Page 31 of Reckoning with the Cowboy
* * *
Staying low,Cordellran through the sagebrush half expecting to hear gunfire again and feel the burn of bullets. But as he dropped to the ground again some distance from the van, he heard nothing.
Catching his breath, he knew what he had to do. Max could already be dead. He had no idea where Josie and Goldie were. Maybe in the back of the van. Hopefully, they hadn’t been in the house now full of bullet holes.
Cordell had never wanted to come face-to-face with Roger again. Now he had no choice. He’d also never wanted to kill another human being. But then again, Roger Grimes was a monster. All he could hope was that Max was still alive and that they would be leaving here together with the women they loved.
He broke from his cover and sprinted the last few yards to the van to drop down in the back, hoping he hadn’t been seen. Another burst of gunfire erupted from the van. Leaning the rifle against the back of the van, he pulled out the handgun. He would have to make sure his shots counted as he stayed low and moved along the passenger side of the long vehicle until he was crouched under the passenger side door, noticing that the window was down.
The gunfire had stopped again. He listened, half-afraid Grimes had seen him approach and was sitting behind the wheel waiting for him to stick his head up.
On the count of three, he rose suddenly, raised the gun and fired into the cab of the van at the driver. He quickly dropped back down as a spurt of AK fire erupted and stopped just as quickly. He felt deaf from the close reports of gunfire. He could barely hear the low-idling rumble of the engine.
There was nothing beyond it but silence. It would be just like Roger to be playing possum, waiting with that AK in his big hands, his finger on the trigger.
* * *
Max heard thesound of a handgun, then a blip of gunfire from the AK, then nothing. He waited, expecting to hear the AK fire again. The pain in his side was excruciating but all he could think about was getting to Cordell.
When he didn’t hear any more gunfire, he eased out from behind the house, moving swiftly along the side before he broke into an awkward run toward the back of the idling van. He could feel blood running down his arm, his hand holding his weapon slick with it.
Lightning split the sky open, followed almost at once by thunder. He felt the first raindrops hit him and for a moment thought Grimes had opened fire again. Then he saw his brother come around the back of the van, the pistol still in his hand, and noticed his expression. Cordell looked shocked and physically ill. Max couldn’t help but think of the night he thought he’d killed Grimes.
Without a word, his brother opened the back of the van. Even in the growing darkness of the storm, he could see that it was empty before Cordell closed the door. “Where are Goldie and Josie?” he said more to himself than to his brother.
“I don’t know.” Cordell sounded like a sleepwalker. “I’d hoped they would be in the van. But neither is Roger.”
“What?” Max thought he must have misheard. “The man behind the wheel wasn’t Roger Grimes?” His voice broke as the pain in his side tried to double him over.
His brother’s eyes widened. “You’re hit!” Cordell swore as he moved his brother’s coat aside to see the blood-soaked clothing beneath. “You need to sit down.” He reached to help but Max shook his head.
“We have to find Grimes. We have to find the women.”
“I think I killed that friend of Roger’s, Dave, the one you told me about who was picked up down in Cheyenne in a van with Florida plates.”
Mind whirling, Max only had an instant to consider what to do. Cordell seemed out of it and Max feared he was almost too weak to keep standing, let alone fight off Grimes as he heard the sound of another engine start up, then saw headlights flash on and sweep toward them through the rain. Engine revved, a second van roared toward them.
* * *
Cordell felt dazed. Still, he tried not to let his brother see how shaken he was. He’d just killed a man. It didn’t matter that the man had been trying to kill them. He stuffed the handgun in his waistband, then looked at Max as he heard the other van roaring toward them.
His brother was leaning against the van trying to lift his weapon, clearly hurt much worse than he’d said. Cordell felt as if he were on autopilot as he heard the van coming down the bumpy road, its engine screaming as it rocked toward them.
“Go get him,” Max said and gave up, letting his own weapon drop to the ground. “You can stop him. It’s up to you now.”
Cordell reached for the hunting rifle and moved to the passenger side of the van. Dave’s van was still running, its headlights cutting through the storm like a signal for Roger to follow. He laid the rifle over the side mirror and for a moment he was blinded by the headlights of the van racing toward them.
Did he dare take the shot? Josie and Goldie might be in that van, he told himself as Roger opened fire. The windshield blew out on the van. The bullets were coming wild, but Roger was still too far away. As he got closer, his aim would improve.
Take the shot,Cordell told himself.
* * *
Josie heard theglee in Roger Grimes’s laugh as he put down the van window, held the automatic rifle out and pulled the trigger. The man had quickly gotten them out of the house, ushering them into the van and hurriedly zip-tying them to the wall of the van again.
It was his need for speed that had made him sloppy and Josie was now taking advantage of it. Her wrists were looser than they should have been, allowing her to begin wriggling free the moment he slammed the van door. Next to her, Goldie was doing the same thing.
But Josie feared they wouldn’t be fast enough. She got one wrist free, then the other and immediately went for the gun at her waist. The van rocked as it roared down the road. She had to brace herself against the side as she worked her way forward and got her first look at where they were headed.
