High-Riding Heroes

by Joey Light

  “You’d turn to me. Come to me. I knew it. See, now you’re here. It was easy. It was hard to undermine him with the other men. Given a little more time, I would have. But it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re together.” He reached over to toy with the collar of her shirt.

  He was sicker than she guessed. He would stop at nothing. She had to figure out a way to get out of here. No one was coming. No one knew where this place was. Desperate, she looked around. She’d have to time it right and make another dash for the door. It was the only way. Maybe after he fell asleep, she could get the keys to the truck. It was something to hold on to. And she needed something, crucially.

  Pushing her chair back slowly, she smiled. “Can we get some air, Nick? I like to sit on porches. We can sit on the step and watch for the sunset.” Playing along was the only answer right now. She had to act out the game. Drawing on all the strength she had left, she rose. She felt a bubble of laughter catching in her throat. Not once since she arrived at Glory Town did she wish she were back home in Virginia, propped up on her feather bed reading a good book and waiting for Ginger, her maid, to bring tea. She did now.

  It was as if he had never spoken the dark words. His eyes brightened and he came around to assist her from her chair. When he clasped his hand around hers, it was dry and steady. Hers wasn’t. Together, they walked to the sloping porch and sat, side by side, on the top step.

  The fresh air revived her somewhat. Where was Wes? What was he thinking? How would he ever find her? Birds twittered in a nearby tree. Rustling in the brush suggested some wild, free thing ran there. Victoria envied it.

  The view from here wasn’t all bad. The old shack sat atop a knoll with a line of trees at the far end. Soon the sun would be setting behind those trees. First a pale gold, then as the sun sank lower, a hazy red. It would appear the woods were on fire. She almost wished they were. What would happen after dark? Would he expect her to stay here with him…in the one bed cocked in the corner?

  She shivered and he mistook it for a chill. He put his arm around her shoulder and rubbed his hand along her arm to warm her. She studied the swirling stitch pattern on the toe of his boots. Felt the too familiar brush of denim against her thigh and was reminded of the strength this man possessed. It would almost be easier to lean into him and give up. But she straightened her shoulders; that wasn’t her style.

  “It’s almost dark,” Wes raged and paced the jailhouse and ignored Buck’s sputtering.

  “Sit down, boy. You’ve called in his tag number and they’ll send Sally down here the minute she gets back from town. There’s nothing else you can do but wear a hole in the damn floor.”

  “Not enough. Not damn-well enough. In the few short weeks we’ve known each other we’ve been to hell and back.”

  “You’ll get through it. You both will. You have to.” The aging man wiped his brow.

  Wes’s head flew up and he laughed nastily. The sound of it scared Buck.

  “Words of wisdom from you. I could almost be really ticked off with you, Buck. If…Damn.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m taking my share of the blame here.

  It was a harebrained idea, bringing you two together. Two hotheaded, stubborn people. How’d I know all this was going to happen? Now stop that damn pacing.”

  “I can’t. If sit down, I’ll take off like a rocketship.”

  “What else can you do? They could be anywhere. You want to be headed off in another direction when we do get word? Sit down.”

  Wes stalked even faster.

  “I don’t think he’ll hurt her. No, I don’t think he will. I figure he fancies himself in love with her. She’ll be able to handle him if she’s careful.” Buck offered consoling words in his own way, not believing one of them. He had made a bad judgment call. Keeping Nick at Glory Town might just prove to be the worst mistake he had ever made. And he had made plenty in his lifetime.

  “Careful,” Wes exploded. “Careful. Lord, she was half dead just three days ago. Where the hell is Sally?”

  “Shopping. You know these dames when they get it in their heads to shop, they shop. All day. Calm down. The shells in your belt will go off. Here. Take a slug of this.”

  Wes downed the whiskey without tasting it and set it back on the table only to watch it teeter and fall to the floor. He should never have left her alone in that hospital. But how the hell was he ever supposed to dream up a kidnapping? How was he supposed to know that Nick would take her away? The woman he loved was in the hands of a madman. Pictures formed in his mind that tore at his gut. Pictures that scared a man who couldn’t be scared.

