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Rachel figured the new guy for a bit of an asshole. He sauntered into the office, in that ridiculous hat, clasped Art’s hand in a firm handshake and spoke to him like they were buddies. Rachel knew the type; tall, athletic, handsome and knows it. Probably thinks he’s God’s gift to women, definitely thinks he’s God’s gift to law enforcement. Far too cocky, and with rumours surrounding him that he was as much a cowboy as that hat intimated, with an itchy trigger finger and a flagrant disregard for the rules. The Marshal’s service was full of them, they put her on edge, unable to rest or make a mistake because then she'd prove herself to be unworthy in their eyes. It made what was an already difficult job all the harder, and at times she's wanted to punch them in the face. She could tell she was going to feel that way about Raylan more than she did with most.
That's why, perhaps it was a little mean, but it was satisfying when he lost the prisoner. She and Tim smirked across the room at each other as he confessed to Art. He’d endeared himself to her a little when they’d chased Rollie Pike to Mexico. But it was infuriating when it turned out he was sleeping with Ava Crowder, newly a murderer and now witness against her brother-in-law.
It was fair to say that she was not a part of the Raylan Givens fan club, and was dreading working with him again. But she’d got a lead on a serial rapist that she’d been hunting a long time, and Art wasn’t happy at the thought of her going alone. That in itself bothered her, as she wondered whether Art would allow the guys to go after him alone. Probably not, in fairness, the man was known for being violent, but then Raylan went off chasing violence without backup all the time. If her partner had been Tim, she could stomach it, he knew she was good at her job and she didn’t feel the need to prove herself with him, but he was wrapped up deep in his own case so Art had voluntold Raylan to go with her instead. And Rachel was sure Raylan would think he was there to protect her, and she didn’t want to have to sit across from that smug face while he did it.
She had to concede, it was starting off better than expected, even though he’d irritated her right off the bat, by turning up in a black tee shirt with his usual jeans. It was hot, granted, but she always made the effort to wear a suit to work, spent a long time perfecting her hair in the morning, only for Raylan to be able to throw on whatever he had clean. He had though, come to work clear headed, made sure they switched off the driving half way, and used his passenger time to study the file she had put together on Wilson Creed, and even muttered an appreciation of her thoroughness. It made for grim reading, and she glanced over as he read the reports, the first was a young waitress he’d stalked at a diner and then raped as she walked home. He’d gone to prison for that, come out again and had seemed to be abiding by the rules but in the last month another girl had wound up half dead, with his skin under her fingernails, and then a third had come forward to say that he’d pretended to be a cab driver and had tried to rape her in the back seat. She’d broken his arm and got away but had given him her address as she’d thought he was a cab so had been too scared to come forward for a while. That girl had been only fifteen.
‘You musta turned over every stone down every holler by now looking for this guy,’ he said as he hefted the file on his lap.
‘Almost,’ she agreed.
‘So how’d you get him now?’
‘His sister had a baby. His mama phoned a random guy in North Carolina, who called a bar in Owensboro. 10 minutes later and mama receives a phone call from a pay phone from Birch River, West Virginia. Turned out one of his old college buddies has a farm out that way now.’
‘That’s a lot of call data and connecting the dots,’ Raylan pulled an ‘I’m impressed’ face.
‘This job’s not all about waving your gun around and threatening old school friends.’
‘Bold of you to think any of us went to school,’ Raylan looked at her as seriously as he could manage, until it looked to him like she might believe it, at which point he slipped into a grin.
Rachel rolled her eyes, ‘I would not put it past you to have faked your college degree.’
‘Hey,’ Raylan said with mock indignation. ‘I had a great time in college. And nobody faked anything I can assure you.’ He raised an eyebrow suggestively.
Despite herself, it made Rachel laugh.
It was a four hour drive, more by the time they’d stopped for gas and a snack, so they turned the radio up and enjoyed not having the pressure to speak to each other for a while. Raylan, it turned out, knew a considerable repertoire of soul classics and sang along just under his breath in a voice that wasn’t half-bad in a way that Rachel wasn’t sure if he was even aware of doing it. When they played Nina Simone’s Sinnerman, Rachel started singing lightly too, and then Raylan looked at her with a grin before strengthening his voice and soon they were belting it out together.
