Page 76 of Captive

The county car backs up along the concrete post. The chief swings the third panel toward himself. It opens the middle pen without opening the clean one. Sofia calls the techs back behind solid rail.

The red cow hits the panel once more, and this time it gives the way I set it to, toward the middle pen. She follows the open space away from the techs, and three cattle turn with her instead of breaking for the clean lane.

“Lane clear,” the chief says.

“Hold it,” Sofia says. “Nothing goes through the west gate till I reset the groups.”

She checks the case on a body camera. Then she goes back to the first cow’s catheter like nobody just tried to drag her into a truck.

I want every man who touched her.

What I do is get out of her lane.

The tall tech reaches for a pistol near the cut camera cable. Two investigators come around the north barrier and put him on his face in the dirt. The shorter one abandons the gate chain and climbs into Vale’s passenger seat. Vale gets behind the wheel with his lip split open and no case. The engine starts before the door is shut.

“Vehicle moving,” I report. “Two inside. Passenger has the gun from the gate.”

The investigator points at the county car. “Barrett. Ride and give route. You don’t drive. You don’t chase on foot.”

“Copy.”

Sofia doesn’t look up from her patient. “The animal lane is mine.”

“It stays yours.”

* * *

The driver helps me into the passenger seat. My leg is bleeding again. I can feel it soaking the bandage. He takes the north medical road instead of following Vale through the south gate. It costs us forty seconds. It doesn’t put us on a dirt road with an armed man in front of us and nobody who knows where it goes.

I know where it goes.

“He won’t take the public gate,” I tell the investigator. “There are units there and he knows it. He’ll take the wash cut and try the dry crossing south of the old tank pad.”

“Can his truck make that crossing?”

“Not fast. Put the operations chief on the old bull-lot gate. Nobody closes it till Vale’s back wheels are past the wash wall.”

“Approved. Operations takes the gate. County driver, block with the vehicle. No ranch people go near either cab.”

The driver turns through the old mineral bay and puts our car sideways behind the concrete wall. The ambulance stays on the north road with a clear way out.

Vale’s truck comes around the bend fast enough to throw gravel over the wall. He sees us and brakes. His back wheels are past the gate line before he stops.

“Close it,” the investigator orders.

The chief swings the bull gate across the road behind him. It drops into the latch. Vale can’t back up without taking the gate. The wash wall doesn’t leave room to turn.

Our driver eases forward until his push bumper meets Vale’s front corner. Not hard. Just enough.

“Engine off,” the investigator says over the loudspeaker. “Hands up. Passenger, put the gun on the dash.”

The passenger door opens three inches and stops against the gatepost. A black pistol comes out through the gap.

I see his wrist before I see the barrel. I reach across and grab our driver’s vest and pull him down toward the floor.

The gun goes off.

The window blows in. Something hits the outside of my right shoulder like a sledgehammer, then burns straight through and out the back. My arm drops against the console.