by Janet Dailey
As the tractor approached the imaginary point of intersection, Empty slowed its speed and braked to a stop with its nose pointed at the fence. He pulled a pair of wire cutters out of his jacket pocket and passed them to Quint.
Cutters in hand, Quint swung down from the tractor and hurried to the fence post on his right. Standing to one side to avoid the whip of the wire, he cut through the top strand, heard the sharp whang of its release, and moved to the second, then the third. Careful to avoid the barbed points, he dragged all three strands out of the way, clearing a path for the tractor.
“I’ll wait here for Dallas,” he shouted to make himself heard above the revving of the tractor’s motor.
Empty waved an acknowledging hand and started through the gap in the fence, lowering the plow blades when he was nearly through.
Quint observed the struggle of the blades to dig into the hard-packed ground. The first smoke was already showing above the hilltop. For a moment he doubted that he had picked an area far enough in advance of the flames to give them a chance of stopping them. He’d know soon enough.
By the time Dallas arrived in the pickup, the tractor’s headlight beams were past the midway point in the wide swale between the two hills, and a black line of smoke showed above the rise of the first one. Once the fire crested the hill, Quint knew the wind would whip it down the slope at lightning speed.
Off in the distance, he caught the wail of the fire trucks. The sound offered confirmation that help was on the way, but he couldn’t wait for it to arrive, not with the smoke smell growing stronger every minute. As soon as the pickup rolled to a stop alongside him, Quint opened the door and hustled Dallas out of the cab.
“Did you bring some gas?” he asked as he slid behind the wheel.
“There’s a two-gallon can in the back. It was all I could find.”
“It’ll have to do.” He handed her the flashlight that he kept stowed under the front seat and directed her to wait there for the fire trucks.
He pulled the door shut, effectively cutting off any objections before Dallas could make them, and drove off into the pasture. She stood alone on the darkened ranch lane, conscious of the steadily advancing smoke cloud.
Soon the black pickup blended into the night shapes, its form no longer distinguishable. She had only its red taillights and the outward sweep of its headlight beams to track its passage. Her grandfather was out there somewhere. She could hear the growl of the tractor, but she couldn’t see it.
Turning, Dallas threw a searching glance down the lane, her attention drawn to the full-throated cry of sirens. But the fire trucks had yet to roll into view.
Stars dotted the sky to the south. Their glitter was a contrast to the smoke-darkened sky above and behind her. But it was the low ominous sound the approaching fire made, a sound that reminded Dallas of a howling wind, that had her anxiety level rising.
The metallic slam of the pickup door had Dallas swinging back around to face the pasture. She quickly located the lights from the pickup, noticing they were no longer moving. Seconds later, Quint passed in front of the their beams, toting the red gasoline can, before the shadows swallowed him.
As she scanned the darkness in search of him, she became aware of a dim glow in her side vision. It was from the fire, backlighting the hill. Dallas threw another anxious glance down the lane, focusing on the undulating sirens in an effort to judge how close they were.
In the next second, she was startled by the sudden whoosh of flames leaping to life very close to her. A long, yellow line of them ran along the entire base of the hill, stretching to a point well beyond it. The moment she saw them, Dallas realized that Quint had used the gasoline to start a backfire and slow the red flames that now crowned the hill. But it was traveling fast, so very fast.
The sirens’ loud wail almost drowned out the screech of brakes that came from the state road, but Dallas caught it and hastily turned on the flashlight as she ran forward to meet the arriving fire engines.
The wind was in the wrong direction to carry the smell of smoke to the Slash R Ranch, yet lights blazed from a half dozen windows in the main house. All shone from the private quarters of its occupants.
Clad in a burgundy silk robe, Max Rutledge shoved open the door to his son’s bedroom and maneuvered his wheelchair through the opening as the heirloom clock on the room’s fireplace mantel struck the two o’clock hour. His black gaze skipped over his terry-robed manservant and personal nurse, Harold Barnett, and fastened on Boone, seated on a chair, his back to the door and the male nurse.
