Wild Horse Springs Read online

  Only Kristi would probably give up in a day or two. Even hurt and bleeding, he had enough brains to realize she wasn’t going to stay with him through the bad times. She hadn’t even thought of driving down to visit him. She’d said she had plans on campus this weekend. Being mad at her took his mind off the pain.

  When Thatcher didn’t move, Shorty got angry, like their suggestion was the only fair option and Thatcher should jump at the chance to leave. Shorty kicked him hard, demanding Thatcher stand up; they were all leaving.

  The short guy started sweating as he whispered deadly threats if Thatcher didn’t start walking. His bony partner just stared, like a man watching his dog play with a wild rabbit.

  Finally, Thatcher had had enough. Fast as a rifle shot, Thatcher stood and swung around, grabbing for the knife handle.

  The short man hadn’t expected the attack. He hesitated a fraction of a second, and Thatcher grabbed the knife. They fought for control. Thatcher tightened his grip and pulled upward. He might have only one chance, so he threw every ounce of strength into the move.

  Shorty’s body felt more like mush then muscle. He wiggled and tried to get his footing as his hand lost control of the weapon. Thatcher jerked harder, knowing his life depended on it.

  The blade sliced Shorty’s ear off as easily as slicing through warm butter.

  Thatcher didn’t slow. He shoved the short guy into the slim one with the force of his whole body. As they both tumbled, Thatcher bolted out the open door and ran for his life.

  When he reached the stairs, he looked back, trying to believe what had just happened. The high cry of a wounded animal seemed to echo through the third-floor hallways.

  The stout little man knelt in the center of the cell, staring at the ear on the floor. He didn’t seem to realize all the red around him was his blood. His taller partner finally pulled a knife of his own, but he made no move to follow Thatcher until Shorty started cussing. He might be just as mean as Shorty, but drugs had clearly dulled his reactions.

  Shorty grabbed the thin man’s hat, strapped it on tight over the spouting hole that had once been his ear and shot out words between crying, “He’s going to die slow.” He tried to stand, slipping on his own blood. Rage had won out over pain. “I’m going to cut off pieces of him until he’s nothing but a stump when I’m finished.”

  Thatcher knew he should be running, but the scene before him was surreal. He had a feeling when he talked about what had just happened, no one would believe a word.

  The moment he caught the look in Shorty’s eyes, he ran. At the second-floor landing, he knew he couldn’t go down and put Pearly or anyone else in danger. He veered off into the second-floor courtroom and heard the men ten feet behind him.

  He ran for a back window behind the judge’s bench and tumbled out. The snow was so cold it masked the pain from his cuts. He ran into the wind, thinking of only one thing: escape.

  The only out. The only way to lose them. Cross the street. Steal a car. Get as far away as possible.

  The line of metal carports that held all the Evening Shadows retirees’ cars came into view. A few loose panels were flapping in the wind, waving to him. Thatcher didn’t have time to think. He had to act or he’d be dead, or buried in the snow.

  He ran for the first old car without looking back to see if the men were following. Cap Fuller’s old boat of a car was unlocked. The keys fell when he flipped the sun visor. A moment later he hit the accelerator and shot out of the shelter like a racer.

  Snow blew around him, brushing away any tracks within seconds.

  As the fuzzy lights of Crossroads faded behind him, Thatcher finally took a long breath and started to believe he’d made it. No sign of Shorty and Slim. No car lights following him.

  He clunked along the snowy road in his old friend’s car. The only good thing about the piece of junk was that it was so heavy it would take a tornado to blow it off the road. He should have stolen a fast car, but they were a little hard to find at the retirement home, and it wasn’t like he’d had time to be picky.

  He didn’t even know, or care, which way he was going. All Thatcher knew was he had to get away and he was bleeding on the leather seats. Cap would make him clean that up when he found out.

  Technically, he reasoned, he didn’t steal the car. Cap had told him where the keys were years ago, and the retired captain of the Crossroads’ fire department would have taken him home, even in the snow, if Thatcher had asked.

