Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(68)

I spot a tiny spark of light on a hillside at least a thousand yards away. And then it’s gone.

My brain has time to process that it’s the muzzle flash from Gareth’s rifle, but my body seems to be frozen in place. I have a second or two to act—it will take the bullet that long to get here—but I can’t move.

Just like in my nightmares, I’m paralyzed.

Strong hands grab my shoulders, hauling me downward. I hear the whine of the bullet soar just over my head as I’m falling. My hat flies off my head.

The next thing I know I’m lying in the dirt, with Ariana on top of me.

“Come on,” she says, pulling my arm.

We hear the report of the rifle as we crawl into the shelter of the oil tanker. Kyle is there, kneeling, with his gun drawn. We crowd underneath the tanker, trying to catch our breath and orient ourselves. My eyes spot the rifle lying next to Dale’s body. Ariana must have dropped it when she grabbed me. Then my eyes catch something else: my Stetson. There’s a bullet hole through the crown of the hat, almost identical to the one shot off my head in the bank.

I came that close to dying.

Again.

The only difference is this time it was someone else who saved my life. But there’s no time to thank her. We have to figure out what the hell we’re going to do.

“Did you tell anyone where you were going?” I ask Kyle.

“No one,” he says. “I swear.”

That means there must be a tracking device on the truck that I couldn’t find. Or there might be another possibility. Maybe McCormack figured all along that Dale would betray them. Maybe they knew him better than he knew himself and they sent him on the drug run by himself so he could unknowingly set a trap for us.

“I saw the muzzle flash,” I say. “I have a rough idea where the shots are coming from.”

But this information doesn’t do us much good. Between the three of us, we have two SIG Sauers and nothing else. The .223 M4 is lying in the dirt, and Kyle and I both have more guns in our trucks—if we could get to them—but they don’t have the kind of range Gareth’s M24 does. Even if we knew Gareth’s precise location, we could never hit him.

The good news is that we have a ten-ton tanker truck to take shelter beneath.

A bullet zips into the ground next to the tanker, puffing a cloud of dirt into the air, followed a couple of seconds later by the sound of the gunshot.

“Think we can make it to the truck?” Kyle says.

His truck is closest, about fifteen feet away. If we could run to it and start the engine, we might get away. Gareth would probably fill it full of holes—and one or all of us could end up hurt or dead—but it might be our only chance.

As if Gareth can read our minds, the next bullet punctures one of the truck’s tires. Then another. He shoots a series of holes into the hood of the truck—firing as fast as the bolt action will let him—and soon oil and radiator fluid start to bleed into the dirt underneath.

When he has completely disabled Kyle’s truck, he does the same to mine, puncturing two of the four tires and pumping bullets into the engine. Each one hits the hood, making a plink sound, followed by the rifle reports rolling over us.

He finally stops shooting, and the air is silent.

The smell of sagebrush is tinged with the odor of oil and gasoline.

“He’s letting his barrel cool,” I say.

“There’s nothing left for him to shoot at anyway,” Kyle says. “We’re at a stalemate.”

He’s right.

Gareth can’t get to us where we’re hiding. But we can’t move. And we sure as hell can’t get to him.

“Where are the keys to the tanker?” Kyle asks.

I don’t know. They’re probably in Dale’s pocket, which means they’re no good to us. Gareth would kill whoever stepped out to get them. And it wouldn’t much matter if they were in the ignition. The truck is facing the direction where the bullets are coming from. As soon as one of us climbed into the cab, bullets would come raining through the windshield. This isn’t a pickup—it would be a slow process to start it, shift it into gear, and get the vehicle moving. Whoever was in the driver’s seat would be a sitting duck and would certainly be dead before the vehicle ever hit five miles an hour.

“What do we do?” Ariana says.

“The only thing we can do,” Kyle says. “Wait.”

As awful as that sounds, he’s right. We have no play here. None at all. Our only hope is to stay alive a little longer and hope our situation somehow changes.

But then, now that the air is silent, I hear something in the distance. It’s what I heard this morning, waking me up: the whine of ATVs. The noise must not have come from my dreams after all. McCormack’s men were getting into position, staying far enough away that I could barely hear them in the morning silence.

As the ATVs get closer, I risk a glance around the edge of the truck. I spot two ATVs climbing up over the top of distant hills, so far away they look like insects. Kyle crawls under the truck and looks at the other side. He says he sees another ATV. That makes three.

This changes things. The four-wheelers will descend on us, their occupants armed with automatic weapons. With only a couple of pistols to fight them off, we don’t stand a chance.

A minute ago we had a stalemate.

This is checkmate.