Wild Horse Springs Read online

  “When he’s drunk, he gets loud and starts saying I’m his girl. That’s why Hank started locking the stage door. I step off stage, Hank locks the door from the inside and goes back down the passage to the door by the bar. One night when the trucker tried the door, he pounded so hard they had to throw him out. After that, he’s been better, but he waits outside even after we close.” Brandi bumped Dan’s shoulder with her own. “How can you help?”

  “I could talk to him, but unless you want to file a restraining order, there’s not much the law can do.”

  She smiled that sad smile again. Like she was forcing sorrow away. Like her whole life was a lie. “I don’t want to think about it right now. I have another set to do. I’ve been hoping you’d come back to hear my songs.”

  Dan couldn’t let the problem go. “And if he’s still here later or waiting in the parking lot?”

  “Then I’ll sleep here. I’m not driving back to the motel worrying that he might be following.” She stood and fluffed her wild hair, painted her lips, pulled on a vest with fringe that tickled her hips.

  He watched, fascinated at how she turned into someone else so fast. The hungry eyes he’d seen when he’d kissed her had frozen to porcelain like a doll’s stare, unreadable, cold. He didn’t know which Brandi was the real one, but both fascinated him.

  “I’ll stay until you finish and follow you home, just to make sure.” He hadn’t slept in two days, but Dan knew he wouldn’t close his eyes tonight if he thought she was in danger.

  She walked past him and opened the door. When she turned back, no smile curved her full lips. “If you follow me home, Sheriff, you’re not leaving until dawn.”

  Every cell in his body wanted to pull her to him, but there was no time. The canned music had stopped. Hank must have unlocked the stage door because his voice blared down the hallway.

  Dan stared at her, his words low. “I’m following you home. You’ll be safe tonight.”

  “And warm,” she whispered back.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tuesday night

  CODY WINSLOW THUNDERED through the night on a half-wild horse that loved to run. The moon followed them, dancing along the edge of the canyon as they darted over winter buffalo grass that was stiff with frost.

  The former Texas Ranger watched the dark outline of the earth where the land cracked open wide enough for a river to run at its base.

  The canyon’s edge seemed to snake closer, as if it were moving, crawling over the flat plains, daring Cody to challenge death. One misstep might take him and the horse over the rim and into the black hole. They’d tumble maybe a hundred feet down, barreling over jagged rocks and frozen juniper branches as sharp as spears. No horse or man would survive.

  Only tonight Cody wasn’t worried. He needed to ride, to run, to feel adrenaline pumping in his veins, to know he was alive. He rode hoping to outrun his dark mood.

  The demons that were always in the corners of his mind were chasing him tonight. Daring him to step over the edge and tumble into death’s darkness. Whispering that he should give up even trying to live. Betting him to take one more risk...the one that would finally kill him.

  “Run,” he shouted to the midnight mare. Nothing would catch him here. Not on his ranch. Not on land his ancestors had hunted on for thousands of years. Fought over. Died for and bled into. Apache blood, settler blood, Comanchero blood was mixed in him as it was in many people in this part of Texas. His family tree was a tumbleweed of every kind of tribe that ever crossed the plains.

  If the horse fell and they went to their deaths, no one would find them for weeks on this far corner of his ranch. Even the canyon that twisted like crippled fingers off the great Palo Duro had no name here. It wasn’t beautiful like Ransom Canyon, with layers of earth revealed in a rainbow of colors. Here the rocks were jagged, shooting out of the deep earthen walls from twenty feet in some places, almost like a thin shelf.

  The petrified wood formations along the floor of the canyon reminded Cody of snipers waiting, unseen but deadly. Cody felt numb, already dead inside, as he raced across a place with no name on a horse he called Midnight.

  The horse’s hooves tapped suddenly over a low place where water ran off the flatland and into the canyon. Frozen now. Silent. Deadly black ice. For a moment the tapping matched Cody’s heartbeat, then both horse and rider seemed to realize the danger at once.

