Issue 7, Febraury 2018: Featuring Jayne Ann Krentz: Heart's Kiss, #7 Read online

  A small flame of hope burned in Samuel’s chest. “Yes, sir.”

  “I need you to start right away.” Patwin’s next words sealed the deal in Samuel’s mind. “Take Elizabeth with you,” he said. “She’ll show you what to do.”

  Elizabeth flashed a grin at Samuel. The small flame in Samuel’s chest blazed into a forest fire.

  Samuel and Elizabeth’s truck bumped along the mountain road, a rocky outcrop of mountain on their right, and the slope of the mountainside on the left. The September sun shone through the windshield of Patwin’s old pick up heating the cabin to a pleasant temperature. Samuel rolled his window down and hung his elbow out the side. Elizabeth toyed with the end of her thick braid, wisps of her dark hair breaking free and floating gently around her head in the breeze. Samuel scrambled for something to say.

  “Nice of your dad,” he said, looking at her sideways then quickly back to the road. “Giving me a job, I mean.”

  “He’d do anything for your father,” Elizabeth said. She fiddled with the end of her braid, not looking at him.

  “Still,” Samuel said. “Nice. He didn’t have to—”

  “Sam, why did you leave?” Elizabeth broke in, twisting around in her seat to look at him. “You weren’t drafted. You could have stayed. But you left me. Why?”

  Samuel caught his breath in alarm to see tears standing in her eyes. “Elizabeth, I—”

  But Elizabeth wasn’t finished.

  “I waited for you. And when you came home, you went with that woman from the bar. These runs, I was so excited to get to be with you. But the closer we got to the truck, the more I questioned myself. Why would I want to be with you when you left me?”

  “I had to know,” Samuel said. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. “I wanted to see the world. I had to know what was outside this place. But the world isn’t what I thought.” Anger made his voice tight. “War wasn’t what I thought. I thought I was going to fire a gun, get to march around. Instead I saw the worst of people. I saw looters picking through pockets of dead soldiers, my friends. When the looters were gone, I saw rats crawling over their faces.” Samuel took a breath to say more but stopped himself when he saw Elizabeth’s wide eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. His heart pounded too fast. “I shouldn’t have told you that.” Samuel wrestled his anger back down. It felt huge inside him and his body thrummed like a live wire. His throat burned for a drink.

  The back of Samuel’s hand grew warm and he turned to Elizabeth, eyebrows raised in a question. Elizabeth blushed and gave him a shy smile, but she did not remove her hand from the top of his. His anger dissolved, and Samuel smiled. The movement was unfamiliar, as though the muscles had forgotten the sequence of movements needed. Samuel curled his hand into hers.

  “I won’t leave you again,” he said.

  “Good.”

  A cloud of dust rose from the road up ahead and Samuel slowed for the oncoming car. He saw too late up ahead a Sheriff’s car pulled parallel across the road. Samuel’s breath caught and he slammed on the brakes, but he was too late to stop. The truck fishtailed and Samuel gripped the wheel fighting for control, but the truck tires rolled over the edge of the slope.

  Elizabeth screamed as the truck careened down the hill at a breakneck speed, brush and brambles scraped the underside of the truck. Grimacing, Samuel gripped the wheel and pumped the brakes to slow their descent. The truck slowed some, but the hill was too steep. Samuel’s stomach flipped as the truck rolled over once before fetching up hard against a thick pine tree.

  When the dust settled, Elizabeth slumped over in her seat, her long dark hair half tugged loose from her braid by the impact of the fall.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, and gasped in pain. It was hard to breathe. Why was it so hard to breathe? He gingerly patted his sides. He hissed when his prodding found the hurt ribs on his left side. Broken or bruised, he couldn’t tell.

  Elizabeth did not respond.

  “Elizabeth!”

  Nothing. Her chest rose and fell, so she was alive, but how badly injured he could not tell.

  Samuel turned the handle on the driver’s side door. At first it wouldn’t open. The door caved near the foot well. He threw his shoulder into the door, and cried out in pain from his hurt ribs, but the door squealed open.

