Last Stand Ranch. Jenna Night

in dirt, tasting its metallic tang on her tongue. Her exhalations stirred up a small cloud of soil and tiny bits of decaying plants. The dusty mess stuck to the sweat on her neck and to the blood on her shoulder and arm.

      She tried to hold her breath and listen, but her body seemed starved for oxygen and she couldn’t stop panting. From where she lay she couldn’t see much of anything outside her little cave. But after a few minutes she heard something. It sounded like someone walking. Then the footsteps stopped.

      Moving very slowly, she lifted her head and saw a man walk by, carrying a rifle and wearing a knitted black ski mask. Was it Ted Kurtz? She couldn’t tell.

      A cold chill shot through her body and she started to feel dizzy again. She had to drop her head back down and concentrate on staying conscious. A few deep breaths, a few seconds of willing her mind to stay focused, and her thoughts finally cleared.

      Was the man with the rifle still out there? Had he wandered off, still looking for her? While fighting the wave of dizziness, she’d lost track of where he was. She was afraid to try to lift herself up and look back outside again.

      The hiding place she’d been so happy to find suddenly seemed too tight and confining. Too much like a grave. Her panting breaths turned to shallow gasps. She thought she might be hyperventilating.

      What if she passed out? Even if Claudia had heard the rifle shots and sent someone to look for her, they might not ever find her if she stayed in this hole in the ground.

      Straining to listen, she heard only the breeze rustling the pine branches. Then she heard a voice. A man’s voice. She held her breath and listened very hard. It sounded as if he was calling her name.

      “Olivia! Are you out here? It’s me, Elijah. It’s okay. I’m going to help you.”

      “Here!” Olivia tried to call out. “I’m here!” But the sound she made wasn’t very loud.

      She tried a second time, straining to make her voice louder, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her thoughts started turning woozy again and she felt cold.

      She reached for a branch on one of the little pine trees at the opening of her hiding place and tugged it, hoping the rustling would draw Elijah’s attention. The tree barely moved. She gritted her teeth and put every ounce of her strength into tugging it again.

      Suddenly Elijah’s hand was clasping hers. Tears of relief flooded her eyes.

      He dropped down so that he was looking at her from just a few inches away. “Hey, what are you doing in there?” he asked in a gentle voice so at odds with his usual tough, unsmiling expression. Even now, he didn’t offer her a smile. He just looked at her with a world of tender compassion in those obsidian eyes and said, “Let me get you out of there.”

      She held out her other hand, the one covered with blood and dirt. He took hold of it without hesitation and helped her out.

      “What happened to you?”

      “Sh-shot.” A chill shook her body, but at least her voice was back. “My sh-shoulder.”

      “Yeah, I heard it. I was afraid it was you.” He started at the top of her head and quickly patted down her body. “Let me see if you got nicked anywhere else,” he said. “I’ve been shot and didn’t know it until later.”

      “How could you not know?”

      He got out his phone and dialed 911, asking for EMS to meet him at Claudia’s, and quickly explaining what had happened. He was so calm and cool that Olivia started to get angry. She’d been shot. He’d found her bleeding and hiding in a hole in the ground. Shouldn’t he be freaking out a little bit? Didn’t she deserve that?

      He helped her to her feet, and then peeled off the light flannel shirt he was wearing over a T-shirt and wrapped the flannel around her. Then he tucked his arm around her shoulder and they started down the hill in a direction that didn’t look at all familiar.

      She had to be in shock because she was on the verge of laughing. But then, almost as quickly, she was on the verge of tears again. She had been shot. She could have died.

      Feeling insignificant in a cold, hard universe, she stumbled down the hillside until they reached Elijah’s motorcycle.

      He helped her onto the seat, sat down behind her and cranked up the engine.

      “What kind of cowboy are you?” Olivia muttered. “Why don’t you have a horse?”

      “I do have a horse.” He pulled her back so she rested against him. She melted into his muscled chest, soaking up his strength and feeling safe for the first time in a long while.

      “The sheriff’s department will need help searching the countryside for any sign of Kurtz. After I get you to the hospital, I’ll go home, saddle up my horse Churchill and ride back over here. If Ted Kurtz is out here, we’ll find him.”

      “No!” Fear shot through Olivia. She gripped his shirt and shook her head. “I don’t want him to shoot you, too.”

      “It’s okay.” He brought his arms closer together, held her a little tighter and revved the engine. “I’m not the one you need to worry about.”

      * * *

      After making sure Olivia was safely transported to the hospital, Elijah joined the other volunteers who’d gathered near the shooting site and started combing the hillside, looking for any clues left behind by the shooter. Five hours later, he was still looking.

      “Elijah! Hold up!”

      He turned his buckskin in the direction of the voice. Churchill was so sure-footed he practically moved like a cat. “What did you find?” Elijah demanded, as Jonathan rode up.

      Jonathan, Elijah’s younger brother, was also searching the ridge between Claudia’s ranch and the Morales ranch. Deputy Bedford rode beside him. Discovering the deputy rode had improved Elijah’s opinion of him.

      “Nobody’s seen anything since you found the bullet casings and those footprints,” Jonathan said. The footprints had led to a rocky stretch of land that went on for miles. Elijah had been riding at the edge of the rock outcropping for hours, trying to pick up the shooter’s trail.

      “Sheriff Wolfsinger is wrapping up the search.” Jonathan rubbed the newly grown tuft of hair below his bottom lip. A “soul patch” he called it. Apparently to a nineteen-year-old it looked cool. Elijah thought it looked ridiculous.

      “The sheriff says it’s getting too dark,” Jonathan added.

      “It’s not dark yet.”

      “I told him you’d say that.”

      “We might as well stop,” Bedford said. “Everybody’s just riding over each other’s tracks at this point.”

      Elijah’s phone rang and Claudia’s name came up on the screen. Last he’d heard from her, she was at the hospital with Olivia.

      “How are you?” Claudia asked when he answered.

      “How are you? You’ve been at the hospital all day. You must be tired. I’ll have Jonathan pick you up and drive you home.”

      “You mother’s coming to get me in a little bit.”

      “Good. How’s your niece?”

      “She’s doing well. Doc Beamer was able to get her shoulder sewed up. No serious injuries, no fractures, nothing like that.”

      “Glad to hear it.” And relieved. Seeing her bleeding and shaking had worried him. She hadn’t looked particularly healthy even before she got shot.

      “They were going to discharge her, but the doctor changed his mind at the last minute. He thinks she should stay overnight. She’s pretty run-down.”

      He heard Olivia say something in the background, but he couldn’t make out the words.

      “It’s for