Cowboy Christmas Rescue

by Beth Cornelison

  “Easy, girl.” Kara held her hands up and cooed soothing words to the horse as she approached. She was somewhat surprised the mare had stopped...until she paused long enough to cast a glance around her. Kara groaned as she realized where she was, what had happened while she’d had her head down against the wind and rain, her brain locked in tunnel vision, replaying the frightening events at the ranch.

  The mare, given no guidance other than encouragement to keep moving, had taken the path of least resistance...and wandered up the bed of a dry creek at the bottom of an arroyo. She hadn’t run any farther because they were surrounded by steep, striated walls of red clay stone, shale and gypsum. The way forward was rugged and rocky with rivulets of rainwater flowing down to fill the ravine.

  Hell and damnation! The worst place to be during this kind of weather was at the bottom of an arroyo, where flash floods quickly turned dry creek beds into swift and deadly rivers. She shifted her panicked gaze to the cold water she stood in. Already the flow of runoff was ankle deep and rising rapidly. Her stomach pitched, and a low moan rumbled in her chest.

  She watched helplessly from the bridge as Daddy battled the current, struggling to reach the woman’s flailing arms. The wind lifted whitecaps in the river that splashed over Daddy’s head. Every time his silver hair disappeared beneath the water, the fist squeezing her lungs choked her harder.

  Kara’s heart drummed at a rib-bruising pace, and her breath snagged in her throat. Memories of her father’s final moments had been burned in her brain all those years ago, but most days, she managed to keep the ghosts locked away. But now, with the wind whipping stinging rain into her face and the damp chill soaking her skin, the images surged from the dark corners where she’d shoved them. A shudder raced through her that had nothing to do with the cold wind or icy water.

  Another bright flash of lightning and nearby boom of thunder echoed through the canyon. With a shrill, frightened whinny, the mare bucked again and bolted away.

  * * *

  Brady paused at the fence line that marked the edge of the Wheeler Ranch property and strained to see any sign of gray horse or red dress through the curtain of rain.

  Nothing. Not one damn sign of horse or rider in any direction. Only rain and black clouds. The vast Texas prairie stretched beneath the looming caprock escarpment, a line of towering rock which marked the abrupt shift from flat ranch lands to steep canyons, deep arroyos and dramatic hoodoos.

  Brady clenched his jaw, frustration biting hard. Kara was out there somewhere. He couldn’t just give up and go home. She had no protection from the rain and wind, and no means to defend herself from wild animals...or human predators.

  Had the shooter managed to escape the ranch amid the chaos? Was the sniper, even now, hunting Kara as Brady was? That notion sent a tremor to his gut and gnawed at him with razor teeth. If, in fact, Kara was the only witness who could identify the shooter, it stood to reason the would-be killer would pursue her and try to silence her.

  He bristled, his possessive and protective instincts roaring.

  As he scanned the horizon, he noticed a shed farther down the fence line. His spirits lifted. Maybe, just maybe Kara had seen that shed and taken shelter from the storm inside. He tugged his reins and clicked his tongue, guiding Rooster toward the small building.

  “Kara!” he called over the rumbling thunder and drumming rain. “Kara, are you there?” Reaching the shed, he dismounted and tied Rooster’s reins to the fence. The shed door was secured with a padlock through a hasp. A quick circuit around the building showed no other entrance or window. Disappointment speared him, but another idea came to him. Did the Wheeler ranch hands keep an ATV or any other useful supplies in the shed that would help him find Kara?

  Choosing a large rock from the ground, Brady cracked it against the padlock repeatedly until the screws holding the hasp in place jarred loose, and the lock fell free. He could repair the door for the Wheelers later. Right now, he had a mission.

  Sure enough, two ATVs were parked inside, along with a small trailer stacked with fence posts and coiled wire. Shelves with tools, engine oil and first-aid supplies lined the walls. The keys for each ATV dangled from a peg by the door, and Brady helped himself. The first ATV chugged and whined but wouldn’t start. Quickly he moved to the second vehicle and sent up a silent prayer as he turned the key. The engine roared to life and Brady released a relieved sigh. He pulled his cell phone out while he was in the protection of the shed and dialed Nate.

