The Target

4

THE HAIR PRICKLED on the back of his neck. He slowly turned but didn't see anyone who seemed out of place or overly interested in them. There, just in the alley beside the Union 76 gas station, was there a movement? He stared hard, not moving, feeling a light breeze ruffle his hair. There was nothing at all.

Still he didn't like it. He'd never before ignored his gut. He quickly climbed into the Jeep. She hadn't noticed anything, thank God. She'd pulled the afghan he'd brought to keep her warm close around her, nearly hiding her face. She looked like she was ready to fall asleep. Was she tired or did she just want to escape her fear in sleep?

He looked toward the sheriff's office just down Boulder Street. Cops might be looking for her. He knew he couldn't keep her with him indefinitely. She had parents. At least she had a mother she loved, if her smile was any clue. He'd asked her if her mom was as cute as she was and she'd smiled. Her father?

He'd find out eventually. But her mother, at least, had to be worried sick about her. But he couldn't do it, not quite yet. What the hell had happened? He'd teased over the questions for the past six days, but hadn't found any answers. He had to do something soon, but watching her small face pinch with fear when he turned her over to strangers wasn't in him yet. The more time she had with him, hopefully, the stronger she'd be. Actually, it was she herself holding him back.

He looked down at the sleeping child. There was some color in her cheeks. The taut gray look she'd had even in sleep since he'd found her was finally gone. She looked like a normal little girl. He smiled at the bright colors she was wearing. He remembered the previous evening when they'd settled down for him to read to her after dinner. He'd brought up seeing the sheriff again.

This time she hadn't just shaken her head. She'd grabbed his hand and clung to him. And then shaken her head. He hated that awful empty fear in her eyes.

"All right," he'd said. "We'll give it a while longer. But your parents, kiddo, they've got to be frantic for you."

She lowered her head and began to cry.

He wanted to curse, but he didn't. He hadn't snarled a nice meaningful curse in four days, at least out loud, in her hearing.

She seemed terrified that if anyone knew where she was, parents included, she would be hurt again. And she just might. How had he gotten her the first time? Had her parents been careless with her? Left her alone in a shopping mall? Or had the kidnapper simply walked into the girl's yard and taken her?

Maybe he'd go to the sheriff in a couple of days. Almost as soon as he thought it, he was shaking his head. No, she needed more time to trust, to see that he wouldn't let anything happen to her.

But when she was back with her parents, he wouldn't see her again. He wouldn't be able to protect her.

They'd failed to protect her before. It could happen again. But the bottom line was, she wasn't his. He'd saved her, but she wasn't his. He didn't know what to do.

He shook his head at himself and speeded up. The Jeep was a workhorse. He loved it. It was a beautiful day, a bit on the cool side, not more than fifty-five degrees, but the sun was bright overhead. There'd been lots of people on the streets. He remembered the feeling of being watched. Had it been real?

He turned at the sound of a low moan. Another nightmare. He leaned over and touched her face. She moved her cheek against his palm, then stilled. He ruffled her hair and cupped her small chin in his palm.

She opened her beautiful light blue eyes and blinked up at him. He saw her fear slowly disappear. Her eyes warmed. In that instant he knew he wasn't going to let anyone else have her until he knew for certain that she'd be safe.

"Yeah, yeah, so I'm a big Jell-O. But you know what? Jell-O isn't bad. Another thing, not only are you the best-dressed kid in the Ferengi Range, you're the cutest."

THE next afternoon when he came in from out of doors carrying an armful of logs, she flinched and ducked back behind the sofa.

He stopped immediately. "What's up? What's the matter?"

She tried to smile, but it fell away.

"I surprised you?"

She nodded, relieved that he'd explained it as she'd wanted him to. He smiled. "I'll knock next time. I cut us some more wood for the fireplace and the woodstove. Now, after I get this all set, how about you and I go out into the meadow? I want to show you your surprise. While you were trying on your jeans, I got you something really neat." It was, he knew, the only way he was going to get her outside. Since they were in town, she'd refused even to step out onto the front porch. It was time to get her into the fresh air.

Still, she hung back, her small face pale, her expression wary.

"It's really neat," he said again, not acting all that excited, "your surprise, I mean. You need your blue down jacket. It's a little cold out there."

She looked adorable in her stiff new jeans, her orange sneakers as bright as neon lights, red socks, and a bright orange shirt with lime green apples all over it. He was braiding her hair better each time he tried.

She looked fresh and sweet and scared. He ohated this fear in her, but it had only been a week since he'd found her. Both of them had made strides.

Had the man gotten her easily because she was mute and couldn't scream for help?

"It's a really great surprise. Hey, would I lie to you? Nah, put on your jacket. You can take it off when you work up a good sweat."

She still hesitated. He just set the fire, rose, and waited, leaning his shoulders against the mantel.

Finally, she nodded and ran to fetch her jacket that was hanging next to his. Of course she couldn't reach it. He got it down for her and helped her into it. It fit her great, except for the too-long sleeves that he rolled up.

