Chapter Twenty-Seven

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

S TUART RACED THE horse through the dark shadows beneath the thick stand of cottonwoods. He told himself that Ralph would head for the river. Once he’d heard that Norma was headed for the county road along the river, he knew where she was going and why. He told himself that Ralph wouldn’t hurt Bailey. Not yet.

He could feel darkness close in around him the moment he left the ranch and lights behind. Bailey was out here somewhere, probably already drugged. Norma would be coming down the county road to pick the two of them up. If he didn’t stop them before that, he had no idea where they were taking Bailey.

Somewhere close? He still couldn’t get his head around Norma being a part of this, let alone Ralph. But like most places, the Powder River Basin had an ugly underbelly. Most people never saw it, never knew anything about the evil in even their closest neighbors. But Bailey did.

Ahead he could see the river winding north to dump into the Yellowstone. Past it were more cottonwoods and finally the county road. His radio squawked, and he brought his horse up short to answer it.

“We have Norma,” his deputy said.

“Is Bailey—”

“Sorry, Norma’s alone. She said she and Ralph got into an argument, and she left him back at the barbecue. What do you want us to do with her?”

His mind raced. Had she been a decoy? Had he been wrong about her leaving to pick up Ralph and Bailey down the road? Wouldn’t they have had a backup plan in case something like this happened? “Take her in for questioning. Don’t let her out of your sight. On the way to town, watch the road. I don’t believe he’s back at the ranch. If he has Bailey...” He couldn’t finish. “Keep her from making a phone call.”

He was breathing hard as he looked through the trees, not knowing where to go or what to do. What if he was wrong and they hadn’t come this way? Ralph could have her in a building on the ranch. All of the hands were busy. He could have already killed her.

Stuart heard the rustle of leaves over his pounding heart. He started to turn, saw the limb before it struck him, but only got a glimpse of Ralph. The blow doubled him over. He was going for his gun when he was hit again, this time in his side, hard enough to break his ribs and knock him off the horse.

The horse kept going as he tumbled to the ground. Desperately he tried to catch his breath and get his gun from his holster as a large dark shadow loomed over him. Ralph still held the limb in his hands as he advanced.

Stuart rolled to the side, coming up with his gun. He fired off two shots, both dead center. Ralph stumbled back, dropping the limb as he seemed about to collapse to the ground. But before the sheriff could get to his feet, the man had staggered upright, picking up a large rock as he did. Holding the rock over his head with both hands, his muscles bulging with the effort, his face red and twisted in a macabre grimace, Ralph lunged at him.

There was that instant when Stuart felt himself in his nightmare, that panic from being backed up against a wall with no way out. Only this time he wasn’t wounded and bleeding to death, but he was injured and having trouble breathing, and the fear was the same. He didn’t want to die here today.

He raised his police service revolver and fired again, four more shots that riddled the big man’s body and his already drenched bloody shirt. He pulled the trigger yet again. The click of the empty chamber was so loud it startled him.

The report of the gunfire still hung for a moment in the air before everything went silent. Nothing moved—including Ralph Jones.

It felt as if time was suspended. Stuart could hear the rustle of the leaves overhead, smell the river, feel the warm earth beneath him along with the pain. At least a couple of his ribs were broken. One might have pierced his lung. He was having a hard time drawing breath.

But his gaze was on Ralph and his large, dark silhouette looming over him, not moving, the huge rock still balanced over his head. His gun empty, his chest heaving for air he couldn’t seem to draw, Stuart crab-crawled backward until he collided with a tree trunk.

He was still fighting for breath, the empty gun in his hand, his heart lodged in his throat. He remembered the fear when he’d shot the woman who’d tried to kill him all those months ago. There’d been that irrational moment when he’d thought that someone so twisted, so malicious couldn’t be killed by mere bullets. It was the same fleeting feeling he had before Ralph’s legs gave out and he dropped the rock. It came down with him as he hit the ground.

Stuart leaned against the tree trunk, still fighting to breathe as he reloaded the gun, keeping his eye on Ralph as he did. He could see where Ralph’s skull had collided with the rock when he fell. Yet Stuart still expected the big man to rise and lunge for him again. In his mind, this aberration had taken on superhuman powers that no mortal man could kill.

One day, he told himself, he would see Ralph Jones as nothing more than a sick, dangerous man with a wife who would do anything to keep him, including helping him rape and kill. But not today. Ralph Jones was a monster who’d haunted Bailey’s nightmares and maybe always would. Stuart knew monsters were real. He’d known it since he was a kid. He’d seen a monster hide behind a kind-looking face, a sweet smile and even a piece of fudge, all of it making them even more frightening and evil.

Holstering his gun, Stuart pushed himself up, cradling his ribs with one arm, as he called out Bailey’s name, fearing there would be no answer.

“Bailey!” This time his voice was a little louder, though it hurt his chest to call out. He heard a faint sound. The rustle of leaves. A small whimper like an animal caught in a trap. He moved toward the sound, terrified of what he would find.

She lay in beneath a tree some yards away. She was so still that for a painful heartbeat, he thought she was dead. But then she blinked up at him, a tear leaking out of one eye and sat up. He fell to his knees next to her, and pulled her close as he repeated, “It’s over. It’s finally over.”

B AILEY DIDN ’ T REALIZE she was crying until Stuart fell to the ground next to her and kissed away her tears. Feeling was coming slowly back to her extremities. She tried to form the words but couldn’t as she heard sirens in the distance. She looked into Stuart’s eyes from where her head rested in his lap, felt her lips move but wasn’t sure anything had come out. Tell me he’s dead.

At first, she thought the movement she saw out of the corner of her eye was a deputy coming to help. But as the man came out of the trees, she saw his face, one side caved in. She opened her mouth. The sound less like a scream, more like a whine. Ralph was moving slowly, dragging one leg along with a tree limb. She could see his black crocodile boots, smell him.

Stuart was holding his ribs as if he was having trouble breathing. He was telling her that everything was going to be all right as she tried to warn him it wasn’t over. She opened her mouth, but a whine came out of lips that felt numb and unmoving.

Ralph lifted the limb. The front of him was covered in blood, and his face—Her hand went to Stuart’s holster and the gun. She pulled the weapon, drawing it out, startling Stuart as Ralph lunged forward using the tree limb for support. He was only feet away when he started to swing the limb. She saw his boots. buckaroo boots, shiny black crocodile dress boots, remembering the last time she saw them and the man coming at her.

Bailey raised the gun and fired and fired and fired until it merely clicked as it ran out of ammunition.

“He’s dead,” Stuart said as he joined her standing over Ralph’s body and eased the gun from her hand. “He’s dead, Bailey.”

She finally heard the words she’d wanted to hear for twelve years. She began to cry as she saw the beams of flashlights and heard help coming through the trees.