Chapter 23 #2
For a heartbeat, Sheila could not comprehend what she had seen. The betrayal was too sudden, too cold. Wendell spun toward Dodger, shock widening his eyes as he stumbled back.
Dodger stood watching, the blade hanging in his hand at his side. There was a smile on his face, as if he were watching a scene playing out on an opera house stage. He had his pistol drawn, in case it was needed.
It wasn’t needed. Wendell sank slowly to his knees. His hands fell away. His head sagged, and he tipped forward onto his face.
Sheila’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. Hot bile scorched her throat, and dizziness staggered her. She dropped to one knee, forcing herself to breathe and think, but anger flashed red in her brain.
Murder. In cold blood. Dodger killed Wendell when his back was to him.
He was despicable. Evil. Inhuman. An animal. But what kind of animal could do such a thing? None. No animal was so vile and conniving and cold.
He’d kill her next. But only after he abused her. She was certain of it. She had no doubt.
She should have shot him in the house when she had the chance.
No. She seized the thought and crushed it before it could weaken her. Regret would not save her. Panic would not save her. Only action might.
“Miss Burnett,” he called out. “We need to ride. We’re waiting.”
He thought she was stupid. Or that she hadn’t seen what he did. Sheila glanced around her, thinking of escape. She needed to get away.
“Show yourself,” Dodger shouted. “We still got a long ride ahead of us.”
Hearing the sound of horses approaching, Sheila peeked over the side of the depression through the brush again. Four men entered the clearing by the creek. They didn’t dismount.
Dodger wiped the knife on Wendell’s coat, slid it into its sheath, and holstered his gun.
“I told you to wait till I signaled,” he said coldly. “This fella almost ain’t had time to fall on his knife.”
The man at the head of the newcomers looked down at the corpse and then swung down from his saddle. “So where is she?”
Sheila recognized him. It was the sheriff from Elkhorn. Sheriff Horner. The man who’d leered disgracefully at her like a common lout.
But he was far worse than that. He was in league with Dodger.
“She’s around her somewheres.”
The sheriff turned to the other men. “Find her. We can use her.”
“Sure can,” Dodger replied, laughing at his own dirty joke.
The snake of a lawman stared at him for a long moment as the others climbed down from their horses. Finally, spitting on the ground near Dodger’s boot, he turned to his men.
“Search the area. She can’t have got too far.”
Sheila knew she had to go, and go quickly. Staying low, she moved as fast as she could along the hollow in the direction of the river. She was certain she’d be no safer in Horner’s clutches than in Dodger’s.
As she got closer to the river, the depression fell away, and she clambered and slid down a short wall of clay and rock to a stream bed of gravel and shallow water.
Following it to the end, she reached the tangle of rotten tree trunks and branches.
The rushing river surged and splashed up against it.
She looked across the torrent. The opposite bank was so far, and white water was pummeling boulders in the middle. She didn’t think she’d survive if she tried to swim across.
Sheila heard Dodger and the sheriff arguing. Their voices were coming closer.
Scrambling through the branches of the waterlogged timber, she climbed over a half-submerged tree trunk and slipped down into the frigid water. She held tight to a dead branch that she feared would snap off at any moment, sending her sailing along the speeding current to certain death.
The cold struck like a thousand needles, stealing the breath from her lungs. She thought of her father. Of New York. Of Caleb Marlowe standing between her and danger without making a show of it. Then she tightened her grip and refused to let go.
Sheila had no choice. She lowered herself until only her face was above the surface and prayed that the trunk was enough to hide her.
“…ain’t for you to be doing no deciding,” the sheriff snapped. They were standing on the bank directly above her. “I’m running this outfit.”
“Seems like I hear that everywhere I turn, Horner.”
“Then you’d best hear it, boy.”
As the water pulled at her clothes, Sheila listened, unwilling to breathe.
“Anything you say, Sheriff.”
She’d heard Dodger say almost the same thing to Wendell in the exact same tone.
“Dammit,” Horner said finally. He shouted to the other searchers. “Forget it. Ain’t no point wasting no more time here.”
“You’re right about that,” she heard Dodger say as they moved away. “That prissy bitch won’t make it through a night in these mountains.”
Sheila waited, trembling in the icy current, until their voices faded and only the roar of the river remained.
Then, silently and fiercely, she made herself a promise.
She would make it through the night. She would find her father.
And if God was merciful, she would live long enough to tell Caleb Marlowe everything she had seen.