The Kissing Stars (30 page)

A shout interrupted his musings. “Montana,” Robards called. “Burro Canyon is just ahead.”

Gabe sent up a quick, silent prayer, then spurred his mount forward.

IN THE course of an hour, Jimmy Wayne made four rather feeble escape attempts. Tess was able to stop him with words rather than the gun, which was good because she didn’t want to kill the man. But she had made the threat, and motherhood had taught her the mistake of making threats then not following through.

With the passage of time, Bodine’s frustration built. She could hear it in the threats he made, see it in his choppy movements. She tried to distract him—and gain a little in the exchange—by asking him about his partner.

“That’s right. Doc. Doc will take care of this, of you. He’s liable to get a wild hare and come watch the show when I have my payback with Montana. You’ll be in trouble then, missy. Doc is a mean sonofabitch.”

“And that makes you…?” she muttered. “Where is he now?” she called out.

“Probably on his way here. His caves aren’t far, you know. That’s where he spends all his time, down there counting his money. He’s a real smart man. A scientist. Tells me there’s all kinds of riches buried in these rocks.”

A scientist. Oh, no. How could I have been so wrong about him far so long
?

“He knows these mountains inside out, so even if you get away from me, you’ll never get away from Doc.” While Bodine spoke, he took small, ginger steps toward her. Tess winced at the thought of how all those rocks were biting into his bare feet. Just as she was fixing to raise the gun and send him back to where she wanted him, he let out a yell and lifted his foot.

The man had stepped on a cactus.

“Ow,” she observed. “That’ll teach you to stay where I said.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Jimmy Wayne lost his temper. He charged at Tess, heedless of the sharp stones and the bloody trail his feet now left. He yelled with rage. “Damned rocks. Damned woman. You bitch! I’m going to kill you, you hear? I’m going to
kill
you!”

She aimed the gun, but he kept coming. She realized he wasn’t going to stop and she wanted to curse right back at him. “I didn’t want to do this!”

Tess pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him in the shoulder where she had aimed, and as he fell to his knees, she shimmied off the rock. “Curse you, Jimmy Wayne Bodine. This didn’t have to happen. I didn’t want to shoot you. I’ve never shot another human being, and I didn’t want to do it today.” She approached him carefully, keeping the gun trained on his rolling, groaning body.

“You murdering female,” he moaned, swaying but not going down. “Help me, dammit.”

Her teeth tugged at her lower lip as she tried to figure what to do next. The challenge was to staunch the blood flow without putting herself in danger. But how could she get near him without putting herself at risk? The man was a killer. Wounded, but still a killer. It would be stupid of her to get within ten feet of him.

But if you don’t, then you’ll be a killer, too. You should have thought of that before you shot him
.

But what else could she have done? She’d had to protect herself. Jimmy Wayne Bodine had murder in his eyes and on his tongue when he ran at her, and Tess knew he would’ve killed her in a heartbeat given the chance.

She stopped just outside his reach, his every groan cutting her like a knife. “I can’t let you bleed to death. I just can’t.”

Blood seeped through Bodine’s fingers of the hand holding the wound. It scared Tess. This man truly could die and the responsibility would be hers.

She reached beneath her riding skirt and loosened the tapes of her petticoat, then pulled it off. Still beyond his reach, she set the gun onto the ground and set about tearing her underwear into strips. These she threw toward Bodine saying, “Wad this up and put pressure on the wound.”

He sank back on his heels, his complexion gone pasty white. “My back. It’s dripping down my back. You’ve killed me, girl. Kilt me dead.”

Tess circled around him to get a view of his back.
Oh, no
. She covered her mouth with her hand as she realized what she would have to do. “You know, I am not ordinarily a stupid person,” she told the outlaw as she approached him. “Don’t make today be any different. I’m going to help you, Bodine, but if you so much as lift an eyebrow in a threatening manner, I will leave you for the buzzards.”

As she reached out to touch him, Bodine jerked once, twice, three times. Bullets drove him backward, bloodstains bursting across his chest as he fell in a crumpled heap against the rocky ground and lay still.

Jimmy Wayne Bodine stared at the sky through sightless eyes.

