The Sheriff Catches a Bride

by Cora Seton

  “I still think we should at least wait until daylight,” Rose said.

  “We can’t,” Hannah said. “Can you imagine if she wanders out on the road? Someone could come around a turn and crash into her. They could be killed.” She looked back at Rose. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to do this. Gladys is practically tame, but she’s still a bison. It could get pretty dicey.”

  That was an understatement if Rose had ever heard one. “I don’t know anything about herding bison.”

  “We won’t herd her,” Hannah said. “We’ll lure her.” She shook the bag of corn cobs. “She adores them. That’s how I got her into the trailer. Hold on, I think I heard something.”

  Rose heard it, too. A snuff of breath, like a horse would make. “Is that her?”

  Hannah peered into the darkness. “I think so. I don’t think she likes all these trees.” She quickly undid the ties on her bag of corncobs, reached in and held one out. “Here, Gladys, come and get it. I’ve got some tasty corn for you.”

  The beast snuffled again and Rose thought it came a little closer, although she couldn’t make out anything in the murky light. Hannah was deliberately pointing her flashlight away from the direction of the beast. Rose moved nearer to Hannah. This seemed like a very bad idea.

  “That’s right,” Hannah crooned to the animal. “Come to Mama. You love corn, don’t you?”

  Had Hannah lost her mind? Crooning to a fifteen hundred pound animal like it was a baby? The bison walked a few more steps their way. Hannah’s flashlight picked out the shaggy fur on the animal’s muscular back, but she kept the beam out of the animal’s eyes.

  This was insane.

  Rose fought the urge to hold Hannah in front of her like a human shield, and prepared to jump away if the animal charged them. Instead, it walked up slowly to Hannah, a couple of lumbering steps at a time. Hannah put the corncob down on the ground and the bison bent its head to nibble it.

  A man’s shout startled all of them. Rose and Hannah whipped around toward the direction it came from. Gladys shied away, backstepped, then wheeled around and galloped off.

  “Damn it!” Hannah said. “Who the hell is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Rose said, a chill shimmering up her spine. “It sounded close to the tree house, though.”

  “Is it Cab?”

  “I don’t know,” Rose said again. “I’ve got to go make sure Fila is all right. She’ll bolt if he scares her.” And what if it wasn’t Cab at all? What if it was someone else?

  Hannah looked the other way. “I’ve got to go after Gladys. I can’t let her get away.”

  Rose nodded. “Once I figure out what’s going on I’ll come back to help.” She dashed away through the woods toward the tree house as fast as she could, which wasn’t fast at all given that Hannah had her flashlight. When she finally reached it some minutes later she paused, listening for the man’s voice. She heard nothing.

  Up above her the tree house was perfectly still.

  “Fila,” she hissed. “It’s just me. I’m coming up.”

  She climbed the ladder, still craning her head to try to spot the man she’d heard. Was he hiding somewhere in the thick shadows? Why had he cried out? At the top of the ladder, she eased open the door and squinted at the darkness. “Fila? Are you in here?”

  A slight rustle in the corner told her she was. Rose climbed into the house and shut the door quietly behind her. She felt in front of her as she crawled across the floor, her fingers encountering sleeping bags and blankets, a pillow, and finally a more solid form.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Who is out there?” Rose saw Fila’s eyes reflecting starlight, huge and afraid.

  “I’m not sure. Hannah’s still going after her bison. I don’t know who shouted.”

  “Wahid,” Fila breathed. “It’s Wahid. He’s found me.”

  Another chill traced up Rose’s spine. “One of the men who’s after you?” Fila nodded. Rose thought fast. Could a foreigner really trace her all the way here? It seemed unlikely. On the other hand, it had seemed unlikely that anyone could steal a plane and crash it into a skyscraper, either. “If that’s true, we’re not safe here.”

  “No,” Fila said.

