KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON Read online

  "I wish you'd stop smiling like that," Dupree grumbled heavily. "Are you going crazy on me or something?"

  "Uh, listen, Dick," Calla said, "if I was walking around in the hot sun, holding a gun on one of my best and oldest clients, threatening to dump her off a cliff and then try to convince a town of six hundred of her closest, indeed her only friends, that she signed over to you a piece of million-dollar property that had been in her family for more than one hundred years, I wouldn't be calling anybody else crazy."

  "They'll believe it." Dupree waved the gun at her. "Get up. We're almost there."

  "Don't be such an idiot. You and I both know you're not going to be throwing me off any damn cliff."

  "Well, me and this big gun say different. Now, move it or lose it."

  "Nope."

  Dupree sat down on his rock again. He was incredulous. "What?"

  "I said no. I'm tired. If you want to kill me, you're going to have to shoot me through right here where I'm sitting."

  "I will, dammit," Dupree threatened, the gun swinging wildly in her direction.

  Calla tried not to look at the gun.

  "Go ahead then. But it'll be even harder to convince anybody I died by accident if I have a big bullet hole in my head. Even the folks in Paradise aren't stupid enough to believe that."

  Dupree considered that.

  Calla pushed her advantage. "And come on, Dick," she scoffed. "If I haven't committed suicide by now, I never will. You forget, they watched me for six months after Benny died."

  "It could be that delayed-grief-syndrome thing," he offered finally.

  "You mean the suicide? Dick, it's hard to believe, but you could actually be dumber than you look."

  "Come on, smart-ass," he shouted. "We're walking again."

  "I'm not walking, Dupree. Forget it."

  Dupree crossed the space between them with alarming alacrity. Calla wondered suddenly if she had underestimated him.

  "Get up," he commanded grimly.

  "Don't try to intimidate me, Dick Dupree. You can't." Calla saw the blow coming to her head, but wasn't able to dodge quickly enough to avoid it altogether. The butt of Dupree's gun cracked against her shoulder.

  She swallowed her scream, but tears rushed to her eyes. She grabbed the shoulder and massaged it gently, feeling for a broken bone. The gun had hit the muscle, luckily, and she'd have a whale of a bruise, but nothing was broken.

  Calla looked steadily at Dupree. "That hurt."

  "Good. I hope it got your attention." Dupree leaned down to breathe his minted, businessman's breath into Calla's face. "I think you believe this is a game to me, Calla. It isn't. This is my life. This is fifty-four years of sweating it out in this little town, waiting for a break. Waiting for someone to notice how good I am at my job." He tipped her chin with the barrel of the gun. Calla stopped rubbing her shoulder and stared into Dupree's clear blue eyes. "A little smack on your arm is the least of your worries. I'm going to kill you, Calla." His small mustache twitched at the threat. "Now, you have a choice whether to live until we get to Tellum Canyon, or not. It doesn't matter to me either way. I can beat you to death right now and throw you over the cliff later, or you can start walking." He straightened. "Choose."

  Calla rose from the rock, the pain in her shoulder shooting down to her fingertips and up through her neck to her skull. A headache was already settling in.

  She'd pushed him too far. It was a lifelong problem with her. When she got out of this, if she got out of this, she'd have to think long and hard about why she always felt compelled to push people too far.

  She started walking toward Tellum Canyon.

  * * *

  Henry saw the abandoned truck, situated as it was on the rise of a small, rock-jacketed knoll, from more than a mile away. He raced toward it, a cloud of dust smoking up from the dirt road behind him. Lester clung to the door handle to keep from toppling over onto, the bench seat of the cab.

  "You're going to kill us before we even get there," Lester shouted over the roar of engine noise and the clatter of the truck body as it bounced over the rough wads.

  Henry didn't answer. He tried to think of some reason Dupree and Calla would abandon their vehicle.

  "Are we close?" Henry asked Lester. The din of rocks and dirt flinging out from under the wheels of the truck almost obliterated the sound of his voice.

  "Five miles," Lester yelled.

  "Why would he leave the truck? Does the road go through?"