  Only he hadn’t had time to ask, and Cap didn’t need to be out in this weather. Old guys like that probably froze quicker than Popsicles.

  “Think!” Thatcher shouted to himself. He had to hide until he could contact the sheriff. The car or the blood or the cold didn’t matter. He had to get somewhere safe, contact Brigman and together they had to find the little girl. Knowing that they’d hurt her made Thatcher want to go back and “accidentally” run down Shorty and Slim a few times. If this huge car didn’t kill them the first few times, he’d keep trying.

  But he’d have to save that for now. First, he had to stay alive long enough to help the little girl.

  He thought of trying to make it to the Breaks where his mother’s shack might still be standing. Maybe she’d come back with common-law husband number twenty-seven or so by now. Maybe she’d have a fire going in the stove, and she’d patch him up while they talked about where she’d been the past four years.

  For a while, after she left, he’d missed her, then he got comfortable not missing her. He used to worry about her or about what would happen to him, but all that seemed minor right now, when he knew two men were hunting him like it was open season on eighteen-year-olds.

  He pushed the car as fast as he dared and tried to think about something, anything, so he’d calm down and maybe not bleed so fast.

  If Kristi didn’t stay with him in this tough time, maybe he should think about looking for another girlfriend. He had no idea where to look. Kristi had found him in the eighth grade. Maybe he’d just hang around, waiting to be found again by someone else.

  Not that any girl would look at him twice. Right now he was bleeding, an escaped prisoner, had two men wanting to kill him and had probably blown any chance of getting into college.

  Thatcher pulled his hand away from the wound on his upper arm. Warm blood dribbled out. It might be wise to worry about staying alive before making any further education plans.

  He needed to get somewhere safe fast before the two men chasing him had time to finish him off.

  Thatcher didn’t have time to double back and see if they were following now. He had to keep moving. Think it all out.

  “So here I am, in the middle of some back road, bleeding all over Cap’s upholstery, an escaped prisoner with a record on file and two dumb-ass hit men trying to kill me.” Saying it out loud didn’t make his situation sound any more hopeful.

  Thatcher swore. “Man, it’s getting harder and harder to look at the bright side.” He never thought he’d be praying to get back in jail.

  Nothing but the wind whistling through the gap in the window answered him.

  “Mom!” he yelled. “If you’re seeing me now with your same-colored eyes as mine, you might want to look away.

  “Oh, one other problem,” he yelled and slammed his hand against the wheel. “If Shorty dies, I also killed one of the bums who came to take me out of a jail I was perfectly happy being in.”

  Thatcher should have started yelling his head off when the two men walked in, but he didn’t think the whole thing was real. Who sent hit men in stocking feet? It had to be some kind of joke, right?

  Thatcher just wanted this mess to disappear so he could worry about passing algebra. The whole thing, including the ear flying through the air, had happened so fast, like fanning through pages of a graphic novel.

  Gripping the wheel, he tr
ied to stop shaking.

  A rusty gate, leaning on a fence pole, blinked in and out of view as the wipers fought the snow. Last summer’s weeds had grown up knee-high in the dirt road that turned off the pavement. A good sign. A place to hide.

  “Thanks, Mom,” he yelled like she’d seen him. Like she cared.

  Thatcher twisted the wheel and slid off the road. If the gate was open and needed repair, this probably wasn’t a working ranch. It would be as good as any place to hole up. If he was lucky, there would be a working phone and he could call the sheriff. Of course, if Shorty was dead, the sheriff probably wouldn’t want to talk to Thatcher at all. Sheriff Brigman thought Thatcher’s goal in life was to make his job more difficult. Thatcher practiced the call while he bumped down what had once been a dirt road. “Hey, Sheriff, it’s me again. What can I say, shit happens.”

