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CHAPTER I
Keefe Schuyler stepped out of his burgundy Range Rover, glanced up at the
bloated orange moon drooping like a kindergarten cutout in the black Ozarks
sky, and smiled. Anything could happen under a moon like that.
He hustled around the Rover to open
the door for his date, Tara Wolcott, but he was too late. She stood on
the gravel parking lot without a hint of smugness. Either his forty-six-year-old
legs were slowing up, or Ms Wolcott was a self-starter who waited for no
man. The latter, he decided, appraising her curvy, denim-clad form and
sculptured black hair in the powerful moonlight.
Which was fine. Passive women bored Keefe,
along with the ones who tried to get by on cosmetics and what they’d heard
on TV chatter shows. Fortunately Alan and Jo, the mutual friends responsible
for this blind date, knew that.
"What a night!" Tara’s ink-dark eyes reflected
pleasure as she buttoned her jean jacket against the October chill.
"A hayride was a wonderful idea, Keefe. If it includes toasted marshmallows,
I may die of happiness."
He laughed and took her arm, steering her
around the haphazardly parked cars. "It's my first hayride, so I didn’t
think to ask about marshmallows. But that's the fun of 'firsts'.
They're adventures."
Tara’s smile flashed, her eyes reflecting
pinpoints of light from the single pole lamp. "I like firsts, too...but
I love seconds."
Keefe grinned down at her, the top of her
head level with his beard. Nice, he thought. A little unexpected.
Not, he hoped, like Janet. His former
lover was always up to something, but he’d never expected their intimate
and business relationship to cost him two hundred-forty thousand dollars.
Recalling his gullibility over the past couple of years soured his mood.
What a jackass a clever woman could make of a man.
He'd gotten his revenge though. Janet
now understood the Schuyler philosophy: Win some, lose some, and be damned
sure to cut your losses at the winner's expense.
His mood lightened as he returned his attention
to Tara. After all, making a blind date at his age proved he
was a born optimist!.
She said, "When Alan suggested we meet, he
muttered something about you being 'between entrepreneurial shots.'
Does that translate into English?"
Keefe passed a hand over his bald head.
"Sort of. It means I'm aggressively seeking a business investment
worthy of my assorted talents."
The irony had no more left his lips than something
too swift to analyze passed between him and Tara. Something stirring
and unsettling. Keefe reacted by pointing at the rising pumpkin
moon and remarking, "I’ll bet a moon like that could turn even a solid
citizen like me into a werewolf!"
Inwardly he groaned. Jeeze, prime stupid.
What the hell had hit him anyway, a Civil War cannonball?
Tara shot back, light but with an undertone,
"Better not. You turn into any kind of wolf and I'll have your hide in
the sheriff's office before sunup."
Keefe picked up her square, firm hand and
squeezed it. "You wouldn't have to. Alan and Jo would tack
it to the patio fence!"
She gave him a sidelong glance, but her hand
stayed in his, warm and secure as if it belonged there.
Keefe's enthusiasm for the evening took off.
He hadn't expected to be in Batesville, Arkansas, for more than a week,
but he could be tempted to hang around a while. He’d found Tara attractive
when he picked her up at her apartment, but they hadn’t had time to get
acquainted during the short drive to Harry's Ozarks Stables. Jo had
told him that Tara was a travel agent, thirty-eight, divorced, pretty and
smart. Wary, Keefe pressed for more details. Jo just shrugged and
said that he'd better be 'interesting' if he wanted a second date with
her friend.
Hand in hand Keefe and Tara passed an arrow
pointing to Harry’s stables over the hill. Visibility was perfect,
the moon glossing Tara's hair like patent leather. Keefe grinned,
visualizing her with an orchid over one ear, dressed in a sarong on a tropical
beach. It was a good thing she couldn't read his mind. "You know,"
he said, "the words 'looney' and 'lunatic' come from luna, the moon."
"That's why my grandmother thought a woman
was foolish to expose herself to a harvest moon," Tara replied. "She said
it has three times the power of a full moon."
Keefe angled them to the worn uphill gravel
path indicated by the arrow. "What kind of power?"
