“Someone shot me,” he groaned.
“Me. Didn’t know it was you, though,” Matlock said, sounding defensive. “Thought I had the kidnapper in my sights.”
“Wait a minute....” Cash tried to rise, but the pain changed his mind. “You thought I was the kidnapper.”
“Once a fool, always a fool. Let’s see how bad that is.” He quickly opened Cash’s shirt and took a look. “It’s a clean hit,” he said, sounding approving of his own marksmanship.
Cash muttered, “What a relief.”
“And you’ll live.”
Matlock was stuffing something inside his shirt that made Cash want to yowl. But not in front of the old man. He clenched his jaw against the pain instead.
“Gotta put a little pressure on it to get the bleeding to stop.”
Cash nodded and drew on his reserves. He found a place in the far back reaches of his mind to put the pain. He’d take it out and examine it later.
The wind whipped over him, making him shiver despite himself. While the drizzle had stopped, strong currents of air still gusted around them. Their horses shifted around and whinnied nervously.
“Where’s Reine?” Cash grunted.
“Back at the house, I expect.”
“No.” Cash was getting the worst feeling.... “What does she have herself into this time?”
“You sound like you care.”
“Always did, despite what you assumed.”
Ignoring that, Matlock asked, “Think you can get up?”
Cash rose as far as his elbows before noticing that the man was holding out a hand. Reluctantly, he took it and struggled to his feet, which gave him his first close-up look at his biological father since reaching adulthood. He could almost swear that regret crossed the man’s features.
Then Matlock ended the moment by demanding, “What the hell did you think you were doing down here anyhow? Why’d you mess with the saddlebags?”
Cash couldn’t believe it. The old buzzard had shot him and was now putting the blame on him, as well.
“I was leaving the ransom,” he replied stiffly. “I didn’t see any reason for the kidnapper to get a bonus. Any sign of him, by the way? He should be along any time to collect.”
“I’m right here,” came a familiar voice from behind them.
They’d been so busy arguing, they hadn’t heard anyone approach.
Cash whipped around, saying, “Valdez, you?” And saw that Matlock’s neighbor was holding a gun on them. “Why?”
“Simple. This land was stolen from my daddy. My family dates back nearly two hundred years in this valley. We had legal claim through my ancestors who settled the territory. But our name was Valdez, and Marlene’s Anglo papa had friends in high places.”
Cash knew such unfortunate things had happened throughout the Southwest, but Gray had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t even the old man’s fault.
“How was taking my boy gonna get you the river property?” Matlock’s tone was thick with derision.
Even in the deepening gloom, Cash could see the disdain on Sam Valdez’s face.
“It’s complicated, as Abreu here can tell you.”
“Whoa! Don’t try to connect me to the kidnapping. Where is Gray, anyway?”
To Cash’s frustration, Valdez didn’t answer, rather spoke directly to Matlock. “Abreu started it all by making me think I could get the land back. He came to me with a deal—he’d finance the property, which I would then turn over to him, while retaining water rights forever. But you weren’t selling. Then I figured you would if I could make you need the money badly enough.”
“To save my boy.”
“And he figured I was going to provide him with the means to buy the land from you,” Cash volunteered. “Not that I agreed, once things got so complicated. I wouldn’t be surprised if Valdez meant to double-cross me all along and figure a way to keep the land, not just the water rights.”
“You’d be correct on that score. I decided I could have not only the land but your two million bucks, once Jasper agreed to sell. I’d give it to him, then get it right back in ransom money.”
“Only I’m not gonna agree—not ever!”
Valdez’s laugh raised the small hairs on the back of Cash’s neck.
Waving his gun, he said, “Then it’s time for Plan B.”
“Which would be?”
“This is so perfect. I can see the headlines now: Father and Son Shoot Each Other to Death. Grieving Widow Takes Comfort in Neighbor’s Arms. That way I get the ransom, the land, and not one, but two bonuses! Even more money, and the woman that should have been mine in the first place.”
