Chapter Fifteen

Pulse and thoughts racing, Jess tightened his hand on the walking stick he still held. Trent. Trent wasn't dead.

The hand over his mouth was unnaturally warm and slick with fever sweat. Maybe Jess's bullet hadn't killed Trent, but it had definitely hit him. Still, the man had managed to get himself down out of the hills, down to the ranch, down to do the killing he was set on, but why?

The arm around Jess's chest squeezed harder, making his ribs ache, making it even harder to breathe. Jess struggled to turn his head, and with a grim laugh, Trent slid his hand from Jess's mouth to his throat.

"I thought you were dead," Jess gasped.

"Yeah," Trent said, his voice none too steady. "You meant me to be. Guess you couldn't see to make sure."

"The sheriff said—"

"He weren't in much of a way to tell. Not after Betts creased him in the head like that. He didn't do more'n shove me over with his boot anyhow. I can play 'possum with the best of 'em." Trent wheezed. "Especially bleedin' like I was."

Like you are.

Jess could feel the sticky warmth soaking into the back of his shirt. Whether that was from Trent's shoulder or upper arm or chest, it was hard to say. Wherever it was, it wasn't doing him any good.

Jess tried to squirm away, and Trent immediately sank his fingers into Jess's windpipe.

"Where you goin', boy? I still got business with you."

"What'd you do with the lady and the boy?" Jess panted.

Trent snorted. "I guess you can't see 'em over there against that post. They ain't goin' no place. Not yet anyhow."

"What do you want?" Jess demanded, his breath coming harder as the blood began to boil in his veins. "You wanna kill me? Go on then. They got nothin' to do with it."

"You might not think so," Trent said, "and, tell truth, I didn't think so either. I come here to kill you. For Timmo. And then that boy come out here all alone. All alone like Timmo was, and I thought of somethin' better."

Somethin' better?

"Look, mister," Jess growled, "If you want somebody to blame for Timmo, you'd better start lookin' in the mirror. You're his pa. What'd you have to pull him down into your kinda life for? I could tell he didn't want to kill those people."

Trent's hold on Jess's throat tightened, nearly cutting of his breath entirely. "That was Betts doin'. We weren't to have killin'. Not at the bank. Not after. It just happened that way."

Jess sucked in a loud breath, and Trent eased up just a little.

"Timmo shouldn't a been in it," he said. "Those people at the cabin woulda been all right if they'd a kept still and did like they was told. Timmo woulda been fine if I hadn't left him with you. You had no right to do him that way."

"I didn't do nothin' but leave Timmo tied up in that cabin. If you're chapped because he took off to Canada before he could be hanged for what you dragged him into, that ain't my look out. There's some say I'd oughta killed him right there, but I figured he was beat up enough already about what happened."

"Don't lie, boy!" Quick as the crack of lightning, Trent spun Jess around and knocked him to his knees with a ringing slap across the face. "Don't lie!

Trent stood panting over him, suddenly spent.

"You know what you did," he hissed.

Jess heard him fumbling for something, and then he grabbed Jess's hand and forced it around a piece of cold metal.

"Remember this, boy? Do you? I was gonna use this on you, like you did on Timmo."

It was Jim Mitchell's razor.

"What—"

"But now," Trent said, "I think that's easier than you deserve. I been watchin' you. Did you know that? I been out here, gettin' my strength, waiting for my time. I seen that kid comin' in and out, lookin' after your horses, talkin' to 'em about you and that pal of yours. And I figured, bein' blind now, maybe more than anything you'd rather die. I'd a rather died than find my son the way you left him. I guess killin' you'd be kind of a mercy, wouldn't it? But that boy, on the other hand, you wouldn't like it much if I was to take a razor to him, would you?"

"No," Jess breathed, shaking his head, trying to pull his hand away. "No. He's just a kid. A little boy. You can't—"

"My son was just a kid!" Trent dragged Jess to his feet and snapped open the razor, holding it to Jess's throat. "He was seventeen, and you strapped him to a chair and cut him open so he'd bleed out where he sat."

"No." Oh, dear God, no. "I tied him in that chair so I could get away. I gave him that razor so he could get himself free and get away from you. He was alive when I left him."

"I told you not to lie," Trent growled.

"He didn't want to hang. He didn't want to spend his life in prison. He couldn't live with what he'd done."

"Shut up." Trent pressed harder, and the blade made a stinging cut against Jess's throat. "Just shut up. Timmo would never—"

"He couldn't live with what you made him into."

"Just shut up! It's a lie! You're lying!"

Trent's breath was coming hard now, and the hand that held the razor was shaking. He was faltering, Jess was sure. Blood loss and infection were taking their toll, but it wouldn't take much strength to use that razor right where it was.

Jess swallowed hard. It didn't matter. He wasn't about to stand by and let Mike pay for everything Jess had done wrong. For Pete and for Sally. Now for Timmo. He'd known the kid was about to fall apart, and he'd left him there in that cabin with a razor in his hand and those bodies in the other room and the weight of their blood on his conscience. Now that weight was added to the burden Jess already carried.

He'd told Daisy there wasn't anything he could do anymore to protect her and Mike, nothing he could do to help them, but maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe there was this one thing. This one last thing. If nothing else, if he couldn't overpower Trent, he could force him to use that razor right now. Then there would be no reason for him to hurt Mike or anybody else to cause Jess pain.

Dead men felt no pain.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know this is short, but after the previous chapter, some of you were worried about what was going to happen next. I thought this would help.