Katie saw him. The boy was sopping wet, running out of the woods to her left, not more than fifty feet onto the road in front of her. Then she saw two men burst out of the trees. It was obvious they were after him.

Katie said, even as she reached over and quickly released Keely’s seat belt, “I want you to get down and stay there. Do you understand?”

Keely knew that tone of voice, her mama’s sheriff voice, and nodded, slipping down to the floor.

“Cover your head with your arms. Everything will be fine. Just don’t move, okay?”

“Okay, Mama.”

Katie pulled to a stop, quickly leaned over the front seat and punched in the two numbers to her lock box beneath the back bench. She pulled out her Remington rifle, loaded, ready to go. By the time she opened the door, the men weren’t more than a long arm’s reach from the boy. Thank God he’d seen her and was running toward her. He was yelling, but the wind and rain wiped any sound he made right out.

The big man, his beer gut pounded by the rain, had a gun. Not good. Despite his size he moved quickly. He turned toward her, away from the boy, and raised the gun.

Katie brought up her rifle, cool and fast, and fired, kicking up muddy water not a foot from the fat man’s feet, splattering him to his waist. “I’m the sheriff! Stop right there! Don’t move!”

The skinny man behind him yelled something. The idiot was wearing a long black leather coat that was soaked from the rain. Katie calmly raised her Remington again and fired. This time the shot dug up a huge clod of dirt, spraying the leather coat.

The man in the coat yelled something and grabbed at the fat man’s shirt. The fat man jerked away, yelled something toward the boy, and fired from his hip, a lucky shot in the fog and rain that very nearly hit her.

“You idiot!” she yelled. “I’m Sheriff Benedict. Drop your weapon! Both of you, don’t move a single muscle!” But the fat guy pulled the trigger again, another hip shot, this one nowhere near her. Katie didn’t hesitate, she pulled the trigger and the guy flinched and grabbed his upper arm. She’d wanted to hit him high on the shoulder, wanted to bring him down, but the rain and fog were hard on her aim.

He managed to keep his gun. She had hoped he’d drop it.

She shouted, “Come forward, both of you, slowly!”

But neither of them took a single step toward her, not that she’d expected them to. Both men ran back into the thick trees. She fired after them, once, twice, then a final time. She thought she heard a yell. Good.

The little boy, panting so hard he was heaving, was on her the next instant. He grabbed her arm and shook it.

“You can’t let them go, ma’am! You’ve gotta shoot them again, you gotta kick their butts!”

Katie laid her rifle alongside her leg, and pulled the boy against her. “I got the fat one in the arm. Maybe I got the other one, too, while they were running back into the forest. You can count on it—the fat one’s hurting bad. Now, it’s going to be all right. I’m Sheriff Benedict. I’ll get right on my cell phone and call for some help with those guys. Come into the truck and tell me what’s going on.”

Sam looked up at the tall woman who could have shot Fatso right in his big gut, but had only shot him in the arm instead. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

Katie smiled at the boy as she quickly herded him back to the truck. She didn’t want to hang around here. No telling if those guys would pop back out of the woods. “I try not to kill every bad guy I run into,” she said. “Sometimes I like to bring them in front of a judge.” She squeezed him hard. “You’re okay and that’s all that matters. Now let’s move out of here.”

The narrow bench in the back could hold no more than a couple of skinny kids. What it did have was a stack of blankets, not usually for warmth, but to soften the ride.

She grabbed the blankets and lifted the boy up onto the front seat. “Keely, we’re going to make room for—”

“My name’s Sam.”

“We’re going to make room for Sam. He’s cold and he’s wet.” She settled him between her and Keely and covered him with five blankets. “Sweetie, don’t worry about your seat belt. You just press close to him to help him warm up, okay?”

“Okay, Mama.” Keely pressed against his back. Her little face was white, her voice a thin thread.

“It’s going to be all right, baby. I don’t want you to worry. I want you to be real brave for Sam here. He needs you to watch over him now. He’s been through something bad. Can you do that?”