Thunder Horse Redemption (15 page)

Ethan smiled. “The badlands can hide a lot, if you know where to go.”

She shook her head, stunned by the amount of equipment. “I don’t get it. I live on this land, and I don’t remember seeing anyone coming in and out of the canyon.”

“Because we didn’t want you to. We moved it at night.”

“But why do you need it? What’s the purpose?” Her gaze landed on a long fat tube that looked like a World War II bazooka. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but knew it could probably inflict a lot of damage. “You could supply an army with this much stuff.”

“Exactly. It’s the beginning of the end of a government that is no longer run by the upper-class minority.”

“What are you talking about?” She faced Ethan, trying to make sense of what she saw and what he was saying.

“The silent majority, the working-class people are taking back our government from people like you who think you own everything.”

Roxanne laughed, in spite of the tension of the situation. “I don’t own everything, I’m struggling to make payments on what I have. What does this have to do with you holding a gun on me?”

“My job was to keep anyone from discovering the cache.” He shook his head. “But you just couldn’t stay away from the canyon.”

She tore her gaze from the stockpile. “You were the one that shot at me. I should have known. You disappeared often enough, when you should have been working.” She nodded at a dirt bike leaning against the wall in the corner. “You’re pretty good on a dirt bike, but thankfully a lousy shot. So why bring me here if you didn’t want me to find this cache?”

“To kill you.” Ethan’s words rang out against the cool stone walls, his eyes a colder gray, the gun leveled on her.

Now she was starting to get scared. The air left Roxanne’s lungs and she struggled to keep it together in the face of imminent danger. “Kill me? Why? What have I done to you?”

“Other than poking around in the canyon, not anything worth dying for.”

“Then why me? Why now?”

“It’s not so much what
you’ve
done, it’s what your
boyfriend
did.” His voice dropped low, echoing in a low hum off the cave walls. “And I didn’t know who your boyfriend was until yesterday.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Ethan waved the rifle wildly. “Bull! I saw you two practically crawling into each other’s skins.”

Roxanne stood with her hands planted on her hips, facing Ethan, refusing to show her fear in the face of his threat. If he was going to shoot her, he’d have to shoot her face-to-face. “That doesn’t mean we’re together. We split up two months ago, after my brother died.”

“Yeah, after he killed my girlfriend.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Your boyfriend was responsible for killing my Leah.”

“How?”

“His raid on that warehouse set off the explosion. He got there too early. Leah was inside. She shouldn’t have been in there when it went off. The feds were supposed to come later, after our people got out. But no, your boyfriend ordered them in earlier. It’s his fault. Pierce Thunder Horse killed Leah just as if he’d stuck a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.” His body shook, his voice cracking as tears filled his eyes.

“Oh, Ethan. I lost someone I loved in that raid, too.” Roxanne stepped toward him.

“Stay back.”

“Listen. You don’t have to do this.” Roxanne reached out. “Please, Ethan, let me have that gun before it goes off.”

“That’s the idea.” He shoved the gun at her hard, the barrel hitting her in the rib, making a snapping sound.

Pain lanced through her where metal smacked against bone. Roxanne doubled over, clutching her rib cage. “Ethan, hurting me won’t bring Leah back.” She pushed her words through gritted teeth, fighting to hide the pain.

“I know that.” He swiped his empty hand across his face, brushing aside his tears. “What do you think I am, stupid?”

“No, I don’t. I think you’re grieving and lashing out at anyone you can, because you’re still hurting.” Like she had.

“Shut up.” Ethan fired off a round.

The bullet missed Roxanne, tearing into a wooden crate.

“Ethan, you’re not a killer.” Roxanne struggled to keep the fear out of her tone, to be firm yet gentle. “Put the weapon down and let me help you.”

“No. It’s over. I’m tired of hiding, tired of guarding this stuff, tired of being told what to do. I just want Leah back.”

“Ethan, she’s not coming back.” Roxanne shook her head, turning sideways to provide the narrowest target she could if he decided to shoot again.

“It hurts. Missing Leah hurts so bad.” His tears spilled over and ran down his cheeks, the rifle shaking in his hands. “Your boyfriend needs to know what it feels like to lose the woman he loves.”

“You’d hurt me to punish Pierce?” She straightened, though it hurt to. “Pierce didn’t send Leah into that building. She went in there on her own.”

“They weren’t supposed to move on the building until Leah got out, but they did, because of Pierce.”

“What happened is done, Ethan.” Roxanne inched toward the man as his tears continued. If she could get close enough, she might be able to grab for the gun. “Don’t make it worse.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Leah wasn’t supposed to be there, or stay that long. She was supposed to get out before…”

“Before the explosives went off?” Roxanne whispered, recalling her own anguish over losing her brother, Mason.

“Yes!” Ethan jerked the gun. “They weren’t supposed to get there that soon. Not until she got out. Not until it was time.”

