Part 17 (2/2)

”Why don't you invite her over to the fire?” Will suggested and smiled. He hadn't turned around but he'd known she was back there.

”We're not staying,” J.T. said. Reggie was safer in the shadow of the pines with the horses. ”If Claude is alive, why wait so long to come back?”

Will picked up a stick and stirred the dying embers of the fire. ”He was badly burned, horribly disfigured. Took years of surgeries, most of them unsuccessful.”

”Are you telling me the last one was successful?”

Will looked up at him. ”You didn't recognize him, did you.”

J.T. felt something stir inside him as he thought of the six men who'd been in camp.

”It seems all these years he's been planning to come back here and steal your cattle-only make it work this time,” Will said.

”You think that's all he wants?”

Will Jarvis shook his head. ”I think not. The man obviously has a h.e.l.l of a lot of patience. Nine years. That's a long time to hold a grudge.”

”Not for Claude. It's an obsession with him,” J.T. said. ”He's sick. He's wasted his life hating me. He's a pathetic coward. Look how many people he's killed and for what?”

Will said nothing, just stared into the flames.

Something about Will Jarvis made him uneasy, had from the beginning. ”I would think if you hoped to catch him, you'd be following the herd.”

Will smiled at that. ”Then you don't know Claude very well. He's not interested in the herd.” He looked up then, meeting J.T.'s eyes. Claude had gray eyes. None of the six cowhands had gray eyes, including Will Jarvis, but with today's colored contact lenses...

”He'll be following you,” Will Jarvis said. ”But first he'll come for me. I've been d.o.g.g.i.ng him for years. He knows he has to kill me or I won't stop.”

”So Claude will come down this way?” This was the shortest route to the ranch. Claude would know that, too. He knew these mountains maybe better than J.T. did because Claude was often unemployed, camping out all summer, living off the land and some of the Sundown Ranch herd, while J.T. was working.

”I followed a set of tracks down here yesterday,” Will said. ”Obviously he knows you, figured you would come down this way. He thinks he knows what you're going to do before you do it. If I wait right here, I'll see him.”

J.T. shook his head. ”You're a sitting duck.”

Will smiled. ”I've been waiting for this day for more years than I want to count. You and the woman had better get moving. You can still make the ranch before dark if you hurry.”

J.T. studied Will Jarvis in the firelight. ”Don't underestimate Claude Ryan. It will get you killed.”

Will grunted and stirred the fire with the stick for a moment before throwing it into the flames. ”You just worry about your own neck and your girlfriend's.” He reached down to touch the knife in the sheath at his ankle. ”And hope that Claude finds me before he does you.”

Chapter Thirteen.

J.T. turned and walked back to where Reggie waited in the trees. He should have been relieved that there was an FBI agent here.

”I don't trust him,” Reggie said after they'd gotten out of earshot.

”Neither do I,” J.T. said quietly. If Jarvis was right, Claude had ridden the shortcut the day before. For what reason? Looking for a place to attack? And when had Will Jarvis gotten away to follow him?

They could reach the ranch before dark if they continued down the mountain the way they were headed. But with the storm and the low clouds, they were losing light fast. They would be easy pickings. And if Will Jarvis was right, Claude had already antic.i.p.ated that this was the way they would come.

Not to mention that Jarvis could be behind them right now, following them, tracking them.

Not too far down the mountain, they ran out of snow. In good light, J.T. knew they could still be tracked even without the snow. He was counting on it getting dark before anyone would find them. He couldn't risk going for the ranch as badly as he wanted to.

He rode along the side of the mountain, weaving through the trees, keeping just below the snow line to hide their tracks before he turned toward the rock rim high above them.

REGINA LOOKED UP at the band of red rock and realized that was where they were headed. Not the ranch. She'd been turned around since she got to Montana. Without an ocean nearby or any distinguis.h.i.+ng buildings, she couldn't tell east from west.

But she was smart enough to know they weren't headed for the ranch. The ranch was down the mountain and they were headed up.

As J.T. dismounted at the foot of the wall of rock, she lost all hope of a hot bath and a real bed.

”We aren't going to the ranch,” Reggie said as he lifted her down.

”Sorry. Too dangerous. We'll leave before it gets light. Don't worry, by tomorrow morning you'll see civilization again.”

She nodded. She ached all over and realized she could sleep anywhere. As long as she didn't have to ride a horse anymore today.

”Come on.” He led her and the horses along the edge of the rock face.

The boots were too large and she stumbled several times and almost fell. Her ankle ached and she was limping badly.

”Here, take my hand,” he said, removing her glove and enclosing her hand in his large one. His hand was warm and strong and she wished he would do the same with her entire body. She felt cold and so tired that picking up her feet took every ounce of her energy.

Finally, he stopped. In the last of the light, she could see that they were high above the valley. Lights glittered in the far distance. Her chest ached from the climb and sudden longing to be down there away from the cold and horses and killers.

”This way,” McCall said, as if sensing her yearning for the city and everything she'd left behind. He led her and the horses through a narrow slit in the rocks. The s.p.a.ce opened, a tree towering over their heads. J.T. shoved one of the branches aside, and leaving the horses, pulled her into what she realized was a cave.

Once through the small opening, he snapped on a flashlight and she saw that she could stand up. It was cold and dark in here but the floor was dirt and soft.

”Here,” he said handing her the flashlight. ”I'll tend to the horses and be right back.”

He was good to his word. He returned with firewood and built a small fire in a corner near a crack in the rock. The smoke rose and disappeared out through the crack.

”Still cold?” he asked as she curled around the fire, unable to keep her eyes open.

”A little.” The side of her body exposed to the fire was warm but her other side was cold. She kept turning like a chicken on a rotisserie but still couldn't get everything warmed.

”Here, lie down,” he said.

She curled around the fire and felt him lie down behind her, curling his warm body around hers.

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