‘Oh Sinnerman, where you gonna run to? Oh Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?’
Time flew by and soon they were pulling into the yard in front of an old farm house, with pristine paintwork and neat little herb garden in a raised bed. It looked well cared for, but lived in. There was a swing seat on the porch and a green kids tricycle abandoned by the steps.
Rachel was expecting Raylan to stride on up there, but he adjusted his hat and hung a few steps behind, watching her back but allowing her the lead.
She opened the screen door and knocked on the pale blue wood of the door behind it. She could hear a child’s footsteps running around inside, but no one came to the door. Behind her she could sense rather than hear Raylan stepping away to check the rear.
She knocked again, ‘Hello, we know you’re in there. This is the Marshals Service, can you come to the door please?’
This time there was the sound of movement behind the door, this was always the bit that made her most nervous. She placed her hand on her sidearm, keeping it holstered.
‘Hello? Can I help you?’ A worn out woman answered the door, opening it only a few inches. She was in yoga pants and a vest and her hair was scrunched up into a messy bun. Rachel could hear the kid thudding back and forth on the wooden floor and she guessed she’d not interrupted a work out, just a rather trying day.
‘Ma’am, Frida Saunders?’ She showed her badge. In her periphery, she was aware of Raylan coming back round to the front of the house and tipping his hat at the woman. ‘Is your husband in?’
‘Jake? No. He’s driving the pigs down to be slaughtered today, he might be another couple of hours, he likes to go for a beer or two while he’s in town. Is there anything I can help you with?’
‘Do you know Wilson Creed?’ She held out a photo.
‘Should I? No I don’t think so.’
‘He and your husband were college roommates right? And isn’t that where you met Jake as well?’
‘Oh, yeah. I do remember the roommate,’ she replied. ‘Wow, I don’t think we’ve seen him in fourteen years.’
Behind her, Rachel could feel Raylan shuffling uncomfortably, getting hot under the collar at the obvious lie.
‘Ma’am, is it alright if we come in and have a look around. Just to satisfy ourselves.’
‘Do you have a warrant?’ she asked, leaning on the door, making sure it was barely open enough for her to stick her face and shoulder through.
‘Ma’am, Wilson Creed is a wanted offender and a very dangerous man.’
‘Well then it’s a good thing we’ve not seen him in fourteen years.’
‘Yes, that is good,’ Rachel replied, leaving no room in her voice to suggest she believed it. ‘You have children here, right? And he’s not the kind of man you’d want round children, schools, Chuck E Cheese’s those kinds of places, do you know what I’m saying?’
The woman blanched at that, and lowered her tone to a whisper. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Ma’am, we’ve driven all the way from Lexington. If he was a regular old bail jumper, we would have just asked Charlestown to do it.’
She placed her finger over her lips to tell them to be quiet and opened the door, Rachel drew her gun and kept it down by her thigh. She didn’t look behind her to see what Raylan was doing, but she could hear his footsteps shadowing her. Frida walked them through the kitchen to a door. She tried to open it, but it was locked.
It was then that Raylan stepped up, his gun was in his hands and his hand his jaw set in tense determination. ‘Wilson Creed, US Marshals.’ He didn’t give any more of a warning before he gave the door a well-placed kick, popping it straight off the lock.
Rachel was there, ready to run past Raylan and head down into the basement, but Wilson came barrelling straight out the door and into her. He tried to barge past her but Rachel snatched his arm and stuck a foot out to trip him and suddenly he was on the floor with her on top of him. Raylan was down to assist in a second, pressing him down with both hands and a knee which she secured her weapons and went for her cuffs. Together, they wrestled him into some handcuffs, and then Raylan hauled him to his feet, while she said the words to officially arrest him.
‘What did you do, bitch?’ Wilson snarled at Frida, who was stood shakily by the door to the lounge, which she held closed so that her child couldn’t see what was happening.
‘Did you touch Trey?’ she asked.
‘Is that what they told you? This is some bullshit.’
‘Now, now,’ Raylan admonished. ‘That’s no way to talk to a lady that’s been clothing and feeding you these past few months. And that’s not what we said. We just heavily implied that you’re a danger to our youth, which you are.’ Raylan frogmarched him out of the house and down the steps to the car.
