Give First Place to Murder (27 page)

Chovalo groaned again, from the movement or from my ministrations, I didn't know. Either way, it seemed a good sign. His eyelids flickered. I thought he tried to say something, but only another groan came out.

I had to know. "Chovalo, did you find the phone? Did you make the call?"

It was only a faint whisper, but it was enough. No. So we were on our own, heading toward a desolate highway, locked in a moving horse van with no way out until the man who was driving decided it was time to open the door. I hoped he'd keep driving a long time.

Chovalo coughed up some blood, then tried to say something. It sounded like "sit up." He struggled a little, then collapsed, making an ominous gurgling sound.

"Oh, dear God. Mom, what do we do? Should we prop him up a little?"

I had no idea, but working on the theory that doing something was better than standing around wringing our hands, I said, "I think just a little. What are those things over there?"

"Horse blankets. They aren't clean."

Somehow I didn't think that counted. "They're soft. And they'll keep him from rolling around every time this damn van jolts. Here. Help me."

Watched curiously by the gray mare as she methodically consumed her dinner, we made a bed of sorts. It seemed to help, for Chovalo started to breathe a little more normally and opened his eyes. He looked like he was trying to say something when the van gave another hard jolt, he gave a gasp, and passed out.

"Do you think he'll live?" Susannah asked anxiously.

"Probably. Until Wes stops this thing. Then none of us will, unless we think of something quick."

"I can't believe this is happening." Susannah ran her hands through her hair, making it stand on end. She looked from Chovalo to me to the horse. The horse. Standing there in her narrow stall, eating out of a net.

"Susannah, flash your light over the back wall." I had a vague idea that was beginning to take shape. I hoped.

"Why?"

"This is not the time for a discussion. I want to see those hay nets."

"Hay nets? What on earth--Hay nets! Mom, you're brilliant."

Finally, confidence. Now if I could muster up some of my own, I thought, as she flashed the light around. The nets hung on the wall, three or four of them. Nice flat, strong nylon nets with three snaps on each side for attaching onto a stall wall, a safe and efficient way of holding hay. But it wasn't hay I was thinking of holding.

Susannah was way ahead of me, reaching up to lift one down, then another.

"How are we going to do this?" She handed one to me.

Old movies once again replayed through my mind.

"We'll let him open the door, you flash the light in his eyes and I'll throw the net over his head. You run out of the van and get the phone in the truck cab and call 911."

It sounded simple. It could have worked. It almost did. We’d been anxious for Wes not to stop, but now that we were ready, it seemed he was determined to drive forever. Susannah and I discussed over and over how she would hold the light, how I would throw one net over his head, then the next, and while he was fighting to free himself she would run to the cab. It was flawless. At one point I thought Chovalo was awake and listening. He seemed to be trying to lift his hand, but when we knelt by his side, he was again unconscious.

"I wish we had some water to give him." Susannah started to touch the wound, then drew her hand away. "I wish we had something besides your bra."

"Be grateful I wear one."

That was when the van slowed down, the gears changed, and we could feel the bump as we pulled off the road. It was black outside. I motioned to Susannah to snap off the flashlight. It was black inside also.

"Get ready." I gathered up my nets and crawled over behind the door. "Don't be scared."

"Why would I be scared?" I heard Susannah's voice coming from somewhere near the middle of the van but I didn't bother to answer. Let her bolster courage any way she wanted.

The footsteps were faint but the scrape of the ramp and the removal of the bar wasn't. The lock squeaked and the door rasped as Wes pulled it open.

"Sittin’ in the dark won't help, ladies. Won't even buy you any more time then--hey!"

Susannah shone the light directly on him and I started to throw the net. Only, I hadn't counted on Wes's flashlight. The strong beam swung wildly around the van, landing directly in the eyes of the up--to--now calm gray horse. No longer. As soon as the light hit her she went ballistic, throwing herself against her chest bar, trying to rear. Her wild whinnying echoed against all sides of the van. That set her off even more. Susannah’s flash that was supposed to stay on Wes suddenly shone on the horse.

"No, no. Shine it back. I can't see."

"What the hell are you doin’?" Wes’s flashlight landed on the trailer floor but his bellow set the horse off again. I had the first net on him but had no idea if his arms were pinned. They weren’t. I could feel them flail around. Susannah finally got her light back on us.

"Quick, Mom. The other net. Oh, quit jumping around, I can't--."

I tried, but I only had his head covered. He jumped and heaved like he'd been stuck with a spur. I jumped on his back and tried to throw the other net over him, but not being experienced in rodeo, it didn't work. The net fell. I stayed on. For a moment.

"Watch out. He's got a gun," Susannah hollered and dropped her flashlight. I could see the light roll toward the horse who was doing more serious rearing and noise making of her own. The horse came down on the flashlight and the van was plunged into darkness. Until the gunshot. A brilliant flash told me where Wes stood, followed by the sound of a bullet hitting the side of the van, and what must have been a ricochet as it hit another side. For a second all was still, then I heard a groan. A loud one, accompanied with a sob. Susannah. The son of a bitch had shot Susannah. I used his hair to climb higher on his back. I clawed at his eyes with my fingernails. I roared in his ear that I was going to kill him, alternating with pleas for Susannah to speak to me. She didn't. Wes did. He bellowed like a bull and swung around with me still clinging. He plucked me off effortlessly and flung me across the van. I could feel myself hit the wall, could feel the back of my head split open, could taste the blood that started to pour down my face just as the lights came on. There was a figure in the doorway. I stayed conscious only long enough to recognize him. The missing pirate.

A voice called my name.

"Mom, Mom? Wake up, please."

"Ellen. For God's sake, will one of you look at her? Ellen?"

