by Alice Sharpe
“Do you think whoever it is knows you’re onto him?”
“I don’t think so. I tried to act like nothing was wrong. Nate, I have a plan.”
He looked at her and she could tell that he wasn’t expecting much. “I don’t have time for an argument, so just hear me out,” she said. “We need to get this guy off our back once and for all. So, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go out there again and piddle around while you sneak out the window. If you use the trees for cover, you should be able to circle around and come at him from the other direction. Then you hit him or something, we tie him up, take his snowmobile and go get the coins to save my mother.”
Nate’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Honestly, Sarah, are you forgetting that this person is probably the same one who spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening trying to kill you?”
“He could have shot me while I was saddling the horse,” she said as she gripped the doorknob. “Maybe all along he was just trying to get our attention so he could steal the coins.”
“Talk about being a sitting duck. I am not going to let you use yourself as bait—”
“I’m depending on you,” she interrupted and, without waiting for him to disagree more adamantly, let herself back outside. She heard him swear as she moved off the porch.
It was amazingly difficult to act natural knowing someone was watching. She did her best to look busy as she once again entered the corral and sat on her heels, running her hands up and down Skipjack’s front leg as a diversion. This time when she dared a glance, she didn’t see any reflection near the rocks and her heart skipped up her throat. Had he moved? Or had she been mistaken? She’d been so sure, but now she didn’t know.
She left the corral again and walked toward the river as though admiring the view, glancing at her watch now and again. If she had been mistaken about someone being out here, she and Nate were now wasting time better spent getting to the Crawley place and borrowing a snowmobile.
She wanted to look around for Nate but kept her back to the rocks and the trees. She heard footsteps crunching the snow and realized Nate had reached the same conclusion. She turned to talk to him.
But it wasn’t Nate. Instead she found herself looking at a man dressed in gray-and-white camouflage gear with a black ski mask covering most of his face. A pair of green binoculars dangled around his neck and he carried a revolver. That gun was currently aimed at her heart.
“Are you Bellows or one of his henchmen?” she asked, resisting the urge to scan behind him for some sign of Nate.
“Where is he?” the man asked. His voice sounded young and wired.
“Who? Bellows?”
“No, the guy you were with. Matthews.”
“He left,” she said. “He’s off calling the cops.”
“I don’t think so,” the man said. “There are tracks into this place but none out.” He cocked the gun, advanced a few steps and repeated, “Where is he?” The tip of the gun inched up to Sarah’s forehead.
“Hey,” she said. “If you hurt me or him, you’ll never find the money.”
“What money?”
He didn’t know about the coins? “Who sent you?” she asked. “Who are you?”
“Listen, lady, you’re going to end up floating facedown in the river in about two seconds if you don’t tell me where Matthews is.”
“What do you want with him? I’m the one who can help you.”
He finished closing the distance between them, grabbed her arm with a viselike grip and propelled her toward the cabin. “Call for him,” he said.
“No.”
The tip of the barrel pressed against her throat. She could feel her pulse beating against the metal. “Call for him.”
Where is Nate?
The gun pressed harder.
She was shaking so hard it was difficult to stand. Surely Nate had left the cabin. Surely he knew what was going on. But where was he?
“One last time,” the man hissed in her ear. “Call for Matthews to come out of the cabin. Tell him you need help.”
“He’ll see you through the window,” she said. “He won’t come out here.”
“Then we’ll make him.” The man’s iron grip slid up to her neck, but before he could tighten his grasp, Sarah stomped on his foot and took off. She knew she’d pay for this action with a bullet in the back, but she had to try. She got an arm’s length away before he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back, shoving her to the ground in the process. He pointed the gun at her. She saw his mouth open through the gap in his ski mask and her heart stopped beating.
No words left his lips. Instead he made a sound as if all the air had been pushed from his lungs. He fell forward onto Sarah, pinning her legs beneath his torso. Sarah found herself staring at a hatchet buried in the brute’s back.
She began screaming and couldn’t stop. Nate was suddenly there and he pulled her out from under the man. She shielded her eyes by burying her face in his jacket and he led her to the corral, where he gently pushed her onto the stump once used to chop kindling.
“I’ll be right back,” he said and returned to the man on the ground. She watched as he sat on his haunches and felt for a pulse, then closed her eyes as a wave of nausea rose up her throat. She got to her feet, wondering what they would do if the man was still alive. Common decency said they would have to go for help. But that meant Sarah’s mother would perish.
“Is he dead?” she asked Nate as he returned to her.
“Yes. Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine. Did you find his snowmobile?”
“Yeah, it’s back in the trees. Is that Bellows?”
“I didn’t see his face. He sounded too young, though. And he wanted you, not me.”
Nate’s brow furrowed. “Me? Why would he want me?”
“I have no idea. He didn’t seem to know anything about any money, either.”
Nate shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. Are you up to looking at his face?”