"She said it could mean life or death, if
the conditions are right."
Keefe laughed. "That would fit any size moon."
Tara’s hand tightened almost imperceptibly
in his. "Oh, but there's proof! When I was about eight I heard Grandma
warn a friend to keep her shades drawn during the harvest moon. She
said it could set a person's blood to boil. Grandpa winked at me
and said if it hadn't been for one harvest moon in particular, I wouldn't
have my daddy."
Tara slanted a look at him and Keefe felt
a light jolt at the base of his spine, like he’d scuffed his feet on carpet
in charged air.
Tara continued. "I didn't know what
Grandpa meant until years later when I discovered some old almanacs in
their attic. I checked the date nine months before my father was
born, and bingo! Grandma must’ve forgotten to draw the shades on
that harvest moon."
Poker-faced, Keefe said, "That's proof, all
right."
Tara laughed then, an honest, feel-good laugh,
not the brittle or sarcastic kind he often heard in big cities. People
in the Ozarks seemed as natural as their landscape.
"I'm glad you respect Grandma's folk wisdom.
Since moving to Batesville last year, I've heard some fascinating stories
from the owner of the travel agency. She's over seventy, and some
of her tales are hair raising." Then, perhaps because her date didn't
have any hair to raise, Tara changed the subject. "Other than having your
blood boiled, you haven't told me what kind of risks you take. Entrepreneurial-wise,
I mean."
"I like starting things. Once they're
up and running--" Keefe broke off, the first twangy strums of a guitar
and fiddle reaching their ears, and checked his multi-dial watch.
At that moment a hay wagon pulled by a team of big-footed horses topped
the rise on their left. "That must be our ride," he said, stretching
his steps and urging Tara into a jog. "Come on."
Tara, in low boots, took the rocky pasture
ground in stride, another point in her favor. Keefe liked a woman
who knew where she was going and set about getting there. Oh, he'd
fallen once for a clingy, delicate doll; once too often, considering the
doll was his ex-wife, Betty Fay.
"We’ll check out Harry's barbecue when we
get back," he said. A vegetarian, he loved barbecued beans. "Alan
said he has dark beer on tap too. If you like."
"I like." Tara grinned. "Beer burps are more
efficient than champagne hiccups."
Keefe decided they might try a little country
dancing at Harry's too. If Tara felt as good in his arms as she looked
and talked, dancing, even to fiddle music, was a quick way of getting acquainted.
Of course if the evening fell apart between now and then, there was always
Denny's.
They intersected the hay wagon near the crest
of the hill. Seeing them, the driver, wearing bib overalls,
plaid shirt and neck bandana, reined in his team. The wide brim of his
straw hat shaded his face as he leaned over from his high perch.
"Want a lift, folks? Still a ways to go."
"You bet," Keefe replied. "Thanks."
He boosted Tara onto the ladder attached to the side rails and followed
her to the top of the high, loosely piled hay. They'd no sooner stepped
--and fallen--into its unstable center when the wagon lurched forward.
Tara bounced up to a sitting position with
her back to the driver and began pawing hay from her hair. "So much for
my nectarine-scented conditioner."
Righting himself beside her, Keefe stroked
his hairless dome. "That's one thing I don't have to worry about," he said,
amusement in his deep, rich baritone.
That baritone had made Tara's knees quiver
the first time she’d heard it, on the phone three days ago. Like
Gregory Peck and Richard Burton, Keefe had one of those rare, bewitching
voices that jellied her steely defense mechanism. Heaven help her
if he found out what it did to her. She blurted, "You look better
without hair than most men do with it."
The gauche remark sent instant warmth rushing
to her cheeks. Her sophisticated date probably thought a sixteen-year-old
brain inhabited her thirty-eight-year-old body. "I mean, you look distinguished."
Sensing that he was trying not to laugh, she
wriggled deeper in the hay. Hell, this is what she got for refusing practice
dates. She'd heard plenty about the tough first date following a
divorce, so she’d put it off for almost a year. Now she wondered
if she'd been waiting for Keefe Schuyler.
