Summer had heard it all before and she wanted to scream anyway. How was this huge baby ever going to get out of her body? Part of her was desperate to be rid of it, another part was eager to see her child after all these months. But mostly she was afraid. And thirsty, so thirsty her tongue felt like it was glued to her teeth.
Thankful placed a hand to her brow and said, “Don’t be afraid, sister. I’ll fetch a cool washcloth.”
“And water. Please.”
Thankful was her best friend among her sister-wives. She was not one of Nathaniel’s favorites, which meant that she seldom shared his bed and was landed with some of the worst chores. She and Summer often helped one another out with their workloads and Summer made sure to watch out for Thankful’s eight kids.
“What’s happening?” she asked Fawn Dew as the pain eased. “Why are the police here again?”
“I knew that fat old bitch couldn’t keep her mouth shut,” Fawn Dew spat. “She’s told them a pack of lies, just like I said she would.”
“I don’t understand.”
Fawn Dew cast a swift, scornful look at her then gazed back out the window. “She’ll pay for it. She will atone in blood for her betrayal.”
As Fawn Dew continued her tirade, Summer felt a tightening just below the hot heavy lump of her belly. Pain amplified from front to back, stealing her breath. She turned her face into the pillow to muffle the sharp cry she could not arrest. How long would this go on? Since she’d been living at Gathering for Zion, four babies had been born. Thankful had popped her newest daughter out in two hours, but one of the other wives had been in labor for almost three days, then the baby was born dead. Everyone said her lack of faith was the cause and that God had found her unfit to be a mother.
Summer felt a crawling fear that she too might be found wanting and punished. With all her heart, she prayed, silently assuring the Heavenly Father that she submitted herself completely unto His will and would keep herself sweet, no matter what.
*
“You hear that?” Tulley asked, frantically zooming the binoculars in on the door of the broken down barn. He reached for the door handle.
In the driver’s seat, Gossett said, “Give it a minute, son.”
“No, sir. I’m going in. That was a single shot.”
He pictured a crazy guy squeezing his trigger, Jude Devine in his sights. He’d probably shot her in the back. That was exactly the cowardly shit you’d expect from people who’d slaughter innocent dogs in cold blood. Zach had told him all about that terrible day when they’d killed his dog, Sam. Tulley wanted to find those guys and see how they liked being rounded up into a pen and shot to pieces. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was animal cruelty. The other thing was the thought of Jude lying wounded in that barn.
Gossett had a hold of his shoulder. “Fifty bucks says that was a model 19 we heard. If she didn’t fire again, that means her target’s down. You ever seen what a .357 Magnum does to a guy?”
“There’s nothing moving out there.” Every second counted if the sergeant was wrong about the gun. “I’m going in.”
“Suit yourself.”
What the heck was that supposed to mean? Tulley gave the guy a look. “Sir, a shot has been fired and we’re not getting any communication.”
Gossett shrugged. “She told you to stay put is all.” But he backed up his truck so they were screened by the other vehicles. “Okay, Deputy. Get in there. We got you covered.”
Tulley didn’t wait around. He dived out of the pickup and made a run for it, reaching the first barn in Olympic record time. Nothing was moving and he glanced back toward the truck. The sergeant waved him on and he sprinted to the next big barn, holding his gun extended in front of him with both hands. This made running kind of awkward and when he reached the corner of the barn, he paused for a few seconds to catch his breath and take a look around.
Ahead of him lay the open expanse of dirt he would have to cross. They could see it from the house, that’s if they were looking. He wondered if he should crawl across it instead of running. Or maybe he should run crouched with his pistol in one hand. It wasn’t like he was under fire. Not yet, anyway.
He peered around the corner of the barn trying to make out if there were rifles jutting from the boarded up windows along the south facing elbow of the house. He was too far away to be sure. An image flashed into his mind--himself standing in front of the entire Cortez PD and Sheriff’s Office at the annual ceremony, getting the medal for valor. That would mean a promotion, for sure.
He darted across the open space, but only made a few strides when something whizzed past him and he heard the pop pop of shooting. Dust sprayed at his foot where a bullet hit the ground. The barn door swung open and Jude stood there drenched in blood.
“Get down!” she yelled.
Which was exactly what happened. He fell. Flat on his face. But it wasn’t an intentional dive. His legs were knocked out from under him. Pain erupted and he grabbed his left thigh. Blood spurted between his fingers.
“I’m hit!” Did that squeal belong to him?
Jude pointed to the large barn behind him and shouted, “Go back! Go!” She picked up a black trash bag. Clutching it to her, she ran.
“No! Get down,” he begged, but she wasn’t listening.
Tulley tried to shuffle backward toward the barn, hanging on to his leg. Dust sprayed in his face where another bullet earthed. His heart pounded in his ears and he hurled himself around and managed to get to his feet, balancing on his good leg. Bullets zinged and hissed. A laser pierced his side, and he felt his flesh curdle. Pain and sweat blinded him and he sagged to his knees.
He heard Jude yelling like a slave-driver, “Move!” and “Go, Tulley!” then a stampede of feet.
The trash bag soared past him and landed somewhere ahead. A hand caught hold of his arm beneath the shoulder and the wind was knocked out of him as Jude hauled him into a fireman’s lift and staggered the remaining yards.
