I’ve barely hit full speed when Brandon shouts, “Stop right there!,” and I start skidding to a halt before realizing he’s obviously not talking to me.
I tap my hip, telling Storm to stay close. Then I start a slow jog as the two men ahead begin verse two of their abandoned dialogue.
“Stop chasing me, or I’ll run,” Brandon says.
“You know, I’m tempted to respond with ‘Stop running, or I’ll shoot,’ but it seems a bit cliché. I will shoot, though. With this bear spray. You’re three feet downwind of me, Brandon. That’s not going to tickle.”
“No, it’ll kill me. If it kills grizzly bears, it’ll sure as hell kill me.”
A pause. A long one, as if Dalton’s working this one through.
“It’s not bug spray for bears,” I call. “It’s a deterrent. Pepper spray.”
“Pepper spray? You’re going to blind me?” His voice rises, as if this is somehow worse than death.
“Temporarily,” Dalton says. “But only if you move from that spot.”
I step out to where I can see them. One more step, Brandon’s still half hidden in the trees, and then he screams “Bear! Behind you!” and runs.
Dalton’s finger moves on the spray trigger, but it’s too late. Brandon’s on the run, his back to Dalton, who gives yet another deep sigh.
“Is it too much to hope he actually had the intelligence to try tricking you?” I say. “Because I don’t see a bear. Or did he spot Storm?”
“Nah,” a voice says. “It was me.”
We turn as a huge, grizzle-haired man steps out.
“Hey, Ty,” I say. “Thanks for scaring off our quarry.”
“Serves you right, since you scared off mine. You see a big ol’ bull moose around here?”
Dalton’s already gone, running after Brandon. I walk up to Tyrone Cypher. It’s a running joke that someday someone will mistake him for a grizzly, a joke Brandon just made good on. Cypher is about six four and big, broad shouldered and brawny, as befits a proper mountain man. Long hair. Beard. Hide clothing. Yep, it’s a wonder he doesn’t get people fleeing in terror more often. Which is a good call with Cypher, considering he’s a former hit man. Also a former sheriff of Rockton.
“Moose…” I muse. “Was it about this tall?” I rise onto my tiptoes and reach up. “Biggest rack of antlers I’ve ever seen? At least a good fourteen hundred pounds. Or four hundred juicy steaks?”
He glowers at me.
“Yeah, sorry,” I say. “We’ve got a guy on the run from the long arm of our law.”
“What’d he do?”
“Attempted murder. Two in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Fucking amateurs.”
“Right?” I nudge Storm. “You stay with Uncle Ty, okay? We’ve got a runner to catch.”
Cypher puts out a hand for Storm, who heads over for petting. I turn, getting my bearings.
“That way, kitten,” Cypher says. “My hearing’s not what it was, but even I can hear him.”
He’s right. Once again, Brandon is crashing through—
A scream cuts me off midthought.
“Great,” I mutter. “He’s found that killer rabbit, hasn’t he?”
“Go on,” Cypher says. “I’ll catch up. Something tells me this will provide my evening’s entertainment, even if I’m not forgiving you for the moose.”
EIGHTEEN
We follow the sound of Dalton’s voice. Verse three, apparently, of this very tedious conversation with Brandon. When I catch up, the first thing I’m doing is grabbing the guy. Second thing? Gagging him.
When I hear the sound of running water, I wince and pick up my pace. A few landmarks tell me where I am. Near a river I know well. I burst from the forest to see only Dalton looking down.
Looking into a canyon. A canyon I’d once clung to as I’d tried to get down and rescue the body of a fellow resident.
“Well, this looks familiar,” Cypher says. “Remember when you—”
“Yes, I do. Thank you.”
He snickers. “Looks like another rescue mission. This one should be easier, though.”
I see what he means. We’re downstream of the spot where I’d fallen, and the cliff sides here are about half as high. Still high enough to kill you if you took a tumble but unless Dalton has learned to speak to the dead, that isn’t Brandon’s fate.
“Please don’t tell me he ran clear off the edge,” I call as I approach.
“Yep.”
“Please tell me his feet wheeled in midair for a few seconds before he dropped.”
Dalton lifts a brow, but Cypher chuckles, getting the cartoon reference.
“Please tell me he ran off it on purpose,” Cypher says. “Pulling a failed Thelma and Louise. Because otherwise?” He looks up and down the wide-open space atop the canyon. “I don’t see how you can miss that big ol’ first step coming up.”
“Well, he did.”
“Damn. That’s embarrassing.” Cypher moves past me to the cliff edge and shouts down. “Embarrassing, you hear that? Kinda like mistaking me for a bear.” He peers over the edge. “Wait. Aren’t you the new barkeep? You served me and Jen just last week when I stopped by.”
Yes, Cypher is still seeing Jen. Which I think explained her sudden zeal for an extension this past spring, but I knew better than to even suggest that. They make an interesting couple. That’s all I have to say.
“Back off, or I’ll jump!” Brandon shouts.
I look over the edge.
“I’m not kidding!” he says. “Leave me alone, or I’ll plunge to my death and everyone will think you pushed me off the cliff.”
Cypher looks at me and murmurs, “You want to tell him, kitten?”
“Nope.”
Brandon has landed on a ledge. The cliff isn’t a sheer drop, and from the skid marks, he went off the edge and tumbled onto the narrow strip where he now lies, fingers clutching for dear life. Beyond that ledge, there’s a drop of about eight feet. He’d need to swan-dive into the shallow river below to even risk serious injury.
“You know,” Cypher says to us, “you kids have gotten yourselves into a lot of harrowing situations. This isn’t one of them.”
I grumble under my breath.
He continues, “I do believe the quality of criminals in Rockton is on a fast decline. Probably best they just shut the place up before it becomes downright embarrassing.”
I glower at him.
Dalton crouches. “You’re gonna kill yourself, Brandon?”
“I am. Back off, or I jump.”
Cypher pulls back fast to stifle a snicker.
“Well, that’s your call,” Dalton says. “But before you do, you need to confess.”
A pause. “What?”
“Well, you know Casey and I can’t just leave you out here. We need to come after you, which means you need to jump, and if you die, you need a clean soul. I don’t know if you’re a religious man.”
“Not really.”
“But you want to go someplace good, right? That means you need a clean conscience. We saw you try to kill Phil, so that one’s obvious.”
“I didn’t try to kill him. I was trying to get away.”
“All right. We also know you tried to kill Conrad. We have your fingerprints.”
“On the shovel?” A note of satisfaction. “Now I know you’re lying. I wore gloves.”
Dalton and I look at each other. He shakes his head.
“Brandon?” I call down. “You do realize you just incriminated yourself, right?”
A long, long pause. “Fuck.”