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“No!” Chase shouted and scraully

There was Jessy, wrapping the rope around the saddle horn and backing her horse to keep it stretched taut “Chase, you’re alive,” she cried in relief when she saw hiully “I heard the shot and—”

“Let him up,” he ordered “He just saved my life”

“Haskell,” Jessy repeated in disbelief and belatedly urged her horse forward, putting slack in the rope “But the gunshot?”

“He wasn’t shooting athis side with one hand and tugging the encircling rope loose with the other one Eyes shut in pain and s, a sure sign the wind had been knocked out of hi at Ballard”

“Ballard?” Jessy peeled out of the saddle, dropping the reins to hurry over to them

“Yes, Ballard He tried to killposition “Just like he probably killed Ty”

Buck choked down a couple gulps of air and ure it”

Shocked and confused, Jessy stared at Chase “But—why? I don’t understand”

“You’ll have to ask hiully, “if he’s still alive”

In a daze, Jessy e of caution e and looked down, seeing first the horse, then the prone figure of Ballard, lying facedown Unwillingly she recalled all the times Ty had expressed his lack of trust in Ballard That er all the deeper until she shook with it, her fingers tightening their grip on the rifle, knuckles shohite

Why? The question screamed in her mind

Then she saw the slight, sravel He was alive Jessy threw herself into the gully, determined to have her answer

Falling to her knees beside hirabbed his shoulder and rolled hiroan of pain and the big smear of blood on his shirtfront from the bullet’s exit wound

“Ballard, can you hear ave him a hard shake “Ballard”