  After several rings, a distracted-sounding voice came on the line. “Uh, yeah? What?”

  “Nate? It’s Brady. Sorry to take off like I did, but I think Kara saw the shooter. She got on April’s horse and lit off toward kingdom come.”

  “What? Brady?” They had a bad connection. Reception was poor in many parts of the county, so this didn’t surprise Brady as much as annoy him. Being incommunicado during a crisis was no way to run an investigation.

  “Listen, what’s happening at the ranch? Have my men found the shooter?” he said, talking louder as thunder rumbled outside.

  “I don’t know. I’m not at the ranch.”

  Brady knitted his brow. “Why not?” he barked. “I told Wilhite to keep everyone on premises until I got back.”

  “My...shot. Bleeding out, and...trauma cent— April...in my truck.”

  The snips of Nate’s reply that Brady caught sent a chill through him. Had something happened to April after he’d left?

  “Say that again, Nate? What about April?”

  Then he recalled Nate’s mother calling for help during the chaos.

  “Gotta go...” Nate said.

  “Wait!” Brady ran a hand over his face, wiping rain from his nose and brow. “I’m leaving Rooster tied to the fence by the equipment shed in the north pasture. Can you call and send someone to get him? I’m going after Kara, and I don’t—”

  He cut his sentence off as a crack of thunder rattled the shed and loud static crackled in his ear. “Nate?”

  He checked his screen and read, Call dropped. Grumbling a curse word, he tried to phone Wilhite. He was painfully aware of how much time he was using, how much farther ahead of him Kara was getting. When Wilhite didn’t answer his cell, he tapped out a rapid text, letting him know someone needed to get Rooster and asking him to let him know if Kara showed up back at the ranch.

  Before heading out, he found a scrap of an old grocery sack, and wrapped it around his phone. Not much protection from the rain, but it was better than nothing. After stashing the cell phone in the breast pocket of his tuxedo jacket, he mounted the ATV and headed out.

  Given that the rain had softened the ground, he searched the far perimeter of the pasture for hoof prints leading away from the ranch. Ten minutes later, he found what he’d been looking for. A definite set of tracks heading toward the rugged terrain of the Caprock escarpment. Nerves jangling, he wheeled the ATV around to follow the trail of prints. A few hundred yards out onto the plain, he found a sodden white ribbon, evidence he was on the right track. His pulse jacked higher.

  He paused long enough to cup his hands around his mouth and shout, “Kara!”

  Turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees, he scanned the area. Nothing. Just rain, more rain and an empty landscape.

  “Damn it, Kara, where are you? What made you run?” He settled back on the ATV and squeezed the clutch, wondering if he meant what made her run from the barn today...or what made her run from their relationship?

  Either. Both. He’d spent the past ten months asking himself what he’d done wrong, why she’d left him, how he could convince her they were made for each other. Sure, she’d been worried about him when he’d taken the interim position as sheriff—an unexpected direction for his career but one he was honored to accept—but her concern for his safety on the job seemed a trifling thing to break up over. It was ludicrous. When he’d told her as much, she’d twisted his words, and they’d had a pointless fight about him not respecting her or some suc
h hogwash.

  How could she think he didn’t respect her? She was completely amazing. Her love for and rapport with animals, her quick wit and sharp mind...not to mention her unbelievable courage and skill as a bullfighter in the rodeo.

  Calling bullfighters by the more popular term “rodeo clowns” was something of an injustice, in his view. There was nothing funny about what Kara and other bullfighters faced in the arena. Distracting an angry, bucking bull, protecting riders took guts, speed and lightning reflexes. He was proud beyond words that Kara was one of the few women bullfighters in the business. Not respect her? He scoffed at the notion. He respected the hell out of her. He just didn’t understand her. He couldn’t—

  The ATV hydroplaned, spinning sideways and nearly tipping over as he crossed some standing water. Righting the vehicle, Brady shook his head and sucked in a cleansing breath. He needed to quit obsessing over his arguments with Kara and concentrate on finding her. He’d have a hard enough time navigating in this wretched weather and getting them both back to the Wheeler Ranch safely.