  A number of plans sped through Rose’s mind. They could stay where they were, but if this Wahid and his men found them, they’d be cornered. They could make a break for Carl’s house, but they’d have to cover a lot of open ground between the woods and the mansion—they could easily be spotted. They could run for the road and Rose’s truck, but Rose’s intuition told her the man—whoever he was—lay between it and them. Or they could move deeper into the woods. Hannah was back there, anyhow.

  So was the bison.

  “We’d better find Hannah,” she said.

  Fila nodded, looking grim.

  The two women slipped down the ladder as silently as they could, took a moment to listen to the quiet forest, and then Rose led the way back toward where she’d left Hannah. This time the journey seemed to take forever, and shivers crept up and down her spine as she thought about the presence of a man in the forest with them. Not to mention the bison.

  Had Hannah caught up to Gladys again? She pressed on, straining to hear Hannah’s voice or the heavy footsteps of the beast. She was terrified she might walk right into the bison in this thick darkness.

  There. Starlight revealed something man-made among the trees. A part of the corral Hannah had built for Gladys. She raced to it, hearing Fila’s light footsteps behind her, and began to follow its perimeter. “Hannah?” she whispered, hoping she was near. “Hannah?”

  Behind them gunfire rang out through the woods. Several shots in close succession.

  Rose dropped to the ground instinctively, the air in her lungs whooshing out on impact. Fila dropped beside her. The gunfire stopped as abruptly as it had started. She exchanged a shocked look with the other woman. She’d never heard a sound like that. Not in person. Growing up in a Montana ranch town meant Rose had heard a shotgun blast or two, and knew a rifle shot when she heard one. This was different. This was… automatic.

  “It’s Wahid,” Fila confirmed in a whisper. “He’s here. For me.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” But as soon as she said it, Rose knew she couldn’t leave until she knew Hannah was safe, too. She gripped Fila’s hand. “We find Hannah and then we leave.”

  Fila nodded again.

  Rose scrambled to her knees and ducked under the split rail fence, then held a hand out to Fila to join her. Once they were both inside the corral, she straightened and followed the fence around. It made sense to search the corral first to see if Hannah was here.

  Or did it? She stopped short and Fila bumped into her. What would Hannah’s reaction to the gunfire be? Would she think the same thing Rose had—that first she had to find her friends before she could flee?

  If so, she would turn around and head back to the tree house. Rose frowned.

  “Hannah,” she hissed again, moving more quickly now, determined to finish her circuit of the corral.

  As she took another step forward, however, Rose had the uncanny sensation she and Fila weren’t alone here. Prickles of fear traced up and down her spine and she stiffened, holding her breath. A snort of air some twenty feet in front of her alerted her to the beast’s presence.

  Hannah’s bison.

  In the corral with them. Eating something. Hannah’s corn on the cob?

  She put a hand out behind her and clutched the fabric of Fila’s sleeve. She could dimly make out its shape now, a black hulking bulk by the far fence. Rose took a step back, trying to remember how far she’d ventured into the pen. Fila moved back too, guided by her. The beast snorted again. She saw motion dimly, heard a sound like a hoof scraping the ground.

  “Fila, the bison’s in here with us,” she said in a voice just barely louder than a breath. “Stay behind me and back slowly to the fence. Once you’re there, either go under it or over it.” She took ano
ther step back. Another. Struggled to keep from turning tail and dashing away. Fila moved in tandem with her, silently gliding over the ground behind her. Another snort. Was the bison closer to them? She squinted at it, unable to tell.

  Sliding her foot over the ground, she moved back farther. Another few steps should do it, but if she wasn’t mistaken, the bison was moving, too. In fact, that scraping sound and the snort of its breath told her…

  An enormous shape charged toward her. Rose shrieked and ran for it. Fila flitted before her, reached the fence, dropped down and rolled under the bottom rung. She was on her feet in an instant and disappeared into the gloom before Rose even made it to the split rails. Running full tilt, she crashed into them, grabbed the highest railing reflexively and scrambled to climb it.

  Just as she reached the top, the bison’s head hit the fence just to the left of her. The impact pitched her forward and she spilled to the ground on the other side. As soon as she hit the dirt she scrambled to regain her footing and dash away.