Susannah. I knew that other voice too. Didn't I? My eyes wouldn’t focus and I wasn't sure what had happened, only that wherever we were I didn't like it. Susannah. She shouldn't be in this nightmare.

"Lift her up, there, gently. Um, quite a mess."

I didn't know that voice at all and immediately decided whoever it belonged to needed to go away. Movement had set off fireworks inside my head and I wanted to be left alone.

"Go away."

"Oh Mom. You're alive."

Susannah seemed to be crying.

"Of course I'm alive." My voice sounded more like a croak. Memories slowly returned. The horse van. Wes. The pirate. Was Susannah all right? I struggled to sit up in spite of the roman candles that refused to stop exploding in my brain. "Are you all right? Are you shot?"

"Not even a scratch. But I thought he killed you."

Another face came into focus and the relief on it was obvious. Only seeing it didn't relieve me. It was the damn pirate again.

"What are you doing here?" The van seemed to be full of people, some in dark jackets with "police" in yellow letters on their backs, others in the navy blue of the paramedics lifted a stretcher through the van door. Someone crooned gently to the mare. She evidently wasn't totally convinced because she kept pawing the floor. Each bang felt like a cherry bomb going off in my skull.

"Fine thanks for saving your life." He grinned down at me.

"You? Saved our lives?"

The man who had pronounced my head a mess was back, along with someone else and a stretcher.

"This one gets a ride to the hospital also Okay, Jack, on my count of three."

"Where's Wes?" I gasped as they started strapping me down. "I'm not going to the hospital. I'm fine." Only things were getting a little fuzzy around the edges again and I wasn't quite up to arguing.

I felt Susannah's hand in mine as the stretcher was lifted, and just made out her face. She kept saying something, but I couldn't understand. I wanted to ask her if the pirate really had saved us, wanted to tell her not to trust him, but I was getting cold and felt myself slipping, slipping. I tried to squeeze her hand, tried to make the words come out, tried to take one more look at her, only she wasn't who I saw. It was my blasted pirate, grinning down on me as I passed out cold.

The sun was shining. I felt it trying to get under my eyelids, but I didn't want it there. A voice called my name, softly, insisting. A voice I didn't know. I opened one eye just a slit, found it didn't hurt too much, and opened the other one. I had no idea where I was or the identity of the man who smiled down on me.

"Nice to have you back." He proceeded to shine a light in my eyes, lifted my head up slightly, nodded and said, "You'll do. Head still hurts? We'll give you something. Don't worry. Your hair will grow back."

Before I could protest, croak out a question, or even reach for my hair, a nurse I hadn't even seen, injected something into an IV I hadn't known I was hooked to. I was gone again.

This time there was no sun, and I knew the voice calling me. Susannah. "Mom? Are you all right? Are you awake?"

"I think so," I said, testing my eyelids. They slid open. There was Susannah, Dan right behind her.

"You gave us quite a scare." Another familiar voice.

I turned my head with surprisingly little pain. There was Aunt Mary. I grinned at her.

"Sorry. Can you crank this bed up, someone? I feel like I've been lying down for a month."

"Only two days," Susannah said.

"You're kidding," I said, incredulous. "That long?"

"Well, at first you were just out, but after they found you didn't have a skull fracture, they gave you something. You’ve been sleeping. Lots."

"How's your head?" Dan hovered close. "Are you in pain?"

"I've felt better," I admitted, "but it feels good to sit up. Wow."

Memories flooded back. The van, Wes, Chovalo, Susannah.

"Chovalo. Is he all right?" .

"He's going to be fine," Aunt Mary answered. "We all gave blood--he'd lost a lot---but he should be able to go home in a couple of days."

"Thanks to a very inventive bandage." Dan said that with a straight face.

I felt myself blush. "What happened to Wes? How did you find us?"

"He didn't. I did." A familiar face appeared around Dan's shoulder, gray eyes smiling, soft blond curls gone, but it didn't matter. I knew who he was.

"You’re the pirate!"

"Meet Robert ‘Bobbie’ Thomas, Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.” Dan grinned down at me.

"I understand my parrots upset you a bit." The pirate grinned down as well. I wasn’t amused.

"Your parrots were only part of it. What's going on here? I missed the whole thing."

"You'd better tell her everything, Dan," Aunt Mary said. "She'll drive us all crazy until she knows. Besides, after what she went through, she deserves to know."

"You're darn right." I sat up straighter. Not a good idea. I winced, put my hand up to touch my bandage and cringed as I felt a shaved spot.

"Don't worry, Mom. It doesn't look too bad. Maybe we can fix it later."

How reassuring, I thought, but let any concern for my hair go. I felt like I’d come into the movie in the middle, and I wanted the beginning and the end. "Tell me. Everything."

Susannah perched on the end of my bed. Dan pulled up another chair. Special Agent Thomas, my pirate, leaned against the doorframe.

"If you’re all cozy." I said that as sarcastically as I could manage.

Dan laughed. "You first." He gestured at Thomas, who nodded.

"About a month ago the sheriff’s department called us, asking for help. They’d located a couple of sites where they thought methamphetamine was being manufactured. They had a couple of hot suspects, but nothing they could take to court. Also, they knew the stuff was being moved in large quantities, but couldn't figure out how. They’d traced it, through that Rusty kid who got killed, to the horse shows, but they still didn't know who his contact was or how it was being transported. That’s where I came in. The pirate outfit is one I use for my kids birthday parties, and raising parrots is my hobby. I have six of them. Kids. I have more parrots. Anyway, I was supposed to wander around and see if I could spot Rusty's contact."

"So you did know him," I said to Dan accusingly.

"Not exactly. I'd been tipped off by the sheriff, but we didn't actually meet." Dan and Special Agent Thomas gave each other that ‘all good buddies together’ look. "That is, until after he grabbed you out of the horse trailer."