The Shepherd's Heart Series: A Boxed Set Book Bundle Collection Volumes 1-4

by Lynnette Bonner

  Jason grinned as he thought of the third hand Ron had hired. Jason had sent him to California to locate Nicki’s family and at least bring her some news of them, if not bring them here. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she found out. That man was the one who’d taught him how to say “Don’t worry” in Spanish.

  Jason took a sip of coffee as he scanned the room. The two new hands, with Ron and Conner, sat squeezed around the table. In the corner, Sheriff Watts had talked with the Jeffries in quiet undertones before taking his leave.

  Jason had remained standing in the kitchen with Rocky. It had been good to hear some news from Shilo.

  He rubbed his jaw, realizing he hadn’t thought of Shilo as “home.” He thought of this as home now. How had that happened in such a short amount of time? Nicki’s face came to mind, and he lifted his head. “Where’s Nicki?”

  Conversation stopped, and everyone looked around the room.

  Ron was the first to stand. “She was outside looking at the horses when I came in. I’m sure she’s still out there somewhere. I’ll go check on her.”

  Jason downed the last swallow of his coffee and followed him out the door.

  The yard was empty.

  His heart started pounding harder.

  Conner and Rocky sauntered out behind him, followed by Brenda.

  He glanced at them as Ron headed for the bunkhouse. “She might be down by the creek. I’ll check there.”

  Moments later they all were standing in front of the soddy again.

  Brenda’s voice was quiet when she said, “William was here earlier. ’Bout a half hour ago. He left but…”

  Sick dread dropped into Jason’s stomach like a stone. “Conner, ride after Sheriff Watts. Rocky, I need you circling and finding tracks while I gather our horses. Ron, can you tell the others?” He tipped his head at the house. “We may need every man we’ve got before this is over.”

  Everyone jumped into action at the same time.

  As Jason sprinted toward their horses he prayed fervently. Thankfully, all their horses were still saddled as every man had been in a hurry for some warmth. Gathering the reins of several mounts he noticed that his hands were shaking. Lord, just help me to find her. Please keep her safe.

  Ron and the ranch hands came barreling out of the sod shanty.

  Jason looked at Ron. “Where’s Sawyer?”

  “Brenda’s gonna watch him for a while.”

  “All right everyone, listen. Nicki is not here. We don’t want to jump to any conclusions.” It was obviously Harpster, that dirty rat. “But we are all going to ride out and look for her. Rocky’s a good tracker, and he’s out scouting a circle now. As soon as he finds a trail, we’ll let him take the lead.” And when I find Harpster, I’m going to kill him!

  Rocky gave a shout from behind the barn, and every man mounted up and trotted that way.

  Rocky looked up. “I’ve got a trail here. Looks like one rider came in on this horse, but two riders went out on it. The hoofprints are deeper leaving than they were coming in.”

  Jason nodded. “Let’s follow it. Howard,” he turned to the younger of the two new hands, “can you let Brenda and Rolf know which direction we’re headed so they can let Cade, Conner, and the sheriff know when they get back? Then catch up to us.”

  Howard nodded and reined his horse back toward the house as the other men moved out to follow the trail Rocky was tracking.

  Jason drummed his fingers against one thigh. He hated following a trail. It was always such slow work. He grimaced. Why hadn’t he kept a better eye on her? She’d been worried about William when he’d ridden in with the horses, that much had been clear. In the night and a morning he’d been gone, what had happened to change her mind about the man?

  William watched Nicki’s body slide down the shale floor of the steeply slanted cavern until the darkness swallowed her. He pressed his lips together.

  He probably should have shot her before he sent her sliding into the depths of that cavern, but the sound of a gunshot would alert anyone out looking for her where they were. No. She would just have to suffer the long, slow death that now awaited her. She deserved it anyhow.

  He snorted.

  Life would have been a lot easier if he’d just taken care of her at the same time as John. He should have found a way to do them together, but he’d held out hopes that Nicki would agree to marry him. He spat on the ground.