‘Thank you Ma’am,’ Rachel smiled at her sadly as she followed. ‘You’ve made the right decision, kept a lot of people safe by helping us.’
Wilson was bundled into the car, still kicking and snarling, so Raylan sat in the back seat beside him to keep an eye on him, while Rachel drove.
‘It’s going to be a long drive back to Lexington,’ Raylan muttered, taking his seatbelt off and twisting round to stop the man from kicking at the back of Rachel’s seat. ‘If you don’t start behaving, I’m gonna think you’re doing your best to get us killed. I will be justified in shooting you to keep that from happening,’ he warned like an adult telling off a child.
‘Maybe we should drop him off with the locals, let him calm down overnight,’ she suggested.
‘Yeah, let’s tell Art we’ve done our bit. Get Charlestown to drive him back in the morning,’ Raylan agreed.
Relieved at the idea of not having to make the drive back, she approached the next junction and indicated to turn left. There was a farm truck coming straight ahead, so she waited for her turn and for a brief reprieve, Wilson stopped and slumped down in his seat.
She barely noticed the truck turn, or at least not quick enough to do anything about it, but the driver stared her down and then wrenched the wheel and suddenly they were being crashed into with full force.
She came to with her head on the steering wheel and blood pouring into her eye. Her hands still gripped in their ten and two position, suggesting it had barely been a second, but it was still a concern. Her concern regarding herself was ignored immediately as she realised that Raylan hadn’t been sat in his seat properly and had been flung forward through the gap between the front seats.
‘Shit!’ he muttered as he struggled to get back, his chest crumpled into the front passenger seat, his legs all contorted in the back, ‘Rachel, are you okay?’ He twisted round to try to release himself from the awkward position, when a booted foot kicked out and caught him square in the face, knocking his head back into the dashboard and flattening his nose. He blinked for a second, stunned.
Rachel didn’t wait for him to recover, she released her seat belt and twisted round, drawing her sidearm on Wilson, who was still slumped in the back seat.
‘Raylan?’ she asked.
‘M good,’ he mumbled, coughed and spat blood from the back of his throat into the footwell of the ruined car. It was pouring down his face from his nose, which was no longer its nice, neat shape, but veering off to the right and swelling rapidly.
She kept her gun on Wilson while she fished in her pocket for her phone, and dialled, ‘This is Deputy US Marshal Brooks, with Givens. Our vehicle has been run off the road at…’
Her drivers door was wrenched open, and for a fraction of a second she imagined that it was someone come to help, but then she saw the twist in Raylan’s face and someone grabbed her from behind, knocked the sidearm from her hand and pulled her out of the car with an arm wrapped around her neck. She felt the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed to her temple and a large body at her back. Her phone dropped on the ground and she heard it shatter.
Raylan scrambled to get out of the car and drew his gun. He leaned his elbows on the car’s roof to steady his aim, ‘Let her go,’ he warned.
‘She’ll be dead before you can pull the trigger,’ the man holding Rachel warned. ‘Now, drop the gun and uncuff my friend.’
Raylan looked like he couldn’t even see straight. He was slow to move, putting his gun down on the ground slowly, the motion of bending down clearly making his head spin.
‘You’re Jake, right?’ Rachel asked, trying to take even breaths through the fear. ‘I understand you’re looking out for a friend, but are you going to give up your wife and kid for him? He’s going to get you in a lot of trouble, but we can fix it if you let us go now.’
Jake just laughed at the suggestion, ‘Hey Cowboy,’ he called Raylan, even though the hat had been abandoned somewhere back in the car. ‘Cuffs, now.’
Raylan did not let his gaze leave the gun at Rachel’s head as he went to the back seat slowly and unlocked Wilson’s handcuffs. Wilson scrambled to his feet and then threw a punch, decking him. Raylan crashed into the floor, out cold. A car approached and Rachel hoping that the call she’d made had been traced already, but instead it was someone in an old rattling Volvo who took one look at what was happening and wheelspun right out of there.
‘Come on Marshal,’ Jake said. ‘My friend is going to kick your friend’s face in unless you come with me.’