"Your surprise is going to have you running around. Soon you'll want to take it off."

He led her out into the middle of the meadow and pointed to a dragon-tail kite. He'd spread it out on the ground in all its glory. She just stood there and stared, then smiled, a huge smile that deepened her dimples. It was the first time he'd seen a smile like that.

"You ever fly a kite before?"

Even without her squealing with pleasure, he knew he'd scored big. She was so excited she could barely keep still. He handed her the rod, waited until she picked up the red diamond body, and arranged the long glittery dragon tail out behind. She let out some of the string.

"You're good at this."

She smiled and let out some more string.

She knew what she was doing. Who had taught her? Her mother? He yelled, "Okay, let her rip!"

She began running across the flat meadow, feeding out the line. He released the kite when he felt it catch the wind. He shouted, "You've got liftoff!" She stopped running, drew back a bit, and turned the rod a bit to the left. The long multicolored tail whirled about in a big circle.

"Great, let's see you do some more."

She was a lot better at flying it than he would have been. The kid was really good. He watched her move her hand first this way, then that, then flip her wrist, and the dragon's tail whipped about and whirled around and around, turning back in on itself, then streaming out again, long and shining in the wind. He didn't know how she did it, but she turned her wrist back, wiggled it a bit, and that shimmery tail rippled just like a real dragon's tail.

Whoever had taught her was an expert.

She made no sound at all, but she seemed to be having the time of her life. He stood back and watched her. It was the best twelve-dollar investment he'd ever made.

He ended up sitting on the steps of the cabin, not letting her out of his sight.

Time and his thoughts slowed, leaving only the child who was flying the dragon kite amid the meadow of bright columbine.

Then, suddenly, there was a shot, startling and clear in the silence. The kite dipped and plowed earthward, landing in a bush. She didn't hesitate for an instant, not even to look around. She started to run back toward him as fast as she could.

He was to her in a moment, grabbed her up on the run, and turned back, carrying her into the cabin.

Another shot rang out from behind him just as he slammed the door with his foot. He set her down behind the couch. "Stay here. Don't move."

He shoved his pistol into his belt and picked up his rifle.

He crouched next to the window, scanning the far forest, searching for something that was different, something that didn't belong in his world. There came another shot, then another, but he couldn't hear any bullet impacts.

He heard a man shout and another man answer. They were some distance away, maybe fifty yards from the front of the cabin, just at the edge of the forest. There were no other voices. There were two men, then. He said quietly to her, "Stay behind the sofa, sweetheart. It will be all right. Just stay there.

Remember what I told you. I'm big and strong. I'm also mean when I have to be. Nobody will get to hurt you."

He looked back out the window. To his surprise, two men stumbled out of the thick fir trees, each carrying a rifle. He had the closer one in his sights when he saw they were laughing, leaning into each other, one of the men dragging his rifle. He cursed viciously. The idiots were drunk. Jesus, there was no hunting allowed anywhere near here and here they were shooting and drinking.

The closer man was very tall and thin, he could tell that even though he was wearing thick dark corduroy pants and a heavy dark brown down jacket. He had a plaid hunter's hat on his head. He was waving toward the cabin, yelling, "Hey! Anybody there? We're sorry, we didn't mean anything." Then he giggled as the other man, short, bowlegged, wearing cowboy boots, said, "Yeah, we thought you was a couple of deer. I told Tommy here that deer didn't fly kites."

Ramsey put down his rifle, but held the pistol at his side as he came through the front door out onto the porch.

He was so angry he was shaking. He wanted to bang their heads together, the morons. He yelled at them, "What do you think you're doing firing guns up here? Didn't you see my little girl?"

They waved at him. The drunken idiots actually waved, as if he'd invited them up for a beer. The tall guy called out, "Hey, buddy, it was an accident. Who are you? We didn't think anybody lived up here. We're sorry, real sorry."

The bowlegged guy didn't say a word, just walked along toward him, looking at his rifle or his snakeskin boots, or both.

"You up here a long time?"

When the tall guy asked him the question, Ramsey looked away from the shorter man for just an instant, just long enough for the man to raise the rifle and aim it at him.

Ramsey didn't think, he fired. He caught the bowlegged guy in his shooting arm just as he felt a numbing cold slam against his left thigh. The tall man had his rifle up in an instant, but Ramsey was faster this time.

He got him in the shoulder, a clean hit that knocked him backward, off his feet, to the ground.

Ramsey started toward them, then stumbled. He'd been shot in the leg. He hadn't realized it. He yelled, "What the hell do you want? Who are you?"

They were both wounded, cursing, one of the rifles on the ground. The tall guy on the ground managed to jump up, and the two of them had turned and were stumbling back toward the forest. Ramsey raised his Smith & Wesson and fired. He saw a chunk of tree bark fly into the air. He fired again. He heard one of the men yell. Good, he'd gotten one of them with two bullets. He couldn't see them now. They were gone deep into the forest. He wanted to go after them, but he couldn't. He looked down at his thigh. Blood was seeping through the denim. He realized in that instant that he hurt like hell.