HALFWAY DOWN the trail to the bottom of Burro Canyon, Gabe tried to get his throat to work as facts flew at him like bullets. Captain Robards had shot Bodine. Tess stood by the body, apparently safe and sound. Where was Will? Ah, hell. Where was his son?

He gigged his horse, riding him dangerously fast on the uncertain trail.
Oh God, oh God, oh God
. It was a prayer playing over and over in his mind.

Then he was there and Tess was in his arms, murmuring words of thanks. She laughed with a tinge of hysteria and cried a little, too. Gabe urged her away from the corpse, away from the evil, and when he could drag enough air back into his lungs to speak he asked “Where’s Will?”

“He’s not with you?” Tess pulled back to look up at him. Concern dimmed her blue eyes. “You didn’t return to where you left the gold?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t there. I expected him to be with you.”

She shook her head “Bodine left him behind he left him tied up. What about Castor? Was she there?”

The camel?
“No. Nothing was there.”

“Good.” Tess lay her head upon his chest. “He’s fine then. Will must have gotten loose and gone back to Twinkle and the others. That’s what I told him to do, and your son is good about minding his mother.”

Since she appeared so confident, Gabe relaxed a little. He took his first good breath in what felt like days. The peace lasted only a moment, however, because he spied Tess’s corset lying on the ground. Everything inside him cringed and he rattled off a mental string of curses. Outwardly, he nodded toward the discarded undergarment and asked, “Did he hurt you, Tess?”

She followed the path of his gaze and her body tensed. “No, not that way.”

He didn’t believe her. “Tess. Tell me.”

“No. Really.”

She made a quick summation of what had occurred after Bodine brought her to Burro Canyon. Gabe suspected she glossed over much of the story, and the parts she did tell him made him want to go kick Bodine’s corpse. Before he went that far, Robards, having taken the steep, rocky trail slower than Gabe, rode up and dismounted. He sauntered over to the body on the ground and knelt beside it. “That was some damn fine shooting if I say so myself. I’m glad to see you’re all right. Tess.”

Watching the Ranger pat down Jimmy Wayne’s pockets, Gabe asked, “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but why did you kill him?”

Robards looked up in surprise. He slowly pushed to his feet, then walked toward them, his gaze focused on Gabe’s wife. “Why, I killed him to save Tess. Montana here didn’t think too straight once we heard the gunshot and spied you two from up top of the canyon. I kept my wits about me enough to watch for the opportunity to ensure your safety.”

“But he was already shot,” Gabe protested. “Couldn’t you see that?”

Robards shrugged. “It was only a shoulder wound; it wasn’t fatal. The man wasn’t down. No telling what he might have done to her once she got close to him. Bodine was strong enough and big enough to strangle her with just one hand.”

“I was being careful,” Tess assured them. “I knew what I was doing.” She glanced up at Gabe and added, “I had to try and stop the bleeding.”

Tess hadn’t wanted a man’s death on her hands. Gabe understood that. He hugged her tight, then drew back and stared deeply into her eyes. “You didn’t kill him, darlin’, the Texas Ranger did. Remember that.”

“I know,” she replied, her warm gaze telling him she appreciated the reminder anyway.

Gabe was leaning down to kiss her when Robards cleared his throat and asked, “Where is Will?”

Tess explained her theory of where the boy might be, and Robards agreed she was probably on target. “I’m sure he returned to the others. I’ve come to know Will quite well, remember. He’s a responsible young man. I’m sure he is fine. After all, he’s traveled much farther across the desert by himself in the past, hasn’t he?”

Gabe found himself wishing the Ranger would shut up. He didn’t like being reminded that another man knew his son better than he did. It made him feel strange and the old saying of “
like father, like son
” reared up in his mind. Which brought his thoughts around to Monty. “Bodine had a partner, don’t forget. The bastard has been pulling our strings for who knows how long.” He hated to say it, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility that plagued him. “The partner might have our son.”

Robards grimaced and shook his head. “Doc won’t hurt Will. He may have had us fooled about other matters, but he does love the boy. I’ve seen that plenty of times.”

With that, Gabe had had enough. “Well, we can’t be certain the culprit is my father, now can we? And we don’t know what a stranger would do to
my
son. So I suggest we get busy trying to find the pair of them.”

