The Salt Maiden (26 page)

Behold, from the land of the farther suns
I returned.

And I was in a reptile-swarming place,
Peopled, otherwise, with grimaces,
Shrouded above in black impenetrableness.

I shrank, loathing,
Sick with it.

And I said to him,
“What is this?”

He made answer slowly,
“Spirit, this is a world;
This was your home.”

—Stephen Crane,
“The Black Riders and Other Lines”

As Wallace raced along dark roads, Dana checked Max’s leg wound, in part because she couldn’t stand the thought of the dog suffering and in part because she had to do something—anything—to keep from going utterly to pieces in her worry over Jay.

“It’s not so bad, boy. Not so bad,” she reassured the quivering dog as she stroked his short hair. To her relief she found no injuries other than a single slash across Max’s upper foreleg, which had nearly finished bleeding. Grazed by the shot, the shepherd had gone into hiding. Dana quickly guessed the reason as she touched the knotty, healed wounds along his side, which she remembered feeling earlier. Someone had hurt the animal before he’d come into Jay’s keeping. Some cruel jackass with a gun.

“Never again,” she promised Max. Even if Jay didn’t make it, she wouldn’t let—

Shredded by the thought, she forced herself to ask Wallace a question. “How…how did you know her? How did you know Angie?”

“What?” he asked her from the driver’s seat, where he had clearly been lost in his own thoughts.

Once she repeated the question, his ring finger tapped a fitful beat against the wheel.

“I didn’t know your sister.” He noisily cleared his throat. “Not really. Just bumped into her a few times around town.”

“Jay said you picked her up when she was drunk. Not long before she vanished.”

His gaze flashed sideways. “What the hell are you accusing me of? Because I’m trying to do my job. I’m trying—”

“She told you where she hid the money.” Dana’s heart pounded with the suspicion that so much hinged on this conversation, even more than Jay’s life. “Drunk or not, she told you because she knew you once. Because you’d been together.”

Dana wanted to add,
When you were both in rehab
, but intuition warned her not to push him any harder.

“What the…” He shook his head emphatically, tapping his ring finger even harder. “You think I’d take up with a woman like that? No offense, but your sister spent so much of her life hammered, she was wrecked. Whatever the bizarro cause, she jumped all over it. Whoever the man, she jumped him, too, as long as he could help her get her next good buzz on—”

“She wasn’t always that way.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said as the truck rolled to a standstill in front of the access gate that led to the salt dome. “Now stay put. I need to check this.”

He ran out and fiddled with the gate’s chain before returning to the pickup and climbing back inside. “I guessed wrong. They didn’t come here, so they must’ve gone over to the Webb place.”

“The old adobe? But it’s already been searched. And anyway, why would Angie hide the money there—”

“God alone knows why that woman did anything she did.”

“Including having your child?”

“What the hell?
No.
” He ignored her and turned the truck around. But as he started back the way they’d come, he finally added, “Look, I’ve tried my hand at city living. Gave it a damned good shot. From acting, to odd jobs, to private security, which was the only damned thing I was even halfway good at, until…Nothing ever really came together for me until this job. Doesn’t pay hardly enough to feed a coyote, but if I keep at it, someday I’ll be sheriff—if you don’t go stirrin’ up shit. Like insinuatin’ I had something going with some glue-sniffin’ lush.”

She heard the truth in his voice, as well as the fear that kept him from admitting it.
You’re Nikki’s father, aren’t you? You’re just too scared to say so.

The pickup surged forward as he stomped down on the accelerator.

Dana braced herself as they careened around a curve that returned them to the main road. “She’ll die, Wallace. That little girl will die if you don’t—”

Wallace jammed the brakes, flinging Dana painfully against her seat belt and making Max yip as his head banged against the dash.

Alarm ripping through her, Dana grasped the door handle. But with breath-catching agony coiling like a constrictor around her side, she couldn’t get out, couldn’t run. Could barely manage to pull in enough oxygen to keep herself conscious.

