Wildfire

by J. R. Roberts

  Bower shut the door and stared at the knife. He stared at her and then made a decision. “So she’s the one, huh?”

  “You’re going to believe this crazy man?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Sure. I never really could figure why that big fellow would start grabbing up prisoners anyway.”

  “Thank you,” Clint said.

  Elizabeth was pushed over to a chair in the corner of the room. Before her backside even hit the seat, she was snarling at Bower. “Go to hell, the both of you! I hope Lester keeps you alive and healthy until you start to burn!”

  “Lester?” Bower asked.

  Clint nodded. “Lester Voorhees. That’s the man we’re looking for. The big fellow.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Yep. She was a bit more cooperative a little while ago.”

  “You mean while you were torturing me,” Elizabeth said. “And raping me!”

  Scowling down at her, Bower took a closer look. He even reached down to move her head from side to side. “You don’t look tortured to me,” he said finally.

  “It’s my word against his,” she snapped while glaring at Clint.

  When Bower looked at him, Clint said, “Some of her words from earlier had something to do with what she and Voorhees had planned next. She’s also the one who led me to where Voorhees was staying here in town.”

  “Really?” Bower said. “Then what the hell are we doing here?”

  “We’re dropping her off here and then getting Mark back to keep an eye on her. Someone needs to watch her, and it might as well be him since he’s still a bit hurt and probably tired after watching that street.”

  “You’re still hurt and moving along just fine,” Bower pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I’ve had some rest. There’s only three of us, so we need to be smart about who does what. Any little thing could make a big difference.”

  Bower started to nod. “You’re right. I’ll go get Mark.” With that, the Texas Ranger bolted from the room.

  Before the door stopped rattling from being slammed, Elizabeth was spitting at Clint. “He’ll kill you, you know,” she said. “He’ll kill all of you.”

  Clint was at the bed, stripping it of all its sheets. “Is that a fact?”

  “Yes, it is. The only bad thing is that I wish I could do it myself. If I ask real nice, Lester will save one for me. I’ll make sure it’s you.”

  Ripping up some sheets, Clint said, “Great. You do that.”

  “You’ll never catch him. Not if you don’t know where to look.”

  “I do know where to look,” Clint told her. “Thanks to you.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You and those lawmen are so good at tracking.” She bit her lower lip and giggled. “If that was true, Lester and I wouldn’t have gone for so long doing whatever the hell we want to do.”

  Clint walked up to her chair and started wrapping her up in the ripped sheets. Even when he thought he’d tied her up plenty tight enough, he kept wrapping some more just to be sure. “You hear those footsteps? That’d be the other two returning. From here, we go to catch your friend Lester and then this whole ride of yours is over.”

  “Just go catch him, huh?” Elizabeth shrugged and settled into her bonds. “Great. You do that.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Mark wasn’t happy about staying behind to watch Elizabeth, but he didn’t waste time putting up a fight. He followed Clint’s instructions by keeping his gun on her no matter how tightly she was tied up. Just for safe measure, Clint had stuffed another bundle of ripped sheets in her mouth to keep her quiet.

  Clint and Bower cut through every alley they could to get to the house across town. Once it was in sight, they slowed down and found a dark corner where they could get a look at the place before going in. There was no light coming from any window and no hint of any movement from inside.

  “You sure this is the place?” Bower asked.

  “Yep.”>

  “And you’re sure he’s in there?”

  Although he wished he could answer differently, Clint shook his head and said, “Nope.”

  “Fair enough. Let’s get on with this, then.”

  Bower drew his pistol and ran toward the side of the house. Clint kept his hand on his Colt, but kept the gun holstered as he circled around the back of the house to approach the other side.

  Along the way, he looked into the windows and searched for any trace of where Voorhees could be. Even the window through which he’d spotted Voorhees and Elizabeth was now dark. The place was also quiet. In fact, it was so quiet that it seemed unnatural.

  Both men followed through on the plan they’d cobbled together while they’d been running across town. After circling the house, Clint made his way to the back door while Bower went to the front. Bower waited for the count of five before knocking on the door and then kicking it in. Rather than charge into the house, Bower jumped back and listened for any movement inside.

  At the back of the house, Clint kept quiet and waited to see if Voorhees would come running out. Although he knew the man was fast, Clint also knew Voorhees was way too big to be able to run much of anywhere in that house without making a sound.

  Swearing under his breath, Clint stepped up to the back door and found it to be ajar. He walked into the house and stepped carefully as his eyes acclimated to the thick shadows.

  “Come on in, Bower,” Clint shouted.

  His voice echoed through the small house. Clint listened and searched every corner he could see for a sign of movement. Every shadow big enough to hide Voorhees was double-checked. Even after Bower came into the house, Clint didn’t put down his guard.

  “I smell something bad,” Bower said.

  Clint kept his eyes moving and replied, “I know. Me, too. I think it’s coming from the bedroom. I’ll head there and you watch my back.”

  Both men moved down the short hallway that led to the house’s only other three rooms. As they came to a door, Clint kicked it in. For the most part, the rooms were small and sparsely furnished enough to be examined without stepping inside. The last door led to the room that Clint had peeked into before. Even before he opened that door, Clint could tell this was the room he wanted.

