Stars & Stripes

Sadie was sobbing. Relief washed over Zane as father and daughter clung to each other. Annie ran from the study and took Sadie out of Mark’s arms. They retreated to the relative safety of a windowless room to huddle with Beverly and the stragglers from the party, and Mark crawled back to the window to pick up his gun. They weren’t safe yet.



“Hey, Zane!” one of the Bandanas called. “Zane, we got your little boyfriend out here! Get your daddy to come talk or we take it out on his pretty face!”



Zane’s breath caught. That meant Ty was still alive.



“At least he’s not under the burning truck anymore, right?” Joe whispered.



Zane closed his eyes. His heart was racing and he had to take a few breaths to calm down.



“I’ll go out there,” Harrison said.



“No. No, I’ll go. If it’s you they want, they’ll need to get through me first,” Zane said. He nodded at Mark and Joe. “Cover my ass.”



Mark nodded and traded the shotgun in his hands for Zane’s rifle. Zane took a deep breath and opened the front door.



The Three Bandanas were in the yard, using the flames from the truck as partial cover. Ty was on his knees in front of Blue Bandana, a shotgun held to the back of his head. His cast was gone, and the side of his face was bloody. In fact, he was bloody almost everywhere. A large stain was spreading at his ribcage where he’d been shot, and more was flowing from his hairline.



Zane had to fight not to rush forward. “What’s this about?” he called out, trying to keep his voice even and calm.



“You know how much money you cost us?”



Zane shook his head, gritting his teeth as he stared at Ty.



“You found our stash, Zane. Ty told me. You were going to go expose us.”



“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zane called.



“Bullshit! We were supposed to have it all moved by now, but with all this attention we couldn’t risk it. We got nothing to show for it! The money and those damn cats were all supposed to be in Mexico tomorrow.”



Zane narrowed his eyes. The voice was familiar. “Cody?” he said with a sinking feeling, realizing he hadn’t truly believed it until now.



Cody reached up and yanked the blue bandana down. The others followed suit. Ronnie, another of Harrison’s ranch hands who’d ridden to the pump house with them, was behind the red bandana. Zane’s knees went weak when his cousin Jamie pulled the black bandana off his face.



“It was you?” he asked, barely able to get the words out. “Why?”



“You said yourself, there were more than four,” Cody said with a sneer.



Zane was breathless with shock and his mind was racing. It had been about drugs all along, but why? Like Ty said days ago, they were too far from the normal routes for it to make sense. Was this the first wave of some sort of cartel expansion? A chess move in a game being played hundreds of miles away? And what the hell did big cats have to do with any of it?



“Guys . . . you’re looking at a hell of lot more time if you go through with this than you would for selling drugs or poaching exotic animals.”



Cody shook his head. “You don’t understand, Zane! We got us a deal down in Laredo. He wants his money, and he wants his goddamned tigers. We don’t deliver, we’re dead men. He’ll think we swindled him.”



“You’ll get life for this. Attempted murder. Hell, kidnapping, assault on a federal agent.”



“He’ll kill us anyway!” Cody shouted, and he worked the action on the shotgun. Ty squeezed his eyes closed at the sound.



The rage and terror bubbled up and Zane snarled. “You hurt him, and I’ll kill you.”



“You can try it, Zane.”



“Ty and I can help you get out of this. This isn’t the way. Do you have any idea how many people are in this house?”



Cody’s eyes flickered to the house and he shook his head. “We don’t want no one to come to harm, that’s why we want to talk.”



Zane eyes were drawn back to Ty. All color had drained from his face. He was losing too much blood. The only thing holding him upright was the lasso around his neck, but he raised his head and met Zane’s eyes.



“What do you want?” Zane asked Cody.



“We want the money,” Jamie called out. “What Uncle Harry’s got in that big safe of his. It’s the only way we can get out from under the man we owe. Get Uncle Harry out here or Cody blows Ty’s brains out.”



Zane swallowed hard and met Ty’s eyes once more. It didn’t even take a moment’s thought. He half-turned toward the door, but Harrison stepped out and onto the porch with him.



“Boys,” Harrison called in a deep voice that carried well over the yard. “This ain’t the way to go about this.”



