Ross Norquist’s voice, high-pitched in agitation, assaulted his ear before he could even say hello. “Jake, you better get over here quick and pick up this girl before more blood gets shed.”
“Whose blood?” He spoke as he ran to his truck and flung the shovel into the bed with a clang.
“Gary’s. Shelby set her hound on him. Liz and me headed into town, but we had to come back for something she forgot. We found Gary trying to load the shotgun, bleeding like a pig with his arm all tore up. Liz is driving him to the emergency room. She said to call you.”
“What about Shelby?” Rage blurred his vision. “I don’t know. Gary was yelling how he’d blow her dog’s head off. She’s locked herself in the tack room. I been banging on the door, but it’s dead quiet in there. Get her out of here before Liz gets back with Gary.”
“I’m on my way.” Jake leaped into the driver’s seat without waiting for an answer and sent the pickup jouncing across the hayfield, leaving muddy ruts in its wake. Phone, gloves, a pair of pliers, and a half-empty two-liter Coke bounced around on the front seat and shot to the floor as he slewed to a halt beside the barn. Begrudging precious minutes, he backed his truck to his two-horse trailer and dropped the hitch onto the ball. When he picked up Shelby, he’d buy the gray colt and bring him along, too.
The road into Durango seemed endless, and a creeping hay truck dropped Jake’s speed to a foot pace up one long grade. Passing the big rig at last, he roared into town with the empty trailer swaying behind him and turned north. When he arrived at the Norquist ranch, he breathed a sigh of relief to see no sign of Liz’s Jeep Cherokee. He ran toward the barn where Ross waited.
“Man, I thought you’d never get here,” Ross said. “The tack room door’s bolted from the inside, and she won’t answer me. See if she’ll speak up for you.”
Jake took a deep breath to ease his pounding heart. “Shelby,” he said, “it’s Jake. Can I come in?”
Silence.
He tapped on the door. “Shelby?”
No response, no barking.
He turned to Ross. “You sure she’s in there?”
Ross tugged on the door. “Where else could she be?”
Jake sprinted around to the side of the barn. A window stood open; boot and paw prints in the mud led toward the corral.
Ross came up behind him and stopped short. “She’s gone? On foot? Where does she think—?”
Jake followed the tracks at a run. “What horses were in the corral?”
“The three mustangs. No, just the roan mare—the bay’s in the barn. The colt’s in the round pen. Our string is out at pasture.”
They skidded to a halt. The gates to the corral and the round pen stood open.
“Saddle me a horse,” Jake said. “You stay here and try to find out what happened.”
Ten minutes later Jake rode out on a sturdy chestnut gelding. A confusion of hoof prints laced the thawed ground around the corral and barn, but he picked out new tracks made by the dog and two unshod horses.
He cast a worried glance at the sky and swore. The Norquist ranch lay higher than Cameron’s Pride, closer to the Continental Divide. Sunny here in the valley, but leaden clouds were piling up behind the San Juan’s promised snow. He’d seen blizzards swoop down out of the high country as late as May. Shelby had maybe an hour’s start, but she wouldn’t push the pregnant mare. He clapped his heels into the chestnut’s sides.
The soft ground made tracking easy. A path of sorts, blurred by last year’s grass, led toward a draw climbing into the hills. Sure enough, a range gate sagging askew broke the fence line. Either Shelby didn’t know how to fasten the cranky post-and-loop device or hadn’t been able to manage it while hanging on to two horses.
Clouds hid the sun. A single icy drop struck the back of his hand, and he snapped up his fleece-lined jacket. The steep trail crossed and recrossed a narrow creek running bank-high with snowmelt. No need to track, the walls of the draw had grown higher and more rugged. A horse could scramble out, but he doubted Shelby would ask it of the mare. If the draw turned into a box canyon, he would come up on her soon. If it opened into national forest land... He pushed harder, encouraging the gelding with heels and reins.
The trail leveled out in a high meadow. Jake saw no sign of Shelby until the chestnut pricked his ears. A flicker of movement caught his eye: the gray colt disappearing among the aspens at the far edge of the clearing. He picked the gelding up to a fast jog. She couldn’t move quickly through the dense woods. He could stop her even if he had to drop a loop on the roan mare.
“Shelby!” He raised his voice over the rising wind. “Wait up!”
Her shoulders slumped as she reined in. “What are you doing here?”
“Liz told Ross to call me.” He couldn’t see her face, hidden under a shapeless felt hat pulled low against the first snowflakes. “What happened?”
She raised her head, and he drew back on the reins, making the gelding dance in place. A thin line of blood still seeped from her cut lower lip and raw scratches on the side of her neck showed above her collar.
“That...!” He bit back a detailed description of Gary Norquist.
She bowed her head. “I’m not going back—he aims to shoot Stranger and then take out his meanness on the colt.”
“I won’t let him.” Jake caught the mare’s rein as Shelby tried to ride away. “I promise, I won’t let him hurt Stranger or the colt. Or you. Please, believe me.”
He released the mare’s rein. “Can you get the colt into my trailer?” He stretched the truth a little. “I just bought him.”
Her head came up. “I can load him.”
“Good. Look, you can’t keep riding into this weather. You’re headed into the national forest—there’s no shelter for miles.”
She looked into his face for a long moment while he held his breath. He would drag her back by force if he had to, to save her life, but that might do as much harm as Gary’s attack. He guessed she would never ask for help and hated accepting it.
He leaned forward and patted the mare’s neck. “Don’t want this lady dropping her foal in a blizzard, do we?”
Her eyes fell and she sighed. “I guess not.” She reined the mare around and rode back across the whitening meadow with Stranger on one side and the colt on the other.
They made better time downhill with the wind at their backs. Jake stopped at the range gate. “I want you to wait here while I ride in alone,” he said. “You need to tell me what happened. All Ross knows is what Gary said, that you set Stranger on him.”
She looked away; for a second he thought she might turn back into the mountains. “He’s been trying to catch me alone ever since I got here,” she said in a husky voice. “He rode out early to check fence on the far side of the ranch—Liz put up a lunch for him, then she and Ross went into town. I planned to work the bay mare...” She swallowed. “I heard a door slam, and then Stranger started baying, but muffled, like he’d been locked in somewhere.”
“Look, you don’t have to—”
“Gary came into the barn,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “He said he watched his folks leave and then doubled back so we could have some fun with no one around. I told him forget it, but he grabbed me...” Her words came faster, tumbling over each other, her voice rising so the colt snorted in alarm. “I yelled for Stranger, and Gary hit me. And then Stranger was just there—he must have gone through a window. He knocked Gary down and grabbed his arm. I dragged Stranger into the tack room and barred the door.”
Jake