by Sandra Brown
"She said you don't look like a doctor."
"No, I don't suppose I do."
"Are you?"
"Rancher."
"You're a real cowboy then?"
"I breed horses, run a herd of beef cattle. I drive a pickup truck. I guess that makes me a cowboy."
"Then where'd you learn-"
The ringing of the telephone brought their private conversation to a halt. Ronnie snatched up the receiver.
"Hello? I'm Ronnie Davison. Where's the doctor?"
He paused to listen, and Tiel could tell by his expression that he was hearing something that distressed him.
"FBI? How come?" Then he blurted, "But I didn't kidnap her, Mr. Galloway! We were eloping. Yes, sir, she's my main concern too. No. No. She refuses to go to a hospital."
He listened longer, then glanced at Sabra. "Okay. If the phone'll reach." He dragged the telephone to Sabra, stretching the cord as far as it would go. "The FBI agent wants to talk to you."
Doc said, "It won't hurt her to stand up. In fact, it might do her good."
He and Tiel supported Sabra beneath the arms and together assisted her to her feet. She baby-stepped far enough to take the extended receiver from Ronnie.
"Hello? No, sir. What Ronnie told you is true. I'm not leaving without him. Not even to go to the hospital. Because of my daddy! He said he'll take away my baby, and he always does what he says." She sniffed back tears. "Of course I came with Ronnie voluntarily. I-" She caught her breath and gripped a handful of Doc's shirt.
He lifted her and carried her back to the makeshift birthing bed, depositing her gently. Tiel knelt beside her and, as Doc had instructed, coaxed Sabra to relax, not to fight the contraction, and to breathe.
Ronnie was speaking anxiously into the telephone. "Listen here, Mr. Galloway, Sabra can't talk anymore. She's having a contraction. Where's the doctor we were promised?" He glanced through the plate glass. "Yeah, I see him. You bet I'll let him in."
Ronnie slammed down the receiver and dropped the phone back onto the counter. He started for the door, then, realizing how exposed he would be to sharpshooters, ducked behind the Frito-Lay display again. "Cashier, wait until he's at the door before you unlock it. Then, as soon as he comes through, relock it. Understand?"
"What d'ya think, I'm stupid?"
Donna waited until the doctor was pushing on the door before she flipped the switch. He came inside, and everyone in the store, including the young doctor, heard the metallic click when the door relocked.
Nervously he glanced over his shoulder at it before introducing himself. "I'm, uh, Dr. Cain. Scott."
"Move over here."
Dr. Scott Cain was a handsome man of medium height and build, in his early to mid-thirties. Wide-eyed, he scanned the people huddled in a group in front of the counter. Gladys waved at him.
His gaze swung back to Ronnie. "I was making my rounds at County when I was paged. Never would've guessed I'd be called in on an emergency like this."
"With all due respect, Dr. Cain, we're short on time."
Tiel shared Doc's impatience. The wet-behind the-ears Dr. Cain was obviously awed to find himself a player in such high drama. He hadn't fully grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Doc asked if he'd been apprised of Sabra's condition.
"I was told she was in labor and that there might be complications."
Doc motioned him toward the prone girl. "Is it okay?"
Cain asked Ronnie, glancing fearfully at the pistol.
"Open up your bag."
"Huh? Oh, sure." He unlatched the black valise and held it open for Ronnie's inspection.
"Okay, go ahead. Help her, please. She's in a bad way."
"It would seem so," the doctor remarked as a contraction seized Sabra and she moaned.
Reflexively she reached for Tiel's hand. Tiel held on tight and spoke to her encouragingly. "The doctor's here, Sabra. Things are going to get better now. I promise."
Doc was providing the doctor with pertinent information.
"She's seventeen. This is her first child. First preg nancy." They took up positions near the girl, Doc on Sabra's right side, Dr. Cain at her feet, Tiel on her left.
"How long has she been in labor?"
"Preliminary contractions started mid afternoon Her water broke about two hours ago. Pains escalated sharply after that, then for the last half hour they've tapered off."