“Just what in hell is going on here?” Max glowered at Boone as he rolled his chair closer.
Boone tossed him a backward glance. “Exactly what it looks like,” he retorted in a hard, tight voice. “Barnett’s digging buckshot out of my back.”
“It’s nothing serious,” Barnett said with calm assurance. “Only one is lodged very deeply. The rest barely penetrated the skin.” Using surgical tweezers, he plucked one out, drawing a wince from Boone, and added it to the three lead pellets already nestled on a saucer.
Max was close enough to see for himself the blood that lightly seeped from a dozen or so holes across the right side of Boone’s muscled back. “Who did it?”
“I didn’t hang around to see who was holding the shotgun,” Boone answered with sarcasm and grimaced when Barnett probed another hole. “Probably old man Garner. A shotgun’s always been his weapon of choice.”
Max leaned forward, nearly choking on the rage that reddened his face. “Good God, are you telling me that you went to the Cee Bar tonight?”
Boone nodded, unable to explain why he had chosen to go himself rather than send one of the ranch hands. At the time it had seemed a wise decision, eliminating any chance of loose talk. But that reasoning was now colored by the thrill of the almost overwhelming sense of power he’d experienced slipping through the night, setting the fire.
And when that shotgun had gone off and he’d felt the sting of the blast, there had been a rush unlike anything he’d ever known. But it wasn’t something Boone could put into words, not the kind his father would understand. So he didn’t try.
“That hay made the biggest bonfire you’ve ever seen,” Boone said, still seeing it in his mind’s eye. “It was the slickest thing. I just walked along that row of big bales, touching the flame from the portable butane torch to each one until they were all on fire. I probably should have left it at that,” he added. “But I saw a round bale over in the horse corral. So I went over and torched it, too. The fire spooked the horses, though. Old man Garner must have heard the fuss they raised and come out to see what was going on. Another couple of minutes and I would have been long gone.”
“My God, what an utter fool you are,” Max muttered thickly. “Don’t you have enough brains to realize you could have been caught?”
Boone bristled at the anger and derision in his father’s voice. “I could have been killed, too, but I wasn’t. So quit your bitching and consider that you’re getting off easy. You can bet if it was one of the ranch hands sitting here, he’d be squawking big time about getting peppered by a shotgun. And you’d end up paying him a fistful of money to keep his mouth shut. Just look how much I saved you.”
“Don’t talk to me about the money you saved!” Max exploded in temper. “Not when you could have cost us everything!”
“And just how could I have done that?” Boone taunted as another shotgun pellet plinked into the saucer.
Max stared at him for a long second, his expression a mixture of incredulity and rage. “My God, you really don’t have the brains to figure it out, do you?” There was a trace of loathing in the curl of his lip. “It turns my stomach that I have to explain something so obvious to my own son.”
“Then don’t bother,” Boone jeered in retaliation, then grunted sharply in pain and jerked away from Barnett.
“Sorry, sir,” Barnett offered in bland apology. “That one’s embedded a bit deeper than I thought. It’ll t
ake some probing to reach it.”
“Then do it,” Boone ordered curtly. “But next time give a man some warning.”
Coldly silent, Max Rutledge looked on while Barnett switched instruments and resumed his search for the buckshot buried in Boone’s back. Sweat beaded on Boone’s forehead, but it was the only outward indication of discomfort as he sat unmoving, not a sound coming from his throat, not a single muscle twitching in pain. Once the foreign object was extracted, Barnett was quick to press a gauze pad on the area and stanch the fresh flow of blood from the wound.
“For your information,” Max began in an icy-hot voice, “the use of a third party for such tasks as tonight’s provides deniability if he should have the misfortune of being caught in the act. It makes it a matter of his word against ours.”