  Cody leaned back, pulling the reins, hoping to stop the animal in time, but the horse reared in panic. Dancing on her hind legs for a moment before twisting violently and bucking Cody off as if he was no more than a green rider on his first bronc.

  As Cody flew through the night air, he almost smiled. The battle he’d been fighting since he was shot and left for dead on the border three years ago was about to end here on his own land. The voices of all the ancestors who came before him whispered in the wind, as if calling him.

  When he hit the frozen ground so hard it knocked the air from his lungs, he knew death wouldn’t come easy tonight. Though he’d welcome the silence, Cody knew he’d fight to the end. He came from generations of fighters. He was the last of his line, and here in the dark he’d make his stand. Too far away to call for help. And too stubborn to ask anyway.

  As he fought to breathe, his body slid over a tiny river of frozen rain and into the black canyon.

  He twisted, struggling to stop, but all he managed to do was tumble down. Branches whipped against him, and rocks punched his ribs with the force of a prizefighter’s blow. And still he rolled. Over and over. Ice on his skin, warm blood dripping into his eyes. He tried bracing for the hits that came when he landed for a moment before his body rolled again. He grabbed for a rock or a branch to hold on to, but his leather gloves couldn’t get a grip on the ice.

  He wasn’t sure if he managed to relax or pass out, but when he landed on a flat rock near the bottom of the canyon, total blackness surrounded him and the few stars above offered no light. For a while he lay still, aware that he was breathing. A good sign. He hurt all over. More proof he was alive.

  He’d been near death before. He knew that sometimes the body turned off the pain. Slowly, he mentally took inventory. There were parts that hurt like hell. Others he couldn’t feel at all.

  Cody swore as loud as he could, and smiled. At least he had his voice. Not that anyone would hear him in the canyon. Maybe his brain was mush; he obviously had a head wound. The blood kept dripping into his eyes. His left leg throbbed with each heartbeat, and he couldn’t draw a deep breath. He swore again.

  He tried to move and pain skyrocketed, forcing him to concentrate to stop shaking. Fire shot up his leg and flowed straight to his heart. Cody took shallow breaths and tried to reason. He had to control his breathing. He had to stay awake or he’d freeze. He had to keep fighting. Survival was bone and blood to his nature.

  The memory of his night in the mud near the Rio Grande came back as if it had only been a day earlier, not three years. He’d been bleeding then, hurt, alone. Four rangers had stood on the bank at dusk. He’d seen the other three crumple when bullets fell like rain.

  Only it had been hot that night, not cold like now, and then the air had been silent after all the gunfire. He finally heard movement in the shadows and wasn’t sure which he feared more, armed drug runners or demons. If the outlaws found him alive, they’d kill him. If the demons found him dead, they’d drag him into hell. Reality and nightmares dueled in his mind as sanity seemed to drip away with his blood.

  Cody had known that every ranger in the area would be looking for him at first light; he had to make it to dawn first. Stay alive. They’d find him, he kept thinking, until he finally passed out.

  But not this time. No one knew where he was tonight. Once he lost consciousness, he’d freeze.

  No one would look for him tonight or tomorrow. No one would even notice he was
gone. He’d made sure of that. He’d left all his friends back in Austin after the shooting. He’d broken up with his girlfriend, who said she couldn’t deal with hospitals. When he came back to his family’s land, he didn’t bother to call any of his old friends. He’d grown accustomed to the solitude. He’d needed it to heal not just the wounds outside, but the ones deep inside.

  Cody swore again.

  The pain won out for a moment, and his mind drifted. At the corners of his reason, he knew he needed to move, stop the bleeding, try not to freeze, but he’d become an expert at drifting that night on the border. Even when a rifle had poked into his chest as one of the drug runners tested to see if he was alive, Cody hadn’t reacted.

  If he had, another bullet would have gone into his body, which was already riddled with lead.