“You’ve got a choice. We can sit and hash this out now,” Wallace said, “or we can put an end to this discussion and find Jay. So which is it gonna be,
Doctor
?”

Dana fought to hold back the dizzying swirl of darkness pressing in on her. Biting her inner lip helped; the sharp pinch and the copper-tart blood taste pulled her back from the pain.

She forced herself to focus on the deputy’s face. To see
the warring of ambitions. The desire to do right, to be a decent man and a loyal deputy, against the need to prove himself in this place, to these people. And most especially to his father. Had that struggle been what had kept him from either reporting the location of the missing money or making off with it? And by forcing him to make a choice of which man he was going to be, had she pushed him too far?

“Careful, Dana,”
Angie’s voice warned.
“That little shit’s a lot more like those bastards than he wants to believe.”

“Please,” Dana pleaded. “We have to help him. We have to get to him before his uncle—”

“Then not one more word about your sister, ever. Swear it.”

“I do,” she said, mentally begging forgiveness for a choice that was no choice at all. “Just…please hurry.
Hurry
, and I swear I’ll never mention her again.”

As the meaning of the charred smell sank in, a realization struck Jay: that Angie Vanover had gotten the last laugh after all. Too bad she wasn’t around to appreciate the moment.

Desperate to avoid joining her, he mentally scrambled for the words that might keep his uncle from pulling the trigger when he discovered that the money he had killed for was beyond reach. For anything that might throw the older man off his guard. But when he looked up at R.C., Jay could come up with nothing better than, “Oh, shit. You’re gonna want to see this.”

Apparently his uncle misunderstood his tone. Either that, or avarice rose up like the bitter reek to overwhelm his better judgment. With a triumphant grin splitting his sun-creased face, R.C. brought the flashlight closer, his blue eyes avid as he peered down at the money that had so long fed his obsession.

And in that single, careless moment, Jay used the shovel to fling the ashes of his greed full in his face.

“Son of a bitch,” R.C. yelled, and wasted a precious instant bringing up his free arm to wipe his eyes.

Seizing his opportunity, Jay swung the shovel, scythelike, his assault aimed for the most vulnerable spot within reach. R.C. bellowed as the blade’s edge jolted off both his shins, and he went down hard, squeezing off one shot as he fell. In quick succession three more followed, loud cracks that sounded like the night sky shattering around them. As Jay leaped from the hole his left leg collapsed. He went to his knees, falling in such a way that his sweat-slick palms lost their grip on the shovel’s handle.

R.C. still had the gun—Jay caught its gleam in the approaching headlights—and the two Eversoles grappled wildly for it. Slightly taller, younger, and stronger, Jay should have wrested it away in time. Should have found some way to pull free the finger R.C. had threaded through the trigger guard.

Instead he struggled to control his uncle’s right wrist, to push the armed hand high enough to keep R.C. from blowing off his head. When Jay tried to use his legs for leverage, he shouted with the pain that detonated in his left thigh, an explosion that splashed across his vision in bright crimson.

In the wake of it he heard Dana calling his name…Dana, who must be dead already. Who would be there waiting for him when his uncle finished him.

“Drop it, R.C. Drop it, or I’ll shoot,” shouted a male voice.

Was it Wallace? But if Wallace was here, did that mean Dana, too, was—

R.C.’s right hand jerked as he got off two more shots and then a third. But before Jay could wonder how many rounds the pistol’s magazine held, Dana’s scream penetrated his awareness, a high, clipped cry that followed the last shot.

And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah…

—Deuteronomy 29:23

The Holy Bible (King James Version)

As Dana dropped to her knees, the dog sprang forward, snarling at the man who struggled with his master. A haze of acrid gunsmoke hung before the headlights in striated layers.

Beside her Wallace flailed on his back, his choked screams rising from behind a dark, wet mask. It was a mask of blood, she realized as she spotted a small hole in the left side of his upper jaw. His head jerked, and her heart spasmed as she saw the right cheek, blown out by an exit wound.

A man could die from so much bleeding—die the way her sister had.

