Fandom: Houston Knights
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Pairing: Joe / Levon
Title: On a Horse With No Name
Author. Glo
Standard Disclaimer: These Houston Knights belong to Jay Bernstein and Michael Butler and Columbia Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fan fiction and we make nothing from this story. Any original characters in these stories are the authors. This disclaimer will apply to all chapters of the story.
As the case file binder closed silently, both detectives breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a tough case and a long chase to apprehend Deke Jameson and his accomplices, the Horry brothers. They had come out of Arizona and set up a base some where out in the high range. Lundy and LaFiamma had trapped them during the third heist the gang had attempted in downtown Houston. Both prior robberies had been conducted, like Bonnie and Clyde of old, in broad daylight with fast cars and lots of guns. The robberies had left wounded but no dead.
It had taken careful planning to create a tempting target and then get the word out to the right connections. It had paid off. Now the men were behind bars awaiting trial and both Joe LaFiamma and Levon Lundy were tired. Tired and irritable. If the truth be known, down right grouchy.
Levon snapped the clip on the binder, and dropped it in the out basket on their joined desks. "Done and none too soon."
"Yeah? I did all that paperwork, Lundy. Do I hear any thank yous? Noooooo." Joe was at his sarcastic best when danger was over and he was basking in the relief of another day done, he and his partner both safe to walk out the door unharmed.
"Can it, LaFiamma," snapped the blonde Texan as he shrugged into his denim jacket, ready to head out. "I got all the evidence filed and tagged, and you know it. What'd you expect? Me do all your work, too?"
Joey grinned suddenly, his smile a flash of light in the grim precinct bullpen. "Sure. After all, I ain't been here all that long, you should still be lookin' after me."
Levon Lundy frowned over at his partner, "Son, you done been down here at least four months now. That's enough rope to hang most critters twice yore size. Now get your carcass up outta that chair and let's go. I've got a hankering for some of Chicken's ribs and an early night."
The dark haired cop from Chicago stood and pulled on his silk tweed jacket, tugging it forward to cover the double holsters with his twin police specials. With a nod to a couple of other detectives in the room, he followed his partner out the door, eyeing the Stetson perched on the blonde's head. "Lundy," he could be heard saying, "some day you have to tell me why all you cowboys wear your hats on indoors."
The answer was curt and muffled but the two men still in the room, Joe Bill McCandless and Aaron Hanson both grinned, shaking their heads.
++++++++++++++++++++
It was three days and several arrests later when Joey LaFiamma disappeared. At first, his partner thought the young Italian was simply sulking somewhere, driving around in his Cobra. But, when Lundy went down to the police garage to get his own vehicle at noon for a quick lunch, LaFiamma's little sports car was still crouched next to his tall red Jimmy 4X4.
"Well, where in tarnation is that boy?" Muttering to himself, the blonde walked over to the roadster and looked down into the cockpit. Taking a sharp breath as a sudden fear gripped his heart, Levon leaned down to peer at the paper taped roughly to the center of the small steering wheel. Damn.
It said only: We got him. Free Deke, Jer and Paulie. Or he dies.
Levon ran back over to his truck and called in. Within minutes a forensic team was down in the garage, dusting for prints, testing for any other clues. Arriving almost with them came Lieutenant Joanne Beaumont, head of the Major Crimes Unit where Lundy and LaFiamma worked.
"What do you have, Levon?" she asked briskly.
Lundy nodded over at the note still visible over the backs of the lab technicians. "Just that, Joanne. Didn't even know he was gone." Lundy swallowed at that, feeling unreasonably guilty for not keeping a better eye on his still rather new partner.
Beaumont didn't comment, striding over to take a look for herself and speak to the men working the crime scene. After a moment, Levon followed. He was in time to hear one of the men exclaim, "Blood. Down here on the carpet, near the pedals."
There was another moment of silence. Lundy was pushing his way through now. "Blood? Is it Joey's?"
"Can't tell yet, Levon," one of the men, George, answered. "We'll test it but if he was hurt, that's a likely spot to find some. We just didn't see it at first because of the darkness of the carpeting and the shadows. I'll send some up now. We should know in a few minutes." He handed a sample to a second man who hurried off with it.
Levon turned his back to the others
abruptly and caught Beaumont's elbow, guiding her away from the sportscar.
"Joanne, the note. That's Jameson and the Horry brothers. Joe and me, we
took them down three days ago when they tried a third heist here."
"I remember, Levon." Beaumont nodded. "So, why don't you run some lines out to Arizona and to the other wires to see if there might be any known associates who'd be interested in doing something like this."
"Joanne, anyone can do that. I want to get out on the streets, see what I ken find out." The worry was just below the surface but Beaumont could read it in Levon's eyes.