Wilson gave Raylan a kick to the ribs, to punctuate the point, as he bent down and pulled his arms behind his back to secure Raylan’s hands into his own cuffs. He then stepped over Raylan to get to them, and secured Rachel’s tightly around her wrists. Together, they marched Rachel to the back of the truck, empty save for the mess made by a whole load of scared pigs. Wilson fetched some duct tape from the cab, stuck some over Rachel’s mouth and then round her ankles pinning them together. They then hauled her up and rolled her into the truck. She was left there, blinking away the nausea from the smell and what was likely to be a concussion, trying to work out what to do next, when they returned, Raylan’s unconscious form slung between them. They hefted him up and rolled him into the truck. He came to a halt when he crashed into Rachel and they lay there, helpless, as Wilson climbed in with them, Jake locked up and a moment later they started to move.
The movement of the truck started to bring Raylan back to his senses. He started to stir, and then his eyes opened wide and panicked, breathing too fast and shallow, blood still bubbling from his broken nose.
Fuck! Rachel thought in her own panic, she made a ‘mmm’ noise behind the tape and then kicked out at Wilson to get his attention. Wilson turned, took in Raylan turning blue and tore the tape off his mouth. Raylan sank down into the floor, taking huge breaths as he tried to recover from the oxygen deprivation.
‘What have you dragged your friend into Wilson?’ Raylan asked when he could breathe again.
Wilson laughed, ‘What makes you think he’s not dragging me?’
‘Rachel, are you okay?’ he asked then, clearly not wanting to bother with talking to Wilson.
She ‘hmm’d a yes, though her head was pounding and she was terrified. Raylan looked scared too, but he hid it well. They lay together, shoulder to shoulder, watching their surroundings, looking for anything to help them escape or incapacitate Wilson, but though he too had to be bruised from the crash, his side of the car hadn’t taken the same impact and he was alert and watching them all the time. The sides of the truck was slatted, with small gaps in for air-circulation for the animals, Rachel tried to look for signs of where they were heading but all she could see was sky and the odd flash of tree.
They came to a stop after not so long a journey. Rachel thought they had to be somewhere back in the vicinity of the house, though the last bit had been down a rough dirt road that they hadn’t taken before. The back doors of the truck opened. Raylan sat up too fast and promptly lost his lunch, luckily managing to lean over far enough he didn’t cover himself or Rachel in any of it. Rachel was thankful it seemed to be mostly just coffee and bile. She tried hard not to do the same. The heat and the stench was bad, compounded with their respective head injuries, made it a tough task.
‘What is he doing with the tape off his mouth?’ Jake growled, and Rachel realised that perhaps it was Jake dragging Wilson in after all.
‘Can’t breathe through my nose your buddy broke, asshole,’ Raylan answered for Wilson.
Wilson strode over to him and grabbed him, holding him by the jaw with a meaty fist and then grabbing his nose and yanking it.
‘Oh shit!’ Raylan yelped, the pain of it making his eyes water, when Wilson let him go, his nose was bleeding anew but was at least straight again. Raylan fell back, landing with his head against Rachel’s hip. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, but seemed too dazed to remove himself from the compromising position. Rachel found she needed the reassuring contact.
In the end, it was Jake and Wilson who removed him, grabbing him by his taped up ankles and dragging him across the truck floor until he was unceremoniously tipped off the edge. Hog tied as he was, he could do nothing but try not to fall on his face. Rachel got the same treatment next and she landed on top of him.
They were outside a barn that stank of farm animal. There were noises coming from inside it and Rachel remembered horror stories of people being fed to hungry pigs.
She was hauled up by Jake and was dragged towards the barn, while Wilson stood with a foot pressing down on Raylan’s chest to keep him still. The barn, as expected was full of pigs, mothers and their babies in separate wooden stalls topped with metal rails. One of the stalls had been cleared out though and it was here that she was dropped. She could still see the outside from it, and Wilson met her gaze and made sure she was watching as he pulled a gun on Raylan and held it aimed at his head while Jake released one of the cuffs and then pulled her arms up threading the cuffs through a metal bar and then locking them tight again so that she was stuck with her arms up above her. They were hinge cuffs rather than the old chain link so they forced her hands through to the other side of the bars at an awkward angle. Jake went back to Raylan then, and it took the two of them to drag him and lock him up beside her, holding the gun on her this time in case he decided to try anything. Raylan was known for rashness and stupidity, and yet even Rachel doubted his ability to do anything right now, he looked broken.