  "Yeah. It's bad, but it goes through."

  Lester pulled the rifle from the gun rack behind Henry's head and checked the chamber. It was loaded. Lester laid the gun across his lap and gave Henry an approving glance.

  "You're pretty handy for a city boy," Lester said. Henry slowed the truck to a crawl when he came upon Calla's abandoned vehicle.

  The truck was empty.

  And the front left tire was dead flat.

  "Flat tire," Lester stated.

  "I can see that, Lester."

  "The spare's right there. Wonder why he didn't get Calla to change it? She can change a tire in no time. Ever seen her do it? It's a sight."

  "I've seen it."

  The unchanged flat tire and abandoned truck could mean one of two things. Either Calla refused to change the tire and they were now on foot, or Calla couldn't change the tire because something was wrong with her.

  No. Nothing was wrong. Henry couldn't allow himself to think that. If he did, the knot in his throat would come back and choke him down so thoroughly he would be of no use to her.

  Calla was still safe. She probably pretended she didn't know how to fix a flat. Or simply refused to do it. And it was a sure bet Dupree couldn't fix it and keep an eye on Calla at the same time. So they went on foot.

  Henry looked at his watch. Seven o'clock. He had no more than two hours of daylight left to find Calla. After that, he'd have to depend on Dupree's lighting a fire, or perhaps using a flashlight to find his way back to the abandoned pickup.

  "Which way?" Henry asked Lester.

  "Northeast. That way," he said. In the waning light, Henry could make out only a ridge and a valley beyond. He gunned the truck back onto the road.

  "That's Elk Camp?"

  "And Tellum Canyon. Steepest son of a bitch you'll ever see. You can't see it from here. Dupree shot a cow elk up there last year. Never did get her out."

  "Great."

  "Yep," Lester nodded slowly. "That's about the size of it."

  "Can you tell how long ago they started walking?"

  "Who am I? Daniel Boone?"

  Henry stared out at the landscape, hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of her. "How far is it?"

  "To Tellum? It's past Elk Camp a mile or so. The road gets worse on up ahead. The BLM don't even bother with it no more. Fish and Game, neither. I'd say forty-five minutes by truck. Only a little longer if we hike it cross-country."

  "We'll take the truck."

  Lester shrugged noncommittally. "Dupree'll hear it."

  "If we walk, we might never catch up to them."

  "That's true, too. Six of one."

  "Calla says that."

  "Does she? I'll have to give her hell about it when we find her."

  Lester and Henry exchanged looks.

  "Give me the rundown on Dupree." Henry knew from Pete's extensive instruction that it was best to know the man you were tracking.

  Besides, listening to Lester gave him something to think about besides Calla out there somewhere, facing down a small-time lunatic all by herself.

  * * *

  Tellum Canyon had two-hundred foot walls, black and deep and impossibly sheer, formed by the unstoppable forces of water and lava some uncounted millions of years earlier, and accessible only to the golden eagles and red-tailed hawks that made their nests there.

  As they approached the rocky lip of the canyon, Calla heard rather than felt the rush of warm air that seemed forever trapped inside the canyon walls, wailing up one side and down t
he other, making hot pockets on which the wild raptors hung, inspecting the ground far below for the movements of field mice and jackrabbits. Calla shivered in spite of herself. Little chance she could hang in one of those pockets of air. She'd drop like a stone. The eagles would close in before her body was even cold.

  She turned to Dupree. "Now what?"

  "Now you sign this deed and take a dive off that canyon wall."

  "Get serious, Dupree. You sound like that old song, 'Give up the deed to your ranch or I'll blow you all to bits!'"

  Dupree shoved the papers at her chest. A ballpoint pen, stamped with the logo of the Paradise Savings and Loan, bent them at one corner.

  She shoved them back. "I'm not signing it."

  "You'll sign it. And if you don't, I'll bring your father out here until he signs it. And if he won't sign it, I'll bring your Aunt Helen out here until she signs it. See how that works? I have it all figured out."

  Calla rolled her eyes. "Oh, that'll be believable."

