Big Sky Standoff

by B. J Daniels

  She pulled on her shirt and other boot. Dillon. She fought the tears that burned her eyes. She’d gotten him into this.

  And if he was still alive, she would get him out. She dug in her saddlebag and found the second gun she always carried, and her knife. Then, as quietly as possible, she cut a slit in the back of the tent and taking the tracking monitor in its case, crawled out. She continued to crawl until she reached the trees before she managed to get painfully to her feet.

  Her ankle hurt, but not as much as her heart. She wanted to call to Dillon, except she knew that would only let whoever was out there know exactly where she was. Dillon wouldn’t answer, anyway. If he could, he would have returned to the tent for her.

  A little voice at the back of her mind taunted that she was wrong about him. That he was the leader of the rustling ring. That he’d gotten her out here for more than a romp in the tent.

  She told the voice to shut up, checked the gun and considered her options. They weren’t great. Her first instinct was to head in the direction of the horses. She had a pretty good idea that was where whoever had come into camp would be found, given that the horses sounded restless.

  That was where she suspected she would find Dillon.

  As much as she wanted to find him, she was smart enough to know whoever was out there was counting on her appearing. Waiting down there for her. Figuring she would hear the gunshot and come to investigate.

  It would be full light soon. She had to move fast. She worked her way back through the trees, in the opposite direction from the horses. The going was slow and painful, the ground steep.

  When she reached the bottom of the bluff, she stopped in a stand of trees. Opening the case, she took out the receiver terminal, listened to make sure she was still alone, and turned it on.

  The steady beep of the tracking monitor filled her with relief even as she reminded herself it didn’t mean that Dillon was alive.

  But at least now she knew where he was.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dillon came up out of the darkness slowly. His head hurt like hell and for a moment he forgot where he was. He was so used to waking up in a prison cell that at first he thought he was dreaming. Especially when he saw Buford standing over him.

  Dillon groaned and, holding his head, sat up. As he felt his skull and found the lump where someone had hit him, his memory gradually started to come back to him.

  “What the hell’s going on, Buford?” he demanded, taking in the gun in his old friend’s hand—and the fact that the barrel was pointed at his chest.

  “You should have stayed in prison.”

  “I’m getting that,” Dillon said. “Look, I don’t know who else is with you, but don’t hurt Wilde, okay?”

  “So it’s like that,” Buford said with a smirk.

  “You know, I misjudged you.” Dillon’s mind was racing. He knew he’d never be able to get to his feet fast enough to jump Buford before he caught a bullet in the chest. But he had to think of something.

  “Misjudged me?” Buford kept looking up toward the camp. Dillon was betting that whoever had hit him had gone there looking for Jack.

  “I never figured you for the leader of this rustling ring. Frankly, I never thought you were smart enough. I guess I was wrong.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Dillon saw that Buford wasn’t the man giving the orders. So did that mean whoever had gone up the bluff was?

  “Just shut up,” Buford snapped. “Too bad he didn’t hit you harder.”

  “Yeah.” Dillon reached back again to rub the bump on his head. “You know, I’ve always wanted to ask you, were you the one who set me up the day Wilde caught me?”

  Buford had always been a lousy poker player. Too much showed in his face. Just like right now.

  “Well, that solves that mystery.” Dillon kept his voice light, but his heart was pounding. It was all he could do not to lunge at his old friend and take his chances.

  “You were always such an arrogant bastard,” Buford said.

  Dillon nodded in agreement, even though it hurt his head, as everything became clear to him. “It’s because I wanted to stop rustling cattle, wasn’t it.”

  “You get us involved and then you want to quit just when we’re starting to make some money,” Buford said, anger in his voice.

  Dillon stared at him, a bad feeling settling in his stomach. “You didn’t put all the cattle on the W Bar like I told you to.”

  “What was the point? No one gave a crap about your warped attempt at your so-called justice. Waters bought out my family’s ranch just like he did yours. You didn’t see me losing sleep over it. The only reason I’d risk rustling cattle was if there was real money in it and not what you paid us to help.”

