by Mel Odom
By his estimate, they were almost twenty-five minutes from the ranch. The engine screamed in his ears.
›› Rafter M Ranch
›› Outside Fort Davis, Texas
›› 2136 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Tyrel was surprised how calm he was in the darkness. It had been forty years since he’d been hunted.
I guess some things just never go away, he told himself. He still sat a horse the way he always had, still managed posthole diggers with an easy authority, and could still trail a cow across baked earth. The years had added up, but he hadn’t changed much and hadn’t lost much.
The fight with Shel proved that. Even though his face hurt and his heart was leaden in his chest, part of him still took pride in the fact that he could match Shel. Tyrel hadn’t ever let up on himself a single day in his life.
A shadow fell across the bedroom window.
Tyrel’s breathing slowed a little more. He didn’t move. Instead of staring at the window, he looked away from it. In the darkness, peripheral vision was better than looking at something directly.
Moonlight glimmered on a thick blade that pried at the window.
For a moment, Tyrel allowed himself to think about the men coming for him. Victor Gant attracted a certain kind of man to his flag. Those who stayed with him during the long term were hard men with agendas of their own. They placed their lives above the lives of everyone else.
In Vietnam, Victor’s cool composure and emotionless control had drawn several young soldiers to him. He’d promised them that if they listened to him, he’d get them through the war alive and in one piece. Since most of the guys who’d been assigned with him worked reconnaissance, the young soldiers had listened.
Then they’d started counting the body bags and realized that Victor Gant might have been better at keeping himself intact, but that wasn’t necessarily how it worked out for others.
And some of them, a lucky few that Victor had gone after, had seen the darkness in him and fought shy of it.
Tyrel hadn’t been one of those. He’d been twenty-one years old, scared and alone and far from home in a country he couldn’t even begin to understand.
You stay away from there, he told himself. You got business here to tend to.
The knife wielder popped the window latch free without difficulty. Security wasn’t a big issue in the area.
The man waited a moment. Whispers reached Tyrel’s ears and let him know the man wasn’t alone.
Tyrel knew he wasn’t going to have much time when everything broke loose. He hadn’t believed Shel when he said Victor Gant might come after him. Or maybe he hadn’t cared. Maybe he’d thought it would be payment of a debt long overdue.
Despite the guilt that had plagued him for forty years and kept him distant from his family, Tyrel was shamed that he wasn’t ready to give up his life. He didn’t know why that was.
So he lay in wait. Not all of Victor Gant’s men would be trained fighters. They might be killers, but there was a world of difference between a man willing to kill and one who had been trained to.
The window lifted soundlessly in its tracks. A man climbed across the sill. A gun was clearly visible in his right hand.
Calmly Tyrel shot the man through the head. The sound of the gunshot was loud in the bedroom. Before the echo had died away, Tyrel crossed the room and took up a position across the dead man’s back.
Another man stood only a few feet away. Tyrel shot him through the heart at point-blank range. Satisfied that none of the other men were in the immediate vicinity-though they would undoubtedly be coming soon-Tyrel pushed the dead man back through the window, then threw a leg over and dropped to the ground only a few feet below.
Going out through the window the invaders had tried to come in was a nervy response to the threat. But it was the correct one. Most people who knew they were being chased ran from the perceived threat, not toward it.
Tyrel stepped across the other dead man and ran toward the barn.
Hoarse shouts rang out. Footsteps closed on that side of the house.
Ignoring the sounds of pursuit, knowing it was a footrace, Tyrel headed toward the barn.
“Over here!” someone shouted. “He’s headed for the barn!”
Tyrel pulled the door open and slid through just ahead of a fusillade of bullets that drummed the heavy wood. Splinters ripped free like confetti.
Pale moonlight filtered into the building, but there wasn’t enough to accurately see anything. Tyrel went by feel. He knew every inch of the barn. He’d built it, and he’d been inside it every day since construction had finished.
He took a bridle from the tack hanging on the wall and headed for the mare in the first stall. He’d been riding her for years. When he was in the saddle, he’d often felt they shared the same thoughts. There wasn’t a move either could make that the other didn’t already know.
Tyrel opened the stall door and called to the mare. She whickered and came to him immediately. He slid the bridle into place, and the bit clacked in between her teeth as he snugged the leather behind her ears. Then he vaulted up across her back. There was a moment of hesitation on the mare’s part; then she recognized Tyrel’s gentle voice and calmed.
Seated on the horse’s back, Tyrel watched as someone pushed the barn door wide. All out of time, Tyrel put his heels to the mare’s flanks and guided her toward the barn door. He pulled the. 30–30 around, pointed at the center of the shadow revealed in the wide rectangle of soft light, and pulled the trigger. The mare tightened a little beneath him but never broke stride. He’d trained her to deal with him firing from the saddle at wolves that occasionally stalked his cows and calves.
The man in the doorway stumbled but didn’t go down. Then the mare hit him and sent him sprawling. Tyrel stayed low over the horse’s back as he rode her from the barn. Even without the saddle, he sat her easily, sticking tight.
He had a brief impression of the men scattered around the front of the barn and around the corral. Shots rang out. Some of them cut the air near his head, but none of them touched him or the mare.
