CHAPTER 24
Rawlins, WY
Grace hoped to get more information out of the man pinned to the tree, but he wouldn’t wake up. She didn’t need any of her medical expertise to judge he might even be dead. She asked the question, though she didn’t expect the guy to respond. “Why would Nerio take Logan to Yellowstone?”
“As a hostage, I guess,” Asher replied.
“That is right,” Misha added. “She has boy to prevent Crow people from attacking.”
Grace laughed to herself. “Hostage-taking might work in whatever crap-hole she comes from, but I don’t think Nerio knows a thing about Native Americans. Stealing their boy will only make them angrier. They aren’t going to roll over and take it.”
Misha leaned heavily against the tree.
“What about you? Are you going to survive this?” The ex-hitman had been shot in the neck, sprayed with shrapnel from a grenade, and he seemed to have a new bullet wound in his left arm, a little above his elbow.
“I am okay,” he said with a hoarse voice. “You saved my life when you distracted Nerio.”
She smiled proudly. “It was just a rock.”
He bowed a few inches. “You have skill for taking simple and making into weapons. Bear spray. Flamethrower. Truck. Now rock. Maybe you should sign up for being assassin.”
Asher piled on. “Yeah, they’d never see it coming.”
She found the humor in it, but it was tempered by the loss of Logan. As she watched and waited for the paramedics to arrive, a couple of pickup trucks skidded around the corner in front of the house. More followed. Seconds later, there were twenty cars and trucks lined up.
“It’s Shawn,” she said in a knowing voice. “They came to find their son.”
She met the Crow chairman and his wife on the front lawn.
“Where’s Logan?” the sour-faced man asked as soon as he saw her. A moment later, as he noticed Calvin’s demolished truck, he continued. “He snuck away from us to come here. I should have known he’d do it. He spoke only of helping you to make his mistake in Billings balance out.”
She didn’t know how to explain what had happened, but she started out in the most honest way she knew how. “He did show up. I think he was watching us the whole time. When the shooting started, he jumped in the truck and sped toward danger. As you can see, he got in on the action. He saved all our lives.”
Tyressa propped up her injured husband, who still looked as if he’d lost a lot of blood. The Crow woman didn’t let the big man distract her. She glared at Grace. “Where is he now? Is he…in the truck?”
“No,” she said with relief. “He’s not hurt, as best I can tell. But, well, he…” She didn’t know how to explain those crazy few seconds. Somehow, Nerio had gone around the house, using the smoke as a diversion, and pulled Logan out of his truck, and into her vehicle. Then she sped off. Besides knowing the kid wasn’t dead, there was almost nothing good she could say. “He…”
“I’m fine!”
Grace whipped her head toward the other end of the street. Logan walked along the sidewalk as if it was any normal day.
The Crow parents hobbled their way onto the sidewalk and watched the boy come in. He was unarmed and seemed bruised and sore, but otherwise in good spirits.
“How?” she queried, joining Shawn and Tyressa.
Logan jogged the last few paces and threw himself into the waiting arms of his parents. Around them, the Crow citizens fanned out like a pack of protective wolves, rifles and handguns at the ready, as if the person who took Logan might try to come back.
Some of the neighbors were now at their doors, observing the scene. Sirens wailed in the distance; the children had made good on their promise to call for help. She had a tickling sensation they needed to clear out, but she couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Logan’s explanation of his last few minutes.
Shawn demanded answers. “Son, what the hell happened here?”
The boy pulled away from his mom and dad. He acknowledged Grace and Asher. “I parked down there,” he pointed toward the rail yard, “and watched as the train arrived. I figured this town was a good place for the woman to make her attack run, so I watched the skies all around. I was going to warn my friends when I saw her.”
He inhaled deeply. “But instead, I heard gunshots. Saw these guys get pinned down. That’s when I drove on the streets, came around behind the woman and the other man. I considered trying to shoot them, but I knew it would be too risky to take them both on by myself.” The boy looked at his mother. “I knew you would not approve.”
Tyressa Runs Hard stared at him with a stone-cold, emotionless look.
“So, I drove onto the next block, watched through the trees, and waited until I was sure where the man was standing. Then I came back to this street at high speed, went across the yard, knocked over the fence, and hit the guy in the teepee.” He giggled at his joke.
His mother was still frozen, as if disapproving of it all. Shawn, however, wore a wide grin.
Grace kept the questions rolling. “And how did you get away from her? Alejandro, the man against the tree, said she took you.”
Logan cracked up. “If there’s one thing she should have known about me, it’s how I like to do my own thing. I snuck onto your ride when you and my dad left the rez. I didn’t wait and do nothing when you told me to stay in that train shed. I stole Uncle Cal’s truck instead of sticking with the convoy. And,