Guess they were finally becoming a team, if he's starting to worry. Now if we can only keep his partner alive, she thought grimly. "Okay, Levon. Go, but keep me informed of your whereabouts. If they could get Joey here, they may try for you, too. One hostage is good, two might be better."
"Don't worry, I'll be careful." Lundy was already reaching up to open the door of his Jimmy when he saw George answer a cell phone then turn to Beaumont. Pausing with one foot on the running board, he looked at them. Waiting.
Beaumont turned and saw him. Her face was pale and tight. "Levon," she called, "the blood? It matches LaFiamma's."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The first thing that Joe noticed was the punching pains in his midrift, like someone was pounding him with a hard round medicine ball, over and over, almost rhythmically. Then his world expanded to bright, blinding light, intense heat, and a dry, scratchy throat. Even as he inventoried all this, he tried to move and found his arms were manacled behind him and he was tied somehow to this hard surface that kept rising up to thunk against him. The dust and the sounds now began to intrude. Concussion. He blinked. The world was passing by slowly beneath him, close by a rounded brown furred pillow was rippling in time with the pounding. Finally it all clicked. Though he'd never been in the position before, he realized he was face down, tied to the saddle of a horse who was moving at slightly faster than a simple walk. The jogging motion was what was causing all the jouncing. Great. I'm in the middle of some desert, on a horse. Don't even know its name. Damn. '…in the desert on a horse with no name' - I am losing it. His arms and legs felt numb, which was probably as well. His head, however, was producing sharp shooting pains across his eyes and behind his temples. He began to feel sick from the motion and the pain.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
No word on the street. It was the same everywhere, even Chicken hadn't been able to find out anything. If anyone knew anything, they weren't talking. Finally, Lundy returned to the unit in frustration.
"Levon!" Detective Estavon Gutierrez shouted as he ran into the Houston crime unit's main room, skidding to a halt in front of Sergeant Levon Lundy where he sat hunched at a computer console trying to squeeze it for information about Jameson's known associates. "Devil's Canyons! We got word through the Apache reservation that there's some strangers camped out there and they just went through part of the rez with a man tied over the back of a pack horse!"
"LaFiamma." Levon said it with certainty even as he felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Devil's Canyons wasn't just wild, it was almost totally inaccessible. Only walking or using horses, mules could get anyone in or out. It was worse than the more well-known Bryce Canyon further north. Miles of desolate, scraped and misshapen earth, with twisty canyons that produced dangerous and unpredictable wind patterns. No helicopter could get in there. No parachutist could safely land. If whoever had LaFiamma was heading in there, the only way to rescue him would be to go in after him the same way. On horseback.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Red Jacket agreed to lead the Rangers and Lundy across the rez as far as the Triple Creek Divide. From there, they would be on their own. Bert Dawson and Jim Tailor were both good trackers and experienced Texas Rangers. Lundy was travelling with them more because of his connection through his grandfather, a former Ranger, than because of any interdepartmental courtesy. He knew this and appreciated it.
Right now, though, he just wanted to get his hands on his partner, stubborn and brash, loud and argumentative LaFiamma might have been, but he had also been a damn good cop and was becoming a good, dependable backup, a good partner. Don't want to lose'em when I'm just about done breaking him in.
They were all mounted on reservation ponies. The Apaches had insisted on selling them the mounts, stating that no other animals would be allowed on their land. It was a sellers market and no one argued, the sure-footed small beasts were better suited to the harsh terrain than the bigger quarterhorses that the men usually rode.
Lundy, on a dusty paint, tipped back his sweat-dampened hat and squinted at the lowering sun. "Not much more light," he commented thinking of how little distance they'd covered so far and no sign of a track yet.
"Mmmm," Dawson swung out of the saddle and hunkered down on his heels, studying the dusty drybed of yet another runoff gulch. Tailor perched forward over his saddle horn and narrowed his eyes at the marks Dawson had spotted.
"Yep, that's them alright. Still got someone on a pack animal, too, by the looks of it. Still bleeding."
Levon saw the dark spots now. Not many, just droplets. If yore bleeding, yore alive, Joe, and we're coming for you. Hold on.
"Best camp here, that way we won't lose this trace. We'll follow it out at first light." Tailor looked sympathetically over at Lundy, "Sorry, Levon, but we'd lose it in the dark if we try to keep to it now."
Levon Lundy nodded in silent agreement as he sat back in the saddle. He fingered the butt of the expensive Sharps rifle in the sling beside his leg. Soon.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Joe got his first look at his captors when he was yanked off the horse by his feet and hit the ground with a full body slam, chin striking the rock-hard gound and seeing stars. Someone was laughing and then he was kicked hard in the side. He felt a rib give with an audible snap. The groan came out before he could stifle it.
"He's awake, Cameron."
"Good. Drag him over here and tie a hobble to this scrub." The voices seemed to be coming from underwater to Joey whose hold on conscious thought was waning.