Encouraged but knowing how dangerous it was to ride at full speed at night, Tyrel gave the mare her head and let her run. Her hooves drummed the packed earth. She slowed only a moment at the fence, bunching and uncoiling as she sailed over the top post.
She landed roughly on the other side. For a moment Tyrel was certain he and the mare were going to go separate ways, but he clamped his knees tight and hung on. When she recovered and he remained atop her, they had the whole of the wide-open range before them.
Tyrel’s heart sang when he realized they’d made it. But he knew he’d never see the ranch again. He’d planned this moment for forty years, but he’d always hoped it would never come. It was ironic that Victor Gant, who’d been the man responsible for all the guilt that Tyrel had felt over those years, would be the one who chased him from the land that had been Tyrel and his family’s home.
He put that out of his mind. This life, poor as it had been, was over. Whatever was left, however meager and sorry it might be, lay ahead of him.
44
›› Rafter M Ranch
›› Outside Fort Davis, Texas
›› 2148 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Victor Gant stood in the darkness and tried to spot the fleeing horseman. He heard the horse’s hooves striking the earth, but he couldn’t see a thing.
He ran forward and took a position against the corral fence. He rested the barrel of the M4 he carried on the topmost railing and took out the high-intensity halogen flashlight clipped to his belt. With a press of his thumb, he brought the flashlight to life and aimed it in the direction Tyrel McHenry had taken.
It was no use, though. The light illuminated the ground in front of him, but the beam vanished in the dank black of the night.
Victor cursed when he realized Tyrel had escaped. In the next instant a spark of light flared in the darkness. The corral post shivered under the assault r
ifle, and wood chips flew into the air. Aware that the bullet had missed him by inches, Victor extinguished the flashlight and threw himself to the ground.
The harsh crack of the shot rolled over him.
“Find that muzzle flash!” he roared at his crew. “Find that shooter and light him up!”
Other bikers fell into position against the railing. Some of them raked the darkness with bullets.
Victor lay there for a moment, but there weren’t any more shots from Tyrel McHenry. He’d taken his opportunity to make a quick kill and turned his attention to getting out of there.
Grudgingly Victor knew he would have done the same thing. Taking a chance on killing an enemy when that enemy wasn’t expecting it was good. Bringing enemy fire to his position, especially when he was in full retreat, was just suicidal.
“Victor,” Fat Mike called out of the darkness.
“Here.” Victor pushed himself up and stood near the corral. He didn’t move away from the fence post. It was also possible that Tyrel would take up one final position and try for a kill once everyone let their guards down.
“Thought he got you,” Fat Mike said.
“He almost did.”
“He shoots good. Nervy cuss, ain’t he?”
“You planning on an adoption, Fat Mike?” Victor demanded angrily.
“Nope. Just observing, is all.”
Victor stared at the darkness, then looked around at his crew. He appeared to be two men short.
“I take it Tyrel didn’t just escape, did he?” Victor asked. “I guess a couple of men had to go and get themselves shot.”
“Dirty Bob and Dead Ear,” someone volunteered. “The old man got ’em as they were comin’ through the window.”
“How are they?”
“Dead. One shot, one kill. That old man must have ice water in his veins to stay holed up like that and come out shootin’.”
Victor walked toward the main house and deliberately ignored the fact that the younger biker was referring to Tyrel McHenry as old. Tyrel was a couple of years younger than Victor.
“Anybody else at home?” Victor asked.
“Nope,” another man said. “Done been through it. He was here by himself.”
And he got away, Victor thought bitterly. His cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket. “Yeah.”
“That cop Loco shot was on the radio when he went down.” Buster, an ex-communications officer from the Army who’d been discharged for dealing drugs in the first Iraq War, was monitoring the law enforcement frequencies. “Word went out. That twenty is about to be flooded by county Mounties.”
“Affirmative,” Victor snarled. He folded the phone and put it back in his pocket. Then he raised his voice. “Pack it in. We’re outta here. We’re about to be eyebrow-deep in cops.”
“What about Dirty Bob and Dead Ear?” one of the bikers asked.
“We got a klick-run ahead of us,” Victor said. “You want to superman it and hump them out of here, feel free.” He turned toward the front of the ranch where they’d left the motorcycles and began trotting.
Behind him, Fat Mike cursed disconsolately. As big as he was, Fat Mike was already carrying the equivalent of a dead man’s weight strapped to him.
Victor focused on the run. He’d get another chance at Shel McHenry. Victor felt that in his bones. The big Marine wasn’t the type to clear out of a situation.
A grin pasted itself on Victor’s face. He’d promised Tran after tonight’s attempt that he’d get out of the United States for a while. If the Marine came after him, he was going to have to do it on dangerous terrain.
No one knew Vietnam like Victor Gant did.
›› 2201 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Shel slotted himself into the breakneck convoy that raced down the farm-to-market road toward the Rafter M. He’d positioned himself the third vehicle back. Not close enough to the front of the pack to appear anxious to take over the operation, but not so far back that he missed out on a good look at the scene when they arrived.