  "I don't really care what people believe," Dupree insisted. "I only care about what they can prove. Besides, your family has always been a little on the odd side. The fact that one by one everybody came up to the spot where their beloved Calla died and flung themselves off the cliff in her memory may not even surprise anybody. You never know." He rattled the papers at her again. "Now sign."

  Calla looked at the deed that represented four generations of McFadden ranching families and took it, almost reverently, in her fingers.

  She looked at it for a long minute. Her name was on the deed, right under her mother's name, and her grandfather Lemuel's and her great-grandfather Benjamin's names. Calla began to methodically rip the deed into tiny pieces.

  Dupree watched her, stunned.

  She opened her hands and let the pieces of paper swirl and dance in the breeze. Together, Calla and Dupree watched the shredded document as it lifted from her hands and hovered above Tellum Canyon, held there as a feather is held above the soft breath of a curious child.

  "You didn't really think I'd sign that, did you, Dick?"

  Dupree slowly focused on her, his expression twisting from shock into a kind of hideous anger Calla had never seen before. He was suddenly, utterly out of control. It was what Calla had been waiting for.

  She kicked the heavy toe of her boot hard up into Dupree's groin. The little man grunted pitifully and folded. His gun skittered harmlessly down the canyon wall.

  "Calla." The shout of Henry's voice was sweet and strong in her ears.

  "Henry! I'm here."

  He appeared at the crest of the little rise, a rifle in his hand, looking for all the world just exactly like a knight in shining armor should look.

  She tried to run toward him, but something had happened to her legs. She couldn't imagine what it was. She looked up at Henry. He was coming toward her at a dead run, an expression of horror and fury distorting his strong features.

  I'm safe now, Calla thought. Why does he still look so scared? She attempted again to go to him, but she stumbled instead.

  Calla looked down at Dupree. He seemed to be wrapping himself around her ankles.

  Too late, she realized what was happening. As she fell to the ground, she kicked at the dead weight around her ankles, but to no avail. Dupree had her clutched too tightly.

  Calla curled forward and raked at Dupree's face with her fingernails, pulling great threads of skin from his cheeks. Blood poured into his eyes, mixing with the dirt she had kicked up onto his face with her boots and making a grisly paste, but Dupree appeared not to notice. He was fixed on the canyon, only a few feet away. He wriggled forward on his belly toward the lip of the canyon wall, like a great vulture with a too heavy carcass, dragging his prey along with him.

  "Henry," Calla screamed.

  Calla clawed at Dupree, but the rage and adrenaline coursing through the little man made her no match for him. She turned onto her stomach, the grit and glass-sharp rocks of the canyon rim sliding up into her untucked shirt and scraping the skin from her navel to her chin. She reached desperately for something to hold on to, but her hands grasped only the rough, flat ground. Her fingers dug deep furrows in the coarse sand.

  She felt the warm currents of air come up the legs of her jeans as her feet dangled over the edge of the canyon wall. Dupree was lying on his side now, kicking her over the wall into the canyon. He'd loosened his grip on her ankles, and his hands and feet pushed her relentlessly downward.

  The wind that whipped at her blended its scream with hers.

  Henry loomed suddenly in front of her. His strong hands grasped her wrists.

  "Henry." She looked up at Henry. His face was a mask of concentration and resolve. She didn't know if he'd even heard her.

  "Hold on," he commanded through gritted teeth.

  Henry braced himself against the flat ground and drew her toward him, kicking viciously at Dupree as the crazed man continued his attack on Calla's hold on the edge of the cliff. Dupree hadn't appeared to notice someone was now pulling Calla away from him.

  Calla screamed again, a long shriek that ended with a low moan that came from somewhere inside her chest.

  Her body was being pulled apart. The strength of Dupree and Dupree's desperation seemed to open her insides to the warm drafts of wind. But Henry held on tightly. He released one hand from her wrist and quickly tucked it behind her bruised shoulder. She screamed again.

  "I've got you, Calla. Hold on."

  Calla's lower body began to jerk spasmodically. She felt herself slipping into the canyon in tiny increments.