  If he couldn’t do something soon, he would blow apart. His fingers itched to get around Nick’s throat and squeeze. But it was his fault. Wasn’t a man who loved a woman supposed to keep these things from happening to her?

  Buck got up and looked out the door. The tourists milled around the dusty street and up and down the shady boardwalks. Happily, they watched and looked around. They experimented with roping and riding.

  The children seemed all round-eyed and a bit overwhelmed with the reenactors who were at this moment portraying the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Billy and some of the boys were giving kids rides on their horses at the other end of town. Everything seemed normal. Nothing was.

  He saw Sally hurrying toward the jailhouse. He hesitated telling Wes she was on her way for fear he would rush into the street and start shaking the information out of her. And what if she didn’t have any that would help?

  Chapter Twelve

  Wes heard Sally before he saw her.

  “What’s all the fuss about? Wendy said for me to get up here right away. Some kind of emergency.” She held her new hat on her head with one hand and picked up her long skirt with the other.

  Wes pushed past Buck and grabbed Sally by both arms. Buck pushed them inside the jailhouse. He didn’t need the whole of Glory Town in on this. God forbid anyone would figure out what an old fool he was. What havoc his good intentions had wreaked. He understood Wes’s panic and fury, for it matched his own, but Glory Town had to go on as usual.

  Wes waited, impatient while Sally arranged herself in a chair and looked up expectantly. And a little annoyed.

  “Victoria. Victoria’s missing from the hospital. Since earlier this afternoon. From what information we can get, Nick picked her up. But they’re not here.”

  Sally’s eyes grew grave. She heard the restrained panic in Wes’s voice. She reached up and grabbed at her new red hat as it slid from her head to the floor. Idly she picked it up and began rotating it in her hands.

  Testily, Wes grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “What?”

  “You’d better sit down, Wes.” When she realized he was still standing in front of her waiting, she used a sterner tone of voice. “Wes. Sit down.”

  Irritated, he jerked a chair over and straddled it, pulling it up close to her. “Talk,” he ordered, none too gently.

  “I was going to say something to you about all of this but with everything that’s been going on…and I thought I could be way off base with this… Haven’t things become complicated? First that child’s horse dies and then the barn catches on fire with poor little Katie and Joe inside. It’s almost as if fate isn’t smiling on us anymore. Maybe if you and Victoria got married and started raising a passel of kids. You know we’ve all been talking about that and…”

  Wes growled low in his throat. “You’re rambling, Sally. Get on with it.”

  “Okay. Okay. My bet is that Nick took Victoria out of the hospital with the idea that they would set up housekeeping together.” She sat back a little to be better able to gauge Wes’s reaction to that bit of news.

  His eyes widened and then narrowed to dangerous slits. She rushed on with her story. “Ever since that nasty business with Annie, well, I told you Nick has a hard time sometimes…”

  She paused. She felt as if she were somehow betraying Nick.

  “Well, he has a hard time telling the difference between
reality and fantasy. It’s never been serious before. Almost a joke really. Thinking he really is a cowboy and this is really 1870. That things can simply be settled with a gun and without regard for the law. That he can just do whatever he wants without using logic. When he’d talk like that, I would just listen and pat his shoulder. What else was I supposed to do? He’s harmless.”

  “Harmless?” Wes roared. “He took her.”

  “Was harmless,” she corrected herself and then looked to Buck for help. She didn’t like the edge to Wes’s looks or the way he seemed ready to spring into action and choke something. “I hardly think he dragged her out of there stuffed inside a laundry bag or anything as dramatic. Surely then the hospital would have seen something weird going on. She probably went with him willingly enough.”

  Buck asked Sally as gently as he could, “Do you have any idea where he could have taken her?”

