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“You couldn’t prove it by me,” Laredo said with an idle shrug of his broad shoulders.
He fired a quick glance at the cowboy. “You aren’t from around here?”
“No. I’m just passing through. Now that it looks like you’re going to live, I’ll be leaving soon.”
“Not yet.” He reached out to stop him with a suddenness that sent the room spinning again. Subsiding weakly against the pillow, he swallowed back the rising nausea.
“I told you to lie still,” Laredo reminded him. “That bullet gouged a deep path. It wouldn’t surprise me if it grazed your skull.”
He fought through the swirling pain, insisting, “Before you go, I have to know about last night. The man who shot me—did you see him?”
“I guess if you don’t know who you are, you don’t know who he is either, do you?” Laredo guessed. “I’m afraid I can’t help you much. All I saw was the figure of a man with a scoped rifle. I couldn’t tell you if he was old or young, tall or short, just that he didn’t look fat.”
“Tell me what you saw.” He closed his eyes, hoping something would trigger a memory.
After a slight pause, Laredo began, “I’m not sure what it was that first caught my eye. Maybe it was the car door being open and all the interior light flooding from it while the rest of the parking lot was so dark. You were standing next to it facing another man. His back was to me so I didn’t get a look at him. It took me a second to realize you were being robbed. He did a good job of it, too. You don’t have a lick of identification on you—no wallet, no watch, no ring. Nothing. He even took your spare change. Right now you don’t have a cent to your name.”
“But this robber wasn’t the man who shot me.” He recalled Laredo mentioning a man with a scoped rifle. He couldn’t imagine a common thief carrying one.
“No, he wasn’t. The shot came from behind you. The second I heard it, I knew it didn’t come from any handgun. You dropped like a rock. Your robber jumped in the car and hightailed it out of there.”
“I half remember hearing a vehicle peel out. Somebody yelled. Was that you?”
“Yup. I wanted your sniper to know somebody else was in the area. About the same time I saw you moving so I knew you weren’t dead. He snapped off a shot in my direction. I saw the muzzle flash and fired back.”
“Do you usually carry a gun?”
Amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Like I said, we’re in Texas, and the definition of gun control here is a steady aim.”
He managed a brief smile at Laredo’s small joke. “What time was this?”
“Late. Somewhere between eleven and midnight.”
He wondered what he was doing there at that hour. “Aren’t there some bars in the area?”
“A bunch of them.”
From somewhere outside came the familiar lowing of cattle. “Are we in the country?”
Laredo nodded. “The Ludlow ranch. It’s a small spread, not much more than a hundred acres. It hardly deserves to be called a ranch.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I didn’t have many choices. I probably should have taken you to a hospital like I first planned. But with you being unconscious, I couldn’t just drop you off at the door. Taking you inside meant fielding a lot of questions I didn’t want to answer. So I brought you here.” He allowed a small smile to show. “I figured if you died, I could always bury you in the back forty with no one the wiser.”
“Except the Ludlows.”
“I wasn’t worried about Hattie talking.”
“Who is Hattie?” The hot pounding in his head increased, making it difficult to strin
g more than two thoughts together.
“Since Ed died, she owns the place.” After a slight pause, Laredo observed, “Your head’s bothering you, isn’t it?”
“Some.” He was reluctant to admit to more than that.
“No need in overdoing it. Why don’t you get some rest? We can talk more later if you want. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can rustle you up something to eat.”