That didn’t stop him running his mouth though, ‘This is cozy. I guess when you two go on the run together, very romantic by the way, you’ll leave it to your wife to find us.’
‘Felt appropriate, just two more pigs for the pen,’ Jake said. ‘If you don’t shut up I will tape your mouth over again.’
‘And I’ll suffocate again. I have blood and snot stacked up to my eyeballs right now,’ Raylan said graphically. ‘If you’re going to leave us here, at least take the tape off my partner’s mouth. I’m not sure the other residents are much in the way of conversationalists.’
Jake laughed, ‘What makes you think you’re being left here?’
‘My sense of what Wilson is, is evolving by the minute,’ Raylan said. ‘See, a few hours ago, I thought that he was a rapist that worked alone, and see now I know that he’s just a sick lackey that does your business. I also happened to notice the unmarked graves out back just now. Are you going to make us dig our own?’
Rachel would have screamed at him if she could’ve. She hadn’t spent as long outside, hadn’t seen the graves he was talking about. She really didn’t think that Raylan should be inviting them to consider it an option. She aimed a kick at his leg instead to get him to shut up.
Jake noticed her reaction and smiled, ‘Shall I take the tape off your mouth? Looks like you’ve got something to say.’ He crouched down in front of Rachel and took the tape and ripped it off. She drew up her legs and kicked him hard, sending him sprawling backward.
‘Oof,’ Jake cackled. ‘I love it when they fight back. I’ve never had a Marshal before, she’s gonna be feisty.’
‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Rachel said. ‘You don’t have time for this. You should just leave us here and run.’ She glanced at Wilson, who was stood in the doorway to the pen still holding the gun loosely in his hand. He looked like he wanted to run, but wouldn’t do anything without Jake’s say-so.
‘Now where would the fun be in that?’ Jake countered. ‘Half the thrill is knowing you might get caught.’ He crouched down, avoiding her legs this time and licked her face, letting a hand wander beneath the lapel of her blazer to grope at a breast. Rachel had read those reports over and over, she tried to steel herself for what was to come.
Raylan was not going to sit by and watch though, he slumped down in his cuffs to give himself the length to kick out at Jake, hitting him in the shoulder, ‘Hey, don’t look at her, look at me.’
‘You can wait your turn,’ Jake growled.
‘Why? You scared of me?’ Raylan goaded. ‘Boys like me used to pick on you in school? Always used to get the girls you wanted too, right? That’s why you started having to kidnap and rape them, isn’t it?’
Rachel closed her eyes, wished he would stop talking, but Raylan just wouldn’t shut up.
‘I have a wife and kid,’ Jake spat back.
‘Yeah, I been thinking about that. Figured it was some kind of Stockholm Syndrome shit. Do you share her with Wilson too? Or does he just get your sloppy seconds when it comes to people you abduct? I bet he’s been banging her, when you’re working down here at the pig farm, all covered in shit. Do you think he treats her better than you do?’
That suggestion was the one that did it, Jake jumped up off Rachel and threw a punch at Raylan, knocking his head back into the rails. It clanged back with a real force, and split Raylan’s lip but Raylan just laughed. That angered Jake and he punched Raylan again and again, cracking ribs and eye sockets and probably his own hand against Raylan’s thick skull.
Rachel wanted to cry and tell him to stop, but Raylan continued to push him, with blood streaming down his face.
‘Tell you what,’ Raylan said eventually. ‘I know you made it so I ain’t so pretty no more, but if you keep your hands off her, I’ll let you do what you want to me.’
‘I ain’t gay,’ Jake said angrily and punched him again.
Raylan ran his tongue around his teeth to check they were all still there, and spat blood into the dirt. ‘I figured. But most men who rape other men aren’t either. Happens in prison all the time. You’ve not been to prison have you? Wilson has, he’ll tell you. It’s a power thing. And I’m offering you the chance to have the ultimate power over me. I’ll do what you want, pretend I’m enjoying it, struggle just the right amount, squeal like one of these pigs you seem so fond of… Whatever. Just so long as you don’t touch my friend.’
Jake slung a leg over each side of Raylan and straddled his lap. He reached down and grabbed Raylan’s crotch. Rachel fought her handcuffs but of course was helpless.