"Hi, Sabra," the doctor said to the girl.
"Hi."
He placed his hands on her stomach and examined the mound with light, massaging squeezes.
"Breech, right?" Doc asked, seeking confirmation of his diagnosis.
"Right."
"Do you think you can turn the fetus?"
"That's very tricky."
"Do you have experience in breech births?"
"I've assisted."
That wasn't the hoped-for answer. Doc asked, "Did you bring a blood-pressure cuff?"
"In my bag."
The doctor continued to examine Sabra by gently probing her abdomen. Doc extended the blood-pressure cuff to him, but he declined to take it. He was speaking to Sabra. 'Just relax, and everything will be all right."
She glanced at Ronnie and smiled hopefully. "How long before the baby comes, Dr. Cain?"
"That's hard to say. Babies have a mind of their own. I would prefer taking you to the hospital while there's still time."
"No."
"It would be much safer for you and the baby."
"I can't leave on account of my father."
"He's very worried about you, Sabra. In fact, he's outside.
He told me to tell you-"
Her whole body jerked as though having a muscle spasm. "Daddy's here?" Her voice was high, thin, panicked.
"Ronnie?"
The news upset him as much as it had Sabra. "How'd he get here?"
Tiel patted the girl's shoulder. "It's okay. Don't think about your father now. Think about your baby. That's all you should be concerned with. Everything else will work out."
Sabra began to cry.
Doc leaned toward the doctor and whispered angrily,
"Why'n hell did you tell her that? Couldn't that news have waited?"
Dr. Cain looked confused. "I thought she would be comforted to know that her father was here. They didn't have time to fill me in on all the details of the situation. I didn't know that information was going to upset her."
Doc looked ready to throttle him, and Tiel shared the impulse.
Doc was so angry his thin lips barely moved when he spoke. But knowing that any outward display of anger would only make the situation worse, he remained focused on the business at hand. "She hadn't dilated much when I examined her." Glancing at his wristwatch, he added, "But it's been over an hour since I did the internal."
The doctor nodded. "How much? Was she dilated, I mean."
"About eight, ten centimeters."
"Hmm."
"You son of a bitch."
Doc's low growl brought Tiel's head up with a snap.
Had she heard him correctly? Apparently so, because Dr.
Cain was regarding him with consternation.
"Son of a bitch!" Doc repeated, this time in an angry exclamation.
What happened next was forever thereafter a blur in Tiel's memory. She could never accurately remember the rapid sequence of events, but any recollection of them always made her hungry for chili.
CHAPTER 6
THE FBI VAN PARKED ON THE APRON OF CONCRETE between the highway and the fuel pumps was equipped with high-tech paraphernalia used for deployment, surveillance, and communication. It was a rolling command post out of Midland-Odessa that had been mobilized and driven to Rojo Flats. It had arrived within minutes of Galloway's chopper from Fort Worth.
There wasn't an airstrip in the immediate area that would accommodate an airplane larger than a crop duster. Dendy's private jet had flown to Odessa, where a charter helicopter had been standing by to whisk him to t
he small town. Upon his arrival, he had barged his way into the van, demanding to know exactly what the situation was and how Galloway planned to remedy it.
Dendy had made a general nuisance of himself, and Galloway had had all he could stomach of the millionaire even before Dendy began grilling him over the maneuver presently under way.
Every eye was on the television monitor, which was transmitting a live picture from a camera outside. They watched Cain enter the store, where he stood with his back to the door for a time before disappearing from view.
"What if it doesn't work?" Dendy asked. "What then?"
" 'What then' will depend on the outcome."
"You mean you don't have a contingency plan in place?
What kind of outfit are you running here, Galloway?"
They squared off. The other men in the van stood by expectantly, waiting to see who detonated first, Dendy or Galloway. Ironically, it was a statement from Sheriff Marty Montez that defused the explosive tension.
He said, "I can save you both the suspense and tell you right now that it's not going to work."
As a courtesy-and also a smart diplomatic move- Agent Galloway had invited the county sheriff to join the top-level powwow.