Dana ripped off the remains of her shirt and wadded up the cotton. Dressed only in her bra and shorts, she shouted at the fallen deputy, “Lie still, and hold this to your cheek. You’ve got to apply pressure.”

His cries stopped, too abruptly, and his limbs jerked uncontrollably. She was losing him, she realized—losing her last link to Nikki. But she had to help Jay, too, had to do something to save him—

“Dana!”

Her head jerked toward his voice, and she saw him holding his uncle at gunpoint.
Thank God.

“We have to get your deputy help.” She leaned over Wallace to press the cloth against the open wound. “He…he’s choking.”

Heaven only knew what devastation the bullet had wrought before its exit. She had performed enough surgery on animals injured by gunshots to know the throat or upper palate could have been hit. Enough to realize that an emergency tracheotomy might be Wallace’s best chance, in spite of the terrible conditions.

Unless…

“Help me hold him,” she told Jay. “I have to keep him still so I can—”

Grasping the distraction, R.C. swung around with one fist—but too slowly to avoid Jay’s clout to the head with his own pistol. Knees collapsing, the older Eversole tumbled to the ground, twitched twice, and went still.

“Can’t say I’m sorry I had to do that.” Jay squatted with a pained grunt and grasped Wallace by the shoulders.

Dana tried to pull his head back, but the deputy thrashed wildly.

“Quit fighting,” Jay ordered. “We’re trying to help you.”

Wallace did, and all too suddenly, as he lost consciousness. Dana tilted back his head and opened the jaw, then swept her fingers across the back of his tongue to check the airway. She had to work quickly. If Wallace needed a tracheotomy she had only minutes to perform it before his brain was damaged and his system failed.

She moved so quickly that she nearly missed it—the small, hard object in the back of his throat. Repositioning herself for a better angle, she dug deeper—and swept free a clot of tissue that included several of his teeth.

Almost instantly she felt a puff as he expelled the stale air from his lungs before sucking in another breath.

With a silent prayer of thanks, she said, “He’s breathing.”

She felt around for the remnants of her shirt and held the less-than-ideal bandage to the wreckage of Wallace’s cheek. Only then did she notice Jay staring at her, moisture gleaming in his eyes.

“That son of a bitch lied to me. He told me that he’d
killed you—shot you in the head. I was sure I’d never see you again.”

Shaking her head, she said, “Wallace’s headlights scared him off, I think. I’ll be all right, Jay. Help me get him on his side, please. We don’t want more blood choking him.”

Once they moved Wallace into a better position, Dana added, “We’re going to need help. Is there a radio in the truck, or do you or Wallace have a phone?”

“I don’t have mine, but let me check him,” Jay said. A moment later he added, “No phone here, but I’ll need these.”

He took a set of cuffs from Wallace’s belt and then went to R.C., who had started groaning. Jay snapped a manacle on one of his uncle’s wrists.

“Look, I’ll split the money with you,” R.C. mumbled. As he glanced back over one shoulder, his gaze was wide and empty as a dead man’s. “We can still make this right. And I can still get out of Devil’s Claw—”

“One more word and you’ll die here—right now,” Jay told him before he finished applying the restraints.

He picked up the gun Wallace had dropped and laid it beside the spot where Dana squatted. Nodding toward his uncle, he told her, “Shoot him if he moves. I’ll be right back.”

Dana looked after him as he went to Wallace’s truck. He was limping heavily, and she already knew that he’d been knocked unconscious earlier. But in spite of his wounds, she sensed a core of strength she could rely on…at least for the moment.

Though he had nearly killed her earlier, she knew that without hesitation he would give his life for hers. Just as she’d been willing to risk everything for him tonight…and she could not regret it.

That was the final thought that flitted through her mind before she heard a new voice by the truck.

“How the hell…?” Jay started. But at the sight of the rifle he lost his curiosity about how she’d found him. With his
own weapon holstered as he reached across the seat for wallace’s cell phone, Jay knew Suzanne Riggins could shoot him before he had the chance to draw.

