to the rocks on either side of the canyon, she pushed forward, keeping the trespasser’s bobbing flashlight in view. Several times she had to stop and catch her breath, waiting for the gleam of light to show again.
Finally the light stopped and a softer, steadier glow took its place. A lantern. The intruder must have fixed on a spot to explore. She felt a sudden reckless anger surge through her. This place was entrusted to her, the only thing her father owned free and clear, and this person, whoever it was, was probably out looking for fossils to steal and sell on the black market. Or maybe it was some teens bent on finding a place to party. Didn’t matter. She was going to make sure they left and never came back.
“Hey, down there,” she yelled. Her voice rang through the quiet. “You’re trespassing on private property. You need to get out of here right now.”
The light was extinguished. She waited a moment to listen for the sounds of scuffling feet, but there were none. Flicking on her own flashlight, she beamed it down into the gorge.
A shot rang out, whistling past her head. She jerked back behind the tree for cover and readied her own weapon, heart hammering in her chest. Another shot sizzled by. From a crouched position she aimed the rifle high. Hopefully a warning shot would be enough to show the intruder who he was dealing with and convince him to leave.
She squeezed off a round. The report of the rifle deafened her. By the time she raised the weapon to fire again, a dark shape rose from behind the clump of nearby rocks and hurtled on top of her. The gun flew from her grasp and sailed through the air. She rolled and tumbled, the attacker still holding on to her. Her hair fell across her face and she couldn’t get a look at the man, but his arms were like iron straps as they held her fast. She felt a calloused palm over her mouth before she could suck in enough breath to scream.
“Quiet,” Bill Cloudman grunted in her face, “or whoever that is will kill us both.”
Bill kept his hand over her mouth until he was sure she wouldn’t scream and give their location away. When he eased his hand aside, he whispered a warning. “No more noise.”
He got to his feet, staying low behind a massive granite boulder, and tried to listen for sounds of movement. Heather scrambled up next to him.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
He pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her. “You dropped your phone in the truck. Came back to return it and I saw somebody on your property. Thought I’d check it out, until Annie Oakley came out with guns drawn and the shooting match started.”
“Hilarious, Bill.” She pressed closer to his back. “Who’s out there?”
He ignored the prickle on his neck where she spoke into his ear, the clean scent of shampoo that clung to her hair. “Not sure.” If it was Oscar, then it was time to settle things, and he didn’t want her anywhere close by. “I am going to go down there and see if whoever it was is holed up. Go back to the house and lock the door.”
She was about to answer when something streaked by their legs. “Choo Choo. Come back here,” she hissed. “I must not have closed the door all the way. I’ve got to get my dog.” She moved forward and he grabbed at her arm.
“Go inside.”
“I’m not going to let him get hurt.”
“It’s just a dog.”
She shook him off. “Like Tank is just a dog?”
He bit back a comment, wondering how she’d managed to best him already. She was smart, more than smart, a fact he’d known the moment she’d arrived in town the first time. He felt the warring desires to draw close and keep her at arm’s length. In the past, he’d struggled between the two compulsions, got right to the brink of letting down his defenses, and then he’d arrested her for drunk driving and that was the end of anything they might have had. Maybe someday he would be able to tell her why he hadn’t shown mercy in spite of her pleas. Someday. But right now was not the time.
Heather retrieved her rifle and moved along a ridge of rock before stopping to turn back to him.
Bill resisted the urge to hoist her over his shoulder and hog-tie her. Instead he hurried to catch up as she moved farther away. At least he could try to prevent her getting shot. If the shooter really was Oscar … He shook away the notion. Deal with the situation as you would any other, Cloudman.
He caught up with her when she stopped to peek over the top of a hunk of granite.
They stood silently, their breaths the only sound.
He strained to see any sign of movement or spark of light.
Nothing.
“They must have gone,” Heather whispered, her damp curls brushing his cheek. “Choo Choo is probably hiding around here somewhere.”
Bill shook his head. “I’m going to take the trail down to the bottom. Don’t follow or you might get hurt. If there’s trouble, call for help.”
“But what about …?”
“If your dog is down there, I’ll bring him back.” Without waiting for an answer, he drew his weapon and moved down the dark slope between two massive walls of stone. The strange insulating quality of being enveloped in rock awed him, as it had since he was a little boy, scrambling through South Dakota’s labyrinthine trails. He’d always felt most at home deep in some stone passage with no people nearby, yet still surrounded by the hidden crush of life that filled every pore of this place. His aunt Jean used to chuckle at him and say, “Why do you think God made those cliffs so high, Billy? Because He wanted you to look up.”
Tonight the isolation held a tone of menace. He slowed his pace, listening for the slightest noise or movement. The far-off whine of a coyote floated through the canyon, answered by a yowl from the other side. The gunshots hadn’t scared them away any more than had the locals’ determined efforts to dissuade them from eating their chickens. Coyotes were persistent.
He grimaced, thinking of someone else who fit that description. Crazy woman, almost got herself killed waving that rifle around. That bravado could be deadly. Didn’t she realize what she was walking into?
No, she didn’t. And he didn’t know for sure, either. Not until he got a visual.
Breath controlled, body inching along in painful slow motion, Bill pressed on.
He eased around another pinnacle of rock, feet as silent as he could make them on the red earth. He flicked on a pen-light. A partial shoe print caught his attention, pressed into the dry powder of the path. He bent to look closer. An athletic shoe, worn, from the look of the impression. The air seemed to thicken around him.
Farther along he caught a tire impression, small and narrow, blurred in the dirt along the trail. He waited until a cloud passed over the slice of moon before he moved closer.
Even as he crept around the corner, he knew he was not alone. Was it instinct or was his subconscious hearing what his ears could not? Didn’t matter. The feeling that had kept him alive for an entire career hummed in his body. He took a deep breath. “Give it up, whoever you are.”
The stillness was split by the sound of a dirt bike revving to life. Bill had time to press himself against the rock wall as a helmeted figure on the churning motorbike shot forward, gripping the handlebars with one hand and swinging a short-handled shovel with the other.
The shovel caught Bill in the shoulder, cutting through his shirt and into the muscle, spinning him off balance.
He rolled out of the way, tried to aim and found the bike already vanishing down the rock passage.
Pounding footsteps echoed through the canyon and Bill knew it was Heather before she ran into view.
Her mouth rounded into an O when she saw him. “Are you okay? Who was it? Did they hurt you? What happened?”
He straightened, a lance of pain arcing across his shoulder. “Too many