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CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_3843d235-d608-5ac7-82e8-8f6a7ceb8df7)
JAKE STOOD KNEE-DEEP in icy runoff, clearing brush clogging the main irrigation ditch. The weather had turned springlike after the late March snowfall; a few more warm days and the snowmelt would begin in earnest. When his cell phone rang, he staggered to the bank and dragged off one soaked glove to dig it from his pocket.
Ross Norquist’s voice, high-pitched in agitation, assaulted his ear before he could even say hello. “Jake, you better get over here quick and pick up this girl before more blood gets shed.”
“Whose blood?” He spoke as he ran to his truck and flung the shovel into the bed with a clang.
“Gary’s. Shelby set her hound on him. Liz and me headed into town, but we had to come back for something she forgot. We found Gary trying to load the shotgun, bleeding like a pig with his arm all tore up. Liz is driving him to the emergency room. She said to call you.”
“What about Shelby?” Rage blurred his vision. “I don’t know. Gary was yelling how he’d blow her dog’s head off. She’s locked herself in the tack room. I been banging on the door, but it’s dead quiet in there. Get her out of here before Liz gets back with Gary.”
“I’m on my way.” Jake leaped into the driver’s seat without waiting for an answer and sent the pickup jouncing across the hayfield, leaving muddy ruts in its wake. Phone, gloves, a pair of pliers, and a half-empty two-liter Coke bounced around on the front seat and shot to the floor as he slewed to a halt beside the barn. Begrudging precious minutes, he backed his truck to his two-horse trailer and dropped the hitch onto the ball. When he picked up Shelby, he’d buy the gray colt and bring him along, too.
The road into Durango seemed endless, and a creeping hay truck dropped Jake’s speed to a foot pace up one long grade. Passing the big rig at last, he roared into town with the empty trailer swaying behind him and turned north. When he arrived at the Norquist ranch, he breathed a sigh of relief to see no sign of Liz’s Jeep Cherokee. He ran toward the barn where Ross waited.
“Man, I thought you’d never get here,” Ross said. “The tack room door’s bolted from the inside, and she won’t answer me. See if she’ll speak up for you.”
Jake took a deep breath to ease his pounding heart. “Shelby,” he said, “it’s Jake. Can I come in?”
Silence.
He tapped on the door. “Shelby?”
No response, no barking.
He turned to Ross. “You sure she’s in there?”
Ross tugged on the door. “Where else could she be?”
Jake sprinted around to the side of the barn. A window stood open; boot and paw prints in the mud led toward the corral.
Ross came up behind him and stopped short. “She’s gone? On foot? Where does she think—?”
Jake followed the tracks at a run. “What horses were in the corral?”
“The three mustangs. No, just the roan mare—the bay’s in the barn. The colt’s in the round pen. Our string is out at pasture.”
They skidded to a halt. The gates to the corral and the round pen stood open.
“Saddle me a horse,” Jake said. “You stay here and try to find out what happened.”
Ten minutes later Jake rode out on a sturdy chestnut gelding. A confusion of hoof prints laced the thawed ground around the corral and barn, but he picked out new tracks made by the dog and two unshod horses.
He cast a worried glance at the sky and swore. The Norquist ranch lay higher than Cameron’s Pride, closer to the Continental Divide. Sunny here in the valley, but leaden clouds were piling up behind the San Juan’s promised snow. He’d seen blizzards swoop down out of the high country as late as May. Shelby had maybe an hour’s start, but she wouldn’t push the pregnant mare. He clapped his heels into the chestnut’s sides.
The soft ground made tracking easy. A path of sorts, blurred by last year’s grass, led toward a draw climbing into the hills. Sure enough, a range gate sagging askew broke the fence line. Either Shelby didn’t know how to fasten the cranky post-and-loop device or hadn’t been able to manage it while hanging on to two horses.
Clouds hid the sun. A single icy drop struck the back of his hand, and he snapped up his fleece-lined jacket. The steep trail crossed and recrossed a narrow creek running bank-high with snowmelt. No need to track, the walls of the draw had grown higher and more rugged. A horse could scramble out, but he doubted Shelby would ask it of the mare. If the draw turned into a box canyon, he would come up on her soon. If it opened into national forest land... He pushed harder, encouraging the gelding with heels and reins.
The trail leveled out in a high meadow. Jake saw no sign of Shelby until the chestnut pricked his ears. A flicker of movement caught his eye: the gray colt disappearing among the aspens at the far edge of the clearing. He picked the gelding up to a fast jog. She couldn’t move quickly through the dense woods. He could stop her even if he had to drop a loop on the roan mare.
“Shelby!” He raised his voice over the rising wind. “Wait up!”
Her shoulders slumped as she reined in. “What are you doing here?”
“Liz told Ross to call me.” He couldn’t see her face, hidden under a shapeless felt hat pulled low against the first snowflakes. “What happened?”