“Marlene would never give you the time of day!”
“She already has.”
“Why, you—”
Matlock started to lunge for the other man, but Cash shoved him out of the way even as Valdez’s gun discharged.
REINE’S HEART DRUMMED as Lloyd Rynko came close enough that she could hear him cursing. Having no flashlight of his own, he was blindly shuffling through the tunnels, still trying to find her—or find his way out. By calling for Gray several times, she’d led him in their direction, if not as quickly as she might have liked. She would have loved to leave him and find one of the other exits—thereby avoiding any unexpected and potentially deadly encounters—but, once on the surface, they would have had to backtrack too far and in too bad weather for an injured man. Besides, Rynko had to be stopped before he killed someone.
The plan was Gray’s and it would work.
Figuring Rynko was now close enough for them to get his attention, Reine turned on one of the flashlights and flung it down a tunnel, then pulled back into a nearby opening even as a shot rang out. The whine of the bullet scraped up her spine. She held her breath and heard Rynko run toward the light close to her hiding place.
Gray was waiting to trip him up. Literally.
The moment he sent Rynko sprawling, Reine flashed the second light directly into the man’s eyes, blinding him long enough for Gray to get the drop on him. Using his good arm, Gray landed a chop across the back of the guy’s neck. Rynko tried to rise anyway, but Reine wiped the snarl right off his face by smacking his broken, bloody nose with the now empty canteen. Just enough weight to do the trick, she decided, when she heard the gun clatter to the rock floor for the second time.
Gray hooked an arm across Rynko’s throat.
“Handy little weapon,” Reine said of the canteen. Then, collecting Rynko’s gun, she pointed it directly at him. “I wouldn’t move if I were you.”
Blood drizzled down his chin. “Like you even know how to use that without hitting the wrong man,” he said in a strange, nasal voice.
“Try her,” Gray dared him. “I taught her to shoot when she was twelve. She could knock the eye out of a snake at a hundred yards.”
“Now don’t go exaggerating,” Reine warned him. “It was probably only fifty yards.”
Rynko cursed and gave her the evil eye, but he didn’t try anything.
“I’ve got him covered,” Reine said gleefully. “Tie him up.”
Gray had taken the leather strap from the first-aid kit and had attached it to a natural fissure in the tunnel wall. Holding the other end, he’d used it to trip Rynko. Now he used the line to secure the man’s arms behind his back. Reine could see that Gray was having a bit of trouble using his left hand, but he was still doing a creditable job and wasn’t complaining.
“The canteen,” Gray said.
She tossed it to him and he caught it deftly with his right hand. Detaching that strap as well, he bound Rynko’s legs together with it.
“You wouldn’t want to tell us who you’re working for, would you?” Reine asked.
“If you’ll let me go....”
“We’ll let you testify,” she returned. “Maybe you can make some kind of deal.”
“Screw a deal! I’ll take my chances.”
“Your call.”
“My call? Then let me tell you w
hat I’m going to do to you when I get my hands around your scrawny neck—”
Gray slapped a hand over the man’s mouth. “Any tape left in that first-aid kit?” Gray asked.
“Some.” She dug into the leather bag and pulled out what was left of the small roll.
“You’ll have to do the honors.”
Handing him the gun, she pulled a length of tape from its roll even while considering whether or not the man would be able to breathe. She had broken his nose, after all.
“What’s that for?” Rynko demanded.
“So your caterwauling won’t scare the lizards,” she told him as she planted the tape across his open mouth.
Gray rose, saying, “Let’s see how you like being left in the dark, tied up and gagged.”
“Mmmph.”
He seemed to be breathing well enough.
“Don’t worry.” Reine fetched the second flashlight that she’d tossed. No way was she going to make it easier on him. “We’ll send the sheriff out here to get you...eventually. Just hope he can find his way around these tunnels better than you could.” She put an arm around Gray’s waist. “C’mon, cousin, get me out of here fast. I always did hate small, dark places.”
