Part 13 (2/2)

But still he had to go check on her. He left his saddle in the tent and walked toward the cabin feeling strangely vulnerable because of her. She was his Achilles' heel. He wanted desperately to go look for Buck, but he couldn't leave her. Nor was he sure he could protect her.

The men would take care of themselves as best they could if they had to. They'd known what they were getting into when they'd signed on. There was always some danger involved whenever you were this far up in the mountains. And they could all ride. Any one of them could get out of here in a matter of hours by horse.

But Reggie... He hated to think how ill-equipped she was to survive here. Especially since she didn't ride a horse and he could tell that her ankle was hurting her more than she wanted him to know.

He reached the cabin and tapped softly on a windowpane, waited and tapped again. He wasn't about to go to the door. The last thing he could trust himself not to do would be to go inside where it was warm, where Reggie would be possibly wearing that heart-stopping negligee- Her face appeared in the window, startling him. She looked pale.

”Are you all right?” he mouthed.

She nodded and gave him a smile. ”You?”

He had to smile. ”I'm fine. Did you bolt the door?”

She nodded again and motioned did he want to come in?

He shook his head a little too vigorously because she laughed. ”Good night.”

”Good night,” she mouthed back. She did have a great mouth.

He quickly turned and walked toward the tent, smiling to himself.

Now if Buck and Luke Adams would just show up. But he knew he wouldn't stop worrying until this roundup was over, until Reggie was safe, until he knew who had sabotaged the truck and killed the cows.

He wished a cell phone did work up here. He would call the ranch and see what had happened to Buck.

But a phone call wouldn't solve the mystery of what had happened to Luke. J.T. thought the cowhand had left in the middle of the night because he'd realized he'd made a mistake by coming back here, the memory of what had happened nine years ago too much for him.

But with Luke's horse returning, his saddle and gear stuffed in the box behind the cabin, J.T. was worried that Luke hadn't left running scared. Luke hadn't even left under his own power.

J.T. stopped to listen to the night. Hearing nothing unusual, he stepped into his tent and tied the canvas door closed. He pulled off his boots and jeans and crawled into his sleeping bag, knowing he wouldn't get much sleep tonight.

As he closed his eyes, he listened for the sound of a truck coming up the mountainside. Prayed for it. What he wouldn't give to see Buck's weathered old face right now and know he was safe.

Just before daylight, J.T. heard a sound that bolted him upright in bed. A terrified shriek.

J.T. pulled on his boots and dove from the tent wearing only his long underwear. It took him a moment to realize the sound hadn't come from the cabin where he'd expected it had.

The wall tent door next to his flew open, the air filling with cries and cussing as the men lunged out into the darkness half-dressed.

”What is it?” J.T. demanded as everyone circled, Roy snapping on a flashlight and s.h.i.+ning it on Cotton.

”Rattlesnake,” Cotton said from between gritted teeth and leaned down to pull up the leg of his long underwear. ”The son of a b.i.t.c.h got me.”

J.T. stared at the bite mark in the glow of the flashlight. There weren't any rattlesnakes up this high in the mountains. Especially in October. He could feel everyone looking at him, no doubt thinking the same thing.

”What's wrong?” Reggie called from the cabin porch, sounding scared. ”McCall?”

”Go back in the cabin! I'll be there in a minute,” J.T. hollered back. He swore as he turned to go out into the trees. He picked up a limb and returned. Roy handed him the flashlight without a word. Carefully, he stepped into the tent.

The flashlight beam illuminated only a small circle of golden light. He quickly s.h.i.+ned the light around the tent, the beam skittering over the canvas floor. No snake.

Gingerly, he moved along the cots, shaking out each sleeping bag. He hadn't gone far when he heard the distinctive rattle and froze.

Leaning down slowly, he s.h.i.+ned the light under the cots. He could hear the men outside, talking among themselves, still sounding scared, high on adrenaline, all but Cotton glad it hadn't been them.

The light picked up a pair of eyes, prehistoric looking. The large greenish-colored snake was coiled in the corner behind a duffel bag.

He stepped closer, shoving the cot and the bag aside. The tent filled with the sound of the deadly rattle as he moved nearer, the limb ready.

The snake struck, lunging its long thick-scaled body at him. He dodged to the side and trapped the snake against the side of the wall tent with the limb.

After several attempts, he was able to pin the snake's head so he could reach down and grasp it behind the head.

It was a big heavy prairie rattler, a good five feet long. Lifting it, he carried the snake out of the tent. The men all stepped back, giving him a wide berth as he took the snake deep into the woods. The beam of the flashlight bobbed ahead through the darkness, the snake growing heavy, his fingers fatigued from the pressure needed to keep the reptile from biting him.

In the quiet darkness away from the camp, he finally released the snake. Someone had to have brought this snake up the mountain, kept it hidden outside of camp and then put it in the tent tonight. To what? Scare the men? Or scare him?

J.T. swore. Well, he was scared and angry. He watched the snake slither away into the trees, following it with the flashlight beam, trying to understand what the h.e.l.l was happening in his camp.

Then slowly, he turned back, studying the ground in the thin light, looking for a sign that anyone was camped nearby. Any sign that they weren't alone up here.

But the only tracks in the soft earth were his own. When he'd ridden the perimeter of the camp, he hadn't found anything either. All of which led him to believe the one thing he had feared from the beginning, that the trouble was coming from within within his camp. One of his own men was doing this. his camp. One of his own men was doing this.

He told himself that so far it had just been pranks. No one had been killed. At least as far as he knew. The men had ridden up separately to the line shack. Any one of them could have brought the snake, kept it hidden out in the woods in a container and then let it loose in the tent tonight. But if that was the case, the fool had taken the chance that he might be the one who was bitten. Only a crazy person would take a chance like that.

J.T. thought of the only man he'd considered truly crazy. That man had died on this very mountain nine years ago. Killed by his own madness. Just the thought of Claude Ryan chilled J.T. to his marrow.

Was that what this was about? Someone wanted him to relive that cattle roundup of nine years ago, re-creating it not exactly but just close enough that J.T. wouldn't know what was going to happen next? That he couldn't be sure it was really happening-until it was too late?

Nevada was inspecting Cotton's bite in the glow of the lantern inside the wall tent when J.T. returned. It was obvious the men had thoroughly searched the tent to make sure there were no more snakes, but no one was going back to sleep in the hours until daylight.

”He needs to get to a doctor,” Nevada said, looking up as J.T. ducked in through the tent doorway.

Isn't this what J.T. had feared when the truck hadn't run? The men were looking at him, waiting for him to tell him which one of them could drive Cotton to the hospital.

”The truck doesn't run,” he said. ”Buck went down yesterday morning to get a part for the truck and bring back another vehicle.”

Slim looked up in surprise. ”What's wrong with it?”

J.T. sighed. ”Someone took the distributor cap.”

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