  She lit out after Fila, back toward the tree house. With any luck the bison wouldn’t find the gate and come after them.

  Wishful thinking.

  Where was Hannah? Had the animal found the corncobs by itself, or had Hannah herded it in there, then run away, startled by the gunfire, before she could latch the gate?

  Rose careened to a stop. She still hadn’t seen Fila. Where had the girl gone? Back to the tree house? Over toward Carl’s? And what about Hannah? Should she wait for her? Or keep going?

  After a moment’s agonized deliberation, she turned and ran toward the tree house again.

  Cab hoped like hell Jamie had found the women and gotten them to safety by now. He crouched behind a cross-section of two pine trees, one still standing, the other half-fallen to a forty-five degree angle. They’d lost the element of surprise when he’d slipped on a particularly wet patch of leaves and gone down hard on his knee. The closest terrorist had heard him, spun on his heel, shouted and alerted the others. Everyone had gone to ground.

  Still, he knew that the men were still searching for Fila, and he and Ethan had continued to creep after them. This time the men had left a sentry behind them and when Cab and Ethan got to close, he opened fire.

  That rat-a-tat of automatic weapon fire set every nerve in Cab on high alert. That wasn’t a sound that belonged in Chance Creek. He and Ethan had holed up and decided to wait for reinforcements. Cab didn’t like it, though. Rose was out there, and if she hadn’t known the men were there before, she’d know now. How would she and Fila react? Would she stay put or would she make a run for it?

  “Never thought I’d be in this situation,” Rob said, appearing by his side. He passed Cab a shotgun, shoved a Glock in his own belt and checked the chamber of a Smith & Wesson.

  “Neither did I,” Cab said. “If I wanted this kind of action, I’d have joined the army.” In his peripheral vision he saw three more men sift their way through the trees toward them. Rob’s brothers—Jake, Ned and Luke.

  “Have you seen the women?” Rob asked.

  “No. I hope Jamie got them out of here.”

  Rob shook his head. “Met him back at Carl’s house. Jamie was searching it again because he hadn’t found them in the woods. He said to tell you the tree house was empty. If he doesn’t turn up anything he’ll head back into the woods farther in.”

  Cab swore under his breath. “Those two could be anywhere by now.”

  “Make that three,” Rob said, peering into the dark forest ahead of them. “Hannah Ashton’s truck is parked out by the street. We saw it when we drove past the woods. We planned to park the truck down the road and walk up the driveway.”

  “So Hannah’s here, too?” Cab said.

  “I’d say so. She had a horse trailer attached to her truck. The gate’s down.”

  “She brought a horse?” That made no sense. Why would she ride a horse in the dead of night in Carl’s woods?

  Rob shrugged.

  Cab reviewed the situation in his head. Three missing women. Three women lost in the middle of a firefight. He thought about the layout of the woods. The strip of trees ran roughly north-south. To the west lay the open land surrounding Carl’s home and garden. To the east was a meadow that belonged to another spread. North lay a rough, wild country with nothing more than horse and ATV trails. On the south, the country road bordered it all. The strip of trees wasn’t very wide, but it was deep. He hoped that if the women weren’t at Carl’s, that they’d head back into the wild country, away from the road and the armed men.

  “Take my place.” He pulled back from his position and waited for Rob to fill it. He positioned Jake, Ned and Luke nearby. Ethan held his place to the right. Once the men settled in, all was still.

  The silence drew out for long minutes, until Cab began to wonder if the whole thing had been a dream. Maybe the men had slipped away and made a run for it. Maybe they knew they were out-manned, if not out-gunned.

  A muffled curse to his left and nearly behind him revealed their opponents’ real plan. “They’re circling around,” he snapped. “Move your positions!”

  She’d lost both of them. Rose picked her way as silently through the woods as she could, stopping and listening after every step to hear something—anything. Both women had simply disappeared. As had the tree house. She should have seen it already, but it was nowhere to be found.