“Your meddling is going to cost us our lives,” Ronnie shouted.



“They’d have gotten away with it too!” Ty said, his words almost slurred and sounding half-delirious. “If it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.”



Cody put his boot on Ty’s back and then jerked on the lasso. Ty arched, reaching up to grasp the rope before it could cut off his air.



“Shut your damn mouth!”



“Give us the money to pay off what we owe,” Jamie told Harrison. “We disappear. Stuart and his boys take the fall for the poaching and the drugs. Nobody gets hurt. If you don’t, we burn it to the ground.”



Zane eyed his father. Harrison glanced at him, meeting his eyes. It seemed a clear-cut decision. It was only money, after all. Money for the lives inside the house was simple.



Harrison nodded at the men in the yard. “I say yes, you know you can push me around. You’ll keep coming back and taking and threatening until I’m dead and buried and got nothing but disgrace to my name. I don’t need money. But I ain’t giving you my pride.”



“Dad,” Zane whispered, both impressed with his father and terrified that they were going to shoot his lover in the head as he watched.



“It’s all right, Zane,” he whispered, and then, to the men outside, “You boys burn down the house, you only hurt yourselves. My money’ll burn down with it, and then what will you do?”



“Uncle Harry, think about this!” Jamie shouted.



“I ain’t your uncle, boy!”



“That’s it,” Cody snarled. He raised the barrel to the back of Ty’s head.



“No!” Zane shouted, panic and rage blinding him as he lunged for the stairs. Harrison grabbed him.



Glass broke as Mark took advantage of the distraction to bust the window with the butt of his rifle.



Ty jerked his head to the side and rolled, kicking the barrel of the shotgun and knocking it aside. It went off as Ty tackled Cody to the ground. Ten feet away, Jamie was knocked to his back, screaming and bloody.



Ronnie raised his gun and Harrison pulled Zane back inside as the man fired at them. The birdshot didn’t even reach the porch at that distance. Harrison slammed the front door as Ronnie switched guns.



Mark and Joe took aim and fired in return, trying to cover Ty as he wrestled with Cody in the yard and trying to deter Ronnie from peppering the house with his .45.



“Dad, go get the girls and get to your truck!” Mark shouted between shots. “Get everyone out the back!”



Harrison looked to Zane, and Zane nodded. Harrison moved away to retrieve Beverly, Annie, and Sadie and get them to safety. Zane peered around the windowsill to see how Ty was faring. He and Cody were scuffling in the dirt, but despite the covering fire, Ronnie was wading in. Ty was an injured man with one good arm and a rope already around his neck, fighting two healthy men. And he was losing. Badly.



Zane took the rifle Harrison had readied and took aim, standing above Mark and looking through the sights at Ronnie as the big man grabbed Ty and held him. Cody pulled a knife from a sheath at his thigh.



Zane let out a breath and pulled the trigger. Ty jerked in Ronnie’s arms and turned both their bodies. The bullet went through Ronnie’s arm and he howled, and Ty cried out too as they both hit the ground.



Cody dove to the gravel and all three men were out of sight.



“Did you just shoot your boyfriend?” Mark cried.



“Fuck!”



Joe and Mark both grabbed an extra gun and darted for the door, on Zane’s heels. Harrison had returned and followed them onto the porch. They were just in time to see Cody get to his feet and grab up a revolver from the grass. He pointed it down at Ty, who was writhing in the dirt, holding his arm where Zane’s shot had hit him.



Zane raised his rifle.



The others all cried out before Zane could pull the trigger. He caught a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye: Barnum the Bengal tiger speeding across the yard toward Ty and the others.



“Ty!”



Ty rolled and saw the tiger coming. He curled into a ball as Barnum rushed him. The tiger leapt over him, claws extended, graceful body long and lean as he attacked. Cody screamed and fired his gun, but the tiger hit him at full force, sending him skidding through the gravel a solid ten feet away.



Claws slashed and teeth sank into flesh. Cody screamed, a bloodcurdling sound that Zane didn’t think he’d soon be forgetting.