  “Jesus, that’s rank,” Bower muttered.

  They stepped inside to find the window open and a breeze blowing the curtains about. On the bed and next to it were the corpses of the family who’d lived there.

  “Aw, God,” Bower said.

  But Clint’s eyes were more focused on the window. “Just check this room and be quick about it,” he ordered. “Check every inch of it and then go through this house one more time.”

  Bower carried out Clint’s orders to the letter. Within a minute or so, he returned to the bedroom shaking his head. “It’s empty.”

  When Clint heard those words, he wasn’t surprised. His next thought weighed on him even heavier than the sight of the dead family. “That window wasn’t open when I came around this side of the house,” Clint said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It was closed, which means he was just here.”

  Bower turned and slammed a frustrated fist against the wall. “God damn it all! You should have said that before, Adams! Let’s get after him!”

  “Too late,” Clint said. “He moves too fast. We’d just be running around town like fools hoping to stumble on something.”

  “Isn’t that what we are right now?”

  Clint lowered his head. At that moment, he wasn’t able to refute what Bower was saying.

  The Texas Ranger jumped on that like a hungry coyote pouncing on a lame deer. “If he kills anyone else, it’s on your head!”

  “And what if he was just hiding here after opening that window to make us run out there after him?” Clint asked viciously. “It was a fifty-fifty shot that he did that as opposed to climbing out the window. Anyone who chases after men like this should know that!”

  “We could have split up to—”

  “Ma
rk and I both tried taking him on alone and nearly got torn apart! You think you could’ve done better? I made a wrong choice, god damn it, don’t tell me you’ve never done the same!”

  Bower still looked ready to fight, but that faded quickly enough. Eventually, he nodded and said, “Every last one of us from Henry on down has let this bastard slip past us some way or another.”

  Reining himself in as well, Clint patted the Texas Ranger on the shoulder. “That ends now, because we’ve got an edge you’ve never had before.”

  “We sure do,” Bower replied. “Mark’s sitting with her right now.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Bower threw open the hotel room’s door and stomped inside so quickly that he nearly caused Mark to fire on him. Mark had his gun drawn and was facing the door as if he was still deciding whether or not he should pull his trigger,

  “Damn it, Bower,” Mark snapped. “All you had to do was knock.”

  Ignoring his partner, Bower asked, “Where’d he go?”

  Elizabeth shrugged as best she could considering she was still tied to her chair. Even after Clint pulled the gag from her mouth, she didn’t make a sound.

  “I won’t ask you again,” Bower said. “You tell us where to find him.”

  “I certainly have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied.

  Clint stepped around behind her so he could lean down close to her ear. “What she means is that she doesn’t think she has a reason to help us. Maybe,” he added while nodding to the other two behind Elizabeth’s back, “we should tell her about the deal.”

  The Texas Rangers played along perfectly. Neither one of them seemed too confused and simply stared intently back at Clint. Finally, Bower spoke up.

  “Go on,” he said. “Tell her.”

  After what seemed like too much time had passed, Elizabeth tried to look over her shoulder. “What deal?” she asked,

  “The one that’ll save your life,” Clint told her as he stepped around so she could look at his face. “Tell us where to find Voorhees and you’ll just be known as an accomplice.”

  Even though she didn’t say anything, Clint could practically hear what she was thinking. She was going through what she would say to a judge or jury, just as she’d planned out what she’d said to him when she’d first tried to convince Clint that she was Voorhees’s prisoner.

  More than likely, the two speeches were pretty much the same.

  “Why would you offer this?” she asked.

  Before Clint could say anything, Bower stepped up. “This is why,” he said while showing her the badge.

  Elizabeth looked at the badge and then started to laugh. “Texas Rangers? How long is your leash supposed to be?”

  “Not long enough,” Bower told her. “We can’t come all this way and go home empty-handed. Bringing back a monster like Voorhees would do plenty to make all of this worth our while.”

  “And get you out of some hot water, I’ll bet,” she added.

  Reluctantly, Bower nodded. It helped that he wasn’t exactly lying in that regard.

  “And if we can’t get him,” Clint whispered to her, “we’ve got you. You’re not quite the same sort of animal as Voorhees, but you’ll be a good enough offering to serve our purposes.”

  It didn’t take long for Elizabeth to put together the bits and pieces she’d been given. Although he hadn’t drawn her a complete picture, Clint figured she would come to the conclusion he’d been hoping for.

  He was right.

  Elizabeth’s eyes lit up and she smiled broadly. “You don’t have anything against me,” she said. “There’s no witnesses and no proof I did anything wrong. Just your word against mine.”

  While Clint had wanted her to get some confidence, he didn’t want to make her feel too strong. He knocked her down a peg by saying, “Our word will be more than enough when we tell the same account after shooting you while you tried to escape.”

  Wincing at the sound of that, Elizabeth glanced at the faces of the two Texas Rangers. Neither Mark nor Bower gave her the slightest hope that they wouldn’t follow through on Clint’s threat. “Fine,” she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You’re going to tell us where to find Voorhees,” Bower said.

