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“No!” Chase shouted and scrambled up the bank of the gully.
There was Jessy, wrapping the rope around the saddle horn and backing her horse to keep it stretched taut. “Chase, you’re alive,” she cried in relief when she saw him climb out of the gully. “I heard the shot and—”
“Let him up,” he ordered. “He just saved my life.”
“Haskell,” Jessy repeated in disbelief and belatedly urged her horse forward, putting slack in the rope. “But the gunshot?”
“He wasn’t shooting at me.” Chase crouched beside Buck, clutching his side with one hand and tugging the encircling rope loose with the other one. Eyes shut in pain and mouth open, Buck strained to get air into his lungs, a sure sign the wind had been knocked out of him. “He was shooting at Ballard.”
“Ballard?” Jessy peeled out of the saddle, dropping the reins to hurry over to them.
“Yes, Ballard. He tried to kill me.” With Jessy’s help, Chase propped Buck into a sitting position. “Just like he probably killed Ty.”
Buck choked down a couple gulps of air and murmured hoarsely, “That’s the way I figure it.”
Shocked and confused, Jessy stared at Chase. “But—why? I don’t understand.”
“You’ll have to ask him,” Chase replied and jerked his head toward the gully, “if he’s still alive.”
In a daze, Jessy moved toward the gully. A sudden surge of caution made her pick up the rifle. She paused at the gully’s edge and looked down, seeing first the horse, then the prone figure of Ballard, lying facedown. Unwillingly she recalled all the times Ty had expressed his lack of trust in Ballard. That made the pain of losing him all the worse and the anger all the deeper until she shook with it, her fingers tightening their grip on the rifle, knuckles showing white.
Why? The question screamed in her mind.
Then she saw the slight, small movement of Ballard’s fingers digging into the gravel. He was alive. Jessy threw herself into the gully, determined to have her answer.
Falling to her knees beside him, she grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto his back, indifferent to his sharp groan of pain and the big smear of blood on his shirtfront from the bullet’s exit wound.
“Ballard, can you hear me?” She gave him a hard shake. “Ballard.”
His eyelids fluttered open, those blue eyes that she had always thought of as kind slowly focusing on her. “Jessy.” His voice was faint, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile before a grimace of pain twisted his features. “I . . . failed . . . didn’t I?”
“Chase is alive, if that’s what you mean,” she answered tightly. “Why did you kill Ty? Dammit, I have to know!”
His mouth moved, but Jessy could only catch snatches of his answer. “Tara . . . clutches on . . . him . . . hurt you . . . ’gain.”
“And Chase?”
“. . . old. You . . . ’n me . . . ranch together . . . swear . . . didn’t know you . . . in truck.” He coughed spasmodically, blood pouring from his mouth. Then he was limp and silent.
She had her answers, but they didn’t explain what made Ballard think she would turn to him after Ty was gone. But it was obvious the thought had gotten into his mind. It only made Ty’s death seem all the more tragic and senseless.
With a knot in her throat as big as a fist, Jessy pushed to her feet and climbed out of the gully into the smoke haze. Buck was on his feet, but hunched over, still struggling to fill his lungs with air. Chase had a hand on his back.
“How did you know about Ballard?” Chase asked him.
“I saw him settin’ the fire,” Buck replied then twisted his head to peer up at Chase, a trace of his cocky grin showing. “I was holed up over in that old buffalo wallow by the west road. I figured you would never look for me in plain sight. I heard this vehicle stop, travel a little ways then stop again. I got curious and took a look-see. There Ballard was, crouched by the roadside, using his hat to fan a wisp of smoke into flames.” Buck straightened and dragged in a good, deep breath. “It was easy to put two and two together at that point. I knew I hadn’t killed Ty. I just couldn’t prove it. And I knew he wouldn’t have started the fire if he didn’t have a plan. I decided to see if I could figure out what it was. I got lucky.”
“I think I’m the one who was lucky.” Chase hesitated, then held out his hand to the man who had once been his best friend.
Epilogue
The bright September sun looked down from its perch in the never-ending sky and spread its light over the Triple C headquarters. Autumn’s crispness was in the air, invigorating the senses and bringing a sharpness to the scene.
Chase stood outside the open doors of the old barn. Garbed in a Western-cut suit, string tie, and a new Stetson, he looked every inch the patriarch of the Calder Cattle Company. He gazed at the collection of vehicles parked in orderly rows a short distance from the barn and smiled when he caught sight of two dusty pickups among the Cadillacs, Mercedes, and BMWs.
The ranch’s first livestock auction was scheduled to begin in twenty minutes, and the turnout for it was huge, bigger than Chase had expected. A steady hum of voices came from inside the barn, where most had already gathered, but a few continued to stroll past him. Chase recognized few of them by name although there were many faces he recalled seeing before at some function of the cattlemen’s association. And in his opinion, few of those qualified as “cattle ranchers.”
Ben Parker wasn’t one of them. Chase eyed the Wyoming rancher now approaching him, the same man who had unwittingly sparked the idea of this livestock auction with his purchase of a young Triple C bull. The man with Parker, however, was definitely a stranger.