When he next woke, he was propped up in front of a campfire, still bound, braced against what felt like a large rock, boulder maybe. Near him were two of the dirtiest, scruffiest looking men he'd ever seen. Both were clearly in their mid-sixties or more, the sun-dried wrinkles giving them an almost timeless quality. Wiry and rough bearded, they squatted in front of the fire, sipping from rather battered looking tin cups.
Joe swallowed and felt the dryness scraping at his throat. "Water?" It came out as a scratchy whisper that they either didn't hear or were ignoring. He tried again, "Pu - please…some water?" This time it was a bit louder. Enough so the two turned to look at him, and laugh.
"The kid wants some water, Ike," the other, must be the one called Cameron, said.
"Yeah." Ike answered without any particular concern.
"Pu- pu- please…I need a…a drink…" Joe could barely choke it out. He figured they weren't going to help him, but asked anyway, just in case.
"Boy, you are shore a poor excuse for a poe-leece man. I do not know how my boy Deke coulda been caught by the likes of you," Cameron said conversationally. He made no move to get any water for the Italian prisoner.
Ike surged to his feet in a sudden burst of anger. "You son of a bitch!" He strode over to where LaFiamma half-sat, half-lay. With no slowing, he swung his pointed boot into the nearest leg, just at a knee. "You put mah boys in jail!"
"Ahhhh! Christ!" Somehow Joe managed to gasp and cry out at the same time as the knee gave way and then there was a heel coming down on his shin with a splintering sound. With another anguished grunt, Joe was thrown back down into unconsciousness.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Lundy was third in line as the three riders slowly followed the faint trail deeper into the canyons. He'd tried using his cell phone earlier without any luck. Dawson had chuckled without humor, "Down in these canyons, my friend, you ain't gonna reach anyone with that."
"How do you plan on signaling then?" Lundy asked.
"Indian style, with smoke." Tailor grinned at Lundy's obvious surprise. "May be old, but it still works and we have watchers waiting to see it."
The day wore on slowing in the baking heat. The land was so parched that they seldom saw anything move. They passed some javalinas burrowed into a shallow gorge, waiting out the heat of the day.
The first shot, when it came, took Dawson in the left shoulder. Winged, he spun out of his saddle in a controlled fall, to end up sprawled behind some ragged looking cactus. Tailor and Lundy dove for cover and all three scanned their surroundings, looking for the shooters.
Silence. No movement. Another shot rang out when Levon shifted position, kicking up a tiny dust cloud near his left leg.
This time they all saw the reflection of sun on a metallic surface, glittering briefly. Once pinpointed, catching the ambusher was not difficult for the two Rangers with Levon's help as decoy.
Coming up behind him, Tailor shoved the mouth of his shotgun between the old man's shoulder blades. That effectively stopped the action.
Minutes later, Levon was face to face with Ike Horry. Ike was obviously furious and unwilling to talk. He clamped his teeth together and scowled openly.
"Horry, your two boys will hang if anything happens to my partner. I'll personally see to it, even it I have to break them out of jail just to do it myself." Levon's anger was so real that the taunt worked.
Jerking forward against his handcuffs, Horry tried to spit on the blonde cowboy, then leaned back and grinned. "You ain't never gonna find that city cop. He's done for by now anyways. Got no guts, poor excuse for a man." Horry coughed as Levon lunged at him dragging him to his feet by the edges of his ragged shirt collar.
"Listen to me, old man. Joe LaFiamma has more courage in one finger than you and your boys ever dreamed of." Lundy grappled with his fury as he trembled to keep from snapping the fool's neck. Man was walking a thin line. Got to get to Joey first, he reminded himself.
Tailor, who had been applying some basic first aide to his partner, turned now and handed a water bag to Dawson, then spoke. "Levon, no need to get upset. We'll just follow his track back to their camp. Can't be far."
With a sick sense of finality, Lundy dropped the old man and faced the Rangers. "If we are close, and I'm betting yore right, then whoever is with Joe heard the shots. And Horry here hasn't come back yet."
Tailor looked over at Dawson, then they both looked away, towards Ike Horry's backtrail.
++++++++++++++++++++
The distant sound of two shots rivited Cameron Jameson's attention. He fretted when Ike didn't return. The waiting was not doing him any good. He looked over to where the prisoner lay. He hadn't moved or made any noise in a long time now. Last time he'd moaned, Ike had gone over and kicked him in the head. He'd not made a sound since.
Jameson walked over now and stood looking down at the disheveled, dark-haired cop. The man didn't dress like he was from around here, the old man thought. A real city-slicker. Not even wearing decent boots, just some thin party shoes.
Shifting from foot to foot, he edged nearer to the captive, nudged him with the barrel of his long gun. Nothing.
