“No.” He grinned at her, snugging the rope until it bit into her flesh. “Your brother’s visit on your wedding night proved to be opportune. We discovered that we both wanted the same thing when I was ‘escorting’ him off the ranch. We decided to team up.”
“That’s a lie,” she denied. “Culley isn’t interested in owning the Triple C.”
“Let’s say that we both want to see Chase dead and in his grave. We just have different reasons for wanting it. Your brother wants to see every Calder wiped off the face of the earth, and I want the ranch. We just want to have some fun with him first, give him some misery,” he taunted. “It really shook him up when he saw that stallion of his old man’s hanging from that stable beam. Your brother is really looking forward to the day when he can hang Chase and call it suicide. Culley told me about your pa and how he died. It’s poetic justice for Chase to go the same way.”
“I don’t believe you.” She saw Ty’s arm move jerkily, half-lifting it to his head as he started coming around. She talked louder, trying to give her son a warning. “You plan to kill Ty and me. And you expect me to believe that my brother approves of this?”
“Your brother doesn’t know about my plans for you. He’ll think you disappeared, just like everyone else will. Or else he’ll figure that Chase killed you. Nobody will find your body. You’re just going to vanish without a trace. It doesn’t matter to Culley that the kid is his nephew. He’s a Calder first.”
She didn’t dare look at Ty and possibly draw Buck’s attention to him. Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware that he was pushing carefully and quietly to his feet, making very little noise. Her pulse was racing. She was afraid he was going to try something foolish, like attempting to overpower Buck and rescue her. She tried to subtly send Ty a message.
“You won’t get away with this, Buck. Chase will find out somehow. Somebody will tell him, get word to him somehow,” she insisted, and Ty hesitated, poised beside his saddled horse.
Buck frowned at her. “Who would tell him? Nobody knows. You’re as loony as your brother.”
“You’re the one who’s crazy if you think you won’t get caught.” As Ty put his weight into the stirrup, the saddle leather creaked. An instantly alert Buck spun toward the sound. For an indecisive second, Ty sat motionless in the saddle. Maggie threw herself at Buck, tangling her legs with his to trip them both to the ground. “Go, Ty! Ride for help!” she yelled, and had a glimpse of him spurring his horse away from them before Buck kicked her out of his way. With a grunt of pain, she was sent rolling off him as he scrambled to his feet. He took one step after the fleeing horse and rider, already in full stride and lengthening the distance, then raced to his saddled horse to tug his rifle free of its leather scabbard. Buck looked toward his target but didn’t bother to bring the rifle to his shoulder.
He gave Maggie a grimly mocking look as she staggered to her feet, hampered by her wrists, tied in front of her. “It was a nice try, Maggie, but you only postponed the inevitable. The kid isn’t going to find any help,” he jeered, “not in that direction.” With a sinking heart, Maggie realized that the horse and rider were streaking north. “In ten minutes he’ll be lost. I won’t have any trouble finding him. This just rearranges things. A fella’s gotta stay flexible. I’ll work it the other way around—dispose of you now, then hunt down the kid. The result’s the same.”
Chapter XXXVI
Less than three miles from the scene, the sight of a cottonwood and willow barrier forced Ty to rein his puffing horse to a halt. Through the thick-leaved limbs, he had a glimpse of sunshine glittering on the smooth surface of water and realized he was lost. They had crossed no river.
It was three o’clock and his shadow lay on the grass to his right. The discovery that he’d incorrectly ridden north brought a groan of despair. The pickup was to the east—the pickup, with its citizen’s-band radio and the rifle in the rear window rack. He reined his horse to the right to put the sun at his back and kicked it into a reluctant gallop.
Water splashed, followed by the grunts of horses laboring up a bank and the groan of saddle leather and jangle of bridle chains. Ty almost cried aloud with relief when he saw the quartet of riders gallop into view with his father at the head. His hoarse shout pulled them to a halt, their horses plunging excitedly when he approached.
“Where’s Buck?” His father’s question was urgent and demanding.
Ty waved a hand to the south. “He’s got Mom. He’s going to kill her, I think.” And he breathlessly explained the little he’d overheard and noticed how white his father seemed beneath the layers of tan. Yet none of the information appeared to startle him.
“Show us where you left them,” Chase ordered. He loosened the flap securing his rifle in the scabbard and pulled it free. The trio of riders followed suit.
Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she was thinking clearly. The more time she gave Ty to get away, the longer it would take for Buck to find him, which strengthened the chance that someone from the ranch would stumble across them. The galloping hooves of Ty’s horse faded from her hearing as she lifted her gaze from the rifle muzzle in Buck’s hands. She had to keep him talking.
“You aren’t going to get away with this. Somewhere you’ll slip up. Look at what already has gone wrong. Nothing is going the way you planned.” She tried to puncture his confidence, make him hesitate.
“I’ve gone too far to turn back now.” He shrugged and the rifle barrel swung away from her. “I know how to cover my tracks.”
“When Chase finds out I’m missing, he’ll turn this place upside down looking for me. How can you be sure there isn’t something of mine here that would be incriminating evidence?” Her hat was on the ground, knocked off when she fell while tripping Buck. “Are you positive that you can wipe out all traces?”
With the rifle cradled in the crook of his arm, the muzzle pointed down, he scooped the hat off the ground and walked over to push it on top of her head. “It’d be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”
“How are you going to get rid of my body so no one will find it?” She spoke matter-of-factly, not letting her imagination dwell on the subject. “You’re running out of time, Buck. If you dig a shallow grave, you run the risk of a coyote uncovering it. My bones will be found sooner or later, and people will start putting two and two together and coming up with your name.”
But he just smiled. “I’m not going to dig any grave for you. I’ll just dump your body in the river.” He cocked his head to one side, his attitude smug and mocking. “Gas makes a corpse float. Did you know that? The insides bloat all up, making it buoyant. When I was in prison, my cellmate was a half-breed Arapaho. He told me about it and said you could keep a dead man from floating if you disemboweled him and filled him with rocks.” He paused, then observed, “You’re looking a little pale, Maggie. I admit it’s a grisly thought, but it is effective, very effective.”
“You’re crazy.” She took a step backward, recoiling in a wary move and fighting the tremors that shook her.
His look became ugly. “You may think I’m crazy, but I’m not going to be cheated out of this ranch. It should have been mine from the beginning. I’m a better cowman, a better rider and roper. I’m better than Chase any day of the week. My mother, my grandparents—all the way back, it was their sweat and blood that built this ranch. I deserve to be in charge. It’s my right as much as it is anyone’s!” He walked over to grab the trailing reins of Maggie’s grazing horse. His gesture was impatient as he motioned her over. “Get on your h
orse.”
“No.” She backed up another step. “I’m not going with you peaceably. And if you kill me here, then you’ll have to carry me to the river. How would you explain the blood on the saddle?”
“Listen, you little bitch—” Buck took a step toward her just as her horse lifted its head and sent out a searching whicker to the right.
Maggie turned. “Chase!” She cried out his name as he crowned the jagged ridge of a hill and started down the slope at the head of a band of riders. She broke into a clumsy run, her coordination made awkward by the hands bound in front of her.