Wyoming Tough - Diana Palmer [71]
SHE PHONED TANK FROM the airport. He and Cane both came to get her. But when she explained what she wanted to do, they were adamantly against it.
“He’d listen to me if he’d listen to anybody,” Tank argued. He was gaunt, like Cane. It had been a rough couple of days since Mallory went riding fence out near the old line cabin and didn’t return. Joe Bascomb had phoned a few hours later and told them that he had Mallory and he was going to kill him for messing up his financial coup. Tank had pleaded with his friend, but Joe said he had nothing to lose and he wasn’t talking to them again. He hung up.
“Mal may already be dead,” Tank said heavily. “We have no way of knowing.”
“I don’t think he is,” she said, without explaining why she thought that. She knew inside herself, knew certainly, that Mallory was still alive. She knew it.
“You don’t even know how to find Joe, if we were to agree to let you try,” Cane argued.
“I do know,” she said. “I’ll go to the line cabin and wait for him. He’ll come. He watches it.”
They frowned.
“That’s where he took Mal from,” Cane recalled. “We saw signs of a struggle.”
“Why the cabin?” Tank wondered.
She gave them a droll look. “It’s provisioned, isn’t it? There’s even a bed. And nobody stays out there except when there’s a need. Where do you think he’s been living all this time, in a cave?”
“You might have voiced that suspicion earlier,” Tank muttered.
“I was having a little problem with credibility around here at the time,” she said drily.
They looked upset.
“I know you two believed I was innocent,” she said. “Thanks.”
Cane studied her curiously. “Mallory said you sparkled like a jewel at your family ranch. Kingston Brannt’s daughter, riding fence lines.” He shook his head. “We could hardly believe it.”
“Dad wouldn’t let me near the cattle,” she said, beaming inside at their description of what Mallory had said about her. “Neither would my brother. And I was being forcefully courted for my father’s money. I needed a break.”
“Mallory’s been kicking himself ever since he got home,” Tank told her. “He thinks he’s too ugly to appeal to a woman for himself, so all they want is his money.”
“He’s not ugly. Stupid, yes,” she muttered. “Idiotic. Distrustful. Bad-tempered…!”
“We know all that,” Cane acknowledged. “But we love him.”
She glanced at them sadly. “Yes. So do I. It’s why I came. And I won’t be discouraged from doing this. I’m right.”
“If Joe doesn’t kill Mal,” Tank said quietly, “and it works out that he lets him go, he’ll kill us for letting you take the risk.”
“We can deal with that when it happens. Right now, I need to change clothes, borrow a horse and ride out to the line cabin.”
“It’s pouring down rain,” Cane said.
“No problem. I packed a raincoat!”
She’d also packed five thousand dollars in large bills, with which she was going to appeal to Joe to release Mallory. It was a calculated risk. He might grab her and the money, and kill her with Mallory. But she was willing to take the chance that he wouldn’t. He was a basic sort of person. He needed money and he was angry that he’d been double-crossed. But he still needed money and he might bargain for it. The sheriff was closing in. He’d need to get out quickly. He wouldn’t know that Morie had already spoken to the sheriff, who was another friend of Uncle Danny’s, and outlined her plan. He would have two government agents in the woods overlooking the line cabin, woodsmen as good or better than Joe Bascomb. She couldn’t tell the brothers that, in case they let something slip. So she kept her counsel.
Darby was upset when she had him saddle the horse for her.
“You can’t do this,” he protested as she loaded a small pouch, along with a bag of biscuits and a thermos of coffee that Mavie, protesting, too, had made for her to take along. “You can’t let her do it!” he raged at the two brothers standing grimly nearby.
“Yes, they can, Darby,” Morie told him gently. “I won’t let Joe kill Mallory. No matter what I have to do to save him.”
“It’s not right.”
She smiled. “Yes, it is. You just send up a prayer or two for me,