  “Always was a fool for a pretty woman,” he mumbled.

  He glanced around. He needed to hide the mouth of the cave, and he didn’t have much time. It didn’t take him long to find enough of the plentiful tumbleweeds to pile against the opening so that it wasn’t visible from the small path he had taken. Satisfied, he led his horse a good ways up a hill in the direction of his home, then returned to the tree by the cave. He broke a branch from the scraggly pine and strode fifty yards down the main trail. Bending and walking backwards, he carefully dusted out any signs of his and Nicki’s presence on the trail. He continued past the cave all the way up the hill to his horse.

  Straightening every so often, he checked his work. Only the most experienced of trackers would be able to tell anyone had been here. And that would only last until a gust of wind came along, then all traces of the trail would be gone. He tossed the pine branch on the ground, dusted his hands, and mounted up, cutting across the hills toward home.

  Later, once it had been discovered that Nicki was missing and everyone, including himself, had been given a chance to grieve, he would step forward and offer guardianship to Sawyer.

  He rubbed a hand down his vest and stared out across the juniper-studded landscape. He would miss her. But seeing her in Jordan’s arms this morning had confirmed that she had betrayed him and fallen in love with another. He exhaled. They could have had such a wonderful life together. Now it would just be him and Sawyer.

  Sheriff Watts knew William had been of great help to Nicki since John’s death, so he was a shoo-in for the position of guardian. And even if Sheriff Watts might have suspicions about him, William knew The Stockman’s Association would back him, even to the point of “replacing” the Sheriff, if necessary.

  His thoughts flitted to Tom, and his jaw clenched.

  Tom Roland wouldn’t be so easy to convince. But maybe it was time for Tom to have an accident of some sort. He was tired of that man looking over his shoulder and always pointing out his mistakes.

  A word in the right ears of certain members of The Association should do the trick. All he had to do was convince them that all the failures had been because of Roland.

  He shifted in the saddle comfortably and chuckled, thankful for the day that he’d decided to throw in his lot with The Association.

  The secret, emergency meeting of The Stockman’s Association convened in Rod Signet’s barn. The men filed in silently. Two members were noticeably absent.

  Roscoe Cox was the last to arrive. He stalked in and slapped a newspaper down on the barrel serving as a makeshift table. “Tom done killed the man we sent after him, but not afore his wife, Vanessa, was killed.”

  Thick silence filled the room. The timbers groaned when a light breeze wafted by outside and feet shifted uneasily. Each man knew he had now become a living, breathing target.

  Finally, Rod Signet leaned into the heels of his boots and folded his arms. “I heard Roland used to be a gunman before he became a banker.”

  Each man stared at the floor as they contemplated that information. “What are we going to do now?” one finally asked.

  Roscoe Cox cursed violently and threw his hat on the ground. He paced toward a stall, and then back again, looked up and met each man’s eyes before he spoke. “I’ve known Roland for years. And you’re right—he used to be a gunman and a blasted fast one, too. Tom won’t take something like this lying down. He is going to hunt each one of us down, and we’ll be lucky if he kills us quickly. Slow and painful is more his style. So…” He made eye contact with each man again. “I sugge
st we all watch our backs, gentlemen.”

  “What about Harpster? Don’t we need to,” Rod cleared his throat, “take care of him?”

  Cox chuckled dryly. “We won’t have to worry about taking care of him. He’ll be the first one Tom goes after because he failed to do the job Tom told him to do. As for me? My place is for sale. Every lock, stock, and barrel on the place. Any of ya’ll interested in buying, you come on by. But I won’t be staying around these parts to be hunted down like a Muley.”

  With that, he scooped up his hat and, pushing back his hair, jammed it onto his head and walked out of the barn.

  The other men shuffled restlessly, no one speaking. Finally, one by one, they trickled out of the barn the same way they’d come.