He leaned back, protecting his pate from the
spiky hay with interlaced hands. "Don't be shy," he said, his hazel eyes
owlish behind silver-rimmed glasses. "I’m told I tolerate even outrageous
flattery quite well."
Tara inhaled the pungent green scent of fresh-cut
hay and thought hard. Game playing between adults demeaned both parties.
If Keefe wanted a frill for a date, she might as well find out now.
Then maybe she could concentrate on her job again. It hadn't been
easy the past three days; she kept hearing Keefe's mellow voice in her
head and wondering what kind of man went with it.
Hoping she wasn’t making the mistake of her
life, she said, "Okay. I think you have a classy look. No designer
labels, no earrings, and a short, pointed beard with grey streaks complements
a well-modeled head." She held back the rest: the plain glasses
suggesting a thoughtful mind to one who worshiped intelligence, the masculine
power of a loose-limbed body, the sensual voice that made her tingle. "Satisfied?"
Keefe sprawled beside her, moonlight revealing
every nuance of his interested expression. "I wish I'd brought along a
tape recorder. You could give me a jump start every morning."
Hoping for substance as well as spark in the
man, Tara struck an arch pose, her face and elbow tilted at the sky, her
arm with the Zuni watch bracelet behind her head. "Okay," she challenged.
"Your turn. And no cop-outs about it being too dark to give an opinion."
As Keefe sat up and leaned closer, a fluttering
light in the black velvet sky just behind his head caught her attention.
Surprised--it was clear a moment ago–she stared up at the rays of
light groping toward them.
"I’d say a no-nonsense style, a dash of--"
Keefe broke off as a thudding, crushing sound, followed by a cry, "AARRGGH--"
snapped their heads around in time to see their driver plummet head first
to the ground.
A sound like that of a ripe cantaloupe striking
a wall hit Tara with nauseating force. She screamed.
"Son of a bitch!" Keefe was sliding to the
ground before the horses halted, moonlight gleaming on the top of his head.
An instant later he dropped from Tara's sight.
The wagon rocked to a standstill. The
eerie light–a UFO?--rippled overhead, growing whiter and swallowing
the darkness in its path. Beyond the light, the moon was still visible.
Tara felt the hair on her neck lift. If this was some weird kind of
Ozark lightning, why didn’t she hear thunder?
"Tara!" Keefe shouted. "Get down here!"
Roused from her trance, half-aware the freak
lightning display had ended, leaving the sky a bottomless black except
for the flat, paling moon, she scrambled to her feet. Her entire body tingled
as she floundered through the dusty hay to the ladder. Dreading what she’d
find below, she gripped the top of the ladder and swung herself about until
one foot touched a rung. She climbed down the ladder, her feet tangling
in her skirt--
Her skirt? She slipped from the
ladder and dropped like a stone the final yard to the ground. Off balance,
she spun dizzily, the skirt of her long dress and triangular shawl swirling
out from her body like pennants in a stiff breeze. Panic welled in
her chest, displacing the oxygen in her lungs, her cry a strangled shriek.
"Keefe!
Where are you?"
"Here behind the wagon. Hurry!"
Tara dragged the chill autumn air into her
lungs in harsh, tearing gasps and plunged through the shadow cast by the
wagon, skidding to a halt at the rear of it.
A dark haired man crouched beside the fallen
driver. Where was Keefe?
The man gaped at her, tilted back on his heels
and demanded, "Where did you come from?" Before she could ask about
Keefe, he shouted, "Tara! Where are you?"
Her brain froze in terror. She fell
back against the wagon, clutched at one of the hay rails and clung to it
as if her sanity depended upon it. Her mouth opened and closed,
working for words that didn’t come. She began to shake, and hair swung
in front of her eyes. Blonde hair.
"Keefe! Keefe!" she screamed, glancing about
wildly and running her hands through the strange hair cascading to her
shoulders. "Keefe! Help me!"
The dark haired man lifted his stricken face
to the moon and howled, "Tara!"
Tara jammed her knuckles against her teeth,
blocking another scream as she took in the surrounding pasture. Her
stomach lurched, rolled, and she tasted bile.