“They need to turn off the flashing lights.” Don sat in the passenger seat and clung to the seat belt. “Those bikers are going to see us coming for miles.”
Shel silently agreed. But he knew trying to tell the deputies that would only start an argument. They were driven by the adrenaline of knowing one of their number had gone down in the line of fire. For most of them, this was probably the first time that had happened. They weren’t thinking right now; they were reacting.
“That’s pretty smart for a preacher.” Shel tried to sound as though he wasn’t worried about their daddy.
“It’s common sense.” Don shook his head. “I grew up watching the same Western movies you did.” He pointed. “Look. There’s the ranch house.”
Shel peered through the night and spotted the house in the distance. He was relieved to see it sitting there quietly in the darkness. He’d been expecting to find it lit up with muzzle flashes or engulfed in flames.
The lead deputy cruiser veered without warning and suddenly raced for the ditch on the right side of the road. Over Shel’s shoulder, Max barked and ran to the driver’s side window in back. Shel’s hand was already on his pistol when he heard the shots.
A moment later, the second deputy cruiser came under fire. Bullets ripped through the windshield and tore across the flashing light bar.
In the next moment, powerful motorcycle engines thundered to life. The bikers rose from the ditch on the right as their machines struggled with the grade because of their weight.
“Get down!” Shel ordered when he noticed Don was sitting frozen in the passenger seat, watching the outbreak of violence around them.
Shel transferred his pistol to his left hand and cupped his right behind Don’s head to pull him down. He knew that Max had already gone to cover.
Bullets slammed against the SUV and ripped through the windshield. Safety glass trickled into Shel’s lap as he held the wheel straight with his right knee and took aim at the first biker he saw. The pistol jumped in his fist as soon as he had a lock on the target.
The biker jerked, and the motorcycle went out of control. It fell over sideways and skidded across the road under the SUV.
Shel let go of Don and grabbed for the wheel. It didn’t do any real good. The motorcycle had lodged under the SUV and made the vehicle unmanageable. Still, he almost had it under control when the deputy cruiser behind him slammed into him. The air bags blossomed with staccato blasts and trapped Shel and Don.
The other bikers sped past and were gone in a heartbeat.
Shel tore the air bag free with his hand and cleared his way out of the SUV. He flung open the bullet-riddled door and turned to face the retreating bikers. In the darkness, he couldn’t tell how many of them there were. He opened fire immediately and hoped he got lucky.
If he hit any of the Purple Royals, they gave no indication of it.
A quick check of the vehicles revealed that the first two and his own were definitely out of commission. He ran to the next cruiser as he fed a new magazine into his pistol. Max paced him.
The deputy in the car was bleeding from a head wound while he fought the air bag. A quick glance told Shel that the man had received the wound from the wreck, not from a bullet.
“You okay?” Shel asked.
“Yeah.” The deputy nodded but looked out of it.
“Call dispatch. Let them know what happened. Tell them they need to shut the highways down.”
“Okay.” The deputy grabbed the handset.
None of the deputy cruisers were in any position to give pursuit. With the ditches on either side of the narrow road and the tangled mess of the wrecks, they were trapped.
“Shel.”
When Shel turned, he saw Don standing beside the SUV.
“What about Daddy?” Don asked.
Without a word, they turned together and raced for the road that led up to the ranch house.
45
›› Rafter M Ranch
>
›› Outside Fort Davis, Texas
›› 2204 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Please, God, don’t let my daddy be dead. As he ran, Don knew he sounded like a child. But that was all right. In God’s eyes they were all children. They were supposed to turn to him in times of need and fear. God was a daddy too.
Over the years, Don had known he’d enjoyed a closer relationship with God than he had with his earthly father, especially since he’d been called to lead the church. God had pulled him to that, and Don had never doubted that a day in his life. He suspected that even if he were close to his daddy, he’d still have been closer to God.
Don ran as fast as he could, but he couldn’t match Shel’s speed. Ultimately Don knew he was going to lose, but the thing that worried him most was that some of the bikers might yet remain at the house, or that Daddy might accidentally shoot them while thinking they were the bikers.
That fear and the adrenaline lent wings to Don’s feet. He was less than a hundred yards behind his brother when Shel reached the ranch house.
Shel hunkered down behind the big pecan tree in the front yard. Mama had asked Daddy to put that tree in, and she’d made pies from what they’d gathered every year after it started producing. For a long time after Mama’s death, Daddy had gathered the nuts every year and given them away. Then when Don married Joanie, he’d given the pecans to her. They’d given Daddy pies back. Lately Don’s kids had gathered the pecans.
Out of breath, afraid that he was about to throw up from the exertion and nerves, Don bent over and rested his hands on his knees.
Shel faced him, his features calm and set like stone. “I want you to stay here, Don.”
“Why?” Don gasped.
“Just stay here.” Shel’s voice was hard and clipped. It was his big-brother voice. After all these years, it hadn’t gone away. But it had been a long time since Don had heard it.
“All right,” Don said. He was used to telling Shel whatever he needed to in order to mollify him.
Shel approached the house at a measured run. He signaled to Max, and the Labrador took the lead and stayed to the left.
