Chapter Eleven Dressed for Betrayal #2
Hank shook his head. “You walked into that camp alone.”
“I came out because you were waiting.”
The stable lantern threw gold across Hank’s face.
Fear still shook him.
Drew placed Hank’s hand over his heart.
“I am here,” he whispered. “Feel it.”
Hank did.
Drew drew his palm lower, over breath, warmth, and the visible response his body could not disguise.
“All of me,” Drew said. “Here.”
Hank leaned against him.
For several minutes, they simply held each other among the horses.
The expensive clothes lay ruined in the dirt.
The stable door stood open to the rail camp's rear lane. Beyond it, shouting spread from the records office as Warren's men discovered the empty lockbox. Drew could not yet distinguish orders from panic. Every sound seemed to arrive through the pulse beating in his wounded side.
"We have to move," he said.
Hank's hands remained at his waist. "Can you ride?"
"I rode here."
"That ain't what I asked."
Drew tested his weight. The cut beneath his ribs burned, but the bullet had passed through coat and flesh without lodging. Luther's second shot had broken the stable window. The third had gone into a hitching post because Drew's horse struck the enforcer with one shoulder on the way out.
"Yes," Drew said. "If you stop looking at me as though I am already dead."
Hank's face closed. "Don't say that."
"Then believe me."
For one taut moment they stood inside the old argument: Hank wanting to protect by command, Drew refusing safety purchased with helplessness. This time neither retreated into habit. Hank nodded once.
"Show me the papers."
Drew drew the waxed packet from inside his shirt. Sweat and blood marked the wrapping, but the signed orders and payroll were dry. Hank opened one fold, saw Warren's signature beneath the instruction to close the Copper Ridge scales, and shut it again.
"Sam takes these," Hank said.
"Agreed. Three copies as soon as we reach camp."
"You ride between me and Will."
"Beside you."
Hank's jaw hardened.
"You asked me to come back," Drew said. "I did not come back to become cargo."
The anger in Hank's eyes was almost a relief; it had more life than panic. "Beside me until you sway. Then between."
"Acceptable."
Will appeared at the rear door with three horses. He took in Drew's torn shirt, Hank's bloody hands, and the packet. "I assume polite reconciliation failed."
"My father questioned some of the terms," Drew said.
"Whole camp is mounting."
Hank pulled Drew's arm across his shoulders and helped him to the gelding. The support was practical, but the press of Hank's body sent a current through Drew that pain could not erase. Hank felt it. His hand tightened briefly on Drew's thigh after settling him in the saddle.
"Later," Hank said under his breath.
The single word carried promise, anger, and so much restrained relief that Drew's breath caught.
They left through the rear lane as lanterns flared near the main gate.
Will rode first, cutting between supply tents.
Drew followed with Hank close enough that their stirrups nearly struck.
A cook shouted. Someone fired from behind the freight office.
The bullet snapped past Drew and buried itself in a water barrel.
At the camp's northern edge, Luther Briggs stepped from behind a stack of ties with a rifle braced against his shoulder.
"Down!" Hank shouted.
Drew flattened over his horse's neck. Hank fired once. Luther dropped behind the ties, but not before his shot struck Drew's saddlebag. The impact tore leather and sent the bag spinning beneath the horse. Papers burst across the mud.
"The copies," Drew said.
"Leave them," Hank answered.
They were not the signed originals, but they included payroll figures and a list of shell companies linking Warren's banks to the ranch mortgages. Wind caught one page and carried it toward the drainage creek.
Drew wheeled.
"Damn you," Hank said, turning with him.
Will provided cover from the cottonwoods while Drew dismounted beside the ditch. Pain folded him for half a second. Hank was down immediately, one arm around his middle, the other firing toward the ties.
"Get on the horse."
"The list—"
"I have it."
Hank plunged one hand into the muddy water and caught the page against a stone. Another shot hit the bank. Drew snatched two sheets from the grass, then saw a lantern arc above the freight office.
"Fire," Will yelled.
The lantern shattered on the dry tie stack. Flame ran through spilled oil, cutting Luther off but lighting the three men as clearly as noon.
Hank shoved the wet page into his coat and boosted Drew into the saddle. "Now you ride between."
Drew lacked breath to object.
They crossed the creek where the bank sloped low. Water climbed to the horses' knees and sucked at the mud beneath them. Riders appeared behind, black shapes against the burning ties. Hank stayed on Drew's left, between him and the rifles; Will guarded the right.
"There is a lower ford west," Drew said.
"Too open," Will answered.
"Not the creek. The telegraph line. It runs over a cut half a mile north. If we pass beneath, they cannot see us from camp."
Hank glanced at him. "You mapped your escape."
"I learned from the trail boss."
They reached the cut as the first pursuit crossed the creek. The telegraph wire hummed overhead. Drew led them along the dry bottom, beneath thorn and shadow. Every stride jarred his side. Warm blood soaked the new bandage Hank had tied in the stable, but the pain remained sharp rather than deep.
Halfway through the cut, his vision narrowed.
"Drew."
Hank's voice came from very far away.
"I am riding."
"You're falling."
Hank caught his coat as he tilted. Will seized both bridles. They stopped beneath an overhang invisible from the rim. Hank dismounted and pulled Drew down into his arms with more strength than gentleness.
"I said when you swayed."
"I did not sway. The earth moved."
"Shut up."
The fear was back. Drew put one hand to Hank's face. "Look at me."
"I am looking."
"No. You are looking for where I am hurt. Look at me."
Hank obeyed. The darkness made his eyes almost black.
"I chose the camp," Drew said. "I knew the risk. You did not send me. You did not fail me."
"Not discussing blame."
"You are. Silently and badly."