Chapter 24 #2
Jack Randall and Rafe slowed their pace to spare the horses.
Randall positioned himself a short distance behind Rafe, and Rafe made no attempt to alter that order.
He didn’t want to ride in Randall’s dust or ride apace of him.
He hated the fact that Randall had been the instrument of his escape, and he sure as hell didn’t feel any gratitude.
If it weren’t for Randall …
His horse stumbled, and he knew it was tiring.
They had moved fast to get as far from town as possible, and they had taken a high, rough route, away from the road, to Rushton.
Rafe had gone this way before, and he knew a stream ran nearby where they could stop for water.
He also wanted to get rid of the damned handcuffs.
They stopped at the stream. Moonlight filtered through the trees, providing some visibility.
Randall almost fell as he dismounted. He went immediately to the stream and drank water he scooped up into his hand and then splashed some on his face.
When he turned around, he saw the pistol in Rafe’s hands and stiffened.
“Drop the gun tucked in your belt, and then your gunbelt,” Rafe said coldly.
Randall smiled. It was a disarming smile, one Rafe remembered from ten years earlier. Charming and wryly amused. Only the slightest line of strain showed. “I should have known.”
“The guns,” Rafe repeated.
Randall withdrew the deputy’s gun, dropped it, then slowly unbuckled the gunbelt, letting it fall to the ground.
“Now the derringer.”
Randall shrugged. “It’s in the saddlebags.”
“You wouldn’t have left it there.”
Randall reached down and slipped it from his boot.
Rafe grinned wolfishly at him. “I really do appreciate your concept of trust, Randall. Now throw it in the creek. I don’t like those little guns.”
After Randall did as he was told, Rafe aimed at Randall’s knee. “Now the key to the handcuffs.”
“What about Shea?”
“The key, Randall,” Rafe said. “I would take great pleasure in putting another hole in you if you don’t think one is enough.”
Randall put his hand in his pocket and withdrew the key.
“Throw it in front of me and back away. See how high you can raise that right arm.”
Jack Randall threw the key, then raised his arm, taking several steps backward.
Rafe held the gun on Randall while he unlocked the right cuff with his left hand, then switched the gun to the other hand, feeling the heaviness of his arm, the dampness of the shirt. He knew it had started bleeding again. He also knew he couldn’t allow Randall to see that weakness.
He allowed the iron cuffs to drop, and he stood there hesitantly. He had intended to use them on Randall, but now he questioned that intention. Randall’s left arm was in a sling.
“What now, Tyler?”
“You stay here. You aren’t worth killing. And now you’ve broken a dangerous prisoner out of custody, you’ll go to jail,” Rafe said harshly. “Enjoy it.”
“Shea?”
Rafe wanted to ignore the question, to let Randall worry and wait as he had done. But the sudden desperate agony in Randall’s face stopped the intended mocking reply before it left his lips.
“I’ll find her,” he said finally. “She’s no part of what’s between you and me.”
Randall’s mouth worked. He lowered his arm and moved toward Rafe, stopping a few feet away. “I meant what I said in Casey Springs.”
Familiar anger coursed through Rafe. “You’re ten years too late, Randall.”
Randall flinched. “At least I can clear your name.”
“Can you also remove the brand?”
Randall’s eyes met his. “No, I can’t do that.”
Rafe felt his strength fading, along with the hatred and anger that had been fueling him. He tried not to let it show, but something flickered in Randall’s eyes. “Let me come with you. You might need me.”
“Like I need a rattlesnake.” But Randall was right, and Rafe knew it. Randall could bargain with a posse; Rafe knew he would be shot on sight. And then what would happen to Shea?
He looked down at the irons at his feet and kicked them away out of sight. He felt a sudden flash of relief when he did so, as if cool air had been pushed through the dark hot hell of his soul. When his eyes met Randall’s in the moonlight, he knew Randall realized exactly what Rafe had intended.
“I meant what I said,” Randall said. “I’ll tell what happened ten years ago.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Rafe said wearily. “They were ready to hang me back there because of the brand. There’s no place I can go on earth without questions, suspicions, accusations.” He turned around. “Go ahead, pick up your guns. We’d better get moving.”
They reached the valley at dawn. Rafe didn’t think there was any chance that Shea might have found it. But it was a starting point. The only one they had.
He didn’t even care now that Randall knew its location. The only thing that mattered was Shea. They would rest their horses, then move down, hoping to find some sign of her.
