Chapter 18 #2
He slipped out of the office, closing the door behind him, and went to the front window of the ranch house. Damn. Clint and two other hands, too many to take. He would wait until they disappeared into the barn, then grab Randall’s horse.
He watched as the last man went inside to unsaddle and rub down the horses. Then he slipped out the door and took Randall’s horse, leading him around in back before mounting and ruthlessly spurring the tired horse into a gallop.
Wearily, Clint emerged from the barn and looked toward the ranch house. Randall’s horse had been there minutes before; now it was gone. “What happened to Jack’s horse?”
One of the men shrugged, too tired to care.
Clint looked at the ranch house. Something was odd. Coming in from the pasture, he had met an outgoing hand, who’d said Randall had just returned. Surely, he wouldn’t have left again on an exhausted horse, nor allowed anyone else to do so. Randall was particular about his horses.
“I think I’ll check with Mr. Randall,” he said, and walked over to the ranch house.
His knock went unanswered. He stepped inside.
The main room was empty, but the door to Randall’s office was ajar.
He knocked, hesitated when he heard nothing, then pulled the door open, and saw Randall’s body sprawled across the floor.
His heart stopped beating a moment; his breath caught in his throat.
Clint moved to the body and knelt next to it. Two wounds, a gash alongside the head, a bullet in the shoulder, just an inch higher than the heart. Blood was everywhere.
He felt Randall’s neck. There was a slight movement. He put his hand to the man’s mouth. There was some breath. He leaned over, his hand touching Randall’s right side. “Mr. Randall.”
Randall’s eyes opened, fogged with pain. He tried to move and then groaned. “Sara. My daughter …” And then his eyes closed again.
It had to have been McClary, Clint thought, but it could well be blamed on Rafe. He had to keep Randall alive to talk. He ran outside, shouting for the two men who had ridden in with him. Both came running.
“John, go for Russ Dewayne. Caleb, ride like hell to Casey Springs for a doctor.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Randall’s been shot.”
“Them outlaws?”
Clint shook his head. “I don’t know. Get going.”
He hurried back inside and knelt once more next to Randall. What in the hell had happened here?
Randall’s color was excessively pale, his pulse weak.
Clint thought back to the war, to what he’d seen done on wounded men, to what they’d had to do for one another.
Loosen clothes, provide fresh air. Dash cold water on face and chest. Compress wound to stop the bleeding. Remove foreign matter.
Clint removed Randall’s shirt. The bleeding seemed to have stopped on its own, but bits of the shirt were stuck to the wound; threads were visible in the blood. Randall had been damned lucky. An inch down, and he would be dead. The assailant had probably thought he was.
He went to the kitchen. Randall’s cook had left several weeks earlier with her horse-wrangler husband. The men had been foraging for themselves, and the kitchen was a disaster. He found a relatively clean towel, however. He filled a bowl with water from the pump and went back into the office.
Clint opened the windows; it was hot as hell in the room. Stuffy. The smell of whiskey and old tobacco ashes permeated the room. Where was McClary?
He washed away blood from the wounds and plucked cloth from the hole in Randall’s shoulder. Rut Randall needed a doctor with the right instruments. He moved, groaning, but his eyes didn’t open.
Clint went upstairs, found some sheets, and ripped one into long strips. He returned to the office, pressed a couple of wads tightly to the wounds, then bandaged Randall’s head and chest and shoulder, binding the arm so it would be immobile. He had done all he could.
He washed Randall’s face, hoping he would wake and tell him something before the others arrived. The only thing Clint knew was that Rafe had nothing to do with the shooting. The captain had been clear as to exactly what kind of justice he wanted, and it had nothing to do with a quick death.
He heard several more riders coming in. Nate, perhaps. Clint went to the door and gestured to the foreman.
“The boss has been shot. I need some help.”
“Bad?”
Clint nodded. “I’ve already sent for the doc and Sheriff Dewayne, but I need help getting him upstairs.”
Nate dismounted and quickly followed Clint to Randall’s side. He stooped and felt Randall’s clammy face. “Any idea who did it?”
Clint hesitated. He didn’t want to say anything that might give him away, but neither did he want blame to fall immediately on his friends. “Randall’s horse was here when we rode in, and several minutes later it was gone. Whoever did it was probably here when we rode in.”
Nate nodded. “Mr. Randall say anything?”
Clint shook his head. “He just mentioned the name ‘Sara.’”