Raylan hissed in pain, ‘Hey Jake, I said I’d pretend to enjoy it. I can’t work miracles. What do you need mine for anyway, thought you said you weren’t gay. Last thing, do you think we could do think in the next pen over or something? I’m hoping to still be able to go to work with this fine woman again and it would be real awkward if we couldn’t meet each other’s gaze.’
‘Marshal, by morning you will be sharing the same grave, best get intimate with each other now.’
Raylan looked at Rachel, one eye completely swollen shut now, though all the punches had landed to his left side, making his right look remarkably still like the dashing lawman she’d got in the car with that morning. ‘Please, just, I dunno, don’t look?’ he suggested.
Jake grabbed his legs and yanked Raylan down towards him, stretching out his arms against the cuffs and causing his tee shirt to ride up revealing his bruised but muscular stomach. He fumbled with Raylan’s belt, opening it up and starting to pull his jeans down narrow hips, when Wilson shouted from the door, ‘Hey Jake, they’ve got a fucking helicopter!’
‘Shit,’ Jake abandoned his assault and jumped to his feet.
Rachel had been too preoccupied with what was happening in the barn that she hadn’t been paying attention to the world outside it, but she could definitely hear it now, the wap, wap, wap of rotor blades, and then in the distance, sirens.
‘Oh thank the Lord,’ Rachel whispered.
Jake and Wilson leapt up and started to panic, abandoning the barn and sprinting for an old flat-bed that was parked outside. They got in and sped off, the sound of grinding suspension, suggesting they had chosen to go off road. As Rachel listened, the helicopter seemed to turn and go after them, as did the sirens.
It left Rachel and Raylan alone. And oh, how she wished at least one of the cars would come back, uncuff them and speed Raylan to a hospital.
‘Ray,’ she started but didn’t know what to say. He was slumped down in his cuffs, eyes screwed shut and breathing heavily, without the strength to pull himself upright again, or maybe he was concerned if he attempted to move, his jeans would slip further down an she’d get an eye full. She wasn’t looking at that, for his modesty but also because she didn’t want to think about how much worse it so almost could’ve been. She focused on his face instead, and tried to get him to acknowledge her.
‘Raylan, we’re okay. They’re gone. Look at me, they’re gone.’
‘Yep,’ Raylan said tersely, as he worked through some sort of deep breathing exercise. ‘Just give me a minute.’
Rachel let him have it, deciding that Raylan would talk to her when he was able to get himself back under control. She closed her eyes against the fading evening light and let the tears roll down her cheeks.
They stayed that way, each locked in their own struggle for self-composure until the sound of the rotor blades came back. She didn’t know why but it made her panic, like perhaps somehow, they’d stolen the helicopter and come back to finish them. When her rational brain kicked in and told her she was being ridiculous, she just wished that she could adjust Raylan’s jeans for him, cinch his belt back tight and secure.
The helicopter landed in the yard, and the sound of it drowned out what might be going on outside, but then Tim appeared, gun held in a ready stance, baseball cap on backwards and field jacket billowing like a superhero cape behind him.
‘Tim!’ Rachel screamed, and he whipped his head round to find them laid out on the floor. Horror crossed over his face as he took them in, but then he schooled it into his usual blank calm expression.
‘I’m going to clear, I’ll be right back,’ he promised. He ran down the length of the barn searching every pen and only when he was satisfied they were alone did he return, first to the door to shout, ‘Art, I’ve got them!’ and then to crash to his knees between them.
He had the cuff key in hand, and although Rachel felt like he should really see to Raylan first, he went to her and undid her cuffs. The cuffs had been on too tight and then there had been the added agony of having them held above her head. They ached up there, but as she was able to bring them down, the blood started to flow back into them and the pain of it took her breath away.
‘You good?’ he asked her, and she could only hold her limp arms in her lap and nod, as Tim turned to Raylan.
‘Raylan? It’s Tim,’ he said gently. ‘I’m going to take the cuffs off you, is it okay if I touch you?’
Raylan opened the only eye he could and looked up at Tim’s face, he nodded slowly.