  The only rational thing to do now was to head for Carl’s as fast as she could. She had seen the floodlights blazing and knew she could find her way there. Maybe she’d find Hannah and Fila waiting there for her.

  But somehow she knew that wasn’t the case, and her conscience wouldn’t allow her to run away if they were somewhere in these woods.

  “Hannah?” she called softly. “Fila?”

  No one answered for a long moment, but just as she decided to give up and head for Carl’s after all, she heard a soft response.

  “Rose?”

  “Fila?” She felt her way forward and ran into something soft; Fila fumbling her way toward her.

  “Thank God,” Rose said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Did you find your friend?”

  “No,” Rose shook her head. “I don’t know where she is.”

  Fila took her hand, her own cold as ice. “We’ll find her. Together.”

  They’d only gone a couple of steps before shots fired again.

  Rob, Jake and Luke shifted quickly, bringing their line of defense from east-west to north-south. Ethan and Ned kept their weapons pointed toward the road to cover those who remained behind.

  “How many of them are on the move?” Rob whispered to him.

  “Can’t tell,” Cab said. “Look, we’ve got to…”

  A shot rang out and Jake returned fire. Instantly the woods lit up with gunfire from all around them. Cab dropped to the ground, shimmied through the dirt into a better position and aimed for the sources of the fire, although he still couldn’t see any of their assailants.

  A few minutes later, Cab was thankful he’d sent the Mathesons to make a wider flank. Gunfire rang out to the northeast, but answering shots assured him the brothers were blocking the terrorists’ way. It took everything he had not to join them as the shots fired concentrated on their position. If all of them shifted that way, they’d leave a hole in the center wide open for the rest of their assailants to slip through.

  He identified three separate enemy shooters in front of them, positioned in an arc among the trees. All three were firing toward Rob and Jake. Where was the fourth?

  And where was Rose?

  As he turned to glance over his shoulder, a bullet whizzed by him close enough for him to hear its passage. He ducked down and returned his attention forward. The enemy was creeping closer. They outgunned him and the rest of his friends. He hoped his backup would make its appearance soon.

  It should be coming any moment. He felt like he’d been in these woods for a year, but he knew it could only have been minutes. Soon he�
��d hear sirens. Maybe a helicopter. Tom would have called the SWAT team from Billings for sure, but they’d be some time coming.

  Hang in there, he willed Rose and the rest of them. Just hang in there a little longer.

  A man’s cry of pain ripped through the night air.

  “Rob!” he heard Jake call. “Damn, he’s down!”

  The gunfire cut off again when the men began shouting. Rose stumbled to a stop when she heard someone yell, “Rob! Damn, he’s down!”

  Rob? Rob Matheson? Was that his brother, Jake, yelling his name? Were the rest of the Mathesons here?

  Was Cab?

  “Come on!” Rose started forward at a run, still gripping Fila’s hand. A moment later, she heard bushes rustling, and Hannah spilled out of a thicket in front of them.

  “Rose?” Hannah’s voice was strained. Rose could tell she was scared to death.

  Rose gripped her hands in the dark and pulled her into a fierce hug. “It’s me and Fila,” she said.

  “What’s happening?”

  “The men after Fila are here. But Rob and Jake Matheson are here, too.”

  “Rob and Jake?” Hannah looked blank. “How did they…?”

  “Come on,” Rose said. “We’ve got to get to them.” She took both Hannah and Fila’s hands. “Stick close to me,” she ordered. She began to inch forward carefully. She’d have to call out when they got close to the Mathesons. Warn Jake and Rob they weren’t the enemy.

  “We can’t go toward the gunfire,” Hannah hissed, tugging back.

  Somewhere in front of them, a man yelled, “Go—they’re getting around us.” Was it Rob? His voice was thick with pain and Rose’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Damn it. Luke, cut them off,” Jake yelled.

  There was a flurry of movement and suddenly a shot came from behind her. At the same time noise erupted in the direction of Carl’s.

  “They’ve got past Cab,” Jake shouted. “Luke, where are you?”