“What time was that?”

“The specific time I tipped them off with, damn it! The ATF and FBI agents were getting close to the truth. I wanted them to raid the empty warehouse, to set off the rigged explosives and get rid of them. It wasn’t supposed to happen like it did. Leah wasn’t supposed to die, and because she did, you will, too.”

“Ethan—” Roxanne started.

“Shut up and turn around.” Ethan demanded, jabbing her again with the barrel of the rifle. “I’m going to kill you and when Pierce comes to find you, I’ll kill him, too.”

No. Roxanne couldn’t let that happen. No matter what happened to her, Ethan couldn’t go after Pierce. And, she realized, she couldn’t die without letting Pierce know how much she still cared for him. She had to tell him that she didn’t blame him anymore, and that he shouldn’t blame himself. No matter what had happened during that raid at the warehouse, Pierce hadn’t been responsible for Mason’s death. She’d known that all along, even though she’d refused to admit it, wanting to have someone to blame.

But what had happened over the past couple days had made her realize life was short. She could die in a car wreck or be thrown by a horse. When your number was up, it was up, no matter how you went out. The most you could hope for was to love someone with all your heart for as long as you could and be thankful you had that time together.

She refused to believe her time with Pierce had come to an end.

A surge of adrenaline and determination shot through Roxanne and she made a grab for Ethan’s rifle, knocking the barrel to the side.

The gun went off, the bullet pinging against the wall of the cave, ricocheting back at them.

Roxanne dropped to the dirt.

The bullet hit Ethan in the shoulder, knocking him backward so hard that he hit the cave wall and crumpled to the ground, the rifle falling to the ground in front of him.

Tears welled in Roxanne’s eyes as she staggered to her hands and knees and scrambled across the floor, reaching for the rifle.

As her hand closed over the stock a black boot landed in the middle of her hand, pinning it.

“Leave it,” a heavy voice said.

Roxanne shrieked and jerked her hand free, sitting down hard on the cave floor as she turned to stare up into the barrel of a semiautomatic pistol.

Chapter Fifteen

“Can this thing go any faster?” Pierce leaned forward as they skimmed across the plains heading west.

“I’m giving it everything I can,” Rick’s voice crackled over the headset into Pierce’s ears. “Look down. That should be the Thunder Horse Ranch we’re passing over now. Where to from here?”

“Head for the canyon.” Pierce pointed toward the wide, scarred swath of broken earth.

As they neared the edge of the canyon, Pierce leaned over, peering down at the land below. “See that pond?”

“At one o’clock?” Rick nodded. “Yup.”

Disappointment washed over him as he stared at the deserted ground around the pond. No sign of Roxanne, Ethan or Toby anywhere to be seen. That didn’t deter him. Pierce would use the tracking skills his father had taught him to find them. “Put us down close to the canyon rim.”

As the chopper lowered over the land, Pierce could see a cloud of dust rising from the east and another in the west. Riders, heading their way. If they’d gotten his messages then it was probably his brothers from the east and Roxanne’s men from the west. They wouldn’t get there for several more minutes. Minutes he couldn’t waste waiting for backup. He had Tuck. His brother was a trained agent and they both carried their guns. It would have to be enough to start with.

He prayed to
Wakan Tanka
that they didn’t run into the entire militia in their efforts to bring Roxanne home alive.

As the helicopter skids brushed the ground, Pierce threw open the door, jumped out and ran toward the watering hole, Tuck racing to catch up.

Fresh tracks led away from the pond toward the edge of the canyon, veering to the north, instead of descending at the old trail.

Tuck caught up with Pierce. “Only two horses. Julia said Roxanne left with Toby and Ethan.”

His chest tightened. “We have to assume she’s with Ethan, and that he’s dangerous.”

Pierce followed the tracks to an outcropping of rocks and boulders where they vanished. The ground was rough, made of plate rock swept clean of dust and dirt. Horses wouldn’t make tracks on solid rock. He’d lost the trail.

* * *

R
OXANNE
HELD
UP
A
HAND
as if that would stop a bullet from killing her. As her focus shifted from the gun’s barrel to the man holding it, she gasped. “Deputy Duncan? Oh, thank God you’re here. Ethan tried to kill me.”

The deputy didn’t reposition the weapon. “He’d have saved me the effort.”

“What?” Roxanne had trouble wrapping her mind around the deputy’s words. “What do you mean?”

“If Ethan had done his job right in the first place, no one would have found this cave.”

“I don’t understand. You’re an officer of the law.”

“Yeah, and I’m tired of crap for pay and the government taking a huge chunk of what little I make in taxes. Taxes that go to building bridges to nowhere and investing in companies that take jobs out of the United States. We plan on retaking our country.”

“By force?”

“It’s the only way.”