  As he traveled deeper into the path of the thunderstorm, the pounding rain and whipping winds obscured visibility. The trail of hoof prints got harder and harder to follow as the storm washed the impressions away. But since Kara had seemed to be traveling a straight path, logic said his best bet was to forge ahead in the same direction the trail had been going.

  Flat land gave way to sloping rock and ravines. Small streams of runoff filled every dip and crevice in the increasingly steep terrain. Surely Kara hadn’t ventured into such dangerous terrain alone, especially not during a thunderstorm...

  Within seconds of that thought, a movement to his right caught Brady’s attention. The gray mare Kara had ridden away on trotted out from the shallow end of a ravine. Without a rider.

  * * *

  Okay, Kara thought as the mare disappeared down the arroyo, so you lost the horse. You’re stranded. The gully is filling with swift water. It looks bad, but you can’t panic.

  Fruitlessly wiping water off her face, Kara drew a slow, deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. Stay calm and think.

  The first thing she had to do was get out of the arroyo. Seeing as how she didn’t know how far the horse had come up the arroyo—damn it, why hadn’t she paid attention where she was going?—and seeing as how her most immediate danger was the rapidly rising level of runoff water, her priority was getting up. The mare couldn’t have climbed the steep rocky walls of the arroyo, but she had to try. Squinting against the sting of wind-driven rain, she eyed the ravine walls and picked a spot that seemed easiest to ascend.

  Scrabbling to find toeholds and rocks or roots she could pull herself up with, she started the awkward climb. Her waterlogged dress clung to her legs, encumbering her movement, and the rough rocks scraped her hands and cut into her bare feet. But she struggled on, trying to ignore the pain. The wind made it difficult to keep her balance, and the rain left the rocks slick. The rapidly dropping temperature chilled her to the bone, and shudders of cold soon racked her muscles, hastening her fatigue. Thank you, Texas crazy weather.

  She made it within a few feet of the top ledge, still too far to hoist herself up to level ground, before she knew she had to stop. She had to rest or risk losing her grip and falling. Glancing around her, she spotted an indentation in the wall of the arroyo. The space was too shallow to be called a cave but deep enough for her to sit and have limited protection from the howling wind and precipitation.

  Mustering the last of her strength, she reached for the low-hanging branch of a cottonwood tree. The first limb she grabbed broke off in her hand. Losing that anchor shifted her balance, and with a gasp, she teetered precariously.

  She grasped frantically for another branch. The new branch dipped and stretched from her weight...but held. The moment of panic fueled her muscles with a spurt of adrenaline. Heart racing, she used the new energy to edge toward the small outcropping of rock and dirt.

  When she reached the narrow ledge beneath the protective rock angling out of the bluff, she sank tiredly to her bottom and leaned back against the wall of red clay stone. Shutting her eyes against the continuing rain and wind, she allowed her muscles to relax and her shoulders to droop. She’d take just a moment to catch her breath and regroup before she planned her next move.

  Stranded. The word filled her with frustration and self-censure. She’d panicked when the sniper fired at her and allowed herself to get lost by indulging her shock and fright. She’d done exactly what her father had taught her not to, what went counter to her training as a bullfighter. Wrapping her arms around herself, struggling for a shred of warmth, she castigated herself for her gut-level, amateurish reaction. If she hadn’t been so wrapped up in her misery over Brady, would she have had more rational wits about her? She gave herself a little shake. The question was moot. She was stuck here, and she had to deal with it.

  Behind her closed eyes, the disturbing images of the sniper’s glowering face returned and filled her with an odd sense of déjà vu. Dark eyes narrowed. Wide, flat nostrils flared. He’d had a birthmark or mole high on his cheek, just under his right eye. The man was the stuff of nightmares. He had the look of a man with no compunction about killing.

