her and Glynna leave.

Ruthy had time. If Greer was riding to Broken Wheel, he’d be gone for hours, yet she felt almost mad with urgency. Several steep spots slowed her down, but she pushed on as fast as she could.

She stopped when she reached a gap between her and the house. There was an outhouse and a chicken coop to slip behind. A buckboard was parked beside the chicken coop. It gave her one more place to hide. Ruthy suspected the buckboard had been left in just that place on purpose. With one careful look she saw no cowpokes visible around the ranch. She studied the lookout posts to make sure the men hadn’t returned.

Determined, she darted from the trees to the buckboard. Crouching low, she hurried to the house and rushed inside. Luke had given her careful directions, and she went straight to the closet, opened the door, and then knocked on the small trapdoor to the cellar. She wouldn’t have noticed it if Luke hadn’t described it.

“Glynna? Glynna Greer, are you down there? Dr. Riker and Luke Stone sent me to get you out.”

There was no response.

“Glynna, my name’s Ruthy, Luke’s wife. I’m here alone. Your husband has ridden off to town. He must think you’ve run off and he’s going to Broken Wheel to bring you back. Please hurry. We need to get you and the children out of here.”

Ruthy heard something stir under her feet. Slowly, as if shoved by shaking hands, something metallic scraping against wood slid beneath the trapdoor.

The door opened and a half-grown boy appeared as he inched the door upward. Blond hair, blue eyes, scared to death.

Ruthy caught the edge of the door and lifted. The boy blinked. The fear in his eyes broke Ruthy’s heart.

“Come on out. I’ve got a way to take you to safety, and we’ll make sure Flint Greer never touches any of you again.” A mighty bold promise. Ruthy prayed fervently for God to help her keep it.

Dare said the children were Paul and Janet. Paul, his eyes suspicious, climbed out and slipped past Ruthy into the hall. He was taller than she was, still more boy than man physically, but mentally he was far too old. Without checking, she knew he was standing guard.

Next came a little girl who looked like she’d risk death before she’d so much as whisper. Ruthy knew that look. She’d worn it for a while with the Reinhardts.

“Come on out here, Janny.” The boy spoke from behind Ruthy, and she heard something unsettling in the boy’s voice. A deep anger, a willingness to fight and kill and die to protect his sister. A terrible thing to hear in a youngster.

Next came Glynna. Slow and steady and determined and exhausted. Her complexion pale, Glynna had golden
hair and eyes to match. She was unusually pretty. If Ruthy ever had any time to spare, she might just sit down and be jealous.

“How long have you been down there?” Ruthy asked.

“Not long.” The woman emerged from her self-imposed grave. She was an older version of her daughter. “Flint came in so early, we hadn’t even thought to go down yet. We ran for the cellar and then listened while he hunted for us. Then he left.”

Glynna stepped away and Ruthy let the trapdoor drop with a loud clap. Glynna started as if she’d heard a gunshot. Ruthy remembered that—the fear so close to the surface.

Leaving the closet with Glynna and the children right behind, Ruthy said, “We’ve got a place close to town for you all to hide until Greer’s locked up tight.” Or dead, but Ruthy didn’t say that. These three all looked so fragile she couldn’t add talk of killing to what they’d been through. “Let’s go.”

No sense waiting one minute longer. Ruthy felt her arm caught and she turned to face Glynna. Tears brimmed in the poor woman’s eyes and suddenly she hurled herself into Ruthy’s arms. Ruthy caught her and hung on tight.

The children came and grabbed hold, too. It reminded Ruthy of how it felt to be held by Luke. Oh, things were very different of course with a husband. But the contact was wonderful. It soaked into her skin and gave her strength.

She hung on for a long moment. Then Glynna let go, swiped tears away with her forearm, and her eyes changed from fear to resolve. “Let’s get out of here.”

Ruthy smiled and realized she had a tear or two of her own. She brushed at them, nodded. “Follow me.”

She turned to lead the way out just as the kitchen door swung open.

C
HAPTER 19

Bullard didn’t have his gun drawn, so Dare swung his door open. What had happened to bring Bullard back and not Big John? The possibilities were limited and ugly.

“What’s the problem, Simon?” Dare knew what the problem was. Bullard figured out that Dare had a hand in knocking him cold and sending him off to prison.

Concealing his side by standing close to the doorframe so his arm wouldn’t show, Dare reached for his six-gun, in its holster, hanging on a hook by the front door. He slid the Colt out and tucked it into the waist of his pants.

