Page 97 of Vaquero
Chapter Forty
At last. Julio slowed from full combat run into a steady trot. He was covered in sweat and every muscle cried for relief, but finally, he’d heard a noise that didn’t belong in the woods. He froze, casting his senses out like a net into the trees and bushes ahead. Up into the green canopy. Cocking his head, he drew every last meaningless whisper of wind or birdsong to him.
Instead, an angry, “Holy shit!” came back loud and clear.
Then, a tearful, “I’ll kill him! So help me, God, I’ll kill him! Get me out of here!”
“Meg?” Julio asked quietly, as he approached that blessed, sweet, pissed-off voice from behind the tree where she must be tied.
“Julio?” she cried, when he cleared the shrubbery.
He couldn’t believe what he saw. Meg wasn’t tied. She was impaled. The twelve-inch blade stuck into her left shoulder, just below the collarbone, held her fast to that tree. Her hands and fingers were bleeding, as was the shoulder. Hot angry tears streamed down her red, red face.
Damn Zapata to hell! He’d smeared her poor face and head with her own blood. No doubt he’d painted himself with it, possibly Dominic, too. That was how Zapata worked. In blood.
“You’re here,” she cried, frantically. “Say something!”
Julio snapped out of his need to kill Zapata, and stepped into rescue Meg. But he didn’t dare touch her or hold her. Not yet. Touching her would only hurt her, and that knife had to come out. Now. Before she bled to death. Her fingers and hands were already sliced and bleeding from her own attempts to save herself. He leaned his rifle against the tree.
“Please,” she begged, her bottom lip quivering. “Don’t j-j-just stand there. T-t-talk to me.”
He nodded, not sure what to tell her that would make any difference. He decided on the truth. Taking firm hold of the knife’s metal handle, already slippery with blood, Julio braced his other palm to the trunk over her head, and said, “I have to hurt you to save you, baby. Please, don’t” —he jerked the blade out of her and tossed it aside— “scream.”
She hissed, sucking in a giant breath, as he caught her. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Julio should’ve known Meg wouldn’t scream. She was not most women. Somehow, she’d mentally prepared herself for this exact scenario. Or she was just that tough.
Crouching, he folded her wilting body onto his lap andpressed her headagainst his chest.
“That hurt,” she whimpered as she leaned into him, her poor bloodied body racked with tremors and adrenaline. “Rescuing a person isn’t supposed to feel that bad, you know. I think you did it wrong.”
Jerking his gear bag off his shoulder, Julio grabbed his blow-out kit, surprised she was able to joke. Grabbing one of his extra t-shirts, he folded it, then pressed it hard to the hole in her shoulder.
She winced, but hissed, “He has Dominic. He’s his father. Did you know?”
Julio worked intently on the gash below her collarbone. “I suspected. How long has he been gone?”
“Forever,” she whispered, trembling like a leaf. “But really, maybe only five minutes before you showed.”
That timeline agreed with what Julio saw as he tore open a good-sized packet of QuikClot with his teeth. The blood painted on Meg’s face, neck, and head was fresh, still damp. Without warning her because he didn’t want her to tense up, Julio applied a hefty dose of the stinging, antiseptic anticoagulant to her shoulder.
Again, she didn’t scream, but she shuddered plenty, and he felt bad that he’d had to hurt her to help her. A pressure bandage came next, then he worked the same methodical examination on her fingers and palms. At last, he’d done all he could. Meg’s shoulder, fingers, and hands were bandaged, and his first-aid supplies were depleted. He looked from where he sat to beyond the forest to where he needed to be.
“Don’t even think it, Juarez. You are not leaving me behind. I’m going with you,” she growled through clenched teeth.
He peered down into those startling bright, and very dangerous, emerald pools. “I know.”
“Bastard said he’d send someone back. To stay put. That they’d come for me. The liar!”
Julio’s head snapped up at that disquieting news. Liar, nothing. If Zapata sent anyone back, it wouldn’t be to rescue the woman he’d pinned like a frog to a tree. Instantly, Julio’s sharp eyes quartered the forest and shadows ahead. It had taken an hour at least, to get Meg ready to travel. A wicked man on the run could do a lot with that amount of time. Warn hiscompadres. Send his assassins back to finish Meg.Kill his son.
Tenderly, Julio eased Meg off his lap and set her back against the same tree trunk she’d been impaled on. He needed to see better and farther. Automatically, he tugged a pair of gloves out of his pocket and slid his hands into them. One gloved hand went for the Heckler and Koch MP7 on his shoulder. He handed that to Meg without tearing his eyes from the many ways a killer could come at her through the forest between Zapata’s bunkers and here.
“Extra mags and ammo in my bag,” Julio murmured, keeping his voice low and quiet. “Take what you need. Be ready.”
“You think he’d send someone back to kill me? Not h-h-help me?”
Exactly.And if she’d been thinking straight, she would’ve known that. Julio nodded, his palm at his side, motioning her to be still.
He’d just spotted two men in camouflaged shirts and pants, make that three, walking toward where Julio and Meg crouched, chatting with each other, but carrying rifles like deer hunters on an all-day hunt might. Carelessly. Held at their sides, like luggage. Not paying attention as they should’ve been. Probably because they expected a defenseless woman still nailed to a tree, instead of the one now aiming her rifle in their direction.