There wasn't a sign of Harry's Stable, the
parking lot, its cars or the freeway. In every direction tall grasses
wavered and gleamed in the moonlight, the flow broken only by juts of bleached
limestone and irregular tree lines.
She’d bitten her lip. Tasting blood and swallowing
against the nausea, Tara staggered backward, away from the macabre sight
on the ground, away from the young man rising to his feet --the man with
Keefe Schuyler's voice.
"Where is he?" she demanded, knees locked,
feet bound to the earth and one hand clutching the shawl to her chest.
"What have you done with Keefe Schuyler?"
"You--" Keefe's voice in the strange man’s
body cracked. He licked his lips. "You sound like Tara Wolcott --my
date."
Dazed, her mind pinwheeling as adrenalin shot
through her veins, Tara turned to flee. Instead she caught her foot
in her long skirt, stumbled and fell. A hard body smacked into her
hip and crashed to the ground with her.
"Ooof--" Air whooshed from her lungs into
the long grass. She struggled to get up, gasping for breath and choking
on the dust stirred by her tumble as the dark haired man wrestled her onto
her back. Frantic with fear, she twisted in his grasp and clawed
at his face.
"Shhh," he hissed, snaring her arcing wrist
and pinning it to the ground. "There's a killer out there!"
Tara felt her body turn to ice except where
the man’s warm arm imprisoned her waist and his hand trapped her wrist.
"Somebody, hel--"
Savagely his mouth swept down on hers, silencing
her cry and galvanizing her to mindless primitive panic. She heaved
and squirmed under the weight of his body, but with his legs clamped about
her, his hands cuffing her wrists, and his mouth hard on hers, it was useless.
He was far too strong, and she could scarcely breathe under his relentless
mouth.
Finally her brain kicked into gear.
She’d conserve her energy and find a weapon. Then--
The instant she went limp the man released
her mouth and raised his chest, giving her breathing space. "Sorry," he
said, "but I had to keep you quiet. Unless you're in cahoots with
the murderer, you mustn't expose yourself. We’re perfect targets
in this light."
Breathing in shallow puffs, Tara nevertheless
stopped trembling. She searched the firm, handsome face of the man,
not more than twenty, lying atop her. She'd never seen him before, but
she'd swear on her life that his voice was Keefe Schuyler's! "Who
are you?" she quavered. "I was with a tall, bearded, bald--" The
young man flinched, and she felt a jab of new terror. "It-- it wasn't
him who was k-killed...the man behind the wagon?"
He stared at her, the pressure of his muscular
body imprinting hers like a seal in warm wax. Then he raised one
hand and passed it over his head. A stunned expression came over
him. "My God," he whispered, as if he'd just seen the first creation of
light. For a moment he didn’t move; then, still holding Tara by the
waist, he slipped sideways onto the ground with a chilling sigh.
"You're Tara."
Warmth and power radiated from his arm.
She moved, testing its will, and found it resolute. Somehow it reminded
her of the waves of lightning that had rolled toward her minutes ago.
Unlike any lightning she’d ever seen, it had transformed the black sky
into something eerie and unnatural. And now...
Awe struck, she turned her head on the prickling
grass and gazed past him across the day-bright pasture, silent except for
the passage of a faint breeze. It stirred the dark hair on his brow
as she breathed, "Keefe?"
He nodded, his gaze riveted on her face, then
said softly, "You're young, Tara. About eighteen." His voice dropped
to a whisper. "And blonde." He drew a lock of her hair out where
she could see it, seeming thunderstruck by its color. "It shimmers--"
She moaned. "It’s im-impossible! We've
been hypnotized. Or bewitched!"
Tara gulped, too aware of this new, young
Keefe's body and masculine vitality. The rising agitation of her own body--
incredible under the circumstances-- made her aware of something else:
she was braless, and he knew it!
"You're not more than twenty, I think," she
said, her lips trembling. "Clean shaven...and lots of dark hair."
Keefe pushed his fingers into his hair and
the stunned expression returned to his face. "It's been such a long time..."
Tara's focus slipped from Keefe to the terror
filling her, seeping into her bones. Shivering uncontrollably, she understood.