  A farmhouse blinked into sight. The yard and barn lights were on. Good chance there would be folks to help, he thought. If they weren’t friendly, they’d call the sheriff. He won either way.

  He parked the car in the barn shadows where it wouldn’t have been seen from the main road on a clear day. Then, feeling light-headed, Thatcher ran to the barn. “Hello. Anyone in here?”

  Only a few horses answered with neighs and stomps.

  He turned back to the house, but the wind blew against him, almost stopping his progress. Thatcher closed his eyes and put one foot in front of the other. He had to get inside, to a phone. He was starting to lose feeling in his hands and feet.

  The front door wasn’t locked. One light had been left on in the house. He could see a kitchen, a living area, a desk in the corner with a phone on top of what looked like several years of phone books.

  Moving to the couch, Thatcher dropped, deciding he’d rest for a minute before he made the call.

  Dreams whirled in his mind, dark visions of an ocean he’d never seen, with huge black waves, water as thick as oil and as cold as ice. He had to fight to keep his head up.

  Slowly, the water warmed. He couldn’t open his eyes, but he felt something tight wrapping around his arm and leg as if pulling him down into the black ocean.

  Thatcher fought to move and felt firm hands press against his shoulders. He didn’t have the strength to fight, so he drifted back into the dark water.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “STOP STRUGGLING OR you’ll start bleeding again.” Tess Adams hoped this time the kid she’d found in Cody’s house would hear her. She wasn’t sure if he was alert enough to listen or if he’d simply passed out, but he’d finally settled back down, mumbling to himself.

  She’d seen blood on the steps when she walked into Winslow’s farmhouse just before dark. The minute she turned on the lights, she saw a boy of about eighteen collapsed on the worn-out couch. His clothes were wet, bloody and mud covered, reminding her of a wild animal who’d been hurt and sought shelter.

  Her hands moved slowly down his body. She felt no broken bones. Saw no head injury. His breathing was strong. The socks had frozen on his feet, so they must have been wet at some time. He was more man than boy, but right now, hurt and cold, he’d curled up like a baby.

  She tried both her cell and the house phone. No reception. The storm was raging, and she’d barely made it to the farm. There would be no chance getting back to town after dark.

  So Tess did what she’d been trained to do. She found the places where he was hurt and went to work. The cuts weren’t deep. Butterfly stitches from the first-aid kit she found in Cody’s bathroom worked fine. She wrapped the wounds in gauze and tried to wash off most of the blood.

  Unlike when she’d doctored Cody less than a week ago, now she was prepared. She had light and water and supplies.

  “What is it about this ranch?” she said aloud as she worked. “It’s like camp suicide. The roof collapses in the barn, I find a snake curled up around the generator and now I got some kid dropping by like this is a flophouse for bleeders.”

  Thatcher opened his eyes a bit. “Where am I?”

  Tess relaxed. If he was asking questions, he was all right. “You’re on Cody Winslow’s ranch. It’s called Wild Horse Springs.”

  She studied her newest patient. “You’re Thatcher Jones, right?”

  “I was,” the kid answered. “There’s not much of me left.” He took a minute to breathe, then asked, “You a sheriff or something? If so, I’d like to surrender to you.”

  She looked down at her second blood-splattered uniform this week. The greenish-tan material did nothing for her mousy brown hair and eyes. “I’m a park interpreter, but most people just call us rangers. I’m stationed north of here at the state park. We’re not allowed to collect criminals. Law enforcement gets a kick out of doing that. What’d you do?”

  “Just pick a crime, I’m guilty. How’d you know my name?” The kid was looking pale, but at least his brains weren’t scrambled.

  She stood and dug through one of the grocery bags, then passed him a half-gallon jug of milk with a straw. “Drink this. I want to see if you leak.”

  Thatcher didn’t laugh at her joke. No one ever did.

  “Looks like someone sliced into you pretty bad.” She didn’t want to mention what else was wrong with him. His left eye would swell closed by morning. His jaw was badly bruised, and if she hadn’t got his frozen socks off, he would have had frostbite.