  Maybe the air currents would hold her up. Maybe she could—

  "Calla," Henry shouted at her. "Don't pass out. Open your eyes, Calla."

  She could do nothing else. She opened her eyes and stared into Henry's face. It was twisted with primitive rage and fear, teeth bared, lips pulled taut. He was lashing violently at Dupree with one long leg.

  Calla heard a hoarse male scream. Dupree's scream. She spun her head toward the sound. If Henry kicked Dupree over the cliff, he would grab her and pull her down with him, Calla thought wildly.

  "Henry," she screamed again.

  "I have you. I have you," Henry shouted at her. "Stop struggling Calla. It's Lester."

  Lester.

  Lester was holding the collar of Dupree's shirt with one sinewy had, the top of Calla's jeans with the other. He was leaned forward in a crouch, pounding one booted foot into the back of Dupree's head.

  "Stop kicking at her, you crazy son of a bitch," Lester was shouting as he brought his boot heel mercilessly down again and again. "Stop kicking her, I say."

  Henry scooted his hips forward slightly, pulling until Calla's upper body rested on his chest. He dug his heels into the ground and yanked her ruthlessly back from the abyss.

  "Lie still. Don't move," Henry said. He held on tight, shaking violently, afraid she'd slip away from him somehow.

  Dupree lay at Lester's feet. His face was obscured by the blood that oozed from Calla's scratch marks and the wound made by Lester's boot heel.

  "Calla."

  Henry turned his head and looked at the bloodied man at the edge of the cliff.

  "Shut up, Dupree," Henry warned menacingly. "Calla," Dupree screamed. His eyes, closed until a moment ago, focused on her. They were wild. The horrible sound of his voice, inhuman, like the scream of the eagles in Tellum Canyon, shocked Calla back to her senses. She looked blankly at him.

  "Calla."

  Lester toed Dupree roughly in the back. "That's enough of that."

  But Dupree did not seem to realize there were other people on the cliff edge besides himself and Calla. His gaze burned into her.

  "You almost killed me, Dupree," she whispered.

  "Because you wouldn't give it up, you stupid bitch. One lousy hunk of land and you wouldn't give it up."

  "Not that way, Dupree. Not to you."

  "Not to me?" He laughed grimly. "You've ruined me, Calla. Killed me, like you killed your br
other."

  "Shut up, Dupree," Henry shouted.

  "Killed me."

  He was smiling. Calla felt a chill in the pit of her stomach. She straightened in Henry's arms.

  "Don't do it, Dick."

  Dupree looked at her and smiled. "Why not? You should be used to watching people die. That's three, now, Calla McFadden. Benny, Judy and me." And before anyone but Calla realized what he intended to do, Dick Dupree Tolled off the edge of Tellum Canyon to the welcoming willows of Joe's Crick two hundred feet below.

  "No," Lester shouted, flinging himself flat on his belly in a futile attempt to grab at the man. But Dupree was gone, and the eagles and hawks came screaming out of their nests as he passed them.

  Henry scooped Calla up and walked from the edge of the cliff without a glance backward. In the distance, Calla heard a mighty wind.

  This time it didn't come from the canyon. It came from the sky above. She closed her eyes and let the wind wash over her.

  * * *

  Chapter 20

  « ^ »

  Pete was at Saint Luke's Hospital in downtown Boise when the military orderlies wheeled Calla through the emergency room doors. Henry was not surprised to see him.

  Pete jogged along next to the gurney, peering into Calla's wan face.

  "My God. Who the hell did this to her? Is she unconscious?"

  "Asleep, they said on the chopper. She's had a rough day. Hello, Pete. Thanks for the helicopter."

  Pete whistled. "A hello and a thank-you. Geez, Doc, you must have had some kind of epiphany out there."

  A nurse with a gigantic chest and a harassed attitude stepped in front of them, stopping them in their tracks. She wrested the gurney from the orderlies and gave Henry and Pete sharp stares.

  "That's far enough, gentlemen. We got the call you'd be coming. We'll take it from here."

  Henry started to protest as he saw Calla being carted away, but Pete put a halting palm on his chest.