“And you’re going to use this stuff to do it?” Roxanne waved her hand around the cavern. “I assume you’re part of the militia Ethan was talking about.”

“Damn right I am.” Shorty glanced around at the stacks of weapons. “Ethan really screwed up. He should never have shot at you in the first place. It only brought more attention to this canyon. Now we can’t get the weapons out without drawing even more scrutiny from the Thunder Horses. The FBI will get involved and, if they put the pieces together, the ATF will be back in the mix. It’ll be a damned warehouse fiasco all over again. Had I known Ethan was responsible for tipping off the FBI about the warehouse, I’d have killed him sooner.”

Roxanne shook her head. She’d heard the warehouse raid hadn’t netted the number of weapons anticipated. “Were these the weapons moved before the warehouse raid in Bismarck?”

“Yeah, and now, because of you and Ethan, we’re back to square one. I’ll have to bury the weapons to keep the feds from finding them and discovering my part in it.”

Roxanne knew that his plan to keep his link to the militia a secret meant he’d have to get rid of her. She scooted backward, trying to get as far away from his gun as possible.

“Yeah.” Shorty’s eyes narrowed. “You and the idiot will be buried with the weapons.” He raised his arm, pointing the gun at Roxanne’s face.

She grabbed the only thing she could find in reach, a loose stone, and flung it at Shorty’s hand. It missed, glancing off his cheekbone, but it was enough to distract him from shooting as a trickle of blood ran down his neck.

“Damn you!” Clutching a hand to the wound, his lip curled into a snarl and he aimed at her again.

Roxanne’s life passed before her eyes as she waited for the bullet. The one thought that stood out above all others was an image of Pierce on horseback, his cowboy hat shading his eyes, a smile across his face as he rode toward her. Back when they couldn’t be apart for long, when their love had been untainted, fresh and new.

She wanted it back. Wanted Pierce’s love. Wanted to tell him that she loved him and had never really stopped loving him, even when she’d called off their wedding.

Now she sat on the floor of a cave, staring death in the face, wishing she had one more chance to tell Pierce how she really felt.

A loud click echoed against the cave’s walls, but the bullet didn’t come.

Roxanne scooted back farther, bunching her knees beneath her.

“You’re not getting away from me.” Shorty pulled the trigger again. Click.

Roxanne jumped to her feet and flew at Shorty, hoping to startle him into dropping the weapon altogether, giving her time to escape.

Just before Roxanne collided with Shorty, he raised his pistol and slammed it down on her head.

Pain bolted through her skull, clouding her vision as her body crashed into Shorty’s chest, knocking them both to the ground.

Roxanne rolled to the side and tried to rise, but blood ran into her eyes, blinding her.

Another blow to the side of her head and she was done, collapsing face-first into the dirt, swallowed by the black void of unconsciousness.

* * *

“T
HEY
CAN
’
T
HAVE
DISAPPEARED
.”
Pierce dropped to his haunches and scanned the ground, hoping to find a horsehair, droppings…something…anything that would lead him to Roxanne. “Their trail is somewhere close by. It has to be.” He rose and rounded the outcropping of boulders protruding up and spilling over the edge of a rocky cliff. The boulders formed a maze of giant obstacles, with gaps around and between. Desperate for some sign, some indication as to where the horses had gone, Pierce entered the maze and wound his way through a corridor wide enough for a horse or an ATV.

As he emerged on the other side, he discovered a trail leading down into a part of the canyon he had never explored. As he descended a few feet down the stony path, the ground grew more dusty and he could make out tracks of horse hooves…and a dirt bike. “Tuck, down here!”

“Down where? Where are you?” His brother’s voice sounded muted and distant, the boulders muffling his words.

Pierce hurried back through the maze to where Tuck stood. “Come on. There’s a trail wide enough for horses. And I found the tracks of a dirt bike.”

“What about the others on their way? How will they find us in this?”

Pierce yanked his shirt over his head and draped it on the boulder most visible from the pond, in case the others looked that way. Rick Knoell had seen the direction they’d headed, so he’d point the others in the right direction. Once they reached the boulders, they’d find the trail he’d leave on the stones. Pierce dug in his pocket for change. As he led the way through the maze, he dropped quarters, dimes and nickels to indicate the correct path.

As they emerged on the crooked trail leading down into the canyon, Pierce drew his gun, holding it at the ready.

The trail wound up and over ridges, in and out of boulders that had fallen halfway down the sides of the cliffs, leading them deeper into nature-carved valleys, ravines and crevices.

When they emerged on the canyon floor, Pierce hugged the walls, weaving in and out of giant boulders that had once been a part of the cliffs above. Pierce could understand why they hadn’t discovered this area before. The horses and cattle would find little or no food in the rocky ravines. But someone wanting to hide would find plenty of places in the caves dotting the cliffs, especially the ones closest to the ground.