He heard Luke behind him. Luke Stone was a good man to have at your back.

“You killed my son!” Bullard’s hand flexed, only inches from his gun.

The accusation stopped Dare for a second. “What are you talking about? What son?”

“Lana told me everything, you yellow coyote.”

“She told you I killed a defenseless baby?” Dare was so offended he couldn’t think straight.

“Don’t try and lie your way out of this, Riker.”

“Simon, there was no baby born. You need to calm down and talk to me. You know she . . . she . . .” Was dropped
on her head too many times as a child? Was a foam-at-the-mouth lunatic? Was crazy as a drunken she-weasel? “. . . was upset. But there was no baby born.”

No baby ever to be born. But Dare didn’t think Simon was quite ready to hear that.

“You think I’m gonna take your word over my wife’s?” Simon looked to go for his gun, but then hesitated. The man had himself some doubts. Dare walked down the three steps on his front stoop and got close enough that Simon would have a hard time pulling his gun and shooting without Dare blocking his draw.

“I’m not saying your wife is lying, Simon. I’m saying she’s wrong. Confused. She thought she was having a baby, but how many times has she done that before?” It was boiling in Dare to lash out. To pull his gun and fire. Big John was almost certainly dead or so badly hurt he couldn’t get back to Broken Wheel. But near as Dare could see, Bullard had no notion of bringing that up. This was about doctoring.

“Let’s go get a cup of coffee in the diner and talk this out.” Dare turned a very confused Bullard around and started him walking back toward the one-block stretch of Broken Wheel businesses. The doctor’s office was set back and near the woods that surrounded the town. They needed to move about a hundred feet to get to the raised board-walk that lined both sides of the closest thing Broken Wheel had to a main street. Dare wanted Bullard away from his house so Luke could have a chance to slip out. There were no horses or wagons in town besides Bullard’s, standing ground-hitched by Dare’s house. Duffy’s Tavern and Tug Andrew’s General Store were open. The door was ajar on Sledge Murphy’s livery, which was down here on Dare’s
end of town but set back a ways. Dare heard a hammer ringing as Sledge banged it against an anvil.

He suspected Luke was so sick of hiding he’d take a chance on being seen in order to get to Vince with the news of Bullard showing up, and Big John’s disappearance.

Bullard must’ve suspected his wife wasn’t thinking right because he came along instead of drawing his gun.

Dare considered where to launch his attack. There’d be someone to notice them—Tug Andrew, the store’s owner, was the type to watch out his window if anything moved—but Dare was tired of biding his time. Bullard was here right now. Greer might be coming any minute. They’d intended to take Simon out of the fight and now here he was back in town. This was Dare’s chance to thin the herd, but he couldn’t shoot Bullard in cold blood.

That’s when Dare realized that on the way to the diner, they’d have to pass the jail. A jail with no one home and the cell sitting empty. Something mean curled inside of Dare. He didn’t intend to let this brute hurt Big John and not regret it. He rested his hand on Simon’s shoulder and then pulled it back when he realized he was getting ready to grab Bullard by the neck.

Dare stepped up onto the board-walk. “You really came in here thinking I killed a child? Haven’t I taken good care of your wife?”

Simon nodded. “She’s out of her head with grief, though, Doc. Something’s wrong. You should come out and take a look at her.”

“I should come and doctor a woman who’s accused me of murder?” The jail was right ahead. It wasn’t exactly fair, but nothing about this moment called to the straight shooter in Dare. Bullard turned to look across the street.
Dare pulled his gun and slammed it over Bullard’s head. The man went down like a stunned ox.

The jailhouse door swung open.

Luke, staying back, said, “Get that varmint in here. I want to know what he did to Big John.”

“He ain’t gonna talk for a while.” Dare grabbed the back of Bullard’s collar, dragged him inside, and kept going straight to the cell. Vince had the bars open, the key ready. Dare dropped Bullard on the floor none too gently.

“We’ve got to find Big John.” Vince slammed and locked the cell.

“First we’ve got to make sure Ruthy is okay.” Luke closed and locked the front door.

Thundering hooves came racing into town from the road to Luke’s ranch.

Dare rushed to the window. “Both of you are wrong. First we’ve got to kill Flint Greer.”

“How many are with him?” Vince asked.

“Six counting Greer.”

“Then I suggest we don’t run out into the street and face him head on.” Vince stepped to Dare’s side and looked at the oncoming mob. “This is the first place Greer will come to get the sheriff to back him. Unless we want to try and shoot it out from here, we need to fall back and come at their flank.”