  19

  A groan rumbled through Nicki’s chest and woke her. She gasped as a knife of pain stabbed through her shoulder. Her eyes opened to complete darkness. Something poked hard into her cheek and she lifted her head to ease the pressure. Stark pain shot through her arms in white hot streaks and she cried out, but the gag blocked the sound and it came out more like a muffled moan.

  With a whimper she rested her cheek on the ground again. A low sound vibrated through the cavern. Like a stiff wind blowing through ripened stalks of grain. She listened intently, trying to determine where it was coming from, but it was all around her, filling the cavern and coming seemingly from every direction.

  She couldn’t move her legs or the string pulled agonizingly at her dislocated shoulder and she was starting to get a cramp in her right thigh.

  Her tongue felt like a stick in her mouth. So thirsty. She pressed against the rag with her tongue and gagged, pain clenching her shoulder at the involuntary movement. Immediately she let up the pressure and tipped her face forward so the rag would gravitate to the front of her mouth. If she threw up it would mean the end for her, she knew. But if she could just get rid of the gag, she could breathe easier. She closed her eyes in concentration. The rawhide strips that kept the gag in her mouth were tied tight enough that she would never be able to push the rag past them. But maybe she could chew through them? She bit down hard and felt the leather give just before she gagged again.

  When the waves of pain had dulled and she was calm once again, a butterfly of hope fluttered in her stomach.

  She repeated the gesture and ground her teeth from side to side.

  Finally, on the fourth agonizing try the rawhide broke, and she spit the rag out as a satisfying rush of cool air filled her mouth.

  She cried for sheer happiness, feeling the sweet moisture of saliva soften her taste buds. She took a full breath and rested her cheek on the damp, soft cloth. In a moment she would see what else she could do, but for now it was enough to be able to breathe easily.

  Jason clenched his teeth and pounded a fist against his saddle’s pommel as Rocky scanned the road and embankments ahead of them for the third time. The trail had gone cold.

  Rocky looked at him apologetically. “He’s brushed the trail. I can still find it, but it’s going to take me a little longer.”

  Jason rubbed the back of his neck.

  Hoof beats sounded, and he turned to see Cade, Conner, and Sheriff Watts riding up.

  Cade cocked an eyebrow at Jason.

  Jason sighed. “Trail’s been brushed. But Rocky will find it.”

  Sheriff Watts surveyed the countryside. After a moment he harrumphed and said, “Any of ya’ll ever see’d a polecat?”

  Blankly, Jason and Cade eyed each other, but both turned back to nod at the sheriff.

  “Heard tell one time o’er in Nevada that a polecat won’t spray anywheres near its den.” The sheriff smirked. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, ’cause I was never crazy enough to track one so’s I could find out.”

  Several of the men chuckled. Cade’s horse shifted, and he stared down at a spot between his horse’s ears. Jason’s hands tightened on the reins and he focused on Watts, sensing the man was about to get to the crux of what he was saying.

  Watts spat into the dust of the roadbed. “Point is, closer ya get to a skunk’s den, the cleaner it is.” Jason’s head snapped up and he scanned the horizon, looking for anything that might be a hideout. Already it had taken them far too long to get here. Nicki could be somewhere injured, hurting. Dead.

  His heart threatened to stop.

  He made a split-second decision. “Rocky, Cade, and I will ride out wide and see if we come across a trail. We’ll each form a half circle and meet you down trail fifty yards.”

  Rocky never lost concentration on the road before him. He raised a hand of acknowledgment without looking up.

  Jason gestured for Cade to go left, and he took the side of the road to the right. He leaned forward in his saddle as his horse took the embankment and then studied the ground for any signs that someone had recently ridden this way. He was three-quarters of the way through his half of the circle when he spotted the pine branch and pulled up short.

  His pulse quickened.

  He leapt down and circled the area, carefully studying the ground. A few paces away the tracks of a horse could clearly be seen heading down the hill and across the valley.