“If I have to,” she said and followed Nate back to the slain man. His head lay to one side, and Nate pulled up the ski mask. She saw a young guy in his early twenties, maybe late teens. She looked past the bloody bubbles around his lips and studied his features. “I kind of recognize him. Do you?”
Nate ran a hand through his dark hair. “He does look familiar but I don’t know why. Damn it, I didn’t want to kill him, but it was the only way to stop him before he shot you.”
“You don’t hear me complaining,” Sarah said, turning away from the dead man. “Nate, we need to take the snowmobile and go get the coins.”
“It’s a one-seater. There are saddlebags, but two people won’t fit.”
“Then I have to go alone,” Sarah said. A little while ago, that had seemed like a great idea, but now Sarah hated the thought of riding out of here without Nate.
“I could go instead of you,” he said.
She averted her gaze from the dead man on the ground. “I’m the one who has to drive to Reno, and time is ticking away.” She paused before adding, “This is my responsibility, Nate.”
A tilt of his head said clearly that he understood what she meant. “And mine is to contact the law. I’ve just killed a man and then there’s your father’s murder to try to explain.”
“I know you have to do what you feel is right and what’s important to you. Tell the sheriff’s department whatever you have to—just give me an hour or so to get the coins and get out of here.”
“How are you going to do that?” he asked. “Your car may have been confiscated, but even if it hasn’t, the snow is still too deep. The fire department could still be there, too. If a spark got to my truck, it might have blown up. The ranch could be a real disaster.”
“I know. I don’t know how I’m going
to get to Reno, but somehow, I will.”
“Sarah, there’s something else. We have no way of knowing if this man is the one from last night.”
She thought for a few seconds before speaking. “You wounded the one last night. Does this guy have any bullet holes?”
“I’ll look.”
“I have to go,” she said.
“I know you do.”
“And, Nate, when you talk to the cops, could you just not mention the coins, you know, for now?”
He stared down into her eyes. “I won’t mention them, but when this is all over—”
“I’ll sing like a canary,” she promised. She gazed up into his eyes and gripped his uninjured arm. “Nate, I’m scared. This guy didn’t know about the coins or give a hoot about me. He wanted you.”
Nate nodded. “It takes a little getting used to, doesn’t it? But if it is the same guy from yesterday then Bellows had nothing to do with any of this. That’s good news for you and your mother. Pay off the debt and walk away.”
“It’s not me I’m thinking of,” Sarah said. “It’s you. He was ready to kill me to get to you. He may not be alone. Be careful.”
“I will. But you be careful, too. Just because this guy today was after me doesn’t mean last night wasn’t all about you.”
She nodded and glanced at her watch. “Take Skipjack,” she said. “There’s a large-animal veterinarian on the east edge of town that Dad has used for years. I’m pretty sure they’ll keep him for you.”
He raised his right hand and cupped her chin. “I hate letting you go off on your own. There’s so much we have to finish.”
“I know. The police and—”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
She swallowed a lump and blinked rapidly. “Just be careful,” she repeated.
He leaned over and claimed her lips, and Sarah was shocked to discover in that instant leaving him was the hardest thing she’d done yet. There had been so much fear lately, so much loss, and this felt like another. Would she ever see him again? He kissed her one more time, lightly, then whispered against her lips, “Go now.”
Sarah sucked back tears as she turned away and ran off into the trees.
* * *
AS DISTASTEFUL AS it was, Nate pulled off the dead man’s ski mask and gloves and searched for a sign of a gunshot wound inflicted a mere twelve hours earlier. Then he unzipped his jacket and patted him down. He found no identification, no bloody bandages or injuries, although if he’d been shot in the back the night before, it sure wouldn’t show now. The ax had made a real mess of things, and for a moment Nate thought about that split-second decision to launch the ax rather than take the time to try to run up to him unheard and hit him over the head.
It hadn’t really been a hard decision to make. It was this guy or Sarah, and she’d won. He suspected she would win every contest in his head. He heard the snowmobile and looked up the slope in time to see her erupt from the trees and disappear over the lip of the cliff.
He collected a dozen rocks from the riverbed, carrying them back up to the body, then retrieved a blanket from the mattress inside the cabin. His plan was to cover the body with the blanket and secure it with rocks. Lying on the snow as it was, the body should be pretty well preserved until the police arrived.
Before he did this, he studied the guy’s profile one more time, and again, there was something about him that looked a little familiar. Something about the cheekbones and the jaw. Something—but nothing definite.
Once he climbed on Skipjack’s back, he realized he wasn’t sure the quickest way to anywhere—he was totally turned around—but there was a road up there somewhere. If he could find that, he could find people, help, a phone.
And then he could face the music for killing a man and try to explain what had happened at Mike’s house yesterday.
Would he ever see Sarah again? Nate had a gut feeling that the guy he’d just killed had not been the same one he’d shot the day before. Like he’d told Sarah, it was possible there were two agendas at work, possible that Sarah was walking into a death trap and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
Or could he?