But
would
the wife of his uncle’s best friend? With her white hair frizzed around her, she looked both pale and sickly. But her gray eyes were inscrutable.

“Wallace called the house earlier,” she said in her deep, West Texas accent. “Left a message that you might need someone to watch your back tonight. Dennis…Dennis drank himself to sleep again. He’s been doing that for days now. Busted up about losing all our money on Haz-Vestment.”

“So he told you?”

She shook her head. “I knew. I knew it from the first—why he thought he needed to risk everything. Damned foolish man I married. If he’d asked me, I’d have told him not to take the chance.”

“So you came. To help me.”

“By the time I got to your place, all I could see were taillights leaving. I was way behind, so I just caught up.”

It surprised Jay that Wallace Hooks would ask a Riggins for assistance—unless he knew his father and his friends could not be trusted. “I have to call for help, so how about lowering that muzzle?”

Uncertainty flickered through her eyes, but Suzanne didn’t move to comply. And like every man and woman raised in these parts, she knew enough about a rifle to put another hole in him. “We need that money, Jay. Two years ago we lost our health insurance, and…and whether or not I make it through this heart surgery, Dennis will lose everything. Everything his daddy and his grandpa worked for.”

So that was the lever R.C. had used to convince his friend to help him continue concealing his death. To convince both Dennis and Suzanne.

“Wallace has been shot,” Jay said. “If I don’t get him help, he’ll die.”

The tip of the rifle dropped down slightly, as if it were too
heavy for Suzanne to hold up. “I’m sorry about that—sorry for what it’ll do to Estelle. But Wallace can’t be my concern now. Dennis—”

“Don’t let your husband’s idiotic grudge with Abe push you into making the biggest mistake of your life. I have every reason to believe that Wallace turned his back on his own daddy to save my ass tonight. And if you think I’m about to let my deputy die…Hell, Suzanne. The money isn’t even here. It’s gone. Forever.”

Suzanne shook her head, blanching to a color as pale as starlight. “That can’t be right. R.C. told us Angelina hid it. We just have to find where—”

“She burned every bit of it,” Jay said, though he had no idea whether undamaged bills remained hidden near the cavern where the salt mummy had been found. “She didn’t want anyone to profit from—”

“No,” Suzanne cried, letting the rifle fall as she covered her face with her hands. “That money—it was our life.
My
life, and Dennis’s if I die.
How
can I die, knowing he’ll be…”

Jay didn’t tell her that his uncle had convinced himself that
he
deserved that million dollars—enough to kill to keep it. Jay was too busy calling the air-ambulance service and struggling to remain upright despite his dizziness and the pain in his own leg. Though his wound was nowhere near as threatening as the one that had brought down Wallace, Jay suspected a bullet had passed through the meaty part of his left thigh.

Once the call had ended, all he had to do was take up the rifle before the woman did something desperate. But a wave of fatigue broke over Jay, leaving him too weak to rise from the truck’s seat.

At the sound of voices to his left, he managed to glance over…only to see Dana holding the taller, frailer woman at gunpoint.

She had come to cover Jay’s back, in spite of all she’d been through.

He stared at her in wonder, more amazed than ever at the miracle of Dana’s courage. A miracle that unraveled before his eyes as he lost his grip on consciousness and slipped into the void.

Dana insisted upon being there in the recovery room of the El Paso hospital where she and Jay had both been taken, along with Wallace Hooks. With her ribs taped and her strength buoyed by mild painkillers and a few hours’ sleep, she sat in a wheelchair, waiting impatiently for the first flicker beneath his eyelids. Finally she caught the movement of his hand, heard a half-coherent mumble as he came around from under the influence of the anesthesia.

In defiance of the nurse’s admonishments that she remain seated, Dana stood at that first stirring and ran her hand along his sculpted jawline, now scratchy with stubble. Next she gently brushed back his mussed hair from the dark bruise at his temple, her breath hitching at the thought of how close she had come to losing this man, this handsome, broken warrior, just as she’d lost Angie.