The door of the cabin was open. Rafe didn’t pay any attention to Randall at all as he galloped to the front door. No one was inside, but a wildflower lay on the table next to some broken crackers. For Abner, he knew.
Rafe smiled. He didn’t know how she’d done it, but she had. And he knew exactly where she was now.
Randall came into the cabin and looked around curiously, anxiously.
“She’s safe, Randall,” Rafe said.
He whistled softly, and Abner crept out from under the bed, then streaked toward Rafe and ran up his trousers. Rafe took the mouse in his hand, stroking him as Randall stared at him with amazement.
“How do you know?”
“Wait here,” Rafe commanded.
“Why? Where’s my daughter?”
Rafe threw him a cold stare. “Remember trust,” he taunted.
“Think about it.” He turned around and went out the door, not waiting to see whether Randall had obeyed him.
He would have broken out into a run if his leg allowed it, but he knew he’d lost enough blood in the past forty-eight hours.
His arm had bled continually throughout the night, and his leg was raw and burning.
He found her huddled against the rock overlooking the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, just as he knew he would. She was sound asleep, her brown hair tumbling over her cheek.
Relief, tenderness, something very close to love, assaulted him with such strength, he could only stand there, trying to comprehend the power and complexity of those feelings. That she had even tried to make it here alone humbled him, filling him with bittersweet anguish for what could never be.
That she had succeeded astounded him and spoke eloquently of that strength of spirit she had.
He didn’t want to wake her. He just wanted to watch. To relish the fact that she had risked everything for him even though it caused him an equal part of pain.
The morning birds started their sweet songs, and her eyes fluttered open, looked confused, then found him and flew all the way open. “I was looking for your fawns,” she said, though her eyes said something else altogether.
He opened his arms, and she rose and went into them, her own arms going around him, her head resting against his chest. He lowered his own head and let his cheek rest on her hair.
That was all they needed.
Jack Randall had followed Rafe at a distance. He stopped as he saw Shea go into Rafe Tyler’s arms. He remained frozen, half-hidden by raspberry bushes and pines.
He had thought Rafe Tyler had used Shea for revenge. He had thought that every moment, until Tyler had kicked away the handcuffs and allowed him to retrieve his guns. Until he understood that Rafe cared about nothing but his daughter’s safety.
Now he watched like a peeping Tom, unable to retreat from watching a moment of such exquisite tenderness that tears formed in his eyes.
He leaned against a tree. How many times in the last ten years had he pushed aside the image of Captain Tyler’s arrest, his court-martial, the morning he had been taken to prison?
Even then, he had done nothing to stop McClary, knowing as he did that the sergeant would make every mile hell for his prisoner.
He had been afraid of McClary. Afraid of prison, of the disgrace that would separate him forever from his Sara.
The irony had been that his cowardice had done exactly that, and had designed a torture chamber of his own making.
But even then, he knew it wasn’t as bad as the one he’d made for Tyler.
Jack bent over in agony, dragging his eyes from Rafe Tyler and his daughter, the daughter who looked so much like Sara. He tore them away from the man from whom he had taken so much and yet who remained capable of such obvious love, even for the daughter of the man who so wronged him.
Nothing could be worse than this pain. Not prison. Not a noose.
He turned slowly and walked with dragging steps back to the cabin.
McClary picked up the blood trail. He probably wouldn’t have found it if he hadn’t had a general idea of where Rafe Tyler had been hiding these months.
The Casey Springs posse, he thought, would head directly for Rushton and Randall’s ranch.
He hadn’t counted much intelligence among the lynch mob, or for that matter, from the deputy sheriff, and the sheriff was out of town.
Who, he wondered, was bleeding? It could have been either one, although Tyler had been the most recently wounded.
They were no longer being careful as Tyler had been in the past. The trail, once found, was not difficult for McClary to follow.
He came to where they had obviously paused at a creek. The ground was trampled in several places. His eyes caught the glint of metal, and he found a pair of irons lying partly under a bush.
He reached down and hid them much more efficiently, then wiped away signs of disturbance just as he had covered up the traces of blood he’d found. He didn’t want anyone following him. He didn’t want a posse reaching Randall before he did.
McClary wondered briefly about the strange alliance and what had brought the two men together. Tyler hated Randall, and Randall had great fear of Tyler.
McClary shrugged. It didn’t matter. He would kill both men, and whoever else was with them.