Ramsey quickly turned and ran as fast as he could with his gimp leg to the cabin. One of the men still had his gun. He was still at risk. He was in the open and they were hidden in the trees. He saw an old.22 on the ground where the bowlegged guy had dropped it. It was banged up, not very powerful, thank God, but powerful enough to do the job, accurate as hell from close range.

He made the cabin and looked up in shock to see her standing there on the porch, frozen, staring at him.

He grabbed her up, ran inside, slamming the door behind him.

He felt a new shock of pain in his left leg. He looked down to see his jeans ripped through the outside of his thigh, the blood oozing through the thick denim to run slowly down his leg. Slowly, he eased her down. She clutched his right leg. She was making those gut-wrenching mewling noises again.

He kept her against his right leg. He didn't want to get any blood on her, that would be all she needed to freak her out all over again. But she'd overcome her fear to come outside to see if he was okay. "I'm all right, sweetheart. The bad men are gone, at least I hope they are. You're really brave, you know that?

I'm proud of you. You run really fast and that's good too.

"I didn't lie to you. We kicked butt, didn't we? We beat the bad guys. They're gone." But for how long?

What the hell did they want? Who were they? What did they want?

HE was seated on the single chair in the living room. She stood over him when he pulled down his jeans to examine his leg. The bullet had gouged a gash through the outside of his thigh, ripping away skin, a bit of muscle. Not deep, maybe two inches long. It wasn't bad. He was very lucky.

He poured vodka over the wound. It burned like hell, but she was standing right there, so scared, her face whiter than high mountain snow, and he wasn't about to yell. He gritted his teeth and kept pouring until he was as certain as he could be that the wound was clean. It probably needed to be stitched, but he couldn't do that, no way, since he couldn't sterilize a needle and thread. The last thing he needed was an infection. He pulled the skin tightly together over the gash, then put some sterilized gauze over it. Then he ripped some adhesive tape off with his teeth, stretched the tape tight to hold the edges of skin together beneath the gauze, and pressed it down. Pain hissed out between his gritted teeth. She made a small mewling sound. He saw her lay her hand on his right knee. "It's all right. It just hurt a little bit, not bad.

That was the worst of it, putting that tape over it."

He laid down more tape, making it tighter. He rose slowly, turned slightly away from her, and pulled up his jeans. "Now, sweetheart, let's get some aspirin down my gullet." He took four generic aspirin from Clement's and drank a full glass of orange juice. He laughed and wiped his mouth. "Vitamin C is good stuff, maybe even helpful for a gunshot wound."

His leg hurt, but that was the least of his problems.

He knew she was watching him, fear leaving her face as pale as new snow. He locked the front door, shot home the dead bolt, and fastened the chain. Maybe later he'd go get that old.22 rifle. He knew the men weren't coming back. They had no idea he had no ability to contact the outside world. They'd think he'd called in the troops immediately. He doubted they'd hang around. It would be too dangerous for them. Besides, they were both wounded. They'd have to get help. He had bought himself some time.

He looked down at her, standing there, not an inch from him, and he knew he had to deal with this and he had to deal with it now.

"Let's sit down," he said, and held out his hand. There were some flecks of blood on the back of his hand. He hoped she wouldn't see it.

Slowly, she gave him her hand. He sat beside her on the sofa. He carefully moved the bowl of bloody vodka to the far side of the sofa.

"I don't know who those men were," he said, looking at her full face, willing her not to be afraid, not to worry so much. "Did you recognize either of them?"

She cocked her head to one side. She was thinking, he knew that look. He wore one remarkably like it on occasion. Finally, she shook her head, but he could tell she wasn't completely certain. Well, that was good enough for now.

Maybe it hadn't been just one man who'd taken her. Maybe it had been two men. Maybe it was the men who'd just shown up pretending to be drunk to get him out of the cabin, then shooting. Maybe they'd both stayed masked when they'd had her. That meant they hadn't planned to kill her. What was their plan then? Keep her a prisoner and play with her until they were tired of her?

It made the blood pound in his temple. They'd been willing to kill him to get her back? But this time they weren't wearing masks. They wanted her dead now?

That first shot they'd fired hadn't been at him, had it? He couldn't remember. He'd think about it later, go over his memories second by second. Still, it was weird. What was going on? How the devil had they found him?

He'd been a fool. He should have left her in the Jeep in town and told her to keep hidden. Well, he'd done it and there was no undoing it now. It was likely they'd seen him with her in Dillinger the day he'd bought her clothes, the day he'd had her with him, holding her hand while walking to the store, carrying her. He felt the aspirin kick in.

About time.

At the end of it, they'd been shooting to kill. He took her hand in his. "We've got to be really careful now.

Okay? I want you to stay close to me." As if she'd stray six inches from him, he thought.

She nodded solemnly.

"We'll get out of this, sweetheart. I promise you that."

Again, she nodded, her little face so serious, so pale and tight that he wanted to cry.