him.
He told himself that again and again, using it like a mantra. He was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. All he needed was a chance to close his eyes.
He went into the corner of the room, out of the line of traffic around the sinks and stalls, and started to pull off one of his boots.
He quickly pulled it back on again.
He was carrying a side arm. A .22-caliber.
In his boot.
It was slightly larger than palm-sized, black and deadly looking. There was something else in his boot, too. He could feel it now, pressing against his ankle.
He took his jeans into one of the stalls, locking the door behind him. Slipping off the boot, he looked inside. The .22 was still there, along with an enormous fold of cash—all big bills. There was nothing smaller than a hundred in the thick rubber-banded wad.
He flipped through it quickly. He was carrying more than five thousand dollars in his boot.
There was something else there, too. A piece of paper. There was writing on it, but his vision swam, blurring the letters.
He took off the other boot, but there was nothing in that one. He searched the pockets of his pants, but came up empty there, too.
He stripped off his pants and pulled on the clean jeans, careful to brace himself against the metal wall the entire time. His world was tilting, and he was in constant danger of losing his balance.
He slipped his boots back on, somehow knowing how to position the weapon so that it wouldn’t bother him. How could he know that, know what size jeans he wore, yet not know his own name? He put most of the money and the piece of paper back in his boot as well, leaving several hundred dollars in the front pocket of his jeans.
He came face-to-face with his reflection in the mirror when he opened the door of the stall.
Even dressed in clean clothes, even washed up, long, dark hair slicked back with water, even pale and gray from the pain that still pounded through his battered body, he looked like a man most folks would take a wide detour around. His chin had a heavy growth of stubble, accentuating his already sun-darkened complexion. His black T-shirt had been washed more than once and had shrunk slightly. It hugged his upper body, outlining the muscles of his chest and arms. He looked like a fighter, hard and lean.
Whatever he really did for a living, he still couldn’t remember. But considering that .22 he had hidden in his boot, he could probably cross kindergarten teacher off the list of possibilities.
Rolling up his torn pants, he tucked them under his arms. He pushed open the men’s-room door and skirted the room where breakfast and temperance were being served. Instead, he headed directly for the door that led to the street.
On his way out, as he passed the shelter’s donation box, he dropped a hundred-dollar bill inside.
* * *
“Mr. Whitlow! Wait!”
Rebecca Keyes headed for Silver at a dead run, swinging herself up into the saddle and digging her boots into the big gelding’s sides. Silver surged forward, in hot pursuit of the gleaming white limousine that was pulling down the dude ranch’s dirt driveway.
“Mr. Whitlow!” She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled piercingly, and finally the vehicle slowed.
Silver blew out a loud burst of air as she reined him in next to the almost absurdly stretched-out body of the car. With a faint mechanical whine, the window came down and Justin Whitlow’s ruddy face appeared. He didn’t look happy.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Becca said breathlessly from her perch atop Silver. “Hazel told me you were leaving, that you were going to be gone a month and I…I wish you had informed me earlier, sir. We have several things to discuss that can’t wait an entire month.”
“If this is more of your wages garbage—”
“No, sir—”
“Thank God.”
“—because it’s not garbage. It’s a very real problem we’re having here at the Lazy Eight. We’re not paying the ranch hands enough money, so they’re not sticking around. Did you know we’ve just lost Rafe McKinnon, Mr. Whitlow?’
Whitlow stuck a cigarette between his lips, squinting up at her as he lit it. “Hire someone new.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing with staff turnovers,” she said with barely concealed frustration. “Hiring someone new. And someone else new. And…” She drew in a deep breath and tried her best to sound reasonable. “If we’d simply paid someone solid and responsible like Rafe another two or three dollars an hour—”
“Then he would’ve asked for another raise next year.”
“Which he would have deserved. Frankly, Mr. Whitlow, I don’t know where I’m going to find another stable hand like Rafe. He was a good man. He was reliable and intelligent and—”
“He was obviously overqualified. I wish him luck at his next endeavor. We don’t need to hire rocket scientists, for God’s sake. And how reliable do you need a man to be, to shovel—”
“Mucking out the stalls is only a small part of the job description,” Becca countered hotly. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down again. She’d never won a shouting match with her boss, and she wasn’t likely to start winning that way now. “Mr. Whitlow, I don’t know how you expect the Lazy Eight to gain the reputation of being a high-class dude ranch if you insist on paying your staff slave wages.”
“Slave wages for slave labor,” Whitlow commented.
“My point exactly,” Becca said, but he just blew cigarette smoke out the window.
“Don’t forget about that opera thing in Santa Fe next week,” he commanded as, with a soft buzz, his window began to shut. “I’m counting on you to be there. And for heaven’s sake, dress like a woman. None of those pantsuits that you wore last time.”
“Mr. Whitlow—”
But the window closed tightly. She had been dismissed. Silver sidled to the right as the limo pulled away and Becca swore pungently.
Slave wages for slave labor, indeed. Except Whitlow had it wrong. He believed he was paying his staff low wages for low-priority, bottom-of-the-barrel, physical-labor jobs. But the truth was, without those jobs done and done well, the entire ranch suffered. And if the owner insisted on paying low, the quality of work he’d get in return would also be low. Or the workers would leave—like Rafe McKinnon had, and Tom Morgan last week, and Bob Sharp earlier in the month.
It seemed all Becca did these days was office work. Far too often, she found herself sitting inside, behind her desk, doing phone interviews to fill all-too-frequently-vacated staff positions.
She’d taken this job at the Lazy Eight Ranch because it was an opportunity to use her management skills and put in most of her hours out-of-doors.
She loved riding, loved the hot New Mexico sun, loved the way the storm clouds raced across the plains, loved the reds and browns and muted greens of the mountains. She loved the Lazy Eight Ranch.
But working for Justin Whitlow was the pits. And who said a woman couldn’t look feminine in a pair of pants, anyway? What did he expect her to wear to schmooze with his friends and business associates? Something extremely low-cut, with sequins? As if she could even afford such a thing on her pitiful salary.
Yes, she loved it here, but if things didn’t change, it was only a matter of time before she walked, too.
* * *
The night was moonless, but he lay quietly on his stomach, taking the time for his eyes to get fully used to the dark again, and in particular the dark here, just inside of the high-security fence.
He breathed with the sounds of the night—crickets