  Samuel limped around to the other side of the truck. Something under the hood of the truck poured out steam that made him cough. Samuel pressed his right hand into his left side. It seemed to ease the pain a bit. He needed a doctor, they both did, but he had to get Elizabeth out first.

  On the other side of the truck he saw Elizabeth’s face through the pane of dirty glass. Her eyes were closed, blood trickled down the side of her face.

  “Elizabeth,” Samuel pounded a fist on the glass, “Elizabeth, wake up!” Samuel tugged at the door, but it was stuck, another dent caving in her side of the truck.

  Elizabeth did not move, and her eyes did not open. Samuel wrenched mightily the door open, pain from his ribs making sweat pop out all over his body from the effort. Minding his injuries as best he could, Samuel got one arm around Elizabeth and hauled her out of the truck. She was alive and breathing, but badly hurt. He had to get them both to a doctor.

  He looked up. Silhouetted against the blue sky, the deputy looked down from the rim.

  “Help us,” Samuel called. “Please! She’s hurt!”

  “Good,” the deputy said, and Samuel forgot how to breathe. He would know Henry Douglas’s voice anywhere.

  The silhouette man sat back against the hood of his Sherriff’s car. The shift in light confirmed Samuel’s fear. Henry folded his arms across his chest. He smiled. “I hope she dies.”

  “You hope...what?” Samuel shook his head trying to get the words straight. They didn’t make sense. “You have to help us. Elizabeth, she’s hurt. Please. She needs a doctor.” Samuel knew he was explaining what was plain to see, but Henry didn’t move off his perch on the car.

  “You know, I hoped I’d find you two up here. When you were bailed out, I did some checking, found out who posted bail. Cash isn’t easy to track, but it’s a small town, and I have my ways.” He shrugged. “I was hoping to just catch you, but your filthy Indian woman is a nice bonus.”

  The meaning of Henry’s words sunk in. “You meant to do this?” Samuel’s breath sawed in and out of his lungs. “You ran us off the road on purpose? Why would you do that?”

  Henry lunged away from the car and leaned over the edge, glaring down at Samuel. “No one makes me,” he stabbed one finger at his chest, “look stupid. No one acts like they’re better than me. You should’ve left me alone in the bar that night, Hero.”

  “In the bar,” Samuel said, mostly to himself. He remembered the fight, but it was shrouded by the haze of too much alcohol. “You ran us off the road because of a bar fight? Elizabeth is hurt. She might be,” he had to swallow a lump in his throat before he could go on, “she might be dying.”

  Henry shrugged and sat back against the car again. “One more Indian dead. No great loss. Long as I get to see you go, too. In fact,” Henry tipped his head to one side in thought before unholstering his sidearm, “I might help you along with that.”

  Henry raised the gun and years of training and war experience took over. Samuel shoved Elizabeth behind the shelter of the truck and rolled away to the right just as the gun cracked. Something sounding like a bee buzzed past his ear.

  Samuel lay panting behind a thick bush. The sharp smell of juniper cleared his head a little. He had to get that gun away from Henry.

  “Come out, Hero,” Henry said, his voice echoing down the side of the mountain. “Or do I need to start taking shots at your whore?”

  Samuel’s gaze shifted to Elizabeth, lying on her back in the dirt beside the ruined truck. Fury doubled Samuel’s vision and for a moment there were two Elizabeths.

  “Not her,” Samuel said, forcing himself to take deep breaths. “You should have left her alone.�
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  Samuel heard laughter and looked up through a hole in the juniper.

  “You talkin’ to yourself, Hero?”

  Samuel ignored the taunt.

  “I’m just gonna wait right here until she dies, Hero. Then I’ll radio it in.” Henry laughed. “It’s a damn shame, isn’t it? The War Hero and his filthy Karuk girlfriend die tragically on mountain road. And was the Hero drinking?” Henry pulled a flask from his hip pocket, tipped it up to his lips to drain it and tossed the empty flask down the hillside. It clattered to a stop beside the driver’s side of the truck. “I bet you he was.”

  Samuel only heard one important word from Henry’s little speech. Radio. If he could get to the car at the top of that slope he could use the radio to get help.

  Staying behind the hillside’s thick brush cover Samuel propelled him up the slope, digging in the toes of his boots. His ribs hurt like hellfire, and the rocky ground tore his palms and knees, but he had no time to think of it.