Zane sprinted across the yard toward Ty, who was still curled in a ball with his arms covering his head. He grabbed Ty’s arm and yanked him to his feet.



Ty wavered, but seemed to rally as Zane wrapped his arm around him. “Somebody shot me, Zane.”



Zane nodded and pulled the rope off Ty’s neck. He shoved him toward the porch, then bent to check Ronnie’s pulse. The man was alive, but he wasn’t moving. Zane gathered all his weapons, then left him to lie there, unconscious and defenseless, at the mercy of the enraged tiger.



He turned to follow his partner, but Ty was rooted to the spot, watching Barnum savage the ranch hand who had tried to kill him. Zane couldn’t bring himself to look.



“Come on, Ty,” Zane whispered. He tugged at Ty’s arm.



Ty shook his head, then he gave a short whistle. “Barnum!”



The tiger jerked his head up and growled. Ty and Zane both staggered back as if it had been a warning. Ty stopped his retreat, though, and said the tiger’s name again with a little more authority. Zane couldn’t help but glance sideways at the animal. Barnum had Cody’s hand in his mouth, and the arm was obviously broken and possibly beyond repair. There were gashes and punctures all over his body, but nothing like the damage the tiger could have done.



“Easy now. Come on,” Ty said to the tiger, and after a moment Barnum released Cody’s hand and began to prowl toward Ty. Zane started backing away.



Ty held his hand out, breathing out like he was trying to calm himself. His hand was trembling. Barnum approached and nosed his bloody muzzle against Ty’s palm. Ty carefully scratched under his chin “That’s twice you saved me. Good boy.”



Barnum chuffed and then pushed onto his back feet, putting one huge paw on each of Ty’s shoulders. Ty couldn’t take the weight of the 600 pound tiger and they both toppled to the ground. Barnum sat down with a huff and rubbed his face against Ty’s as Ty gasped for air. Then he wrapped his paw around Ty’s head and began licking Ty’s wounded face. Ty didn’t struggle, merely closed his eyes and held his breath.



“Ty?” Zane whispered.



“Just go get someone with a tranquilizer gun please,” Ty said in a soothing, almost sing-song voice. “Slowly.”



Zane backed away, watching in fascination as the tiger lay down in the grass and rested his chin on Ty’s stomach. Mark had already retrieved Annie, and she was readying her tranquilizer gun even as Zane reached the porch.



They tossed out the meat that had been thawing for the BBQ to lure Barnum away from Ty, and as soon as Ty was out of his reach, Annie shot the dart. They had to wait only a minute or two before the tiger was out.



Ty sat down beside him and laid a hand on his head as everyone else surveyed the damage. Harrison’s men and several of the party guests who’d been caught in the house rushed to the barn to try to contain the fire. Minutes later, they could hear the police cars and fire trucks approaching, sirens blazing. Tish and several interns from the Roaring Springs Sanctuary arrived ten minutes after the police to take possession of Barnum and return him to the sanctuary.



Zane thought Ty might cry as they loaded Barnum into the truck.



“Will they have to put him down since he attacked someone?” Ty asked the sheriff as the Roaring Springs truck ambled down the drive.



The sheriff glanced at Cody’s ravaged body and shook his head. “Looks like he got hit by a truck to me. Ain’t that what happened, son?”



Ty stared at him, eyes wide. Then he nodded. “Yes, sir.”



“That’s right. A very angry truck,” the sheriff drawled as he walked away.



The ambulance arrived a full twenty minutes after it had been called. By then, Cody had lost a good deal of blood and gone into shock. Annie refused to treat him, saying that the Hippocratic oath didn’t extend to vets or to people who shot guns at her baby girl.



Zane couldn’t blame her.



Ronnie and Cody would both live, though Cody would likely lose an arm and a few non-essential organs. Jamie had bled out from the shotgun blast to the chest, dying long before help could get to him. Zane suffered a pang of remorse over the death of his cousin, but he didn’t waste much effort in mourning a man who’d been willing to kill them all just for money.



The man in Laredo, and the question of why the drug trade had veered so far off its course, were both large problems. They weren’t Zane’s problems, though, and even if he wanted to be involved, it wasn’t his jurisdiction.