* * *
SARAH HADN’T KNOWN exactly what to expect at the ranch. Firemen, probably, maybe the police. It was a long shot that she could sneak in there and steal her own coins out from under them, so she approached warily, parking the snowmobile by Skipjack’s stall and entering the barn as quietly as she could.
To her great relief, the stall looked just as she’d left it. She took a detour to the front of the barn, where she found the door wide open and the cold, thin wind tunneling inside. Moving in the shadows to avoid being seen from outside, she made her way to a vantage point from which she could see the house. It took her a second to believe her eyes.
There wasn’t a soul around or any sign that anyone had been. With the exception of partially burned wood siding, nothing looked any different than it had hours before. Had the gunman extinguished it himself or had the house refused to burn? She blinked a couple of times but in the end decided to accept it as a stroke of luck and hurried back to the stall.
She quickly moved the straw bedding and then shoveled up the dirt in the corner. The cans were right where they were supposed to be, and as she hooked the first one with her fingers, she glanced at her watch. She had four hours to get the coins and herself to Reno. She couldn’t drive her car, she couldn’t take the snowmobile all that way and she couldn’t rent a car. As she moved the coins from the cans into the saddlebags, she found herself close to giggling. Heck, I could buy a car. She could buy a fleet of cars as long as no one needed to see a license or any identification.
She did the math in her head to come up with what her mother needed. The value of the coins far exceeded their actual weight because of their mint condition—she wasn’t sure how to figure it all out, but at this point, she would be happy to fork over too much if it meant ending this nightmare.
Which begged the question, how did she assure her mother didn’t get herself back into the same old mess a week or a month or a year from now? She would find out that Sarah had inherited everything from Mike, and as soon as she did, little by little she would eat it all up in her wild gambling sprees. Sooner or later, the money would end up in the pockets of Poulter or Bellows or others of their ilk, and it galled Sarah to death. Her father had sat on most of the coins his entire adult life; he hadn’t kept up the ranch or bought himself new cars, nothing, just let the coins sit in their cans and then left them to Sarah, who would now need to figure out a way to assure they did some actual good in the world.
Talk about problems for another day. Right now she had to get into Shatterhorn and beg, steal or borrow a car. Three and a half hours...
Because there were still several cans of coins in the underground vault, she had to take the time to put the stall back together again, working up a sweat despite the cold temperature. A weak sun came out as she rode off, and she squinted at the brilliance as the light reflected off the snow. A pair of goggles hung from the handlebars, but they had to have belonged to the man Nate killed and Sarah didn’t want them touching her face. As it was, her face was soon so cold she couldn’t feel her lips or her nose.
She looked back once as she crossed the pasture, then concentrated on driving, trying in the back of her mind to figure out how she should go about the next step, her hands half-frozen, her hair whipping about her shoulders.
She still had friends from high school living in Shatterhorn; maybe one of them could loan her a car. But how did she show up on their doorstep after eleven years’ absence and ask without delivering a long explanation she didn’t have the time for? For that matter, where did they currently live and how did she get to their houses while lugging around almost a hundred pounds of silver coins?
Nor, Sarah
admitted, did she want any of them knowing her mother still gambled. Diana Donovan’s antics had been the talk of the town once, and once was enough.
Sarah had been driving beside the highway for the past mile or so. The road itself had been plowed and traffic was light. A short time later, the snowmobile belched its first sputter. She was still a half a mile from Shatterhorn. A couple of hundred feet more and it became clear the machine was about out of gas. She managed to guide it behind a spur of old fence before its last gasping moment, hoping to hide it from sight, but what did she do now?
Caught in a web of indecision and rising panic, she started stuffing the rolled coins into her pockets, knowing it was hopeless, not knowing what else she could do. Her watch kept catching the reflection of the sun, twinkling at her, taunting her.
She heard the sound of a car approaching and ducked her head, unsure if Nate had had time to coax the police into starting their investigation, only knowing she didn’t want to get involved in any part of that until there was no other choice. She caught the blurred shape of a dark blue truck passing her by, then looked over her shoulder to witness it make a screeching U-turn before stopping several feet away. Nate leaned across the front seat and opened the passenger door. “Need a ride?”
She scrambled to climb inside. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m driving you to Reno if you managed to get the coins. Did you?”
“Yes. Whoever started the fire must have put it out. The house shows where it burned and the barn door was open as though someone looked around in there, too, but that’s it. Maybe they didn’t want authorities snooping around prematurely. Now that you’ve gone to the police—”
“I haven’t talked to them yet,” he said. “I was on my way out to the ranch when I caught a glimpse of you behind that fence.”
“That’s where the snowmobile is. I ran out of gas. Where’s my horse?”
“At the vet. They said they’ll board him until you come for him.” As he told her this, he positioned the truck as close to the side of the road as he could, and together, they transferred the coins from the attached saddlebags and Sarah’s pockets, piling the rolls in a cardboard box in the backseat. Sarah could see Nate was favoring his arm and wondered how much it still hurt.