“Let’s get him more comfortable. I wish we had a doctor closer.” He shook his head. “I can’t help but think it has something to do with those robberies.”
Clint felt a noose tightening around his neck. He couldn’t claim now that there had been no violence connected with those robberies, not if the law wrongly connected them to the recent murders of miners. He shrugged. “McClary was here earlier, according to one of the hands. I’ve never trusted him.”
“Maybe,” Nate said dubiously. “Maybe we can find out from Mr. Randall. Let’s get him to his bed.”
Clint, who was the stronger, took Randall’s shoulders, while Nate took the legs. They had just settled him in the bed when they heard more riders coming in.
“That must be the sheriff,” Clint said.
Several minutes later Russ appeared in the doorway, followed by Kate. She gave Clint a tentative smile; it almost was the breaking of him. “I thought I might be able to help. I’ve taken care of three men with assorted injuries.”
Clint nodded, afraid to smile back, afraid to give away the pleasure and despair her presence stirred in him. She was like the sun coming into the room, and he wanted to go to her, to touch her. But he couldn’t. It would be too unfair to her.
Russ turned to him. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I returned from the north pasture and found him like this. He mentioned a woman’s name, nothing else.”
“Any ideas who might have done it?”
Again, Clint hesitated. He couldn’t really say what he knew, and yet he wanted Russ Dewayne to believe what he believed, that Sam McClary was behind this, and the other murders. “I think,” he said slowly, “you might want to talk to Mr. McClary.”
“Why?” The question was sharp. “Do you know any more than you did the other night?” The other night. The night he’d been with Kate. The night he had lied about so much, but not about McClary.
Clint shrugged. “From what I know, he was the only one here this afternoon. He’s not here now.”
Russ turned his attention back to Randall, whom Kate was inspecting. She looked up at Clint with that blinding smile again. “I think you did better than I could.”
Pride and pleasure rushed through Clint as his gaze met hers. “You learn some in war. But he really needs a doctor. I’m afraid there might be bleeding inside.”
Russ’s voice blessedly diverted him, but it took a second for Clint to understand what he was asking. “He mentioned a woman’s name?”
Clint nodded. “Sara.”
“I wonder whether it has anything to do with his trip to Casey Springs. A clerk said some woman claiming to be his daughter stopped by and then seemed to disappear.”
Clint hated feeling so damned devious. “He’s been gone for three days. Didn’t say where he was going. I was coming to see whether he’d discovered anything and found him like this.”
Clint’s eyes followed Kate as she rose from the bed. “I’ll get some water.”
“Clint.”
He looked away from Kate and met Russ’s questioning gaze. “I think it’s time to put a posse together.”
“Shouldn’t we wait to see what Mr. Randall has to say?”
“You’re convinced it’s McClary, aren’t you?”
Clint nodded. “Despite the fact that Mr. Randall said he was a friend, there was a lot of tension between them. I sensed Mr. Randall didn’t like having him here.”
Russ hesitated. “I’ll wait until tomorrow, see whether he returns, whether Jack can tell us anything. But if he doesn’t, I’ll form a posse at dawn. Can we count on you?”
Clint flinched inside. He hoped like hell Jack Randall would wake up and blame McClary. If he didn’t, lawmen and vigilantes would be all over these mountains. “Someone has to take care of this place,” he said. “Nearly every hand has quit. I don’t want him to wake to find his cattle gone too.”
Russ nodded, accepting the explanation, and Clint felt worse. He had to head up and warn Rafe. And Ben.
Kate returned and chased them all out. “He needs quiet. I’ll call if he wakes,” she said.
The men went into the main room. Clint found a bottle of whiskey and poured them all a drink. And they waited.
“No,” Shea said flatly. “I won’t run away.”
Rafe felt his fingers tighten into fists. He’d expected her to jump at his offer. It had cost him a great deal to make it. He’d had to make himself trust again.
And God help him, he didn’t want her to leave. Which made it an absolute necessity that she do exactly that.
Because freedom meant so much to him, he thought it would to her too. He hadn’t thought she would hesitate a second before accepting his offer.
At her first refusal he’d felt a rare sense of pleasure, and then he realized it wasn’t him keeping her here, it was her father. Jack Randall was the reason she’d refused his offer to take a train back East.
His instinct proved true with her next words. “I came all this way to see my father. I want to see him.”
“No,” he said flatly. The brief pleasure he’d felt turned to a clump of clay in his throat. Disappointment made him angry, even though he had no right to that anger.