Jessie slowly opened her eyes, and forced a smile. “Henry. Could you please call Mrs. Rodriguez? She’ll know what to do.” She closed her eyes again and drifted into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 33

Henry was pacing the floor in the living room when Mrs. Rodriguez appeared at the top of the steps wiping her hands with a towel.

“She is better now,” she said as she descended the steps. Henry met her at the bottom. “She has some broken ribs and cuts on her face and some bruises, a concussion, too, I think. She is resting now. We need to wake her every hour.”

“It’s my fault,” Henry said sadly. “I should have never left her today.”

“This is not your fault,” Mrs. Rodriguez said sternly. “This is the fault of the man who did it. It is not the fault of you, not the fault of her. Only he is to blame.”

Without warning, the image of the pickup truck Henry saw driving down the road, away from the ranch that night, suddenly flashed into his mind. He thought the truck looked familiar at the time, and now, as the picture froze in his mind, he was certain he not only knew whose truck it was, but also whose fault this was.

“Ma’am,” Henry said, anger starting to rise in his voice. “I know it’s late, but would you mind stayin’ with her for a little while. I got to go to town.”

“It is very late,” Mrs. Rodriguez said bluntly. “Can this thing in town not wait till morning?”

“No, ma’am.” Henry turned for the door. “This is something that needs doing tonight.”

Henry ran to the bunkhouse, went to the bottom of his footlocker and pulled out his Colt revolver. He loaded each of the six chambers, put it in its holster and headed for the truck. He did not drive the speed limit on his way to town, and didn’t stop until he reached the parking lot of Mona’s Bar. There were fifteen vehicles sitting in the gravel lot next to the bar, one of them the truck he’d seen on the road by the ranch. Henry drove his truck to the very back of the lot and parked in the shadows and away from the lights of the street. He shut his truck off and waited.

By midnight, all but two of the vehicles had left the lot—a car and the truck Henry was watching. By one in the morning, the pickup was the only one left. Henry climbed out of his truck and took up a position on the side of the bar, in the shadows near a dumpster. At one-thirty, Chad stepped out of the bar and stopped long enough to light a cigarette. His face was bruised and scratched, as were his knuckles. He took a drag from the cigarette and let the smoke roll out of his mouth before heading for the parking lot. Getting to his truck, he pulled the keys from his pocket and dropped them on the ground. He bent over to pick them up, and that was when he heard the cocking of a gun next to his ear.