She couldn’t be happier about Gray.
Cash was another matter. She didn’t know how she felt about him not having been around to see the story played cut.
CASH HAD MADE THE unfortunate mistake of striking Valdez with his wounded shoulder. The gun went spinning off into the brush, but the pain put him into enough shock to give the other man the advantage. He ran.
That was when he noticed Matlock was down, unmoving.
In a haze of pain that paralyzed him for the moment, Cash watched Valdez scoop up the saddlebags and open all of the flaps. He then started transferring money from one set of leather pouches to the other. Haste made him sloppy and he dropped some of the bills.
Then a gust of wind confounded him, sucking a bunch more from his hands. There were plenty more where those came from, but Valdez seemed determined not to lose a single one.
His greed was his undoing.
The rancher grew careless as he tried to retrieve the money, fumbling with the bags. They dropped from his hands, sliding open to the wind. A fistful of hundreds went spiraling up the canyon.
“No!” Valdez yelled, grasping at them.
His pain receding enough to let him function, Cash went after the man.
Valdez was so caught up in recovering the money, that he didn’t see the threat until Cash was upon him. He swung out, but Cash ducked, coming back with a hard right to the gut. The rancher doubled over, then tried to head-butt Cash, who was able to dance out of his way and, as Valdez surged on past, managed to kick him in the backside for good measure.
Valdez stumbled over the saddlebags, his feet tangling in the leathers, money shooting out around him like feathers released from a ripped pillow.
Wind howled down the canyon and sucked the bills into a vortex around him.
Cash plunged an arm through the paper flurry and grabbed Valdez by the throat. In seconds, he pinned him, with his knees to the man’s chest and right arm, so he couldn’t do any further damage.
“Where’s Gray?” Cash demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Cash started to squeeze. “The truth?”
Valdez gasped, “Gone! That trigger-happy fool Rynko shot him, then Skinner scurried off like the coward he is. I told them no violence!”
So Skinner had been involved. It had been his cigar Cash had found, not Bixler’s.
‘“No violence,’” he echoed. “That’s why you were talking about killing me and Matlock?”
“Wishful thinking,” Valdez gasped. “I just wanted what was due me, is all.”
Paper money still fluttered around them as Cash let go of the man’s throat.
Rising, he ignored his own dizziness and the warmth dripping down his chest to check on Matlock, to see how badly he was hurt. He was just stooping over the old man when he heard a scuffle and realized his mistake in turning his back on Valdez. The rancher was coming for him, a huge rock in hand.
Cash rolled out of the way even as a shot rang out. Pain searing his chest and arm from the action, he blinked and saw Valdez clutching his empty hand. Then he whipped around to see who had wielded the weapon. Even in the near dark, he couldn’t miss the two riders on the pale Palomino.
His heart lifted.
Reine was holding a gun on Valdez, and a live if sick-looking Gray was hanging on behind her.
“Looks like we got here just in time,” Reine said. She waved the gun at Valdez. “Get down on the ground before I shoot you between the eyes like the snake you are.”
Gray slid off the horse first. “Hey, Cash, still can’t keep outta trouble, huh?”
“Back at you.”
Reine dismounted, her eyes going wide when she saw Matlock. “Uncle Jasper... He isn’t...dead?”
Matlock groaned and finally opened his eyes. “I’m not ready for the grave yet, girl.” He sat up, holding his head. “Just got a bump is all. So don’t go planning my funeral.” Then he noticed Gray and struggled to his feet. “Son, thank God we got you back!”
The little energy he had left draining from him, Cash watched as Matlock went to Gray and threw his arms around him. He looked away, content to let God take the credit. Gray was all that mattered.
But a moment later, he felt another presence at his side. The woman he loved touched his good arm.