Seconds later they were both on the ground in the shade of the barn and she had her shirt off, ripping at it with a pocket knife. Underneath it, her white T-shirt was glued to her body, soaked in blood.
Panicking, Tulley asked, “Where’d he get you?”
“I’m not hit. But you should see the other guy.”
Tulley didn’t have the strength to laugh like a normal person. His teeth were chattering, and a sound like a girly hiccup rose from his throat. He covered his mouth, frightened he was about to throw up.
Jude touched his shoulder. “Okay, buddy?”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” she announced with dark calm as she fastened a tourniquet around his leg.
“I thought you already did.” Tulley craned to see the barn. Was there a second assailant?
Jude took the radio from his shoulder and got Gossett on the other end, “Officer down. I repeat, officer down. Get your truck over here. Now.”
Her voice was scratchy and uneven and she placed a hand to her throat. It was red and purple with bruises.
Tulley stared at the injury. He could make out the imprint of fingers. “Your neck…what happened?”
“I behaved like an amateur. We need to get this off.” She unbuttoned his shirt and helped him shrug out of it. The whole time she was mumbling the kinds of cusswords Tulley could only say in his head. “If I have to use my bare hands, I’m going to take him apart,” she noted as she drew Tulley’s T-shirt up and examined the wound to his side. Her hands dripped blood. She stared down at his midriff with a frown.
Embarrassed, Tulley said, “I got bullied real bad in school.”
“Are those from cigarette butts?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He touched a familiar scar above his heart. “And this one is where a guy carved his initials.”
“I see.” Her expression didn’t change. “How’s the pain?”
“Pretty bad.”
The Ford pickup jerked to a halt a few yards away and Gossett jumped out. He was carrying an HK MP5 like he knew how to use it. Amazed to see a peace officer with the kind of close-quarters battle weapon you’d normally expect to find in the hands of a SWAT team member, Tulley said, “I don’t think he won that in a poker game.”
Jude placed Tulley’s hand firmly against his ribs and instructed with grim humor, “Try not to bleed too much.” She stood up and greeted Gossett. Indicating the submachine gun, she asked, “Got another one of those in the truck?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. You tactical weapons trained?”
“Yep.”
He grinned. “I kinda guessed that.”
“We need to get him to the hospital.”
“No point waiting for a bus. Deputy Gonzales better take him.”
“Where’s your first aid kit?”
“I got it.” He headed back to the truck, talking into his radio.
Jude crouched down next to Tulley and said, “They both look like flesh wounds. You’ll be fine.”
He glanced down at his wet red hand, surprised at how composed he felt now that the urge to vomit had passed. “Do you think I’ll get a promotion?”
Jude’s sleepy stone moss eyes swept his face and she cocked her head like she hadn’t heard right. “Okay. Now I get it. You weren’t rushing to my assistance like Sir Galahad. You were shopping for a bullet so you could increase your take-home pay.”
She was teasing, Tulley decided. Sometimes it was hard to tell with her. She kept a straight face like she meant every word. The eyes were flat, the mouth hard and not too feminine either. She had a mulish look about her—that’s what his ma said after they met at the ceremony for Smoke’m. Tulley wasn’t sure if he’d go that far, but the detective wasn’t soft or pretty and she didn’t wear lipstick. Some of the guys said she was probably a lesbian, but they only made their dumb remarks behind her back. Too scared to say it to her face was Tulley’s guess. She had that effect on people. He saw it all the time.
He thought maybe it was because she didn’t smile that much, and Steve Abbott down at the shooting range said she shot like she was born with a six-shooter in one hand and a Winchester in the other. She could put three bullets in the same hole at 300 yards and never went over 0.5 MOA. Abbott said she must be sniper trained. No one at the MCSO had a scorecard like hers.
She didn’t say a whole lot, either, and Tulley didn’t ask too many questions, even though the boys in Cortez were busting their asses to know why she’d left the FBI and who she talked to on her cell phone. Since Tulley had gotten himself assigned to Paradox, he’d gone up in the popularity stakes, which wasn’t that big of a deal. When you’re at rock bottom, things can only get better. The sheriff’s office reminded him of school sometimes, only these days no one called him a faggot or stole his clothes, and he didn’t get beat up in the john.
He had thought everything would be different if he moved to a place where no one knew him and no one would ever hear about his humiliations in high school. He didn’t stutter anymore; he’d spent a year curing himself of that before he went to the police academy. Yet he wondered if people still heard some trace of his speech defect. He spoke slowly and sang any complicated sentences in his head first, but sometimes he caught them staring at him all weird or smirking when they thought he couldn’t see. He never knew if it was his imagination or not.
He felt his hand pulled away from his ribs and Jude poured some medical-smelling fluid into his wound, then taped gauze over it front and back. She sat him up and wrapped a bandage around his middle, saying, “I want your abs, pal.”
Tulley laughed then winced, and Jude ran a gentle hand over his hair, moving it back off his face with the absent-minded tenderness of a mom like the ones on TV. The gesture took him by surprise.
“I’m real sorry to have put you in harm’s way, Detective. You shouldn’t have rescued me like that.”