She raised her head, and he drew back on the reins, making the gelding dance in place. A thin line of blood still seeped from her cut lower lip and raw scratches on the side of her neck showed above her collar.
“That...!” He bit back a detailed description of Gary Norquist.
She bowed her head. “I’m not going back—he aims to shoot Stranger and then take out his meanness on the colt.”
“I won’t let him.” Jake caught the mare’s rein as Shelby tried to ride away. “I promise, I won’t let him hurt Stranger or the colt. Or you. Please, believe me.”
He released the mare’s rein. “Can you get the colt into my trailer?” He stretched the truth a little. “I just bought him.”
Her head came up. “I can load him.”
“Good. Look, you can’t keep riding into this weather. You’re headed into the national forest—there’s no shelter for miles.”
She looked into his face for a long moment while he held his breath. He would drag her back by force if he had to, to save her life, but that might do as much harm as Gary’s attack. He guessed she would never ask for help and hated accepting it.
He leaned forward and patted the mare’s neck. “Don’t want this lady dropping her foal in a blizzard, do we?”
Her eyes fell and she sighed. “I guess not.” She reined the mare around and rode back across the whitening meadow with Stranger on one side and the colt on the other.
They made better time downhill with the wind at their backs. Jake stopped at the range gate. “I want you to wait here while I ride in alone,” he said. “You need to tell me what happened. All Ross knows is what Gary said, that you set Stranger on him.”
She looked away; for a second he thought she might turn back into the mountains. “He’s been trying to catch me alone ever since I got here,” she said in a husky voice. “He rode out early to check fence on the far side of the ranch—Liz put up a lunch for him, then she and Ross went into town. I planned to work the bay mare...” She swallowed. “I heard a door slam, and then Stranger started baying, but muffled, like he’d been locked in somewhere.”
“Look, you don’t have to—”
“Gary came into the barn,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “He said he watched his folks leave and then doubled back so we could have some fun with no one around. I told him forget it, but he grabbed me...” Her words came faster, tumbling over each other, her voice rising so the colt snorted in alarm. “I yelled for Stranger, and Gary hit me. And then Stranger was just there—he must have gone through a window. He knocked Gary down and grabbed his arm. I dragged Stranger into the tack room and barred the door.”
Jake wanted to swear, to hit something, to hold her. He was afraid to move.
She wet her lips. “Gary started screaming how he’d get me, soon as he took care of Stranger with a shotgun. He kicked the door a couple times, then I heard him running. I was afraid to come out, so I threw my saddle out the window along with the mare’s bridle and a lead rope. I boosted Stranger through the window and climbed out after him.”
The wind had picked up, the snow thicker, already clinging to the horses’ rough coats and Stranger’s fur. Jake hated leaving Shelby here; he didn’t trust her not to bolt again.
“Look,” he said, “this weather’s blowing in hard.” He offered his watch. “Wait fifteen minutes and then follow me. I’ll talk to Ross and have the trailer ready to load the colt. Okay?”
She hesitated and then took the watch, shivering so hard she almost dropped it. “Okay,” she said. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Sooner if the tracks start to fill in. I’ve known folks to die a hundred yards from shelter, going in circles.” Although the mare would head straight to the barn for shelter.
He forced himself to ride away but then looked over his shoulder. Already the little group was only a dark blur in the swirling whiteness.
“Fifteen minutes,” he yelled, and she raised a hand as if to show him the watch. He turned and kicked the gelding into a run.
* * *
ROSS PACED IN front of the barn with snow building up on his hat and shoulders. “I was about to ride out looking for you.” He peered past Jake. “Did you find her?”
“She’ll be along in a few minutes.” Jake dismounted and led the gelding into the barn. “Is Gary back?”
“They got in while you were looking for Shelby. He said he came back early because his horse threw a shoe. He and Shelby were in the barn, just fooling around, he said, and she set her dog on him.” Ross held up his hand. “You don’t need to tell me that’s a crock—we’ve been cleaning up his messes ever since he got kicked out of high school. Is Shelby okay?”
Jake didn’t bother sparing Ross’s feelings. “Other than a split lip and scratches when he tried to tear her clothes off? Yeah, she’s okay. I’m taking her home with me, and the gray colt, too, if you’ll sell him.” He tried to recall how much he had in his checking account, maybe a couple thousand this time of year and none to spare.
“You can have him for nothing—I didn’t want him in the first place.”
“Say two hundred. He might make a nice ride for Lucy once he’s gelded.” Jake moved out into the snow. “Help me get the ramp down on my trailer. Shelby can load him straight in and we’ll be on our way before the roads get bad.”
They had just gotten the ramp lowered when the chestnut gelding neighed; a whinny from the gloom answered him. Two horses emerged from the falling snow with the dog like a ghost behind them. Shelby reined in by the corral.