“So you’ve said before.” Boone’s anger simmered closer to the surface as he lifted his head in challenge. “Have you ever considered how many third parties are out there, scattered over the country? If one starts talking, what’s to stop the rest from speaking up? Suddenly it’s their word against ours.”
“Don’t be stupid. That will never happen.” Max dismissed the notion out of hand.
“Probably not,” Boone agreed with reluctance. “If any tried, you’d just hire a bunch more third parties and harass them until they broke, just like you always do.”
“Nobody will ever cross me and get away with it.” The flat, hard statement was its own warning.
Boone knew it was true, but he felt nothing but disgust for the gutless methods employed by his father. He looked away and muttered, “Why don’t you go back to bed and leave me alone? You got what you wanted tonight. The hay’s been destroyed.”
“I’ll leave when I’m ready.” The answer came back hot and quick. “In case you’ve forgotten, I own this house!”
“How can I forget when you constantly ram it down my throat?” Boone fired back, then muttered, more to himself, “Sometimes I wonder why I’m still here.”
“You’re here because you don’t have the brains to make it on your own,” Max retorted. “You’d fall flat on your face if you tried.”
Goaded by the scathing rebuke, Boone challenged, “If that’s true, then how come I know there’s a quicker way to put the Cee Bar out of business than the way you’re going about it?”
“And just what bright idea have you come up with?” The question was riddled with contempt for its answer.
“I certainly wouldn’t waste my time setting fire to a bunch of hay,” Boone sneered. “I’d burn the whole damned place down and poison the cattle—”
“And have it splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the state while you’re at it. There’d be reporters all over the place. Wouldn’t that be an intelligent move?” Max declared in open disparagement. “Don’t do any more thinking. Just do what I tell you. And only what I tell you,” he added in emphasis. “And try not to screw that up.”
With a flip of the controls, Max swung the wheelchair in a half circle and rolled out of the bedroom while Boone glared holes in his back. As soon as the door closed, he twisted his head around to throw an impatient glance at Barnett.
“Aren’t you finished yet?” he muttered.
“I’ll only be a few more moments, sir.” The placid Barnett never looked up from his task as he methodically swabbed antiseptic on the first wound and placed a small bandage over it.
“Hurry it up,” Boone grumbled and bowed his head once more, but he was smarting too much from his father’s cutting remarks to notice the sting inflicted by the antiseptic solution Barnett used. “I’m tired of all his bitching. Every time I turn around he’s crawling up my ass about something. It doesn’t matter what I say or do, you can bet he’ll find fault with it. And I’m getting damned tired of it.”
Fully aware that no comment was expected, Barnett withheld any, although he was privately of the opinion that Max Rutledge’s judgment of his son was an accurate one.
“All he wants from me are my legs,” Boone said in a vindictive mutter. “One of these days he’s going to push me too far and, crippled or not, I’ll haul him out of that wheelchair and throw him across the room.” He paused and laughed to himself. It had a cold, ugly sound. “I can just see him crawling on the floor. Don’t you know he’d hate that?”
Barnett smoothed the last bandage in place and straightened up. “There you are, sir. All finished.”
“It’s about time.” Boone pushed out of the chair with the swiftness of an animal that had been too long restrained.
“I’ll need to change those dressings tomorrow evening. As slight as your wounds are, we don’t want to risk infection setting in,” Barnett stated as he gathered together his assortment of instruments, bandages, and antiseptic bottles and returned them to his personal medical bag.
“Yeah, whatever,” Boone murmured in absentminded agreement as he scooped the whiskey decanter off the drink tray on his dresser and splashed some in a glass. Too consumed by his own thoughts, he never noticed when Barnett exited the room.
“I get shot. But does he get mad and start ranting about getting even with the man who hurt his son? Hell no. Instead he chews me out for going there in the first place.” Boone gulped down a swallow of straight whiskey, the searing fire of it fueling his own anger. “And not because he cared whether something happened to me. No, it was only because the trail would have led straight back to him.”