Without warning she'd gone insane. Like her father, she'd traded
the familiar world for one of incomprehensible danger.
Why wasn't she screaming? part of her mind
asked, screaming her way into a future of madness.
Sensible, self-controlled, conservative
Tara--scream? countered another part.
Well, why not? What would it matter,
anyway? No one heard the screams of the damned...
The man beside her-- Keefe? --absently rubbed
her arm and glanced at the still figure on the ground a few feet from them.
Then he studied the landscape, his face in the silver light as set and
hard as concrete.
When he spoke, his voice was low and strained.
"I don't know what’s going on, Tara, but there's a killer out there.
Until we get under cover, we aren't going to think about anything else."
His fingers tightened on her arm; it hurt, but she didn't think he knew
it. "Understand?"
Her thoughts spun. Whatever the reason,
she and Keefe were experiencing the same phenomenon! Could it be
that she wasn't crazy after all?
Minus the lightning the sky remained clear.
Stars couldn’t compete with the overwhelming moon rising above the wagon
load of hay, and by contrast the shrinking wagon shadow seemed all the
blacker.
"We can't just lie here," Tara said, sounding
as remote as the invisible stars. "If we can get to the stable--"
Doing his best to ignore the tremors of Tara’s
unfettered body against his own, Keefe considered their weird plight.
The wagon driver was dead, shot through the heart. He and Tara, cowering
by an island of shadow on a prairie awash in dangerous light, were within
range of a killer. He thought back to the moment of the attack. The
fiddle music had stopped about the time he slid down the ladder...
Now that he thought about it, an ominous quiet had followed the ghastly
sounds of the murder. Even now there was only the murmur of wind-rustled
grass, punctuated by an occasional tiny squeak or distant hoot of an owl.
Head cocked, he strained to pick up the droning hum of the freeway less
than a mile away.
Tara moved restlessly under his arm, each
rapid, shallow breath pressing her chest against it. "What do you hear?"
she asked in a low whisper.
"Nothing." And he meant nothing.
The moon made more noise than the freeway. Then one of the patient horses
shifted its weight, the harness leather creaked, and a faint shudder rumbled
through the wagon. Keefe raised himself up and over Tara. "If we
can get the horses moving, we can walk in the shadow of the wagon.
Stay here while I take a look."
A minute later he’d eeled commando-style to
the rear of the team. He lifted his head, and stared in astonishment at
the tall, unmistakable bony rump of a Missouri mule. "Shee-it," he muttered.
"I should be getting used to this."
Tara's stifled cry from the rear of the wagon
jolted him out of the latest shock. He leapt to his feet, and crouching
low, raced back the way he’d come.
She was on her knees beside the body of the
driver. Seeing him, she squeaked, "Th-th-that's an arrow!"
She pointed a shaking finger at the ugly shaft protruding from the man's
chest in a circle of wine-dark blood. "A hunter must have shot him!"
"Yeah, a hunter," Keefe said grimly, relieved
that she hadn’t seen the gory mess of the man's back or the leaking split
in his skull. "A man hunter. That's not an arrow. It's a bolt, from a crossbow."
Tara twisted around and looked up him, anguish
in her eyes. "I thought they were illegal!"
Keefe shook his head. "They're still used
by a few sporting types." Anger surged through him like a rocket booster.
If he had a weapon, he’d do some hunting of his own. But there wasn't
even a pocket knife in his 'new' clothing. And there was Tara to
look after. It was his smart idea that had gotten them into this
mess. "Come on," he said roughly. "We're getting out of here."
"We can't leave him!" she cried, indicating
the poor devil on the ground.
As patiently as possible, Keefe said, "We
have to. We're the ones who need help. Hoisting him onto the wagon or a
mule would expose us to the killer." He dropped to the ground and began
a return crawl to the team, motioning to Tara to do likewise. If she didn't
follow, he'd have to go back and get her. He was half way there before
he heard the grass crunch behind him. Thank God. For being scared witless
she was showing good sense...
"Ick," she cried. "Something slimy!"