  Cody muttered the words he’d once had to scrub off the walls in grade school. Mrs. Presley had kept repeating as he worked, “Cody Winslow, you’ll die cussing if you don’t learn better.”

  Turned out she might be right. Even with his eyes almost closed, the stars grew brighter and circled around him like drunken fireflies. If this was death’s door, he planned to go through yelling.

  The stars drew closer. Their light bounced off the black canyon walls as if they were sparks of echoes.

  He stopped swearing as the lights began to talk.

  “He’s dead,” one high, bossy voice said. “Look how shiny the blood is.”

  Tiny beams of light found his face, blinding him to all else.

  A squeaky sound added, “I’m going to throw up. I can’t look at blood.”

  “No, he’s not dead,” another argued. “His hand is twitching, and if you throw up, Marjorie Martin, I’ll tell Miss Adams.”

  All at once the lights were bouncing around him, high voices talking at once.

  “Yes, he is dead.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “You stop saying anything.”

  “I’m going to throw up.”

  Cody opened his eyes. The lights were circling around him like a war party.

  “See, I told you so.”

  One beam of light came closer, blinding him for a moment, and he blinked.

  “He’s hurt. I can see blood bubbling out of him in several spots.” The bossy voice added, “Don’t touch it, Marjorie. People bleeding have germs.”

  The gang of lights streamed along his body as if trying to torture him or drive him mad as the world kept changing from black to bright. It occurred to him that maybe he was being abducted by aliens, but he doubted the beings coming to conquer the world would land here in West Texas or that they’d sound like little girls.

  “Hell,” he said, and to his surprise the shadows all jumped back.

  After a few seconds, he made out the outline of what might be a little girl, or maybe a short ET.

  “You shouldn’t cuss, mister. We heard you way back in the canyon yelling out words I’ve seen written but never knew how to pronounce.”

  “Glad I could help with your education, kid. Any chance you have a cell phone or a leader?”

  “We’re not allowed to carry cell phones. It interferes with our communicating with nature.” She shined her flashlight in his eyes one more time. “Don’t call me kid. Miss Adams says you should address people by their names. It’s more polite. My name is Melanie Miller, and I could read before I started kindergarten.”

  Cody mumbled a few words, deciding he was in hell already and, who knew, all the helpers’ names started with M.

  All at once the lights went jittery again, and every one of the six little girls seemed to be talking at once.

  One thought he was too bloody to live. One suggested they should cover him with their coats; another voted for undressing him. Two said they would never touch blood. One wanted to put a tourniquet around his neck.

  Cody was starting to hope death might come faster when another shadow carrying a lantern moved into the mix. “Move back, girls. This man is hurt.”

  He couldn’t see more than an outline, but the new arrival was definitely not a little girl. Tall, nicely shaped, hiking boots, wearing a backpack.

  Closing his eyes and ignoring the little girls’ constant questions, he listened as a calm voice used her cell to call for help. She had the location down to latitude and longitude, and described a van parked in an open field about a hundred yards from her location where they could land a helicopter. When she hung up, she knelt at his side and shifted the backpack off her shoulder.

  As she began to check his injuries, her voice calmly gave instructions. “Go back to the van, girls. Two at a time, take turns flashing your lights at the sky toward the North Star. The rest of you get under the blankets and stay warm. When you hear the chopper arrive, you can watch from the windows, but stay in the van.”

  “McKenna, you’re in charge. I’ll be back as soon as they come.”

  Another M, Cody thought, but didn’t bother to ask. Maybe your name had to start with M or you couldn’t be in this club?

  To his surprise the gang of ponytails marched off like tiny little soldiers.

  “How’d you find me?” Cody asked the first of a dozen questions bouncing around in his aching head as the woman laid out supplies from her pack. The lantern offered a steady circle of pale light.

  “Your cussing echoed off the canyon wall for twenty miles.” Her hands moved along his body, not in a caress, but to a man who hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in years, it wasn’t far from it.

  “Want to give me your name? Know what day it is? What year? Where you are?”

