Free Blazer Drive by Sigmund Brouwer

getting ready to charge him.
    Dan Belkie stood in the doorway with a rifle leveled from his shoulder, pointing straight at me.
    â€œFool,” he said. “Didn’t you wonder why my dog doesn’t bark at strangers? I don’t need warning. Not with all the electronic devices I have—motion detectors and video cameras. As soon as you stepped into the barn, I knew.”
    â€œYou’ve got our champion bull,” I said.
    â€œNot for long,” Belkie said, smiling. “Tomorrow all the bulls go by ship to Japan. Cowle radioed back to me. I already know your truck hasn’t left the ranch. We’ll find it and your friend. As for you and the stupid, stupid girl, you’re both going to die in her 4x4.”

    I saw his finger tighten on the trigger. I heard a
pppffft
of air. Something slammed into my shoulder. I looked down at my jean jacket. A dart was stuck in me, just below my collarbone.
    I looked back at Dan Belkie. He was still smiling a broad evil smile.
    I dropped the flashlight and yanked the dart out.
    Dan Belkie kept smiling. His face began to blur. The smile became the nightmare smile of a monster as his face changed shape. Around him it got blacker and blacker. The black began to fill the whole room until, finally, it closed in on me.
    There was a bang. My last thought was to dimly realize the bang was my head hitting concrete.

Chapter Twenty
    â€œJosh? Josh?”
    I groaned. My tongue felt like a wool sock stuck to the roof of my mouth.
    â€œJosh?”
    I managed to crack my eyes open. It took a few moments, but I could finally see that I was inside a Bronco. The windows were steamed.
    â€œJosh?”
    It hurt just to turn my head. “Stephanie?”
    My voice was a ragged croak.
    â€œJosh! I’m so glad you’re awake.”
    My eyes began to focus. Stephanie sat beside me in her Bronco 4x4. Her wrists were taped to the steering wheel.
    â€œMy ankles are taped too,” she said, answering my question before I could ask. “We’re in one of the storage sheds at the back of the ranch.”
    I reached over for her. I discovered my wrists were taped too. And my ankles. Just like Stephanie, I was bound with strips of wide gray duct tape strong enough to keep furnace pipes together. A short rope tied my wrists to my ankles so that I could barely move my arms. Worse, my fingers had been taped together so I couldn’t pull on the tape.
    I swallowed a few times. “What—is— going—on?”
    â€œHe shot you with a tranquilizer gun. The same one he used on Champion, Big Boy and the other bloodline bulls. He said you would be out for hours.”
    I managed to laugh. “I know how he shot me. I was there. I pulled the dart out.”
    It hurt too much to keep laughing. The rest of my words came out in a whisper. “What I meant was, why are you here? What’s with the note? How did you know this was the ranch? And Big Boy, he’s alive—”
    She took a deep breath. “Today, I got to thinking. If four of Locomotive’s bloodline had been killed already, wasn’t there a good chance it would continue? Plus, if that Ernest guy had been at our ranch and your ranch, he’d probably show up at the next ranch where the killings would happen.”
    â€œMakes sense,” I said. The clock on the dash showed 12:01. I’d been out for about four hours.
    â€œSo I went back to the list of ranchers with a bull sired by Locomotive,” she said. “I called them one by one. I first asked them if someone who looked like Ernest had ever showed up to ask for work. I also explained why I thought their bulls were in danger and told them to guard the animals.”
    â€œStill makes sense,” I said. “But how did you get here, to the Belkie ranch?”

    â€œSimple.” She wriggled her fingers against the steering wheel and winced in pain. I understood. My own fingers were numb from the tight