Another time Keefe would’ve laughed.
Right now he wanted to gag her.
Near the front of the wagon he got to his
knees, and blocking Tara's view took hold of her forearms. "This isn't
real good news, honey," he said. Then he moved aside so she could see the
mules.
It was a good thing he had a firm grip on
her; otherwise she'd have bolted into the brilliantly lit pasture.
As it was she leapt to her feet and he had to yank her down again.
Her eyes were wide with shock. "My God," she
said, scarcely above a whisper. "Whatever happened to us, happened to them
too."
At least she wasn’t screaming. Yet.
Scarcely recognizing his raspy voice, Keefe said, "I've been in worse spots.
Stick with me, kid. We'll get out." Tara’s fixed expression
didn't change. He gave her a shake.
It was like manhandling a rag doll. He pulled
her against him and kissed her, hard.
When she still didn’t respond he grew desperate,
and-- anything to dispel the awful vacancy in her eyes-- bit her ear lobe.
It worked. With a gasp she jerked in his arms,
then her gaze cleared and locked into his. Releasing her, Keefe forced
a smile and checked his watch-- or rather, his wrist. "Son of a bitch.
My watch is gone!"
Tara’s gaze flicked to her own naked wrist.
"Mine, too!" All at once her passivity gave way to anger. Tears sparkled
as she cried, "Damn it! It was the last thing my father gave me!"
Keefe made soothing noises and wound Tara’s
newly acquired light shawl about her shivering body. His simple act
seemed to help her collect herself. Her lips tightened and she glared
up at him as if he were to blame for the frigging nightmare.
"What do we do now, Kemo Sabe?" she demanded.
"Assuming the U. S. Cavalry doesn’t dash over the hill in the next thirty
seconds?"
Keefe had been thinking about that. "We could
unhitch the mules and ride them, but we'd make great targets." At Tara's
horrified expression, he went on hurriedly, "There has to be a house and
barn nearby. We'll walk behind the mules, use them and the wagon as a shield.
Don’t worry, we'll be hard to make out."
The pretty blonde girl with Tara's voice gave
him a weak smile. "I'm glad you suggested walking behind the mules, instead
of crawling."
"They don't call me Schuyler the Gallant for
nothing." Keefe tilted her chin with one finger, tempted to kiss her for
real. Whoever she was, she was a game one! "By the way, do you know
how to say 'mush' to a mule?"
Tara shook her head. The blonde hair
twinkling in the moonlight made Keefe's blood ran cold. If he took
a bolt, what would the killer do to her?
"Considering our position," she said, "I don't
recommend kicking rump."
Speaking quietly to the mules, Keefe picked
up their dragging reins. The driver had fallen into the shadow on the right.
That meant the bolt that killed him had come from the left, the lighted
side. They'd have to proceed in the same direction.
Keefe positioned himself on the right side
of the wagon tongue, and Tara beside the front wheel. Then he clicked his
tongue, praying that the reputed stubbornness of mules wouldn’t be put
to a test tonight.
The mules flicked their long ears, leaned
into their harness, and the wagon jolted forward. Assuming that they wanted
to go home too, Keefe gave them their head. Slowly the cumbersome outfit
climbed the hill over which Harry's Stable should be located. However since
the music had stopped and the parking lot disappeared, Keefe doubted they'd
be welcomed with a hearty 'Hi y'all, folks.'
He was right. But they weren't met by
a crossbow bolt either. So far. He didn't know the distance
a bolt could travel with accuracy, but the rocky outcroppings and scrubby
pines around the pasture offered enough cover for an army of icy killers.
Although the air was chilly, sweat trickled down his spine, reminding him
of being shot down over Nam and parachuting through a night sky lit by
mortar flashes. That time he'd been lucky, landing smack in the middle
of a U.S. platoon on its way back to base.
Right now he'd settle for the U.S. Cavalry.
"Damn!" Tara's giggle bordered on hysteria.
"I stepped on my skirt and ripped it half off the waist."
"Tie it up so it won't happen again," he ordered.
In
case we have to run for it.
"Wouldn't you know I left my sewing kit at
home," she said, pretending to grouse. "I'll be better prepared on my next
blind date."