  “Sure. But I can’t tell you till you hear the whole story. I don’t want that man hurt. He won’t hurt her. And Nick’s become, well, sort of like my kid and he trusts me. He tells me things. Some I don’t believe. Some I fear are true.”

  “You’ll tell me where they are or…” Wes controlled his temper only because he knew he would get nowhere fast if he didn’t. He’d have to trust Sally’s judgment. He’d have to wait.

  “All right, but I have to start from the beginning. Move back, both of you. You’re smothering me.” Both men exchanged an exasperated look and gave Sally some space.

  She looked at Buck. “Years ago, when Nick and Annie first came here, I liked them instantly. With our trailers backing up to the same lot, we became friends and neighbors as well as co-workers. There’s a life all its own on the back lot that neither of you knows exists. Family.” She eyed him squarely and added in a near whisper, “You know how important family is.”

  Buck grunted and shrugged his aging shoulders. “I know you all are close out there. That’s exactly the way it should be. Go on.”

  “I was maid of honor at their wedding, you know. She was so beautiful and he so handsome. They had been seeing each other only a few months when they decided to get married. They were happy. Well, Nick was. Annie was a dreamer. She wanted more out of life. This was okay for now, but she had delusions of grandeur about the future.

  She eventually wanted out of Glory Town and Nick could never understand it. But I saw trouble brewing between Annie and Nick right off. Just after that Luke fella came aboard.”

  Buck and Wes looked at each other, perplexed, and back to her. “Luke?”

  “Yeah. Luke, Luke…I can’t remember the rest of his name. Fancy roper. Fast-talking dude with pretty eyes and the way he looked from the back, broad shoulders and a cute butt. He took a liking to Annie and she flirted with him a time or two. Nick found out and was furious.”

  Wes made a motion for her to hurry up with her story, his hand making circles in the air.

  She took a deep breath and continued. “Annie’s interest was purely silly. She never took any man serious except her Nick. She worshiped him. Still, she wasn’t beyond looking at a fine man. Smiling at him. That’s when I found out how jealous Nick could be. That streak of envy was nasty. It’s the only thing about Nick that’s, that’s maybe a little on the dangerous side.”

  “I need a drink,” Buck muttered and walked back to the door, still within earshot but able to look about his fine town. He tried to find some solace in the daily routine. Some sanity.

  “Be quiet,” Wes demanded. “Hurry up, Sally.”

  “He took Luke out behind the water tower and beat knots on his head. Beat him up bad. And Luke was no little fella either. Nick told him if he didn’t leave Glory Town he was coming after him to rearrange his face. Luke left. Most of them perty men are all saunter and no guts. Anyway, he confronted Annie with her flirting and teasing and she admitted it but said that it was only a game. He yelled at her, screamed, and threatened to punch her lights out. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t hit a woman. He was just that furious. She was backing away from his tirade when she fell over something. He didn’t hit her. She came to my trailer that night, blood spurting from where her tooth went through her lip.

  After she cleaned up and wiped away the tears, she admitted to me that she had been wrong and Nick only right. She was his woman.”

  “God’s britches. This is the twentieth century.” Wes took his Stetson off and wiped sweat from his brow.

  “Not to those two. This was their home. Their way of life. I think that’s why he clings to it so. Don’t think too bad of him. He never raised his voice to her again and she never looked at another man. They were happy and so in love. And then…”

  Wes ripped the chair out from under himself and threw it across the room and yelled. “And then what?”

  “She got pregnant. She wasn’t supposed to. Doctor’s orders. Some female problem. But Nick wanted a family. A big one. Remember the night the ambulance came, Buck? She had started to bleed. Bleed bad. Nick had her in his arms and had come running over to my trailer, beside himself. Scared silly. He kept talking and crooning to this near unconscious woman. We got her to the hospital but it was too late. She died. And the damn doctor had the nerve to ask Nick why he let her go against his orders. Nick looked like he’d been dunked by a bronc. She had never told him. Of course, he felt responsible since he had pushed her into starting a family. It was his fault, he thought. He blamed himself. For weeks after we buried her, he simply sat and stared into space. That’s when the headaches began. That’s when I saw part of him slip away and out of control at times. I worried, but over the years it never amounted to much. Glory Town and the action here are what saved him from going stark raving mad. He used to talk to me about killing her. Sometimes the self-imposed guilt was too much for him. He’d snap. He’d go somewhere else in his mind…Glory Town. The real Glory Town. And then he’d cry and then he’d twitch out of it and not mention it for months. More and more, I saw him live here, in this pretend place, and think it was real. All of it.”