  “You get out here, you coward,” Henry said. “You get out here and face me like a man. Or I put holes in your girlfriend.”

  Keep him talking, Samuel thought. Have to keep him talking.

  “Why didn’t you join up when the war started, Henry?” Samuel cupped a hand over his mouth to redirect the sound toward where he’d been. “You missed all the fun. Or maybe you were too scared.”

  Henry gave a small choked cry and Samuel heard the gun crack again. A puff of dirt kicked up from the first bush he’d hidden behind. Henry didn’t know he’d moved.

  Samuel crept from bush to bush, keeping low. “You know, we talked about guys like you. When we were sitting in the trenches at night, waiting for the Germans to maybe shoot us, maybe blow us up. We talked about the cowards who stayed behind, leaving us to do the hard work. Cowards like you, Henry.”

  Henry fired two more shots into the brush, closer now to where Samuel crouched and Samuel knew Henry was projecting his path through the bushes.

  Samuel’s shoulders sagged. He’d run out of brushline. He only had another fifteen feet or so to the road, and to the radio, but it was all uncovered ground. He’d be an open target.

  Samuel glanced back toward Elizabeth. He could just see the top of her head from this angle, her bedraggled braid dragged on the ground. Guilt racked his body and he hunched over his hurt ribs. He gritted his teeth against the pain. He had to get her out of this.

  Samuel took a deep breath and bolted up the rest of the slope, running full out, ignoring the tearing pain in his side. Henry gave a cry of surprise and fired wild, ill-aimed shots.

  The echoes off the side of the mountain made Samuel’s ears ring. He reached the edge and lunged for Henry, tackling him to the ground, wrestling the gun out of his hand.

  Henry punched Samuel in his ribs and agony exploded in his side. He cried out, but didn’t let go of the gun. The deputy reached up, wrapped his hands around Samuel’s throat and squeezed. Before the blackness could take him, he brought the butt of the gun down hard on Henry’s head.

  Henry’s hands fell away and Samuel sat back, panting. His ribs radiated pain, making him dizzy. He crawled to the driver’s side of the Sherriff’s car, pulled open the door and reached inside. He pulled the radio to his lips, depressed the button and spoke into it.

  “Accident. Deputy Douglas’s car up on Three Mile Lane. Send medical help.”

  The radio crackled and a voice asked him to confirm, but the pain was too much and blackness took him.

  Samuel awoke on a familiar hard cot. Before even opening his eyes the wet concrete smell and the nearby rattle of closing bars told him where he was. His body hurt in more places than it didn’t. Samuel opened his eyes and sat up not at all surprised to find himself in a jail cell. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and someone had bandaged his ribs while he slept. He probed the tight dressing gently.

  “Got yourself some broken ribs, I heard them say.” Samuel looked up in surprise. Josie Butler sat in the adjacent cell on a cot just like his, resting her chin on knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around flaring skirts. “Been watching you. Guess you and your little girlfriend got into some trouble with the law.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Josie shrugged. “Public drunkenness. As if half the town doesn’t do it.”

  “Did you hear if Elizabeth is all right?”

  Josie snorted lightly, a small, mean smile curving her lips. “Heard about her, too. When they were bandaging you up. They took her to the hospital.”

  Samuel wanted to growl. He said again, “Is she all right?”

  Josie shrugged, her eyes growing wide and innocent. “Don’t know. Sounded like she was pretty bad.” The small, mean smile came back. “Sounded like she might die.”

  Samuel’s breath caught. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?” Josie batted her eyes, all sweet innocence. Then the tight smile returned. “You never should have left me, Samuel. We could have been good.”

  “Good?” Samuel snorted. “Leaving you was the best decision I ever made.”

  Josie opened her mouth, perhaps to argue, when a skinny deputy walked up to the cell, keys jangling.

  “Shut up, Josie,” the deputy said, “or you’ll stay in here longer.”

  Josie stuck her tongue out at the deputy, but the deputy ignored it. Samuel shook his head in surprise. How had he not seen this side of her before? And she wanted him to go back? Not a chance.

  The deputy’s face tickled a dim memory. Samuel subtracted the uniform and the mustache from his mind and came up with a name.

