to be tied. But later. I’m not set up for that lesson today.”
Still talking to the horse, he stepped up onto the running board near the roan’s head. The colt rolled an eye at him and listened as if he understood every word. But the stubborn look in his eye didn’t change any and that made Blue chuckle as he untied the rope and let it drop.
A sharp scream tore the air. The roan, loose in the trailer now, threw up his head and listened.
A second scream, this one closer. Blue leaned out backward to look toward the rec hall.
“No! Sha-a-ne! Stop!”
A girl’s high voice, terrified. For an instant he couldn’t see her and then he did, her face bobbing out from behind the boy running toward him, brandishing a handgun over his head with one hand while he dragged the girl along with the other. Blue’s pulse leaped, his gaze fixed on the gun. Somebody could get killed right here, right now. For no reason.
Farther back, four or five men were jostling out through the doorway of the recreation building, rushing past Andie Lee and Micah who were both white-faced and wide-eyed. All of them were chasing after the kids.
Except for Gordon. Within the commotion, Blue saw him walk up to Andie Lee and take her arm.
“Hey! Stop! Stop where you are!” somebody yelled.
It was the man at the head of the pack, the other one besides Gordon who wasn’t dressed in a law-enforcement uniform. Unlike Gordon, though, the front-runner wasn’t dressed for the ranch—he wore slacks and a loose-fitting shirt.
Andie Lee’s Shane kept barreling toward Blue. His eyes, wilder than the roan’s, strained toward the vehicles parked down by the cedar trees. He actually thought he could take one of them and get out of here, that determination was in every line of his tall, coltish body.
Blue flattened himself against the side of the trailer, murmuring to the horse, who, in spite of the girl’s continued screams had become surprisingly calm. For Roanie. All he did was stand there and paw the floor.
“Turn loose of the girl and the law’ll go easier on you!” yelled one of the men who was chasing Shane.
Blue leaned out far enough to see where they were. The kid had his mouth open now as if to reply but instead he was using his breath to keep running. He had lowered the gun and was waving it back and forth in front of him, ready to aim at any second. When he reached the nose of Micah’s battered truck, not slowing, jerking the girl around like a puppet, Blue got ready.
Shane passed the bed of the truck.
Blue stepped down into his path.
“What’s your hurry, son?” he said.
Shocked, eyes rolling white, Shane slowed and tried to swerve away.
Blue grabbed the gun.
Shane came after it. The girl slammed into his back and they stumbled into Blue with Shane’s long, skinny arm still reaching for the weapon. Blue stuck it into the back of his own waistband and took hold of the boy.
The kid was wasted. His upper arm was nothing but a stick of bone, yet he was nearly as tall as Blue. He was just like Dannie when she’d lost so much weight her skull showed through her face.
The clutch of breathless men swarmed all over them. They separated the two kids, surrounded each one, and took the boy from Blue. Gordon parted the crowd as he brought Andie Lee to her son.
With her face pale as milk, she took the boy’s arm in both her hands as if to pull it away from the lawman who was cuffing his wrists behind his back. She was saying something to him but Shane ignored her completely.
“Thanks a lot, man!”
It took a second for Blue to realize that he was the target of the sarcastic remark, shouted over the buzz of voices and the girl’s loud sobs. The hateful, fearful look in the kid’s eyes was fixed on him.
“You’re right to thank me,” Blue said. “Kidnapping might be a charge even your grandpa can’t fix.”
“He’s not my grandpa! And I don’t want him to fix anything—I want him to throw me out. Then Andie Lee couldn’t keep me here.”
He turned the poison glare onto his mother. She stared back, anger tightening her face over the worry. She let go of him. Then he lifted his chin defiantly and moved his eyes to Gordon.
“You stupid little shit,” Gordon said. “You ought to be horsewhipped.”
Shane, even though he was trembling, didn’t look away from Gordon’s piercing blue glare.
“I’ll take that weapon,” one of the lawmen said, as he stepped up to Blue.
Blue took the gun in his hand, broke it open, and tilted it, but no rounds fell out into his palm. He spun the chamber. Nothing. The old gun was well oiled and in good condition but it wasn’t loaded.
Blue offered it and the lawman took it to perform the same ritual all over again.
“Empty!” Andie Lee cried. “Shane, you mean you used an empty gun to make Jason call out the highway patrol?”
“You want me to kill somebody? Shoot up the place?”
He looked away from Gordon to sneer at her. His curled lip reminded Blue of the roan colt.
“You don’t want me to embarrass Gordon, right? That’s more important than Jason listening to lies about me and me being falsely accused and deserted by my girl, right?”
He turned his malevolent stare on the weeping girl, who lifted her face from her hands to stare back.
“You’re an asshole, Shane Hart,” she screamed. “I hate you. In your dreams I’m your girl—and don’t you ever say that again!”
That hurt him but he covered it quickly.
“Shut up, stupid Lisa,” he said. “All I wanted you for was a hostage, don’t you know that?”
“Fine. And now you don’t have one anymore.”
“It’s all your fault, anyhow,” he said. “You started this with your lies.”
“They weren’t lies! I saw you, I heard you, I bought from you!”
“Lisa the liar,” he said scornfully.
It came out weak, though, because his voice broke on the last word. He was so young, Blue thought. Fifteen, maybe.
“What were you thinking, son? Where were you headed when you ran out of there?”
It was the lawman who had hold of his arm.
“To find my dad.”
He’d managed to recover his hateful tone, but it was sheer bravado. He wouldn’t even turn to see who had hold of him. His eyes filled with the panic of knowing he was trapped.
He