  Dillon let that settle in for a moment. It explained a lot. Buford, Pete Barclay and Arlen Dubois had seemed guilty when he’d seen them. Now he understood why. He’d thought it was because they’d set him up. As it turned out, they’d done that, too—and double-crossed him.

  “I’ve gotta know. Halsey’s good-luck coin…I’m betting you took it from his pocket at the funeral.”

  “You’d lose that bet,” Buford said.

  Then who? “So who do I have to thank for this lump on my head? Pete?” Buford’s expression told him it hadn’t been Pete. “Arlen?”

  “I told you to shut up.”

  Dillon frowned. If it really hadn’t been either of them, who did that leave?

  “Where’s your girlfriend?” a very familiar voice asked, from directly behind him. Dillon felt his skin crawl, and heard Buford chuckle at his obvious surprise.

  AS JACKLYN WORKED HER WAY around the rock bluff, the sun broke over the horizon. She would have less cover and more chance of being seen before she discovered what she had to fear.

  The wind in the trees sounded like ocean waves. Past the trees, she spotted a pond, its surface pitching and rolling, the chop cresting white as it beat against the shoreline. The wind whistled past her, too, tossing her hair into her eyes.

  Last night Dillon had taken out her braid…. Just the memory made her weak. His fingers in her hair… The two of them had made love through the night with an intimacy that she’d never experienced before. There was only one way she could explain it. Love.

  The wind groaned in the pine boughs, whistling through the branches, making it impossible to hear if someone was sneaking up on her.

  She pushed on through the tall grass. The sky stretched overhead, a pale blue canvas empty of clouds. But the wind had a bite to it.

  She stopped to listen, the wind seeming to be her only companion. Ahead was another stand of pines, dark green. She had to be getting near the creek. Near where she believed Dillon had left the horses. She didn’t dare check the monitor again.

  Angling down the mountain through the pines, she came across a smaller pond nearly hidden in the trees. There, with the dense pines acting as a windbreak, the surface was slick and calm. She stopped to listen, hearing the wind sigh among the treetops.

  A track in the soft mud at the edge caught her eye. She stepped closer, crouching down to study the multitude of animal prints. In the middle of the deer and antelope tracks was the clear imprint of a boot heel.

  She froze as she heard something other than wind in pine boughs. The water beside her mirrored the sky, the dark green of the trees towering over her. Something moved in the reflection.

  She jerked back, her eyes on the pines, the fallen needles a bed at her feet. Even over the wind, she heard the soft rustle. Not of swaying branches, but something advancing through the grass, moving with purpose.

  She unsnapped her holster and rested her palm on the butt of the pistol as she moved, just as purposefully, around the pond.

  The wind whipped through the pines, sending a shower of dust over her. She froze, blinded for one terrifying instant.

  Her prey had stopped, as well. A strange silence fell over the landscape. Shadows played at the edge of the water.

  She starte
d to take a step toward the cool shade in the pines as it burst from the trees. All she saw was the frantic flutter of wings. She didn’t remember pulling the pistol, her heart lurching, her breath catching. The thunder of blood in her ears as the grouse flew past was too much like the heart-stopping buzz of the rattlesnake.

  Jacklyn sucked in a breath, then another, her hand shaking as she slid the pistol back in the holster. But she kept her hand on the cool, smooth butt, her eyes on the trees ahead.

  He was here. She could feel him. Unconsciously, she lifted her head and sniffed the air. Crickets began to chirp again in the grass. Somewhere off to her left a meadowlark sang a refrain. Closer, the grass rustled again with movement.

  Once in the awning of the trees, she saw the game trail. It wound through the pines, disappearing in shadow. She stopped, crouched and touched the soft damp earth.

  Another boot print.