  “Clayton Perkins?”

  The skinny deputy nodded. “Hi, Sam.” He plucked at the sleeve of his uniform. “Been a few changes since you left.”

  “I see,” Samuel said. “Look a little different since the last pasture party I saw you at.”

  Clayton gave him a rueful smile. “Yeah, but you’re in the same place now as then.”

  “Got yourself in here a few times, if I remember right.”

  Clayton shrugged. “Kids,” he said. “Just being dumb kids.”

  Behind Clayton stood Patwin Super. Samuel stood up with no small effort, ready for the berating—or worse—that Patwin would surely give him for getting his daughter killed. It was no less than he deserved.

  “See me when you’re done,” the deputy said to Patwin. A meaningful look passed between them. “What happened to your girl wasn’t right. I’ll see you get the time you need.”

  Patwin nodded to Josie. “And the girl?”

  Everyone looked at Josie, sitting on her bunk in the next cell. The deputy sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. It won’t do for her to hear.” He walked over to her cell and with another jangling of keys unlocked her door. “Come on, Josie. You’re coming with me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Josie all but snarled the words. “Whatever they’ve got to say, they can say in front of—”

  Josie jerked in alarm when the deputy extracted a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “You’re really gonna make me do it this way?” He sounded bored, but a light in his eyes said he might enjoy the struggle.

  Josie pursed her lips.

  “Just go with him, Josie,” Samuel said. “It doesn’t have to be a fight.”

  After a moment, Josie sighed dejectedly. “All right.” She glanced at handcuffs dangling from the deputy’s hand. “You don’t need the pretty jewelry. I’ll behave.” Samuel and Patwin watched as the deputy escorted Josie away to another room.

  When they were alone, Samuel asked, “How is Elizabeth? Josie said she d-d—” He couldn’t get the word out.

  “She’s not dead,” Patwin said. His shoulders slumped, as if exhausted. “Though she wasn’t far from it when she came in.”

  Samuel burned with shame. Elizabeth was hurt and it was his fault. He only nodded and let go of a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

  “Listen, Samuel, this was not your fault.”

  Samuel blinked in surprise. Th
at was the last thing he’d expected Patwin to say.

  A bitter smile flitted across Patwin’s lips. “You thought I was coming here to hand you your own skin. Well, I might have, if I didn’t know what I know now. Elizabeth is hurt bad. She’s got broken ribs and a concussion.”

  “But she’ll live?”

  “Yes, son. She’ll live.”

  Samuel knees suddenly felt watery and he sank down to his cot. Patwin went on.

  “The official police report might say Deputy Douglas stopped to assist an accident on the side of the road, but I was there when Henry woke up.” Patwin grimaced. “I went there to thank him for saving my daughter. He was waking up but still in that twilight stage and muttering to himself.”

  Patwin fell silent, and Samuel saw his jaw working. He realized the man was trying not to cry. Noticing the heavy bags under Patwin’s eyes, he wondered when the last time the man had slept.

  Samuel prompted Patwin gently. “What did he say?”

  “Enough,” Patwin said. “Enough that I know what really happened.” Patwin gave Samuel a level look. His eyes were dry, but flashed with anger. “You saved her life, Samuel. I know that, even if the records will never show it. I want you to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I want to walk out of here with a plan.” He studied Samuel, as if finally seeing him for the first time. “I love my daughter, and I want her to have a good life. Can you give her that?”

  Samuel nodded. “Yes sir, I believe I can.”

  “Good. Then let’s figure out how to get you out of this.”

  Samuel was released from jail on Patwin’s bond the same day Elizabeth and the deputy went home from hospital. His jail-time had done him good. It gave him time for his rage to cool.

  He visited Elizabeth once at her home to explain. The bandages covering the sutures on her head set his stomach in a furious roil. Tears rolled down her cheeks, when he explained his plan—their plan—but she nodded.

  Samuel walked away from his father’s house, aware of the two sets of eyes on his back. The weight of the linen-wrapped Colt revolver his father had pressed into his hands felt heavier with each step. The gun repulsed him. He pushed the feeling away and replayed the conversation with his father and brother telling them of his plan.