  “And how do I know you’ll keep your end of the deal?”

  “You’re just going to have to trust us.”

  Elizabeth laughed once under her breath. “I guess I don’t have much choice.”

  Clint stepped around so he could look her in the eyes. “That’s right. You don’t.”

  “Loosen these sheets first,” she grunted. “I can barely breathe.”

  Once that was done, Elizabeth bowed her head and said, “If we were split up, the plan was to head to Albuquerque and meet up there. Lester will keep quiet until we meet at a hotel there, but only for a few days. After that, he’ll figure I’m dead or captured and will move on.”

  “Where will he go from there?” Bower asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied smugly. “So you boys had better get moving.”

  FORTY

  Mark was able to contain himself for about five seconds after Clint led him out of the room. Halfway down the stairs, the Texas Ranger fumed. “This is horseshit! Are you and Bower actually believing a word that comes out of that bitch’s mouth?”

  Grabbing Mark’s elbow so he could drag him outside, Clint told him, “We wouldn’t believe her if she told us the sky was blue.”

  “Then why the hell are you dealing with her?”

  “Because the only way she’s of any use is if we let her do what she’s good at and that’s stabbing men in the back.”

  Mark winced as if the conflicting thoughts in his head were actually jamming him up inside. “So that house was empty?”

  “Not quite. There were bodies in there that were killed with a knife. Since Voorhees has yet to swing a knife at anyone, I’d say she’s the one who killed them.”

  “And now we’re dealing with her? We’re going all the way to Albuquerque on the word of a lying, murdering whore?”

  “The only place we’re going,” Clint said calmly, “is to get our horses ready to ride. And we’d better be quick about it. Come on.”

  “So what the hell is going on here?”

  Clint actually felt sorry for just how flustered Mark had gotten. “Come on. I’ll talk as we get the horses.”

  The first rays of the sun were seeping into the sky, and the chill in the air acted like a splash of cold water in both men’s faces. Apart from the few early risers and the marshal’s deputy making his rounds, the streets were empty. When Clint spoke, he could do so in a whisper and still be heard just fine.

  “You did a real good job when we were talking to her back there,” Clint said. “I wish we’d had the time to tell you what we intended on doing earlier, but we’d just come up with it on our way back to the hotel.”

  “So you and Bower have a better plan than this?” Mark asked as he threw his saddle over his horse’s back.

  Clint was no stranger to saddling Eclipse in a hurry. He barely had to think about what he was doing as he went through motions that were practically second nature. “I hope it’s better.”

  “Thank God. What is it?”

  “We needed to convince her that she truly had to deal with us,” Clint explained. “She needed to think she was still in trouble, but still have a slight glimmer of hope.”

  Cinching up the last buckle on his saddle, Mark grinned and said, “I’d say you did all those things pretty damn well. You sure had me fooled.”

  “Sorry about that. Like I said, that part was just out of necessity.”

  “Hey, no need for apologies. What’s the next part of your plan?”

  Climbing into his saddle and settling in, Clint replied, “We sit and wait for her to escape.”

  Mark had one foot in the stirrup and both hands on the saddle horn. Stopping just before pulling himself up, he stared at Clint and waited. When no more was forthc
oming, he said, “What?”

  “It’s risky, but we don’t have a lot of time. Voorhees is out of sight and could be anywhere by now. The best way for us to find him is to have someone take us straight to him, and I don’t think that woman was going to do that anytime soon.”

  “Yeah, but . . . let her escape?”

  Clint laughed and said, “That part wasn’t my idea. It was Bower’s, and I couldn’t think of anything else to get results any faster.”

  “What if she hurts him?” Mark asked. “What if she kills him?”

  “First of all, she’s only escaping because we’re going to let her escape. Second, since she thinks she’s already put us on the wrong track, she’ll rush to Voorhees as soon as she can. She won’t have the time to hurt anyone.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Nope, but not much on this earth is for certain. Besides, we’re not going to let her out of our sight for very long.”

  Mark groused. “I still don’t like this. Besides, there’s no way we know when she’ll even try to . . .”

  Mark’s voice trailed off, and his eyes locked on something in the distance. When Clint turned to get a look at what he’d spotted, he grinned victoriously.

  “And there he is now,” Clint said.

  Bower ran toward the stable with his hat in one hand while using his other hand to rub his head. Once he got closer, the blood on his hand could be seen. Despite that, he was still grinning from ear to ear.

  “What happened to you?” Mark asked.

  Ignoring the question, Bower slapped his hat back on and asked, “Is my horse ready?”

  “Right over there,” Clint replied.

  The Texas Ranger jumped onto his horse’s back and motioned for them to head out to the street and to the right. “We’ll circle around the hotel,” Bower whispered. “We should be able to catch up to her before long.”

  “What the hell happened?” Mark asked.

  Bower looked at the other two men and then settled on Clint. “Didn’t you tell him?”

  “Sure he told me,” Mark said. “But what he told me was crazy. You let her escape?”