"Doc's no fool," Montez continued. 'You're asking for trouble, sending that rookie in there."
"Thank you, Sheriff Montez," Galloway said stiffly.
Then, as though Montez's statement had been prophetic, they heard gunshots. Two came a millisecond apart, one more several seconds later. The first two caused them all to freeze in place. The third galvanized them.
Everyone inside the van went into motion and began speaking at once.
"Christ!" Dendy bellowed.
The camera was showing them nothing. Galloway grabbed a headset so he could hear the communiques between the men in position in front of the store.
"Were those gunshots?" Dendy asked. "What's happening, Galloway? You said my daughter wouldn't be in any danger!"
Over his shoulder, Galloway shouted, "Sit down and be quiet, Mr. Dendy, or I'm going to have you physically removed from this van."
"If you fuck this up, I'll have you physically removed from this planet!"
Galloway's face turned white with wrath. "Careful, sir. You just threatened the life of a federal officer." He ordered one of his subordinate agents to remove Dendy.
He needed to know immediately who inside the store had fired at whom and whether anyone had been injured or killed. While he was trying to find out, he didn't need Dendy yelling threats at him.
Dendy boomed, "Like hell I'm leaving!"
Galloway left the overwrought father to his subordinates and turned back to the console, demanding information of the agents outside.
Tiel had watched with disbelief as Dr. Scott Cain yanked a pistol from an ankle holster and pointed it at Ronnie.
"FBI! Drop the weapon!"
Sabra had screamed.
Doc had continued to swear at Cain. "All this time we've been waiting on a doctor!" he shouted. "Instead we get you! What kind of stupid stunt is this?"
Tiel had surged to her feet, begging, "No, please no.
Don't shoot." She had feared she was about to see Ronnie Davison blown away right before her eyes.
"You're not a doctor?" the frantic young man had shrieked. "They promised us a doctor. Sabra needs a doctor."
"Drop your weapon, Davison! Now!"
"God dammit, all this time's been wasted." The veins in Doc's neck had bulged with anger. If the agent hadn't been holding a pistol, Tiel guessed that Doc would have taken him by the throat. "That girl's in trouble. Life threatening trouble. Don't any of you federal bastards get it?"
"Ronnie, do as he says," Tiel had implored. "Surrender.
Please."
"No, Ronnie, don't!" Sabra had sobbed. "Daddy's out there."
"Why don't you both put down your pistols." Although Doc's chest had been rising and falling with agitation, he had regained some composure. "Nobody has to get hurt.
We can all be reasonable, can't we?"
"No." Ronnie, resolute, had clutched the pistol grip tighter. "Mr. Dendy will have me arrested. I'll never see Sabra again."
"He's right," the girl had said.
"Maybe not," Doc had argued. "Maybe-"
"I'm giving you to the count of three to drop your weapon!" Cain had shouted, his voice cracking. He, too, it seemed, was cracking under pressure.
"Why'd you have to do this?" Ronnie had yelled at him.
"One."
"Why'd you trick us? My girlfriend is suffering. She needs a doctor. Why'd you do this?"
Tiel hadn't liked the way Ronnie's index finger was tensing around the trigger.
"Two."
"I said no! I won't give her up to Mr. Dendy."
Just as Cain had shouted "Three" and fired his pistol, Tiel grabbed a can of Wolf brand chili from the shelf nearest her and clouted him over the head with it.
He had dropped like a sack of cement. His shot went wide of his target, which had been Ronnie's chest, but it came within a hair's-breadth of Doc before striking the counter.
Reflexively Ronnie had fired his gun. The only damage that bullet did was to knock a chunk of plaster out of the far wall.
Donna had screamed, hit the floor, and covered her head with her hands, then continued screaming.
In the resulting confusion, the Mexican men had surged forward, nearly trampling Vern and Gladys in their haste.
Tiel, realizing that they intended take the agent's pistol, had kicked it beneath a freezer chest out of reach.
"Get back! Get back!" Ronnie had shouted at them. He fired again for emphasis, but aimed well above their heads. The bullet pinged into an air-conditioning vent, but it stopped their rush toward him.