"You still have your shoulder bag?"
"I left it on top."
Keefe swore under his breath. Fat chance it
was still there, considering their missing watches.
Time crawled by at the speed of the burdened
mules. Although he kept a sharp lookout underfoot, Keefe made the next
misstep, stumbled and fell. Letting go of the reins, he rolled under the
wagon. Escaping the slow-moving wheels, he jumped nimbly to his feet. "No
harm done," he assured Tara.
But there should have been! The Army doctors
had done a pretty good job piecing together the bones of the leg he'd smashed
in the Nam jump. Aside from a little stiffness, it didn't bother him much
except in wet weather. Nevertheless a twisting tumble like this one should
have left him howling, maybe even disabled.
He snatched up the reins, reminding himself
to keep his mind on the shooter, and to pick up his big feet. Live through
this, then ask questions.
Halfway down the gentle incline the mules
broke into a trot and the wagon bumped Keefe in the rear. "Whoa!" he yelped,
trying to keep pace and at the same time pull on the reins.
But he'd given the team too much slack. He
might as well try halting the overflow of Truman Dam. The cussed mules
knew where they were going, and if he tripped, he’d be coyote fodder. Clinging
uselessly to the reins, he jogged behind their rumps, pursued by the lumbering,
swaying wagon.
As the outfit shifted leftward, heading into
the light, Keefe risked a glance to the right, where he’d last seen Tara.
"Hang in there," he shouted, hoping she hadn’t fallen behind. "It can't
be far."
To his relief, her voice bounced thinly over
the clatter. "I'm-- fine. No-- sweat."
Running in moonlight bright enough to play
baseball, Keefe wished he could say the same. Where were the crazy mules
taking them? There wasn't a building in sight.
Seconds later a small barn popped up from
a shallow valley, dead ahead.
Proving their reputation for contrariness,
once in the valley the mules slowed to a walk, aiming for the hand pump
near the log framed barn. Keefe tagged along. At the pump where the mules
halted and thrust their noses into the water trough, he tossed the reins
aside and hurried back to Tara.
He found her leaning wearily against the rear
of the wagon. She was panting, her face blanched of color by the pitiless
glare of the white, elevated moon.
She mustn't pass out on him now! He
swung around, making a fast survey. Attached to the barn were a small shed
and a split rail stock pen. A dirt lane led south. And thirty
yards away a tiny log cabin sat in the shadows of a tall pine grove. No
welcoming light showed in the windows, but surely the owners wouldn't turn
away the lost wanderers who'd brought their mules and hay home.
Looping his arm around Tara's slim waist,
he said gently, "Come on, honey. Pick up your skirt and look respectable.
We're going visiting."
"As soon as I get...my breath. Then safety
pins...and a bathroom." She puffed as she wadded the top of the skirt against
her torn waistline. "Ready...when you are."
Keefe rushed her across the moonlit clearing
and into the pine grove. Away from the barn, the air was fragrant,
a sharp, clean blend of pine and wood smoke. A spongy blanket of needles
covered the ground, and a light wind rustled the heavy branches overhead.
A great place for a getaway vacation or honeymoon. Keefe’s lips curved
in a rueful smile. Even in macabre circumstances, development potential
seemed to jump out at him..
As they approached the cabin, Tara drew closer,
but Keefe took his arm from her waist. He wanted both hands free; they
were his only weapons.
The primitive cabin looked old. There wasn’t
a porch or even a stoop, just a rough plank door flanked by two small windows
set into the wall of hewn logs. He moved Tara to one side, took a deep
breath and called out. "Hello. Anyone home? We need help." Knees flexed
and arms hanging loose, he waited for some sound of occupancy-- the squeak
of bedsprings, the thud of feet striking the floor, even a curse.
Except for the rustle of pine boughs and the
faint mule noises by the barn, the homestead remained as quiet as a grave.
In case the sleeper was hard of hearing, Keefe raised his voice to a shout
and knocked on the door. He waited a full two minutes, then pressed the
iron latch and pushed. The door swung open with a small squeak.
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