Ryan hugged his dad again and trudged through the mud to the barn.
Travis asked, “Roads clear?”
“Partly,” Rick said as he followed Ellen and Travis up the steps and into the kitchen. The paramedics were getting their equipment out, and Rick told them to go in through the front door.
“Rock Creek Road is still flooded,” Rick continued, “and there’re dozens of downed trees, phone lines still out. I don’t think we’ll get them fixed until early next week, but cell service seems to have been restored. I got over Mule Run at Privett. The rest of Mule Run is still closed until the water recedes at bit. The ditches were already saturated, not many places for the water to go. Be careful if you need to head to town, because there’s standing waterand the roads are crap. Even one of my deputies misjudged and got his truck stuck just south of the Rock Creek closure, the eejit.” Rick shook his head. “I don’t have word from the county yet as to the status of the cleanup. They’re probably still assessing. How’s your patient?”
“Alive,” Ellen said. “But not out of the woods.”
“Let’s get him under arrest and off to the hospital.”
Rick let the paramedics in, and Ellen watched as they checked Sam’s vitals and transferred him to the stretcher. She gave them the list of medications she’d given him, and when, and a plastic bag with the shotgun pellets. They seemed impressed, but she knew she was lucky he hadn’t died.
When they were gone, Rick sat down for a cup of coffee. “I planned to take Ryan home with me,” he said. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to get him off the farm right now. I don’t know where he gets it. We never had more than a horse and a few chickens.”
“Sometimes, you’re born into farm life, and sometimes, it’s just in the blood,” Penny said as she slid over a plate of biscuits and gravy in front of the tired sheriff.
“Thank you, Penny.”
“You look like death warmed over,” she said.
“It’s been a long night,” he said.
Travis said, “I’m taking Timber to the vet in Callisburg later today, I can drop Ryan off.”
“I’d be obliged,” he said. “His truck is in evidence right now.”
Ellen straightened and leaned forward. “You found Brock and Rena?”
He nodded, swallowed a bite of biscuit, and washed it down with black coffee. “Three o’clock this morning. They were flooded out at Mule Run and Privett. They didn’t cause problems, told me their brother was here and that you saved his life. This was after I talked to you last night. Brock Jones is his name, Rena is his wife, Sam is her brother. From Louisiana. I’m going to interview themwhen I’m done here, I suspect they have a lot to say. Also, I meant to tell you as soon as I got here but I was distracted. Good news. Looks like Greg Baldwin is going to pull through.”
“Praise the Lord,” Penny said.
“Are his daughters with him?” Ellen asked.
“Both at the hospital right now. He’s one lucky man. Owes his life to your son.”
“And what’s going to happen to the Joneses?”
“We’ll see what the DA wants to do, but they’ll both be going away for some time.”
“He told me that Mitchell Robinson hired him to steal contracts from Baldwin, Coulter, and two other families.”
“Robinson didn’t tell them to shoot Greg or hold the Mendozas hostage,” Rick said.
“I’m not justifying what they did. I’m saying he can testify against Robinson.”
“He could,” Rick said, “but you have a thief with a long rap sheet speaking against a wealthy, law-abiding man with roots in the valley.”
Ellen snorted. “You know as well as I do that Mitchell Robinson is as crooked as they come.”
“And proving it is going to be damn near impossible.”
“What if we can?” Travis asked.
“It had better be ironclad. And even then, there’s no guarantee.”
“Brock Jones told me there was an error in the contracts, and my best guess, based on what I saw when George gave me his contract, is that the owners have the right to approve any land-use changes on the property. The only projects allowed in the contract are for the utility lines. It means Verdacorp can’t exercise mineral rights without explicit permission of the original landowner. So, he stole the contracts because I don’t think that clause was supposed to be included.”