Now they all remained in a frozen tableau, waiting to see what happened next, who would be the first to move, to speak.
It turned out to be Doc. "Do as he says," he ordered the two Mexicans. He held up his left hand, palm out, signaling them to move back. His right hand was clamped over his left shoulder. Blood leaked through his fingers.
"You're shot!" Tiel exclaimed.
Ignoring her, he reasoned with the two Mexican men, who were obviously reluctant to comply. "If you go charging through that door, you're liable to get a belly full of bullets."
The language as well as the logic escaped them. They understood only Doc's insistence that they remain where they were. They rebuked him in rapid-fire Spanish. Tiel picked up the word madre several times. She could only imagine the rest. However, the two did as Doc asked and skulked back to their original positions, muttering to each other and throwing hostile glares all around. Ronnie kept his pistol trained on them.
Donna was making more racket than Sabra, who was clenching her teeth to keep from crying out as a labor pain seized her. Doc ordered the cashier to stop making the god-awful noise.
"I'm not gonna live to see morning," she wailed.
"The way our luck's going, you probably will," Gladys snapped. "Now shut up."
As though her mouth had been corked, Donna's crying ceased instantly.
"Hang in there, sweetheart." Tiel had resumed her place at Sabra's side and was holding her hand through the contraction.
"I knew…" Sabra paused to pant several times. "I knew Daddy wouldn't leave it alone. I knew he would track us down."
"Don't think about him now."
"How is she?" Doc asked, joining them.
Tiel looked at his shoulder. "Are you hurt?"
He shook his head. "The bullet only grazed me. It stings, that's all." Through the tear in his sleeve, he swabbed the wound with a gauze pad, then covered it with another and asked Tiel to cut off a strip of adhesive tape.
While he held the square in place, she secured it with the tape.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Up to this point no one had given any attention to the unconscious man. Ronnie approached, transferring his pistol from one hand
to the other and drying his damp palms alternately on the seat of his jeans. He hitched his chin toward Cain. "What about him?"
Tiel considered that a very good question. "I'll probably get years in prison for doing that."
Doc said to Ronnie, "I recommend that you let me drag him outside, so his buddies in that bad-ass van out there will know he's alive. If they think he's dead or wounded, it could get ugly, Ronnie."
Ronnie apprehensively glanced toward the outside and gnawed on his lower lip while considering the suggestion.
"No, no." He looked over at Vern and Gladys, who seemed to be having as good a time as two people on a theme-park thrill ride. "Find some duct tape," Ronnie told them. "I'm sure the store sells it. Bind his hands and feet."
"If you do that, you'll only be digging yourself in deeper, son," Doc warned gently.
"I don't think I could get in any deeper."
Ronnie's expression was sad, as though he was just now fully comprehending the enormity of his predicament.
What might have seemed a romantic adventure when he and Sabra ran away had turned into an incident involving the FBI and gunplay. He had committed several felonies.
He was in serious trouble, and he was intelligent enough to know it.
The elderly couple stepped over the unconscious agent. Each took an ankle. It was an effort for them, but they were able to drag him away from Sabra, giving Doc and Tiel more room in which to function.
"They're going to lock me up forever," Ronnie continued.
"But I want Sabra to be safe. I want her old man's promise that he'll let her keep our baby."
"Then let's end this here and now."
"I can't, Doc. Not before getting that guarantee from Mr. Dendy."
Doc motioned down to Sabra, who was panting through another pain with Tiel. "In the meantime-"
"We stay right here," the boy insisted.
"But she needs a-"
"Doc?" Tiel said, interrupting.
"-hospital. And soon. If you're truly worried about Sabra's welfare-"
"Doc?"
Irritated because she had twice interrupted his earnest appeal, he turned to her abruptly and asked impatiently,
"What?"
"Sabra can't go anywhere. I can see the baby."
He knelt down between Sabra's raised knees. "Thank God," he said on a relieved laugh. "The baby's turned, Sabra. I can see the head. You're crowning. A few minutes from now you'll have a baby."