  When she’d cut off the bloody leg of his jeans, she’d noticed that, just like Cody, he had a bullet hole scarring his skin from an old wound.

  As he drank, she talked. “I know who you are because every emergency service is out looking for you. They think you’ve been kidnapped.”

  “I was, or maybe they were just trying to kill me. It all happened so fast. I was waiting for the Franklin sisters to bring my lunch one minute and running for my life the next.”

  Tess moved across the room and started a fire in the beautiful old rock fireplace.

  Thatcher kept talking to himself more than to her, like he was trying to put it all together in his own mind. “I’m not sure the two losers who broke into my cell had a clear plan. They might have been hired killers, but they looked like they were paid in quarters. There’s a whole other story about why I was locked up in the first place.”

  He scratched his matted hair, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if something living didn’t jump out.

  “Back to the two idiots who tried to grab me. I think they wanted me, their victim, to walk to the kill site. Now that’s the height of laziness, if you ask me.”

  “What did you do?” She handed him a paper towel so he could wipe at his bottom lip, which slowly dripped blood.

  “I decided to fight.” He looked at her. “I cut one of their ears off, then I ran.”

  “I don’t think it’s illegal to break out of jail if someone is trying to kill you.” Tess tried to sound positive. “Well, maybe it is. Where was the sheriff?”

  “He had a call and left Tim O’Grady and Miss Pearly in charge. Tim said I didn’t need babysitting, and he was tired of watching me read. So he went home to get some sleep. Everyone else in the county offices left a half hour later because of the storm. I have no idea where Miss Pearly was but once a few years ago when I was looking around the place, I found her on one of the benches in the courtroom snoring away. She claimed she was just resting her eyes.”

  He leaned back, mumbling something about checking on a little girl in an old red coat. She was hurt, he kept saying. “We got to get to her! We got to.”

  “I’ll tell the sheriff,” Tess whispered, hoping he’d also rest his eyes for a while.

  She took the half-empty milk jug. “We’re stuck here for a while. A snowstorm with winds up to fifty miles an hour isn’t something to go out in. They’re probably closing the roads, and phone service is out.” She covered him with an old quilt, realizing s
he was talking to herself. Thatcher Jones, the great criminal, at least in his own mind, was sound asleep.

  Tess went to the kitchen and pulled out supplies. If she was going to be stuck here, she might as well make herself useful. She could paint the kitchen. Cody wouldn’t be able to do it for months, and she’d noticed the cans of paint by the back door.

  Pulling off her blood-spotted uniform, she decided her T-shirt would be fine to paint in.

  As she worked, she thought of how much she liked helping out. It was almost as if she was playing house. She had someone to care for, someone to think about, someone to talk to.

  During her childhood, her parents had always insisted she be able to survive on her own, be it in the woods of North Carolina or the snow of Alaska. She knew what plants were edible and how to set a trap with sticks and string or build a fire that would last the night.

  When she left for college, her parents didn’t think about taking her shopping for clothes like normal parents would. They arranged several lectures on how to manage her money and how to protect herself on the wild streets of Austin. While other girls were probably thinking of decorating their dorm space, Tess took a self-defense class.

  She’d gone to the university knowing how to kill, skin and cook her own meat, but having no idea how to order takeout. They’d taught her how to live alone and survive, but they never taught her how to live with people. In her two years in the dorm, she’d never had a roommate she was close to. She moved out and lived by herself after that, finding it no more lonely than living with people.

  Only now, Cody had told her to “take care of things,” so that was exactly what she planned to do. He’d be so surprised when he came home. She’d already spent a few hours cleaning the house and organizing canned goods, his bills and his shaving supplies.

  After all, they were friends. He’d asked her for a date. A real date, he’d said. Not a blind date, or a group date, or a “just friends” date. And last night she’d slept on half of his pillow for a few minutes. That must mean something, but she wasn’t sure what.