Boone downed another swallow of whiskey, but the anger he felt wasn’t the kind that could be washed away.
Smoke swirled among the line of firefighters like a thick fog, blurring shapes and making it impossible for Dallas to identify the men working only yards from her. Now and then a flame would leap high enough to reveal the blackened stretch of fire-scorched earth on the opposite side of the dry wash. But she searched only for the tiny tongues of fire that sprang up on her side.
Rivulets of sweat ran down her neck, partly from the physical exertion of fighting the blaze and partly from its blistering heat. Soot and ash mixed in with the perspiration to leave muddy streaks on her face. But Dallas was oblivious of them.
Not far from her, water from a fire hose arced across the wash and hit a section of flames on the other side. There was a whoosh and a sizzle, and an instant eruption of steam and smoke, littered with sparks.
Enveloped in a thick, hot cloud, Dallas automatically turned away and clamped a hand over her mouth and nose to avoid breathing in too much of the choking smoke while she retreated from the dense haze.
Speed was impossible over the newly plowed ground. She stumbled over a hard clod and would have fallen if a pair of hands hadn’t steadied her.
“Careful.” The quiet-voiced warning was muffled by a dingy white handkerchief tied across the lower half of her rescuer’s face. But Dallas would have recognized Quint’s voice and those gray eyes anywhere.
“Thanks,” she murmured, not at all surprised to find Quint at her side.
Several times since the fire trucks arrived, she’d caught glimpses of him, moving up and down the fire line, pitching in to help where the flames threatened to jump the wash and run wild again.
“Are you all right?” A supporting hand remained on her.
Dallas tried to nod in answer and started coughing instead. His grip shifted to her waist. “Let’s get you out of here,” Quint said and proceeded to half carry and half guide her clear of the thick smoke. He turned her to face him and pulled down the masking kerchief. “Can you breathe okay now?” he asked, tipping his head toward her.
She smothered a last, low cough and nodded. “I’m fine.”
The lines around his eyes crinkled in a smile. “Good.” His glance immediately darted back to the fire line. “I think the worst is over. We’ve almost got it under control.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when flames shot into the air, soaring twenty feet high or more some distance to the west. Dallas breathed in a sharp gasp of alarm at the size and suddenness of them
.
“The hay bale Empty put out for the cattle,” Quint said in explanation. “I figured it would be going up any second now. I was right.”
Reassured by his lack of concern, Dallas felt her pulse settle back into its normal rhythm and pulled her gaze away from the fiery yellow tower, bringing it back to Quint. His face was in profile, the ridges and hollows of his lean features lit by the brilliant glow of the distant flames.
There was no weariness or worry in his expression. The impression he gave was one of alertness and determination. But Dallas recalled it had been that way from the moment the fire was first discovered, showing haste but never panic or indecision.
“Empty should be coming along with the tractor any minute now,” Quint said, once more bringing his attention back to her. “When he does, have him take you back to the ranch house.” Before Dallas could insist again that she was fine, Quint added, “Make sure he goes with you. He looked like he was about to collapse when I last saw him. But you know Empty. He’s too proud to admit that.”
“But even if he takes me back, he’ll never stay.” Concern for her grandfather had Dallas searching for an excuse he might believe.
Quint was quick to provide one. “He can help you throw together some sandwiches and coffee for the firefighters. It’ll be his job to bring them back here as soon as they’re all made and packed up. But take your time and keep him out of this smoke for as long as you can.”
“I’ll find a way,” she promised.
His gray eyes crinkled at the corners again. The chug of the tractor reached them, and Quint turned in the direction of the sound. “Here he comes now,” he said as the tractor’s headlights became visible in the smoky darkness. “Good luck.”
When he headed for the fire line, Dallas called after him, “Be careful.”
She couldn’t tell whether Quint had heard her. At the same time, she knew her words of caution were unnecessary. She had the feeling Quint could handle anything that came his way.