“You don’t think Doc Cameron is the man who broke Bodine out of the Walls?” Robards asked.

Gabe wanted to agree, but he couldn’t. The evidence against the man was overwhelming. Still, he waited for Tess to bust in with a defense of Monty “Doc” Cameron and when she didn’t he shot her a questioning look.

“Bodine said things. I don’t want to believe it, but Gabe, I don’t think it could be anybody else. Everything points to Doc.”

Gabe closed his eyes, surprised at how her lack of faith in Monty managed to twist the knife a bit. Guess that when it came to dealing with parents, no matter how old a person got, a little bit of child inside him never died.
Hell, Daddy does it to me again
.

“Let’s just go find the sonofabitch. Well run out of daylight if we’re not careful.”

Of course, finding the puppet master was easier said than done since they didn’t have a clue where to look. While they debated their next move, Tess suggested they bury Bodine. Neither Gabe nor the Ranger cared to go to that much trouble—they’d need a chisel to dig in this rocky ground—so they fitted the body into a crevice in the canyon wall and piled rocks on top of it By the time they finished that unpleasant chore, they’d decided the most logical place to begin the search was the cave where Robards had found Doc working weeks before.

“It’s not far,” Robards told them as they mounted their horses, Tess trading in the mule for Bodine’s bay. “I’ll lead. It’s a talent of mine.”

Tess was tired, weary in both body and soul. This had been the longest day of her life and it wasn’t over yet. More than anything she’d like to turn this horse around and head for home. Aurora Springs called to her like a little piece of Eden.
But here I am instead
. Today she was too tired to see the beauty in her surroundings. Today the Big Bend region reminded her of ugliness alone.

Lionel led them up out of Burro Canyon and along a winding path through the sandy, stony hills. Dread rode with Tess as she followed the two men, wondering what horror waited to be discovered up ahead.

Before she was ready for it the Ranger reined in his horse. He pointed to a ridge off to the west a short distance and said, “It’s there. I’d have never found Doc the first time if I hadn’t caught up with him out in the open. The caves in this area are interwoven. He uses one for a campsite while he supposedly studies the pictographs in the others.”

Gabe studied the hills with a careful eye. “So what’s the best approach? On foot?”

“Yes, and well need to be quiet about it, too. Sound echoes out here.”

Gabe glanced at Tess. “Honey, are you all right with this? You don’t have to come with us.”

“I’m fine. I need to be there, Gabe. I need to hear him admit it.”

Robards shot her a look. “He might not admit it, Tess. You should be prepared for that. In my experience, criminals seldom own up to their misdeeds, even when there is a preponderance of evidence stacked against them.”

“I need to be there,” she repeated. Both men nodded and nothing more was said on the subject.

All too soon, they approached the mouth of the cave Lionel Robards had named as Doc’s “lair.” Lionel nodded toward Tess and Gabe, then drew his gun. Gabe followed suit. Tess took a deep breath and trailed the two men into the cave.

Doc Cameron turned at the noise and his jaw went hard. “Will,” he said in a granite tone, “hand me that gun.”

Seeing him like this shocked Tess’s good sense right out of her. For a split second, she stared at her old friend, studying the lined and weathered face for signs of a wickedness she’d never spied before. Then his words hit her like a slap.

Oh, my
. Her son was here with him, after all.

Protective maternal instinct propelled her past Gabe and Lionel, and she marched over to her son. “William Gabriel Cameron. What are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to go find Twinkle once you got yourself untied?”

“But Mama—” He broke off at the click of a gun being cocked.

“Doc Cameron, I’m placing you under arrest,” Captain Lionel Robards said.

“No, I don’t think so,” Doc replied, his bushy salt-and-pepper brows dipping into a scowl. He glanced at Gabe and added, “Hello, son.”

“Don’t call me that.” Gabe’s gaze darted from his father to the Ranger and back to his father again. He held his gun aimed somewhere between Robards and Doc. “I swore off that moniker a dozen years ago.”

Robards said, “Put down the gun, Doc.”

Doc’s expression grew scathing and his aim at Lionel Robards never wavered as he spoke to his son. “I’m innocent, Gabe. Will, here, has filled me in on what happened. We’ve been trying to figure out how to save his mother from Bodine, but since you’re here, I assume he’s dead.”