Page 27 of Austin (The K9 Files #29)

“O h my God, oh my God,” Rox whispered, still on the floor with Cowboy and Austin. “Somebody’s shooting at us.”

Austin nodded, his face grim, as he shimmied over to the window, stared out just a hair to the side, trying to see outside without being caught. “I don’t know if they’re still there. Do you know who’s at the bunkhouse?”

She nodded. “Both Carlos and Raul will be over there, and, other than Raul’s one and only handgun, they’re both defenseless.”

“Send them a message and tell them to stay where they are.”

At that came the sound of Jake thundering down the stairs. The big man was never light on his feet, but, when it came time to rush, he was a bull in a china shop. As he raced toward them, Austin tackled him before he burst out the door. “Calm down, big man, calm down.”

“What do you mean, calm down ?” he snarled, as he looked at him. “Somebody out there is shooting at the house,” Jake yelled.

Austin nodded. “We just barely saved our own heads, and I don’t want you going out there and taking a direct hit.”

At that, Jake stared at him, calming down ever-so-slightly, and looking over them both. “Are you two okay?”

“Yes, we’re both fine,” Austin replied, “but whoever the hell is outside is not playing. Those were head shots,” he snapped. “Did you let the FBI take all those guns out of here?”

“Sure, I did,” he muttered. “Not as if you can argue with the FBI. Just remember that you didn’t want those guns here, thinking the gun-runners would come here after them, but look at what’s happening now.

“They probably are here looking for them, and now we don’t have them to give back.”

“As if you would give them back anyway,” Austin scoffed.

Jake shrugged half-heartedly. “Of course I wouldn’t.”

“I’m not sure that they’re necessarily here after the guns as much as giving us a warning, a deadly one,” he added thoughtfully, as he looked outside again. “Although maybe they have more stashes on your land.” With that said, Austin frowned and faced Jake.

“Those weren’t warning shots,” Rox declared, staring at them. “No way in hell. It was just way too directed.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” Austin murmured, as he considered that. “Still, they must have known that, if their cache was found, no way they would get it back.”

“So, what the hell are they pissed off about?” Jake asked.

“They’re pissed off that they got caught,” she stated.

Austin grinned and nodded. “Exactly, and that means they didn’t think they would get caught.”

“Why not?” Jake asked.

“Because they have somebody on the inside,” Rox suggested slowly. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it, Austin?”

“Yeah, that’s my take on it,” Austin murmured, “and I know it’s not what either one of you want to contemplate.”

“Of course not,” Rox snapped. “Very few of us are here, as you know, and we can only blame a couple, before we have to look at the rest of us.”

At that, with no further sound of gunfire, their phones were heating up from calls and texts sent from the men in the bunkhouse.

Jake read one of his texts. “Raul saw a vehicle take off down the highway.”

Austin asked, “Can he describe the vehicle? Did he get a license plate? Did he see who got into it?”

Jake called him instead of texting, and Raul’s tone was excited, as he tried to pass on the information. Jake passed it along. “Somebody ran through the yard shooting, then kept on going right to the highway and got in the vehicle and took off.”

“That’s the good news,” Austin noted. “The bad news is that we don’t know who it was, unless Raul can identify him.”

Jake shook his head. “All he saw was someone wearing a long trench coat, the kind that we wear when we’re out riding, plus a hat, a cowboy hat.”

“Of course it was a cowboy hat,” Austin muttered. “That with a duster makes for damn good coverage.”

“It might be damn good coverage,” Jake noted, “but somebody should have seen him.”

“Do you have security? Cameras or anything?”

“No, we don’t have security around the ranch. You know that.”

“I do know that,” Austin muttered. “It’s one of the things we used to argue about all the time.”

Jake snorted. “Would have been a lot of money spent over the years if I had put it in.”

“And right now we would also have an idea of who the hell was in the yard shooting at us,” Austin snapped right back. He’d never been one to let Jake tromp on him, but Jake was a tough man to be around, and this was another prime example.

“If it happens again, maybe we’ll look at it,” Jake said grudgingly.

“And if it happens again, you may not have a choice.”

“Meaning that I would have to?”

“No, meaning that you won’t be here to make the choice,” Austin declared.

“I get that, for you, it’s all about honor and being good neighbors and being a moral person and all that, and I’m right there with you on all that.

However, I spent way too much time in wars and gunfights and strife, seeing the bowels of humanity, seeing the danger of minimizing the seriousness of what’s going on here right now. ”

“You really think somebody is after us?” Jake asked.

“Don’t you?” Austin asked in a challenging voice.

“Just think about what you’ve said right now.

You’re thinking that it’s the guys who had the weapons cache, and that would make sense, but you’re also thinking that they’re just here after their weapons.

That they’re not here as a threat, that they’re not out here for anything else,” Austin spelled out, “but I can’t see that because there was no need for them to come here. ”

Rox added, “Unless they were trying to keep us pinned here while they did something else.”

“Exactly,” Austin agreed. “So you guys stay here. I’m heading back out to where that cache of weapons was.”

“The hell you are,” Jake roared. “This is still my place, God damn it.”

“Then get off your ass and let’s go,” Austin snapped, not breaking stride as he flung open the front door and raced to the barn, quickly saddling up Charlie.

Jake suggested, “You could take a four-wheeler.”

“You can,” Austin replied, “or take the truck down the highway. I’ll go in through the back to see if I can find them while they’re busy racing away, thinking they’re off the hook.”

With that, they split up.

Austin took Charlie through the back way, as Jake headed to the truck.

It would have been faster to go his direction for sure, but Austin was not at all certain that every one of the shooters would be heading out the same way.

So if the shooters split up, Austin wanted to know who was taking part in what.

With that, he put Charlie into a flat-out gallop, as they raced toward the next confrontation.