Red Gold by Robert D Kidera

Author:Robert D Kidera [Kidera, Robert D]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Suspense Publishing
Published: 2015-04-20T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I opened my eyes and tried to prop up on my left elbow, but intense jackhammering pain in the back of my head made even that a struggle. I had damaged my ribs again when I hit the ground and now each breath came with a shot of pain. I struggled to stand but nausea overcame me. I knelt back down and vomited.

After my nausea passed, I clawed my way up again and leaned against the side panel of the Land Cruiser. My vision was blurred, my body swayed, my legs would not obey my brain. Warm liquid trickled down the back of my neck and into my shirt. I reached back and touched where I’d been struck. My fingers felt a wet, golf-ball-sized lump. Knife-like pain pierced my head.

My mind cleared in stages. It was night…I was somewhere out in the country…Catron County…My God, the cabin was on fire!

“Carmen! Chato!” I called out and staggered toward the fire. The cabin’s roof collapsed with a groan, its glass windows shattered at once and released bright streamers of flame. Sparks shot up and ignited the branches of the aspen. Cries of terror from the penned animals filled the air. Anyone inside that cabin couldn’t possibly be alive.

It was out of control.

I fumbled around in my pocket for the remote key to the Cruiser, pressed a button, and turned on its headlights. They cut a swath into the darkness beyond the mesa.

Twenty yards ahead of me, at the edge of the precipice, Jason Damien, minus his Stetson, gripped Carmen’s left arm and pointed a gun at her head. She stared at me like a frightened deer. The beams of my headlights caught the steel of Damien’s gun barrel just for a moment, enough time to remind me of what I’d seen in the split second before my car crashed into that North Valley wall.

“Stay back, McKenna!” He pulled Carmen in front of him as a shield. “Hands in the air!”

“Okay. I’m staying right here.”

Damn. I’d put my gun back in the Land Cruiser’s glove compartment before our dinner. But no more than three feet separated my right arm from the driver’s side door. With the light from my vehicle in his eyes, I figured Damien couldn’t see me clearly. I cradled the remote in my hand and punched in the unlock code with my thumb. The door clicked open. I crouched, and swung the door in front of me. Then I heaved my body into the front seat. I nearly passed out from the pain in my side. I fumbled my Colt from the glove compartment, as two bullets slammed into the still-open door.

“Gabe! Save yourself!” Carmen’s voice seemed so far away.

Damien fired again. One shot took out my left headlight; a second hit the front grill. Then silence. I inched my head above the dashboard until a final blast from his gun shattered my right headlight. Carmen and Damien were now barely visible in the diminished glow of the cabin fire.

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