Hearing a scuffling noise, like sand and pebbles sliding down a hill, Jameson swung around and looked up out of the hidden campsite. Silhouetted against the afternoon sun, a tall thin cowboy was standing, looking around. It was clear he hadn't seen the camp from his casual manner.
Tense now, Jameson raised his rifle. That's gotta be this'n's partner. That Lundy feller. Ike must hav' lost. He drew a bead on the narrow chest target. The man was just standing there. "Stay still," he whispered smiling.
"Nnnno!" It was a cry half-way to being a shout, hoarse and weak. Even as Jameson heard it, he felt something hit the backs of his legs hard. He was falling as he pulled the trigger.
Kah - ping!! The richochet off the exposed rock face showered Lundy in a spray of tiny shards of stone, stinging the side of his face but missing his eyes. He was ducking and yanking up his Sharps even as he heard the faint echo of the cry. There, down there in the draw! It was two men, tangled together.
Lundy was up and running full tilt down the hillside in seconds. Leaping over rocks and low scrub, he dropped the rifle as he reached the camp. Grabbing viciously at the man on top of his partner, he dragged the ragged figure clear of Joe. LaFiamma rolled away onto his back, arms pulled behind him. He was gasping for air and in obvious pain, but silent.
Lundy shook the man in his grasp and threw him down on the ground. Picking up the lariat still tied to one of the two saddles on the edge of the camp fire circle, he hauled the man away from LaFiamma and quickly tied him up. Then Levon was striding over to his partner.
Kneeling down, Levon hesitated for a moment. Joe was such a mess, blood everywhere, that the cowboy was almost afraid to touch him. Then Joe spoke.
"Lundy, that you?" It was so soft, it was like a dry rattle of leaves.
"Yeah, Joe, it's me." Levon almost cried as he gently slid an arm under the battered body and lifted. Settling Joe against his chest, he took out his handcuff key and unlocked the cuffs. The lock was stiff was dried blood, hard to turn, but gave way and Joe's arms dropped limply to the ground. Levon simply sat there for a moment, holding his friend, listening to the beat of Joe's heart against his own.
"Water?" The plea tore at Levon. He looked frantically around and spotted a canteen nearby. When he shifted over towards it, the brunette in his arms stiffened in clear panic.
"Easy, Joe, I'm just reachin' for some water. I ain't going no where." Carefully he opened the cap and held it the dry cracked lips. Bottomless blue eyes looked up at him.
After a few sips, Levon firmly pulled the water away. At the soft sound of protest, he explained "Don't want to make you sicker, Joe, keep that down and I'll give you some more in a minute." His hands were calming, gentling the fragile figure in his arms as he looked up and spotted the Rangers starting down over the crest, their prisoner in tow.
"We'll have you home soon, boy." He wiped Joe's face, brushing back the dark curls of hair from his bruised forehead.
++++++++++++++++++++
A quick inventory of injuries left both Rangers and Lundy speechless. LaFiamma had been beaten so badly that there were few unmarked spots on his body. His shinbone was broken, shattered so badly that broken bits were poking out of the leg. There were assorted knife wounds, all old, which they decided happened during the initial kidnapping. Several ribs were cracked or broken free, and both wrists were so badly sprained and the skin so badly torn, that Joe couldn't use his hands.
The smoke signal brought help with in a few hours, but it was more pack animals. Getting Joe out meant building a travois, he was too badly hurt for riding.
Levon, who was accustomed to listening to LaFiamma's complaints about everything, worrried over his too silent partner. The only sounds to escape Joe were surprised out of him by unexpected jerks and bumps of the primitive transportation. His only words were short, quiet answers to direct questions… as long as Lundy stayed within sight. If Joey lost sight of his partner, though, he would call out for Levon until the blonde reappeared by his side.
Dawson, who had one arm in a sling, rode point. Tailor led the packhorses with their prisoners, and the Apache hunters who had come to help guided them out along a different, shorter route. Levon was glad to see a road, even if it was only two dusty tire tracks in the gravelly plain, after a full day's travel.
"Joe, we'll be home soon now. We're at a road." Levon stooped beside his partner, touching one shoulder. It was obvious the pain medicine was no longer working. LaFiamma lay with clenched teeth and pale, sweaty face.
Joe LaFiamma lifted a heavily bandaged hand toward his friend. "Levon. Thanks." He coughed softly. "Thanks for coming after me."
Lundy reddened. "LaFiamma, that's what partners do, boy." He looked up to see the air ambulance dropping out of the sky. "Now, Joe, we're gonna get you back on your feet, and get you well again. I need my partner back." He grinned down at the drooping Italian cop. His friend, his partner. Alive.
"You got it, Lundy, you got it." Joe smiled. At that moment, it was the most beautiful sight that Levon Lundy had ever seen.