  Few people ever knew this kind of eerie silence. Solitude coupled with an acute aloneness. A feeling of being far from anything and anyone who mattered to her. Entirely on her own. She’d been here before. Fighting not only a country wrought with dangers, but also men—the most dangerous adversaries of all.

  Tracking required stealth, so as not to warn other animals of her presence. She’d walked up on her share of bears, the worst a grizzly sow with two cubs. The mother grizzly had let out a whoof, but the warning came too late. The sow’s hair had stood up on her neck as she rose on her hind legs, even as Jacklyn slowly began to back away. Then the sow had charged.

  Jacklyn knew that running was the worst thing she could do, but in that instant it was a primal survival instinct stronger than any she’d ever felt. Fortunately, her training had kicked in. She’d dropped to the ground, curled into a fetal position and covered her head with one arm as she slipped her other hand down to the bear spray clipped to her belt.

  The spray had saved her life.

  Just as she hoped the gun would today, because whoever, whatever, was after her was nearby now.

  MORGAN LANDERS MOVED around to stand in front of Dillon, flashing him one of her smiles. “I lied about hoping I wouldn’t see you again.”

  “It seems that’s not the only thing you lied about,” Dillon said. He’d always thought he wouldn’t put anything past Morgan, but he was having a hard time believing she’d been the one to coldcock him. He had a sizable lump on his head. Morgan must have one hell of a swing. Unless it had been someone else.

  He felt a sliver of worry stab into him as he realized that Morgan had just come from the camp on top of the bluff. “See Wilde while you were up there?” he asked, tilting his head toward the camp.

  Morgan’s gaze said she had guessed how close he was with the stock detective, and didn’t like it. Too bad for Morgan. “As a matter of fact, she seems to be missing.”

  Dillon felt his heart soar. Jack had heard the shot, and being Jack, she’d known what to do.

  Buford swore. “So what are you doing here? Go find her.”

  Morgan sent him a bored look. “It’s being taken care of.”

  Jack was out there somewhere. She would need an advantage, because from what Dillon could see, there were at least three of them, maybe more. And as far as he knew she wasn’t armed. But Jack being Jack she’d have a second gun he didn’t know about.

  What was also clear was that whoever was running this show wasn’t going to let them out of this alive.

  “Being taken care of by your boss?” Dillon asked Morgan.

  “I don’t have a boss,” she snapped.

  “Right. I could believe Buford was running this rustling ring easier than I could you, Morgan.”

  “You know, Dillon, you always were a bastard,” she said, stepping closer.

  He grinned at her. “And you, Morgan, were always a greedy, coldhearted bitch.”

  She lunged at him as if to slap his face. Buford yelled for her to stop, but Dillon was pretty sure she didn’t hear him—or didn’t care.

  He grabbed her arm, using it as leverage as he pulled himself up, then swung her around in front of him for cover as he propelled her into Buford, knocking him off balance.

  Buford’s gun went off with a loud boom that echoed in the trees as the three of them, locked in a tangle of limbs, went down.

  JACKLYN FROZE as the sound of the gun report filled the air. Her heart lodged in her throat. Not knowing if Dillon was alive or dead was killing her.

  Worse, that little voice in the back of her head kept taunting her, trying to make her lose faith in him, telling her it was him stalking her through the trees.

  As the gunshot blast died away, she heard the rustle of grass, the crack of a limb and knew he’d circled around her and was now right behind her.

  Jacklyn took a breath and turned, her weapon coming up and her mind screaming: Who are you about to kill?

  He stood just a few feet from her. She could see both of his hands. He appeared to be unarmed. He looked confused, almost lost.

  “Nate?”

  “What happened to you?” Nate asked, having apparently noticed her limp.

  “I sprained my ankle.” This felt surreal, as if she was dreaming all of it. She held the gun on him, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “Any luck catching those rustlers?” he asked, his voice sounding strange, almost as if he was trying not to laugh.

  She tightened her hold on the gun. “Nate, what are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you. Dillon told me to find you and bring you back to camp.”

  “Why didn’t he come himself?”