She couldn’t keep from crying, couldn’t stop the tears that dripped onto his hand. His eyes cracked open to peer up at her, and relief sang through her at the way recognition warmed them.

At the way he smiled at her, a smile that made her think of locked bedroom doors and soft caresses, of whispers that melted into sighs.

Unable to speak, she leaned forward—wincing only a little at the flare of pain in her ribs—to touch her lips to his, then to kiss him fully, deeply, infusing that small act with all the feeling trapped behind the lump in her throat.

When she finally pulled away, he blinked, then asked, “Where is…Where are we?”

“In the recovery room of Thomason Hospital in El Paso,” she managed. “You’ve just come out of surgery to repair the damage to your leg. You don’t remember any of it?”

He grimaced after shaking his head. “Damn. Remind me not to try that again anytime soon…”

“You probably have a mild concussion, and you lost quite a bit of blood. Bullet passed right through your thigh, and you didn’t say a word about it. Didn’t hit the bone, but still—”

“I had bigger worries at the moment. I thought you were dead. I thought I’d never get the chance to tell you…I love you. I’ve been in love with you almost since that first day you showed up in Devil’s Claw. I’ve never known a woman like you—a woman who’d go so far to help the people she loves—and even for a little kid she barely knows. But you’re better than just brave, Dana. You’re smart and you’re a smart-ass, and you make me harder than a diamond drill bit every time I think about you.”

“Well, isn’t
that
romantic?” She laughed—and regretted it immediately at the renewed pain in her ribs.
A diamond drill bit…

But he loved her, and the warmth of that knowledge spread over her like heated nectar. She swallowed back tears, allowing his words to sink in.

Before she could say anything, he blinked hard, and worry flashed across his features. “I remember now. How you saved Wallace. He’d been shot, and he was choking. Is he…is he here?”

“They’ve got him stabilized. He’ll need some reconstructive surgery to repair the damage to his jaw and face, but—”

“Poor Estelle,” he said. “She’ll be beside herself. Has anyone called—”

“I understand that she and Abe are on their way. But he’ll be fine, Jay. And so will you, and—”

“But what happened to R.C.? With both Wallace and me out of commission…tell me that bastard didn’t get away.”

“Not a chance. Apparently the FBI agent you spoke to last night was so concerned he called in a favor—phoned the sheriff over in…is it Monahans?”

Jay nodded. “That’d be the Ward County sheriff. About an hour out of Rimrock County. Where Agent Petit’s from.”

“Anyway, he arrived around the same time as the helicopter. You were sort of in and out of it when he took both your uncle and that woman into custody. He’s taking care of Max for you, too—”

“Suzanne—I remember. That was Suzanne Riggins. Hell, she can’t go to prison—it’ll kill Dennis if she’s charged with…And it might kill Suzanne, too.”

“There’ll be time to straighten all that out, Jay. For now, you need to concentrate on getting better. Because…” She gave his hand a squeeze and touched his face again, as if to reassure herself that he was warm and solid. Breathing. “Because I was afraid, too. Scared half to death your uncle would kill you. And I couldn’t stand that, couldn’t bear the thought of never making things right after…after what happened earlier.”

Jay’s face fell, and his eyes went hollow, as if the memory of attacking her had rushed in on him from the darkness. “There’s no making up for injuring a woman, for…for nearly killing her. A man doesn’t—”

She shook her head. “No, Jay. You can’t give up on yourself. I won’t. Ever. Because I love you. And I love you more this morning than I’ve ever—”

“You deserve a hell of a lot better than an unemployed head case, Dana, a man who was sent home because—”

“I don’t care about that, Jay. I only care about you. We’ll get you help. Counseling. Medication. I don’t care what it takes. Because I want you. I need you with me.”

Muscles tensed in his jaw. “I can’t.”

“I have the money, Jay—or I can get it. We’ll get you the best of help. The best of everything—I swear it.” She heard herself pleading with him, even in the face of the leaden shield that slammed down over his expression. She knew how badly she’d just screwed up—knew that reminding him of her family’s money had been exactly the wrong thing. “Please. We can do this together.”