  He gave a loud whistle that he knew Cade and Rocky would recognize, and when they both looked up he waved them over. His part of the circle had led him to much higher ground, but just ahead, the ground sloped down again quite steeply, and a narrow wildlife track led back to the road that Rocky was searching. Off to his left the ground had broken away sharply sometime in the past and formed a small cliff that was probably fifteen feet high by thirty feet long.

  Both Rocky and Cade urged their mounts forward and cantered his way.

  After just a moment’s rest, Nicki lifted her head again. No matter how badly her shoulder hurt, she had to try and work her way back to the top of the cave. Whatever had snagged the rawhide rope and stopped her slide had to be above her somewhere.

  She lay sideways to the slope now, her left shoulder lower than her dislocated right.

  Her right arm had no feeling in it now except for at the shoulder. And every time she so much as breathed, the joint sent thorns of pain shooting down through her body. Her left arm was tingling, and she guessed that soon it too would be totally numb.

  She needed to move immediately, before it was too late.

  She took a deep breath and held it, then tried to push off with her left shoulder and begin the process of getting her head pointed uphill. With the movement, white-hot shards shot through her shoulder and she cried out. But after a moment of recovery she forced herself to repeat the gesture and began to rock herself around so that her head was uphill.

  The shale under her gave way, and she started to slide again.

  Fear jolted through her, and she whimpered in the darkness. She dug her knees in with all her might, and her slide eased to a stop. But the pain pulsing from her shoulder was so vivid that she threw up. She was afraid to try again. If she started to slide again, she might not be able to stop herself. The rushing sound grew louder the further she slid into the cavern.

  “God!” she whispered in despair, tears dampening the ground beneath her face. “Where are you now?”

  There was no audible reply. She stilled her breathing. No voice as she had heard earlier above ground whispered her verses in her ear. Simple silence engulfed her and a thought penetrated. Something Mama had told her once while they were rolling out tortillas and Nicki had lamented about God having abandoned them.

  “Dominique, when you can’t feel God’s presence, you have to go back to the Word. Feelings are fleeting. They come and they go. One minute we are happy. The next we despair. Through it all, we trust in the Word that never changes because it is Truth. And the Truth sets us free. God says He will never leave us, or forsake us…and so…we trust. What else can we do? Like Peter we say, Who else has the words of life, eh?”

  Nicki sighed. “I know You are here, Jesus. Your Word says You will comfort me in the valley of death. But please,
I don’t want to leave Sawyer with no one to watch over him. If it is my time to come to You, please lay it on Jason’s heart to raise him. He is a good man, who knows you and would be a good example to Sawyer.” A peace settled in her heart. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  Rocky and Cade swung from their saddles, and Jason handed Rocky the broken pine branch. “Found this right here and these hoofprints leading away. Are they the same ones we’ve been following?”

  Rocky stooped to examine the trail and after a moment he stood with a grim set to his lips. He lifted his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, then settled it back on his head. “Same tracks. The ground is a little softer here than it is out on the road so it’s a little hard to tell, but I think these prints would be deeper if the horse were holding the same amount of weight it was on the road.”

  Cade cleared his throat. “So she’s got to be near here somewhere.”

  Jason looked at the pine bough in his hands again. Then gave another piercing whistle and waved over the group of men still waiting on the road.

  As they all came to a stop, Jason held up the branch for everyone’s inspection. “We’re looking for the pine tree this branch came off. That’s the best place to start searching. Everyone spread out and let’s find that tree.”

  Five minutes later Jason rounded a bend on the wildlife trail at the base of the hill and saw a pine tree just ahead, near the section of cliff wall. Heart thundering, he kicked his horse into a faster trot and hurried toward it. He spied the broken branch on the tree before he’d even slid from the saddle. Leaping down, he matched the broken ends together with trembling fingers.

  It fit. This was the tree.

  He spun in a circle looking for Nicki, even as he let loose with another whistle to signal Rocky, Cade, and the others. His horse shied and sidestepped, bobbing its head in protest of the loud sound. Jason put a hand on its neck to calm it, then led it to the tree and wrapped the reins around a low branch.