Jake took a step forward, but Ross put a hand on his arm. “This is between me and Shelby,” he said. He raised his voice. “Sugar, bring the horses in out of the snow, how about?”
For a moment nobody moved, and then the mare tossed her head, eager to reach shelter. Shelby loosened the reins and rode into the barn with the colt and Stranger following.
Ross took the colt’s lead rope. “Shelby,” he said, “I’ve got a pretty good notion of what happened.”
Shelby dismounted slowly.
“Take your hat off,” Jake said, “and open your coat.”
Still facing the mare’s side, she took off the hat and hung it on the pommel before unzipping her jacket. She turned to face Ross.
His face blanched. “You want to press charges, I’ll back your play.”
A rapidly darkening bruise marked her jaw below the split lip. Most of her shirt buttons had been ripped off, and livid scratches ran from her collarbone to the ruins of her tank top. Even though he’d already seen her face, the full extent of Shelby’s injuries left Jake speechless with rage. Whatever damage Stranger had done wasn’t near enough.
“No.” A husky whisper. “No police.”
“He’s bad news with women,” Jake said. “He needs to be nailed to the wall.”
“Not by me.” She zipped her coat. “Can we leave now?”
The ragged edge in her voice warned Jake not to push. He took the colt’s lead rope from Ross and handed it to Shelby. “The trailer’s ready. Ross, can you get Shelby’s stuff while we load?”
Ross nodded and stalked toward the house, outrage in every step.
Shelby cleared her throat. “If you’ll put a hay net in the trailer...”
The colt loaded easily, following the scent of good alfalfa. Shelby ducked out the front hatch just as Liz arrived carrying a backpack and a sack of dog food.
“I hope everything’s here,” Liz said in a choked voice, her face ashen. “I looked around...”
“I never unpack,” Shelby said, her teeth chattering.
Liz embraced her awkwardly. “I can’t tell you how sorry—”
“Please—it wasn’t your fault.”
“We don’t have enough cash on hand to pay all we owe you, but here’s three hundred on account.” Liz tucked a roll of bills into Shelby’s hand. “I’ll send a check for the rest to Jake’s first thing in the morning.”
“Thanks, Liz,” Jake said. “Like Shelby told you, it’s not your fault.”
“Maybe it is.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “We’ve tried so hard with Gary...”
“All you can do.” He opened the door for Stranger to jump into the backseat and tossed in the dog food and Shelby’s saddle. Shelby stood motionless, her pack clutched to her chest. He climbed behind the wheel and spoke over his shoulder.
“Come on, Shelby—help me get my new horse home.”
She gave a jerky nod and climbed into the passenger’s seat.
“You take her to a doctor, Jake,” Liz said. “Send us the bill.”
Jake touched his hat to Liz and eased his rig forward.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_7d0fea24-6a4e-52f4-bb06-162f8c76fd75)
SHELBY CLENCHED HER teeth and wrapped her arms tighter around her pack. If she could just stop shivering... Heat blasting from the vents didn’t seem to reach her, as if she still felt the icy wind.
She should have kept riding and taken her chances; now she was trapped in Jake’s truck. She fought down panic. The whole sequence had lasted only minutes but looped endlessly in her brain: Stranger’s roar, footsteps approaching, Gary’s smug leer... Or another man’s face, hands touching her as she lay helpless. She choked back a whimper and reached for the door handle.
“Ain’t that the way!” Jake said. “No more than a dusting here in the canyon, but the high country will get another foot. Take a peek over your shoulder, Shelby—looks like the gates of hell where you were headed.”
His soft drawl steadied her, and she glanced at the mountains behind them. Blue-black clouds hid the peaks, and swaying curtains of snow grayed the lower slopes.
“Warming up?” He reached to adjust the vents in front of her, and she shrank back reflexively.
“Is there...” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Is there a used car lot in town?”
He glanced at her with a puzzled frown. “Sure, Bert Dawson sells pretty decent vehicles.”
She looked down at the roll of bills she still clutched. Another couple hundred in her pack... “Let me off there, okay?”
Jake steered his rig into a small roadside picnic area and then turned to face her. “Shelby, Bert’s brother is a La Plata County deputy. Bert would take one look at you and be on the phone before you could get two words out. For your protection, mind you. You sure you don’t want to file a complaint?”
She shook her head mutely. It would be her word against Gary’s, and his injury was probably worse than hers. Ross Norquist had said he would support charges, but sending his own son to jail... The police might seize Stranger as a vicious dog; for sure they’d put her name through their computer.
“I can’t,” she said. “I just can’t.”
Jake sat silent for a long moment and then sighed. “If you’re bound to leave, I’ll take you wherever you want to go, but how about we get the colt settled first? I want to get off to a good start with him.”
Because of her, he now had a horse he didn’t want. Her sense of fairness overcame the urge to bolt. “I guess I can do that much.”
