Eleven
Every pass over the National Forest tightened the dread in Jackie’s chest. So many things could go wrong for a child lost in the shadows, who might have wandered too near Muddy Creek and fallen in, swallowed by muddy water and brush before anyone reached him.
Or become hidden beneath the pines where the shadows were thickest, too small for her to see from the sky.
Or the worst, the very worst, been a victim to any sort of mean and hungry wildlife who would leave Timmy absolutely defenseless.
Jackie swallowed hard and pushed the awful thoughts aside. She’d learned in Korea that fear had to be mastered before it mastered her. She had to be strong. Thorough. She had to stay clearheaded to search every shadow, every break in the trees, every inch of creek bank.
She would not fail this little boy.
Or Beck.
As if bursting right out of her thoughts, Beck’s dark-blue Ford F2 pickup barreled over Archer rangeland and braked so sharply at the edge of the north pasture, the wheels skidded in the dirt.
He jumped out and flung the door closed, then tipped his face to the sky, searching for her beneath the brim of his Stetson.
He swung toward the drone of the engine and found her, lifting his arm for a quick wave.
There was no hesitation in him, no wasted movement, only grim purpose as he spun and headed into the ponderosa pines, assuring her she wasn’t alone. That, together, they would find Timmy.
Flying as low as she dared, she banked the Cub into another pass, eyes sweeping the timber ahead of Beck’s path—across broken shafts of sunlight, over the dark mat of pine boughs, down the narrow game trails and scrub-choked openings that could hide a child too easily.
Until something out of place yanked her attention. A pickup truck near the ridge. Not Beck's, but one familiar enough to kickstart her brain into identifying it. The paint worn thin along the top of the cab, turning it a dull gray. And the stock rack.
Clint Varner.
Her skin chilled in horror. If only she could stop the plane from flying and make it hover in mid-air to watch what he intended.
Had he come to finish what he’d started—to set another fire?
Could there be a worse time, with Timmy in the woods somewhere?
The Archers distracted because he'd gone missing?
He was crouched on the ground, working the dirt, and she'd have sworn she saw plumes of smoke rising near his feet.
She gripped the stick and swung the Cub around for a harder look, trepidation sharpening every beat of her heart.
She tightened the circle, made another turn, and there was Timmy, impossibly small, but his red-and-white stripes a beacon, dragging her attention off of Clint and solely on him.
He still clutched his tractor but toddled as if he had no real destination, and her heart squeezed.
Surely he was tired by now. Maybe crying. Certainly afraid....
But, oh, he was getting too close to the ridge. He could so easily fall, knocked down from crumbling dirt or loose stones....
Clint's head snapped up, likely warned by the drone of her plane.
He looked straight at the Cub, and for one charged instant, he didn't move, as if he calculated the threat she made, no doubt wondering who she was and why she was there, hovering over him, until suddenly, he jumped to his feet and drove his boot over a patch of smoking grass, grinding it out in quick, vicious strokes.
She came around yet again, and Clint's stare remained glued to the Piper Club, following her path, circling with her.
It must have been then, when he moved his body into a different stance, that he whipped toward movement on the ridge.
Toward Timmy. Maybe he recognized the danger the little boy was in.
Maybe he shouted something. But he lunged for the child with a speed that made Jackie's breath catch in hope and prayer that Clint meant well, that he would reach Timmy in time....
Jackie's circling meant she knew something. Saw something. Trusting that she had, Beck burst into the clearing at a dead run just as Clint Varner hustled toward him with Timmy held securely in one arm, his little toy tractor still clenched in his fist.
Stunned, Beck froze, hit by a relief so intense it nearly buckled him, until his muscles unlocked, and he closed the distance in quick strides. “Give him to me.”
Surprisingly wordless, compliant more, Clint obeyed, and Beck gathered his nephew close to his chest. He spread his hand against the back of that curly head, nuzzling him into the crook of his neck, and held him tight for a second, swallowing hard against the flood of gratitude that clogged his throat.
“It’s all right, little man,” he said roughly. “I've got you now.” Remembering the treats in his shirt pocket, he worked several out and held them in his palm. “Look what I have. Animal crackers. Just for you from Miss Jackie.”
Timmy sniffled and lifted his head to look. Beck let him hold the whole bunch in his little fist. Timmy promptly plopped one into his mouth and chewed away.