“What happened here?” Reine asked, looking around in amazement.
Cash blinked and focused as best he could. The fortune he’d worked so hard to make was spread out over the canyon before him. Money was everywhere, the bills plastered to the wet ground and hillside and trees—all but for those being skittered over the ridge by the wind. It wouldn’t be long before everything was just plain gone.
The thing about it was that he didn’t give a damn.
Dizziness swept through him and he thought maybe he’d lost too much blood. “It’s all a cosmic joke,” he muttered.
Then it got too dark to see anything at all.
Tuesday
CASH AWOKE FEELING groggy. And confused. Darkness surrounded him, but he knew he was inside somewhere, out of the elements. And the room had a medicinal smell.
As his eyes adjusted, he made out curtains all around him and a patch of light under and over one side. He stirred and tried to move. Pain—and a board and needle attached to his arm—kept him still.
“The doctors say you’ll live,” came a soft voice out of the dark.
Reine. How long had she been there, watching over him?
“That’s a good thing, I guess. I thought maybe I was bound to bleed to death.”
She snapped on a nightlight. “Now, would I have allowed that?”
He vaguely remembered passing out and Reine reviving him long enough to get him on the horse he’d ridden out from the barn, followed by more blank spaces. Then, back at the house, there had been a flurry of noise and calls for an ambulance and the sheriff. And Marlene had been weeping.
“Gray?”
“He’s doing just fine,” she assured him.
Then it wasn’t all for nothing.
He could feel her breath on his face as she leaned over the hospital bed toward him, careful not to touch him, as if she feared she would put him in more pain. Cash could care less. Reine could touch him to her heart’s content. She stirred him as always and his wanting her grew stronger than the pain.
She drew so close, her mouth was within striking distance.
He reached out with his good hand and stroked her cheek with his knuckles. She closed her eyes and kissed his hand. He couldn’t help himself. Pulling her head toward his, he caught her lips in a soft kiss. She sighed and the sound sang through his heart.
“How long have I been here?” he asked.
“Only a few hours in this room. They had to patch your tough hide, first. So, how bad do you feel
?”
“Like I was run over by a horse.”
“Thank God that didn’t happen,” she murmured. “When you went out on me, and I saw all that blood...you scared me real bad.”
“That makes us even then,” he admitted, reaching out to touch her beautiful face. “You scared me when I arrived with the money and you weren’t at the house. All kinds of crazy thoughts went through my mind.”
“Sounds like a mutual admiration society,” Reine said. “So what are you going to do about it this time?”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, hardly able to get out the words, fearing they would be the wrong ones. “Last time I checked, you didn’t like much about me.”
“Maybe things have changed. Actually, you changed. Or maybe you just went back to being the Cash I grew up with. You came through for Gray in the end. I should have trusted that you would.”
“What about Matlock?” he asked, testing her, wanting to be sure they were on the same page—as in a permanent relationship. Jasper Matlock was still a major obstacle. “He’d hate our being together.”
“I’m not so sure of that, Cash. I think the two of you must have settled something between yourselves. He was actually worried about your recovery.”
Cash didn’t even know how he was supposed to feel about that.
One relationship at a time, he thought.
“Besides,” she said, “I’ve done some thinking about that, as well. I just refuse to choose. I can love as many people as I want and I refuse to lose any of them because they don’t get along.”
“You love me?”
“I always have, Cash. I’ve never loved any other man.”
She loved him. She wasn’t going to give up on him. Cash wondered how he’d gotten so lucky.
Now, how was he supposed to tell her he wasn’t quite the catch he had been twenty-four hours ago?
“I guess we could always live on that trust fund of yours till I can get back on my feet,” he mused aloud.
“That trust fund is history. It was an exaggeration in a little girl’s mind, anyway.”
“Then the playing field really is leveled,” he told her, watching for her reaction. “We’re both pretty much busted. Working stiffs.”
Cowboy Justice Page 19