  “He’s hurt.”

  Her breath rushed out of her. “How did he get hurt?”

  Nate shrugged.

  “Is it bad?” she asked, her heart beating so hard her chest hurt.

  “You’d have to be the judge of that,” he said. She wondered if he’d been drinking. She’d never seen him like this.

  “Nate, what’s going on?” she pressed, the way she might ask a mental patient.

  He tilted his head as if he heard a voice calling him.

  She heard nothing. “Are you here alone?”

  “Who would be here with me?” he asked, as if amused.

  “I thought Shade might have come with you,” she said.

  “Oh, that’s right, you haven’t heard. My father was murdered last night in his barn.”

  DILLON ROLLED OVER, trying to catch his breath. He felt as if he’d been punched in the chest, all the air knocked from his lungs. His hand went there and came away sticky with blood. He’d been hit.

  But after a moment, he realized it wasn’t his blood. It was Morgan’s.

  She lay on her back, staring vacantly up at the morning sky. Her shirt was bright red, soaked with blood.

  Dillon tried to get up, but Buford was already on his feet and holding the gun. The cowboy kicked at his head. Dillon managed to evade him, taking only a glancing blow, as he rolled over and came up in a sitting position, his back to a tree.

  “You stupid bastard,” Buford swore. “You stupid bastard.”

  Dillon focused on him, hearing the fear in the man’s voice. Buford was pacing in front of him, clearly wanting to shoot him. Had whoever Buford took orders from told him not to kill Dillon?

  But looking into his old friend’s eyes, he saw that change. Buford raised the gun, pointing it into Dillon’s face. “You’re a dead man.”

  JACKLYN STARED AT NATE in shock. Shade Waters murdered? “That’s horrible. Do they know who—”

  “Sheriff McCray has put out an APB. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I saw Dillon Savage running away from the barn right before I found my father’s body.”

  All the air rushed out of her as if she’d been hit. “Nate, that’s not possible. Dillon was with me last night.”

  He shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to sell that to Sheriff McCray, but since Dillon made his getaway in your state truck, the sheriff thinks you might have been an accomplice.”

  “What? Nate…” She
felt fear seize her. “Nate, that’s crazy. No one will ever believe it.”

  “No? Well, the sheriff says the only reason you got Savage out of jail is that you have something for him. And everyone knows he’s the one who’s been headin’ up this gang of rustlers. I’m betting the rustling will stop once he’s back in prison.”

  She stared at Nate Waters as if she’d never seen him before. She’d never seen this man, and he frightened her more than if he had been holding a gun on her.

  “You must be in shock,” she said, realizing that had to be what was going on.

  He laughed as if that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “You know my father always blamed me for Halsey’s death. Dillon thought he blamed him, but he was wrong. I was the one holding the rope on that horse that day. I killed Halsey. His luck had finally run out. So I took his good-luck coin after I saw Dillon put it in my brother’s suit jacket at the funeral.”

  The good-luck coin found near where Tom Robinson was attacked. Nate Waters had just implicated himself. “Nate, why don’t you take me to Dillon,” she said, trying to keep her voice even.

  “Not until you put down your gun, Ms. Wilde.”

  “I can’t do that.” Even though Nate didn’t appear armed, he was talking crazy. If anything he was saying was true, then he was responsible for the rustling, for the attack on Tom Robinson, the death of Reda Harper and… Jacklyn felt sick. And apparently the death of his father, Shade Waters.

  “The thing is, if you don’t drop the gun, I’m going to give my men orders to kill Dillon,” Nate said. “His blood will be on your hands.”

  His men? How many were there? “Nate, why would you do that?”

  The smile never reached his eyes. “I think you already know the answer to that. The gun, Ms. Wilde. Drop it and step away.”

  She didn’t move. She had to get to Dillon. But without a weapon, she knew they were both dead.

  “Buford?” Nate called.

  “Yeah.” The answer came from the trees behind Nate.