Beck settled him more securely against his side and only then realized the Cub was no longer flying overhead. The sudden quiet draped the clearing like a heavy blanket.
He fixed Clint with a level look.
"What are you doing out here?" Beck demanded.
Clint withdrew a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and looked anywhere but straight at Beck. Without lighting the tobacco, he stuck the cigarette into the corner of his mouth. “Saw the boy wandering too close to the ridge. I got to him before he went over, that’s all.”
Beck knew in his gut Clint wasn’t admitting to everything. He’d set one fire already, and it could be he’d wanted to do it again, all in retaliation against the Archers.
“This timber’s a long way from anywhere a man ought to be by accident. So start from the beginning, and make it the truth,” Beck growled.
Before he could force another word out of Clint, Jackie came crashing through the trees at a full run. Her worried expression changed the instant she saw Timmy safe in Beck’s arms.
“Oh, Timmy.” Breathless and windblown, she stroked the boy’s tangled hair, then leaned in and wrapped an arm around him, including Beck in her embrace. Her eyes closed in relief, in a struggle for composure, until they opened again on a deep breath.
With his cheek rounded from a mouthful of animal crackers, Timmy grinned a drooly grin and jabbered something no one could understand.
“You’re happy now, aren't you?” Her expression lightened. “You gave us such a scare, you know that?” She indicated the red-and-yellow box of animal crackers she’d brought from the Cub and appealed up to Beck. “Would it be all right if I gave him the whole box?”
“Far as I'm concerned, he can have every last cracker in there.”
She shook the box to entice Timmy’s attention. “Look what I brought you. More animal crackers. Here. You can hold them all by yourself."
Timmy took the colorful container in one dirty hand, keeping his toy tractor trapped between him and Beck’s chest.
Only then did Jackie step away. She turned to Clint. “I saw you save Timmy from falling off the ridge. We can’t thank you enough.” Her throat moved. “But you don’t just appear out of nowhere deep in the timber with a lost child in your arms and expect us not to have questions.”
Clint lifted his chin. “I was checking on something back there. Then I saw the boy.”
“I saw you before you saw Timmy,” Jackie said in a tight voice. “You were down on one knee, doing something in the dirt. I thought I caught smoke, but I won’t say more than that.”
Clint emitted a short bitter laugh. “From up in that plane? You think you can tell what a man’s doing from the sky?”
Beck didn’t look at Jackie. He didn’t need to. She wouldn’t accuse Clint of something he didn’t have coming to him.
“Save your excuses,” he said in a low voice. “We know what this is about.”
“Yeah? So tell me, since you know so much.”
“I know enough.” Beck took a step nearer.
Steady. Unhurried. “Roy talked. Everybody knew that. And the older he got, the less sense he made. Whatever notions he gave you and your old man, they were never going to change the truth. That land was never Roy’s to give.
” He paused, letting the words sink in. “Archer land will always be Archer land. No one else’s. ”
The unlit cigarette quivered at the corner of Clint’s mouth. “That about says it all, don’t it? Men like me are meant to stand outside the fence and be grateful for the view.”
Beck narrowed an eye. “You have land of your own.”
Clint let out a sharp breath and angled his face away. “A poor excuse for it.”
“It’s still yours,” Beck shot back. “And a man should take pride in what’s his, even if it takes work to make it better.”
For a moment, some of the fight seemed to seep out of Clint, something Beck hadn’t witnessed before.
“I used to think I could make something of it,” Clint muttered. “Lately it seems like the place beats me before I start.”
“With time and money put where it counts, you could have a good place,” Beck said. “Good grass in season. Better fencing. Stronger stock. You could build something worth having if you stopped wasting yourself on resentment and trying to hurt innocent folks. Especially my family.”
Clint’s head came up sharply. “Don’t stand there and talk to me about wasting myself. Your family had the land, the stock, the name—everything a man needs to make a start. Mine had bad promises and hard luck.”
Beck allowed the resentment to roll off him like water off oiled leather and dug deep to give him a break.
“We have hay I could spare to help put weight on your stock. Fence posts, too. Wire. There’s an old mower that hasn’t been used for a couple of seasons.
Needs work, but it’s sound. I’ll let you have it cheap. Loan it, if that’s what it takes.”