‘Okay,’ Tim continued his commentary as he went, in a calm steady voice. It’s gonna hurt as the blood flows back but you’ll be better for it. I promise.’ He released one cuff and then the other, had to pull Raylan’s wrists out of the metalwork because they wouldn’t function on their own. He gasped and screwed his eyes shut as the pins and needles started. His wrists were cut and bleeding from fighting the cuffs. Rachel looked down and realised hers were too, rivulets had trailed down one arm to her elbow and had dried there.
‘Raylan, do you want me to fix you up a little?’
Raylan huffed a breath, and lowered his hands to his hips, tracing the waistband of his jeans, flexing his fingers to try to get them working.
‘Here, let me help,’ Tim soothed. He took Raylan’s jeans by the belt loops, doing his best to avoid touching skin, between them they managed to shuffle him back into them and Tim did up his belt carefully.
Rachel was so busy watching the tender way that Tim was being, that she almost missed that Art had arrived and was watching from the doorway. It seems he couldn’t watch for long and he hurried back outside. As a result he missed Raylan’s quiet utterance to Tim, ‘You have impeccable timing,’ and the nervous laugh that accompanied it. Tim’s shoulders slumped at the pronouncement, proving just how tense the younger Marshal had really been. Rachel unwound the duct tape from her feet and struggled to her feet, and went to go find their boss.
Art was leaning heavily against the barn as he barked into the radio, demanding an update from the ambulance. Rachel waited until he received his answer, before touching his shoulder and alerting him to her presence.
‘Raylan wasn’t…’ she started but found she couldn’t say the word. ‘I mean, they were fixing to, but the helicopter arrived and they ran.’
Art’s legs gave out with relief and he slid down the barn until he was sat in the dust with his back to it. Rachel sat down beside him.
‘They wanted me,’ she confessed, staring down at her boots. ‘Raylan convinced them to do what they wanted to him instead.’
‘How’d he do that?’ Art asked.
‘Pissed them off, mostly.’
Art smiled fondly at that. ‘We caught them both. We tracked the vehicle with the helicopter, got a couple of Staties to them. They’re on their way to custody as we speak.’
‘They’re not just rapists, they’ve killed people, or so Raylan thinks and they didn’t deny it. Someone needs to come and dig up that.’ She pointed at an area of tilled earth out by a copse of trees.
‘Okay, State Police are sending a team here, we’ll speak to them about it then. We’re holding them both on abduction charges, there’s plenty of time to add other offences to that list.’
‘Come see Raylan,’ Rachel suggested, she struggled to her feet, feeling just a little wobbly, and offered him a hand up. Art took it, but didn’t really use it, which was a good thing because she was certain she would tip right over. They walked back inside to find Raylan sat up and batting Tim’s fussing hand away as Tim tried to inspect his battered face.
‘Hey Art,’ Raylan said, tired but surprisingly chipper. ‘Tim tells me you got them.’
‘The takedown would have been even more satisfying to watch if I’d known what they were up to here,’ Tim said.
‘Speaking of satisfying takedowns, you should have seen Rachel’s earlier,’ Raylan said. ‘It was a thing of beauty.’
Rachel found herself thankful no one could tell when she was blushing.
There was a knock at the door and one of the helicopter crew stuck his head round the door. He looked at Raylan and winced, before speaking to Art, ‘There’s an ambulance coming up the drive. We’ve got another call, we’re going to have to leave you here, you good to find your way back.’
‘Of course, thanks fellas,’ Art dismissed them.
‘See you later Tim,’ the man waved.
‘Thanks again Andy.’
Rachel caught the lingering gaze the two men shared for a second, but said nothing and Andy left.
Whatever was going on between the two men, Raylan missed it, probably because he could only see out of one eye. ‘I can’t believe you got a helicopter,’ he said, impressed.
‘Pays to have friends in high places,’ Tim commented but offered no further explanation.
The ambulance came and Raylan was helped into it. Rachel went with him so that she could get checked out too, while Art and Tim waited for the West Virginia State Police to arrive.
They’d been checked over, bandaged and dismissed and had taken to a bench outside the hospital while they waited for Art and Tim to source a car and get them all home. It had taken most of the night, and now they sat in the first glow of dawn, the cool air refreshing considering they both stank of sweat and pig shit.
Raylan had six stitches in his face, the bruising from his battered nose had now spread under both eyes and his left eye was still so puffy he couldn’t open it. He had some loose teeth at the back, and would have to spend the following day getting dental work to save them. His wrists were bandaged leaving no doubt to passers-by that something tragic had happened, so were Rachel’s, at least she could hide hers under her suit jacket. He looked a disaster.