  A shiver raced through her that had nothing to do with the growing chill ushered in by the storm. She blew out a shaky breath, knowing how close she’d come to being the man’s latest victim. The idea was terrifying. Surreal.

  A sniper. At April and Nate’s wedding. Given a moment to reflect more calmly, she realized the significance. And the mystery.

  It didn’t make sense. Why would someone shoot into a wedding party? Was this a random act of violence by a lunatic or had the man been a hired gun with a specific target? And if the gunman had been hired, who was the sniper trying to kill? And why couldn’t she shake the idea she’d seen him before?

  Her gut roiled. As the new sheriff of Trencher County, Brady would be in charge of the investigation. She bit her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes tighter, fighting the swell of anxiety that stirred deep inside her. She conjured her last sight of Brady, his arms raised, trying to flag her down as she charged out of the barn on the gray mare and galloped away from the ranch. The concern in his eyes, the questions in his furrowed brow hadn’t stopped her then, but now they reverberated through her soul. After the shots rang out, had he been coming to look for her? Would he come out on the Texas plains, searching?

  An ember of hope, a tiny warmth deep in her chilled body, flickered to life. She knew Brady could find her. Hadn’t she been bemoaning his keen tracking skills, his uncanny ability to find her wherever she went in town? But with a gunman at the ranch and possible casualties—Lord, let her friends be all right!—where would Brady’s sense of duty lie?

  A crack of thunder jolted her from her thoughts and back to her current crisis. She angled a glance to the rushing runoff below her. The arroyo was already half full of swift water. Dread punched her in the gut. Determined not to become a statistic because of stupidity and her rash reaction, she gritted her teeth and forced herself back to her feet. Legs shaking from cold and fatigue, she willed herself enough strength to start her climb again.

  * * *

  After tying the reins of the mare to a scrub tree on high ground, Brady tugged the brim of his cowboy hat down against the brisk northern wind. If only the mare could talk. Where’s Kara? he wanted to demand of the horse. Why did you leave her?

  If Kara wasn’t with the horse anymore, did that mean she was hurt? Or sick? Was she even now bleeding out, unable to breathe or lying unconscious in the harsh storm?

  He huffed his frustration as he pulled out his phone again to text the horse’s location to his deputies. He turned a disgusted look to the sky where black clouds still roiled, spitting frigid rain. As long as the storm produced battering gusts of wind and lightning, assistance from a helicopter search team was not an option.

  Climbing back astride the ATV, he revved the engine and conside
red his path. He needed to check the arroyo where the horse had appeared, but he needed to do it from high ground. As if to remind him of the urgency of finding Kara quickly, lightning struck close enough to cause an almost simultaneous clap of thunder. Yes, the conditions were dangerous. Lightning was a worry, but he couldn’t give up his search. The wandering mare was evidence that Kara was stranded out here in the storm. And she could easily be in more peril than he dared imagine.

  * * *

  Kara tried multiple times to pull herself off the small ledge and onto the safe ground at the top of the arroyo. But her feet slipped on the wet rock, and she couldn’t find secure handholds along the inverted angle of rock above her. The same overhang that provided a modicum of shelter from the downpour also made ascending the last seven or so feet nearly impossible.

  Shivering from cold and fatigue, Kara sank back onto the small outcropping and fought the dejection that tugged at her. She wasn’t a quitter, and even though her circumstances seemed bleak, she couldn’t give up. She had to find an alternative solution. Ever since she’d stood by and watched her father drown, she’d sworn she’d never be passive in a situation again. Maybe as a young teen she’d not seen a way to help him, but as an adult, she’d never submit to any problem or circumstance without a fight.

  Except with Brady.

  She scowled darkly. Where had that thought come from? Leaving might have been painful, but it had been necessary to save herself from certain problems later on.

  That’s a cop-out. You took the easy way out with Brady. You didn’t fight for him or for a workable compromise.

  Kara growled her frustration and slapped a scraped palm on the cold, wet clay stone. Was this how she was going to spend the long hours until the waters receded or she was rescued? Mentally beating herself up over decisions she’d made out of self-preservation?