  “I don’t have brain damage,” he snapped, then regretted moving his head. “My name’s Winslow. I don’t care what day it is or what year for that matter.” He couldn’t make out her face. “I’m on my own land. Or at least I was when my horse threw me.”

  She might have been pretty if she wasn’t glaring at him. The lantern light offered that flashlight-to-the-chin kind of glow. With her arms on her hips, she had a kind of Paul Bunyan’s little sister look about her.

  “Where does it hurt?” She kept her voice low, but she didn’t sound friendly. “As soon as I pass you to the medics, I’ll start looking for your horse. The animal might be out here, too, hurting or dead. Did she fall with you?”

  Great! His Good Samaritan was more worried about the horse than him. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. When I fell off the edge of the canyon, Midnight was still standing, probably laughing at me.” He took a breath as the woman moved to his legs. The pain came sharp suddenly. “I tumbled for what seemed like miles. It hurts all over.”

  “How did this happen?”

  “The horse got spooked when we hit a patch of ice,” he snapped again, tired of talking, needing all his strength to handle the pain. Cuss words flowed out with each breath. Not at her, but at his bad luck.

  She ignored them as she brushed over the left leg of his jeans, already stained dark with blood. He tried to keep from screaming. He fought her hand now as she searched, examining where something had to be broken it hurt so much. He knew he couldn’t take much more without passing out.

  “Easy,” she whispered as her blood-warmed fingers cupped his face. “Easy, cowboy. You’ve got a bad break. I have to do what I can to stabilize you and slow the blood flow. They’ll be here soon. You’ve got to let me wrap a few of these wounds so you don’t bleed out.”

  He nodded once, knowing she was right.

  In the glow of a lantern she worked, making a tourniquet out of his belt, carefully wrapping his leg, then his head wound.

  Her voice finally came low, sexy maybe if it were a different time, a different place. “It looks bad, but I don’t see any chunks of brain poking out anywhere.”

  He didn’t know if she was trying to be funny or just stating a fact. He didn’t b
other to laugh. She put a bandage on the gash along his throat. It wasn’t deep, but it dripped a steady stream of blood.

  As she wrapped the bandage, the starched cotton over her breasts brushed against his cheek, distracting him. If this was her idea of doctoring a patient with no painkillers, it was working. For a few seconds there, he almost forgot to hurt.

  “I don’t have water to clean the wounds, but the dressing should keep anything else from getting in.”

  Cody began to calm. The pain was still there, but the demons in the corners of his mind were silent. Watching her move in the shadows relaxed him. She wasn’t petite, but tall and built with curves that her trousers and man’s shirt couldn’t hide.

  “Cody,” he finally said. “My first name is Cody.”

  She smiled then for just a second.

  “You a nurse?” he asked.

  “No. I’m a park ranger. If you’ve no objection, I’d like to examine your chest next.”

  Cody didn’t move as she unzipped his jacket. “I used to be a ranger, but I never stepped foot in a park.” He could feel her unbuttoning his shirt. Her hand moved in, gently gliding across his ribs. “I put in a few years as a Texas Ranger.”

  When he gasped for air, she hesitated, then whispered, “One broken rib.” A moment later she added, “Two.”

  He forced slow long breaths as he felt the cold night air pressing against his bare chest. Her hand crossed over his bruised skin, stopping at the scars he’d collected that night at the Rio Grande. The night he bled into the mud. The night he first heard the devils hiding in the shadows.

  She lifted the light. “Bullet wounds?” she questioned more to herself than him. “You’ve been hurt bad before, Ranger Winslow.”

  “Yeah,” he said as he took back control of his mind and made light of a gunfight that almost ended his life. “I was fighting outlaws along the Rio Grande. I swear it seemed like that battle was almost two hundred years ago. Back when Captain Hays ordered his men to cross the river with guns blazing. We went across just like that, only chasing drug runners and not cattle rustlers like they did back then. But we were breaking the law not to cross just the same.”