was no reply, but sure enough, he did smell smoke. He always smelled smoke in here. All the old farmers ignored the signs plastered by management on the windows and the front of the counter, and Roxie was the worst offender of the bunch. She always stated proudly that she’d been smoking two packs a day for fifty years, and management could fire her if they wanted. She’d been here for the past ten years. Truth was, management was scared of her.
But sixty-year-old Roxie didn’t come plunging through the squeaky swinging doors from the back the way she always did. Buck listened for the sound of a toilet flushing or of Roxie shuffling boxes around in the back. Could be she hadn’t heard him come in.
“Roxie?” He sniffed again and noticed that the smoke was stronger.
And different…sharper.
“Roxie!”
A faint popping, rushing, cracking sound reached him, then a heavy thump…and a muffled cry that sounded like a tomcat meowing.
A wisp of smoke slithered into the shopping area between the twin stockroom doors.
“Help!” came the tomcat’s voice again. It was Roxie.
Buck ran out the door and the few feet back to his truck. He radioed for backup, then grabbed his fire-resistant jacket and his ax and raced back in through the swinging doors into the storage area. Bright tongues of flame raced along a stack of cardboard boxes that surrounded a smoking barbecue grill in the far corner.
“Roxie, where are you?” he shouted, covering the lower part of his face with his arm to protect his lungs from the heat and smoke.
“Help me! I’m in here with the fire extinguisher!” The thumps came from his right, on the other side of a solid wooden door that led to a smaller storage room. “This door’s stuck again, and it’s getting smoky in here! Hurry!”
“Stand back, Rox, I’m going to force it open.”
“Who’s out there?” she demanded. “Buck, that you?”
“Yes, stand back!”
He knew there wasn’t a whole lot of room in there to move around, much less stand back. He rammed his shoulder against the door and bounced hard against it. “Is it unlocked?”
“Of course!”
He shoved again, this time putting his full muscle-builder’s weight against it, but he bounced from the wood once more as a slice of pain streaked down his right arm. He coughed at the thickening smoke.
The fire quickened with sudden life. Snapping heat puckered his flesh, and the smoke twisted and bunched around him as if it were alive. He struggled not to breathe too much of the dark thickness. He stood back from the door, raised his ax and slammed the blade into the wood above the knob. Roxie squealed. When he plunged forward with his shoulder this time, the door splintered and gave way with him and he tumbled in.
“Hurry!” Roxie shouted. “There’s a barbecue grill that could—”
A loud sound like the boom of a cannon reached them, and the wall beside them imploded. Sudden, sharp pain pierced Buck’s chest just before he grabbed Roxie, threw her beneath him, and fell over her. A shelf of paper towels toppled onto them as another blast hit.
Through the blackness and heat and smothering smoke, he heard the welcome sound of a siren. His friends would come through.
Downtown Knolls, Missouri, held the picturesque quality of one of those postcards they sold in the ancient Ben Franklin store on the northeast corner of the square. Early autumn barely touched the lush growth of maple and oak trees with kisses of gold and rust. The three-story brick courthouse in the center of the square rose up from its broad landscape of green grass and evergreen hedge like a graceful sculpture. Across the street Arthur and Alma Collins stepped out of Little Mary’s Barbecue with their sandwiches and home fries.
“I never could figure out how they can say the food is homemade when the café isn’t home to anybody,” Alma chattered to Arthur, her dark gold, naturally wavy hair reflecting the sun’s warm rays. Her eyes held the same golden glow, highlighted by a gleam of anticipation as they ambled across the street toward the courthouse lawn. Their destination was a group of picnic tables settled deeply beneath the shade of the trees, where the rest of their tour group gathered.
“I mean, they make the buns at the café, don’t they?” Alma stepped over the curb, taking care to walk on the sidewalk and not the grass. “Not at home in their own kitchens. They should say ‘made from scratch’ or somethin’. I tried to explain that to a waitress while you were orderin’, but I don’t think she appreciated it.” The deep, warm tones of Alma’s voice betrayed the Southern heritage of her parents and mingled in an interesting way with the Spanish accent she and Arthur had both picked up during their years of missionary service in Mexico.
Arthur couldn’t suppress a grin at his wife. This tour was a rare treat for both of them, but especially for Alma. Where they lived there were no antiques stores, no modern grocery stores, no medical care. They didn’t even have electricity in the small village where they’d been building a new church for the past year. Alma had worked hard alongside him, loving the people who struggled just to feed their children, teaching them safer cooking habits and hygiene as she told them about the new life they could find in Christ.
“Where do you want to go after we eat?” he asked. “We have a whole afternoon to explore before we load onto the vans again.”
Alma’s smile broadened. She laid a hand on Arthur’s arm. “There’s an antiques shop down a block from the secondhand bookstore, and I know Phyllis and Shirley wanted to see if they—”
A squeal of tires from the street behind her cut off her words. Her eyes widened in alarm as she spun around, instinctively reaching for her husband.
Arthur gasped at the sight of a big black Plymouth careening around the corner of the square, going clockwise on the one-way, counterclockwise street. The car hit the curb and jumped it with a squeal of springs, rumbling toward them with evil intent.
“Oh my goodness…Arthur, look out!”
Arthur grabbed Alma’s shoulders and jerked her toward him.
He caught sight of a dark head slumped over the steering wheel just before the front tires dug into the lawn. Alma screamed as the heavy bumper slammed into the backs of her legs and thrust her against Arthur. A confusion of tearing pain and terrified cries collided with jumbled bits of sky and ground. Picnic tables and people scattered across the broad lawn.
Everything ended abruptly with the crash of metal against concrete.
Cowboy saw the gleam of dark steel from the barrel of the .22 rifle just before it exploded with fire and sound, ripping into his right upper arm and shoving him sideways with the force of its blast. He cried out with pain and surprise as his body slammed against the front porch railing.
Berring, greasy haired and scowling, slung the screen door wide open and followed the gun out onto the porch. “Get off my property or I’ll blow that arm off next time!” he growled in a voice that could cut tin cans in two with its gritty depth.
Blood oozed out between Cowboy’s fingers as he gripped the bullet wound. He gaped at the man. Cold shock washed through him as he stared at