It was the first time they were alone since Tim had turned up to their rescue. He sat hunched over on the bench, staring at his feet and casually fiddling with a yellow container of super-strength pain medication that he’d been gifted by the doctor. Rachel wasn’t sure whether he’d taken any yet.
She asked the question that had been bugging her these last few hours, ‘Did you hear the helicopter? Did you know we were about to be rescued?’
‘I ain’t been able to hear much ‘cept the buzzing in my ears since I got my bell rung back at the car.’
Well if that didn’t just make it all the worse.
‘I want to thank you,’ she said, finding it hard to speak round the lump in her throat. ‘You shouldn’t have had to do that for me, and I…’
He looked up at her and his pitiful face made her awash with so much guilt she couldn’t finish her sentence.
‘You’re probably right, I’m sure there was another way out that didn’t involve me getting beaten to hell. But I was scared and couldn’t think of one, still can’t, so I went with what I know. One thing you learn in Harlan is how to take a punch.’
‘The other way was to let them do what they wanted to me,’ she pointed out. ‘The helicopter would have still arrived when it did. We wouldn’t have ended up dead.’
‘Now, that doesn’t sound like an option at all.’
‘It was, and it wouldn’t have been your fault if that’s the way it had gone. You shouldn’t have to throw yourself in harms way to protect me because I’m a woman…’
Raylan actually looked surprised, ‘You must get used to being treated like some delicate little lady, huh? Well, I seen you take down a man twice your size. And I seen you be threatened with the most horrible shit and not even blink. There’s very little that’s delicate about you darlin’ and I mean that as a compliment. But we all have our strengths; Tim can shoot a pigeon through the eyeball at a thousand yards, you put together incredible manhunts, and I happen to have a face that people want to punch. I’d do the same for Tim, or Art or even my ex’s asshole of a new husband Gary if I had to. Sorry if you thought this was just me being a charming Southern Gentleman and all that, I’m just Raylan, a near-feral kid from a back woods town who knows sometimes it’s better to just ride out what’s coming to you, and dust yourself off when it’s done.’
There was still a slight tremor in his hands, and Rachel wondered whether he was dusting himself off as effectively as he’d expected.
‘I think I’ve underestimated you Raylan Givens,’ Rachel admitted.
‘You wouldn’t be the first,’ he flashed her an approximation of that charming smile. ‘Just so you know, I won’t ever underestimate you.’
A slightly battered rental car rolled up and came to a stop beside their bench.
‘Taxi for two to Lexington?’ Tim announced as he climbed out of the driver’s side and leaned on the open door. ‘We got bottled water, coffee, snacks and some lullabies on the radio for you to snooze to on your way home.’
They got in the back, Art was in the front passenger seat. Tim’s idea of a lullaby was Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Art handed the snacks and water over, Rachel hadn’t realised how thirsty she was and gulped hers down. She watched as Raylan surreptitiously shook a few pain pills into his hand and washed them down gingerly.
‘Sorry, it took a while to find a rental at four am,’ Art apologised. Rachel looked at her watch, it was now five-thirty.
‘We’ve not been waiting long, she assured. ‘They had to get a second opinion on Raylan’s CT. They couldn’t believe someone could take that many blows to the head for it to still be in one piece.’
‘Well, I guess that’s only a surprise to those that don’t know him,’ Art replied.
It felt wrong to Rachel, making jokes at Raylan’s expense, after what he’d done for her. But everyone in the car was determined to force a sense of normality, until it occurred naturally again, so the light teasing continued until eventually Raylan fell asleep, head titled back, snoring lightly because he still couldn’t breathe through his nose.
Art got serious for a moment, and Tim gave her a concerned glance through the rear view mirror.
‘You both gonna be okay?’ Art asked.
‘I think so, and if we’re not, we’ll look after each other until we are.’
Art nodded knowingly, and Tim gave her another pointed look. She glanced over at Raylan, no longer the arrogant man she thought he was, but someone who needed looking after, perhaps more than all of them. It felt like a secret pact, to protect each other no matter the cost. Feeling safe and warm at the thought, Rachel closed her eyes and let herself rest.