  Buck felt his old heart grow weak. He’d always kept himself apart from the others. He was a boss, and business and friends didn’t mix. Besides, a lot of people had passed through Glory Town and he hadn’t thought of that many of them again. If he developed a certain fondness for some along the way, he kept it to himself.

  Wes felt perspiration roll down his spine. Unbalanced. Grieving. In need of a woman. In need of the feeling a woman left a man with. He sympathized with Nick’s problem, but that didn’t make him feel any more confident that he wouldn’t hurt her in some way if he remained out of control for too long. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know this for sure, but he and Annie used to go up to that old line shack. You know, Buck, the one about twenty miles up in the high country. To be alone. To plan their life. To dream. If he has her, he took her up there.” She grabbed Wes’s shirt sleeve as he swept past her. “Go easy on him. He’s talked to me about Victoria. He worships her. Don’t push him into doing something stupid.”

  Wes nodded. One look and Buck sided him. They ran to the truck and jumped inside.

  Trying to head off disaster, Buck muttered, “Boy, I know what you’re thinkin’.”

  “I don’t think you do,” Wes grumbled darkly.

  “You go chargin’ in up there and there’s no tellin’ what he might do. When we get up there, let me go in first.”

  Wes turned the key in the ignition and popped the clutch, tires spitting rooster tails of dust behind the truck.

  Buck put his hand on his arm. “Promise me, boy.”

  “You want to stay here, Buck, I’ll turn around and drop you off. I promise you nothing.”

  “Sally knows Nick better than any of us. She says he won’t hurt her.”

  Wes swung the truck onto the macadam road. “Which way to the line shack, Buck?”

  “West.” Buck didn’t like the tone of Wes’s voice or the reckless way he handled the truck.

  A bull charging into that shack w
ould only cause alarm and confusion. He could render Wes unconscious. He almost chuckled to himself. Those days were probably over. Wes was a strapping, powerful young man. He tried to settle back in the seat. It would all have to wait. He’d have to play it by ear.

  Nick and Victoria. It was getting dark. Wes tried not to let his mind conjure up pictures he couldn’t stand. He couldn’t stop them.

  “Come on inside, Vic. You need to get some rest.”

  The chill had her bones aching but she was reluctant to go in that shack. Nick stood up and took her hand. Pulling her up off the step, he slipped his arms around her waist.

  The breeze played with her hair, swirling it around her shoulders. He brushed at it and the gentle touch of his warm fingers, the intimacy, caused her to shiver.

  “See, you’re cold. You’ll feel better in the morning and then we can talk. We can plan. We can dream about how nice our life is going to be. And how many babies we’ll have. I’ve seen you with Katie. You’re so good with kids. Me and Annie,” she saw the wince crease his forehead and then disappear, “we never had time to have little babies, but you and me…” His lips brushed her temple. Her pulse beat jumped, but not from passion, from fear. “And together we’ll run Glory Town.”

  He was a strong man. She could feel it in the muscles that roped his forearms, in the solidness of his chest. His heart beat steadily beneath hers. She had to keep from screaming. She didn’t want to do anything to pluck this man’s strings. But the sound of her scream was loud in her head and trapped in her throat, strangling her.

  They went inside the line shack. He moved to the corner to light a lantern and set it on the table. It showered the isolated dwelling in an eerie yellow light. Victoria swallowed the bitter metallic taste of fear.

  The dim light only served to set the mood of dreaminess.