He stopped beside a giant stone the size of a house and looked up at the dark holes in the cliff walls, some high up, others near the canyon floor.

Tuck moved abreast of Pierce, who was peering over his shoulder. “Which one do you think they’re in?”

Pierce scanned the darkened entrances. “I don’t know, but they have to be inside one of them.” He nodded to the other end of the deep crevasse. “They wouldn’t have ridden out that way. Too steep.”

Again the ground turned stony and tracks were hard to follow. Once he left the shelter of the boulder, he would be exposed to anyone holding a gun. “Stay here and cover me,” he said to Tuck, and took off running toward the cave with the largest entrance of those on his left.

No shots rang out as he climbed up the slope toward the gaping maw.

The first cave proved to be no more than an overhang, barely large enough to hide a man and a horse, much less two horses. As he slipped down the slope and moved on to the next cave, he heard a voice. He inched toward the entrance. The voice continued muttering and the scuffling of shoes across loose gravel carried to Pierce.

Someone was inside.

Adrenaline kicked in, sending him up the slope faster. As he neared the entrance, he scooted to the side, plastering himself to the wall, scanning the ridges and cliffs around him, searching for sharpshooters or sentries to warn those inside of intruders.

Nothing moved, no sun glinting off metal or field glasses. Pierce waved for Tuck to join him. Backup would be important if he hoped to get to Roxanne, especially going into a dark cave after being in the bright sunlight. He closed one eye, preparing for his move into the darkness. He prayed he wouldn’t be too late.

He gave Tuck a thumbs up and covered for his brother as he headed his way.

* * *

P
AIN
RICOCHETED
OFF
THE
inside of Roxanne’s head, forcing her back to the world of the living. She blinked once, then twice, willing her eyelids to remain open.

The darkness that greeted her made her think she was still asleep. As her vision came into focus she realized she was lying on her side next to a wooden crate. She wasn’t in her nice soft bed, but on the cool stone floor of a cave.

The events that led her there rushed in on her and she tried to sit up. She couldn’t move. Her hands and feet were duct-taped together in front of her. Another piece kept her lips from moving. Near the mouth of the cave, Shorty Duncan, the deputy with a dark secret, reached as high as he could, pushing claylike lumps against the rocks.

It had to be some kind of plastic explosive material.

Roxanne didn’t have much time. If she wanted to get out of the cave alive, she couldn’t lie there all trussed up.

She wiggled her way to the corner of one of the crates and rubbed the tape binding her wrists against the coarse wood. A strand at a time, the tape broke free. She kept an eye on Shorty during the process.

When he glanced her way, Roxanne played dead, her body going limp, her efforts ceasing until Shorty went back to his work preparing to bury her alive. He pressed wires and something metal into the malleable substance, stringing them together.

When Roxanne had her hands free, she hurried to pull the tape free from her ankles and mouth, timing her movements with Shorty’s to mask the sound.

A groan rose from nearby where Ethan lay against the wall. His hand moved to the wound on his shoulder and he groaned again.

Roxanne held her breath, hoping Shorty wouldn’t hear him and come to investigate. At least until she could climb to her feet and run.

Ethan beat her to it. He lurched to a standing position. “What are you doing?”

Shorty turned to face Ethan. “I’m burying the cache, thanks to your stupidity.”

Ethan staggered forward a step. “And you were planning to bury me with it?”

His lip curling into a snarl, Shorty glared at Ethan. “I wouldn’t have to sacrifice our hard work if it hadn’t been for you going on some revenge kick.”

“I loved Leah. Those Thunder Horse brothers killed her.”

“No, you did that yourself, by tipping them off.”

Ethan opened his mouth.

Shorty jabbed a finger at him. “And don’t try to deny it. You were the one who told the FBI where to find us and got our people inside the warehouse killed. If you want to blame anyone, blame yourself for Leah’s death.”

Ethan’s face darkened, his breathing growing more erratic. He threw back his head and roared, charging at Shorty like a drunken bull.

Shorty braced himself, but it wasn’t enough.

When Ethan hit him, he slammed against the wall of the cave, his head hitting hard.

The two men fell to the ground.

With Shorty and Ethan occupied, Roxanne pushed to her feet and scrambled for freedom. As she neared the entrance, she could see the sunshine and practically feel it on her skin.

A hand snaked out and locked on to her ankle.

She tipped forward, her momentum slamming her into the cave floor. Her vision blurred, a gray haze closing in around her. Roxanne refused to give in, refused to pass out and die in the cave. She pushed against the floor, rolling over as Ethan flung himself at her.

Barely avoiding him, she rolled out of reach and shoved to her feet, only a few steps away from escape.

Ethan leaped up, grabbed her hair and jerked her to a stop, his arm clamping around her neck.

Roxanne kicked and struggled, but Ethan’s hold remained firm, cutting off her air.