Montana Sky (29 page)

“No, but I'll see what I can find out.”

“All right. Meanwhile, we'd better look around. I'll go this way, and—”

“We'll stick together, Will.” He laid a hand on her arm. “Two people are dead. Maybe this was just a pissed-off ex-husband wanting to get back at his wife. Or maybe it was something else. We stick together.”

In silence they moved through the wind, circling the house. Overhead the sky was clear as glass, with diamond-chip stars wheeling and a three-quarter moon casting pale blue light on the snow at their feet. Cottonwood trees loomed and seemed to shiver under their coating of ice.

In the frigid quiet, Willa heard the call of cattle. A mournful sound, she thought while her breath fumed out in front of her and was whisked away by the wind. Odd—such a sound had always seemed comforting to her before; now it was eerie.

“They're awfully stirred up for this late at night.” She looked in the direction of the pole barn, the corral beyond. “Maybe we've got some cows in labor. I'd better check.”

Adam thought uncomfortably of his horses, unattended in the stables. It wasn't easy to turn his back on them and go with Willa to the cattle.

“Hear that?” She stopped, ears straining. “Hear that?” she repeated in a whisper.

“No.” But he turned so they were guarding each other's backs. “I don't hear anything.”

“I don't hear it now either. It sounded like someone whistling ‘Sweet Betsy from Pike.' ” She shook it off, tried to laugh at herself. “Just the wind, and the creeps. Hell, it has to be twenty below with the windchill. Anybody out here whistling tunes would have to be . . .”

“Crazy?” Adam finished, and fought to see through the shadows.

“Yeah.” Willa shivered inside her sheepskin. “Let's go.”

She'd intended to go straight into the pole barn, but the thick huddle of cattle at the far end of the corral drew her attention. “That's not right,” she said half to herself. “Something's off here.”

She walked to the gate, shoved it open.

At first she didn't believe it, thought her eyes were dazzled by moonlight on snow. But the smell—she recognized the smell of death too well by now.

“Oh, God, Adam.” With her free hand she covered her mouth, fought back the gorge that rose like a fountain in her throat. “Oh, sweet God.”

Calves had been slaughtered. It was impossible at first to tell how many, but she knew she'd brought some of them into the world herself, only hours before. Now, instead of huddling against their mamas for warmth, they lay tossed into the snow, throats and bellies slit.

Blood glittered on the ground, rich and red, in a hideous pool already crusting in the cold.

It was weak, but she turned away from the carnage, lowered her rifle, and leaned on the fence until her insides settled into place.

“Why? Why in God's name would anyone do something like this?”

“I don't know.” He rubbed her back, but he didn't turn away. He counted eight infant calves, mutilated. “Let's get you back to the house. I'll deal with this.”

“No, I can deal with it. I can.” She wiped a gloved hand over her mouth. “The ground's too hard to bury them. We'll have to burn them. We'll have to get them out of here, away from the other calves and the females, and burn them.”

“Nate and I can do that.” He struggled not to sigh at her set expression. “All right, we'll all do it. But I want to get you back inside for a few minutes. Will, I have to check on the horses. If—”

“Jesus.” Her own misery faded in fear for him, and his. “I didn't even think. Let's go. Hurry.”

She didn't head back to the house, but half ran toward the horse barn. The fear raced giddily in her head that she would fling open the door and be met again with that hideous smell of death.

They hit the door together, wrenched it open. She was already prepared to grieve, prepared to rage. But all that met her was the scents of hay and horse and leather.

Nonetheless, by tacit agreement they checked every stall, then the corral beyond. They left lights burning behind them.

Adam moved to his house next, to look in on his dogs. He'd started locking them in at night right after the incident with the barn cat. They greeted him happily, tails thumping. He suspected, with a mixture of amusement and worry, that they would have greeted an armed madman with the same friendly enthusiasm.

“We can call the main house from here, ask Nate to meet us at the pole barn. You want Ham, too.”

Willa bent down to scratch an eager Beans between the ears. “Everyone. I want everyone out there. I want them to see what we're up against.” Her eyes hardened. “And I want to know what everyone's been doing for the last couple hours.”

 

T
HE TASK WASN
'
T PHYSICALLY ARDUOUS, BUT IT WAS
painful. Dragging butchered newborns into a pile on the snow-covered ground. There were plenty of hands to help, and there was no conversation.

Once Willa caught Billy surreptitiously wiping a hand over his eyes. She didn't hold the tears against him. She would have wept herself if it would have done any good.

When it was done, she took the can of gasoline from Ham. “I'll do it,” she said grimly. “It's for me to do this.”

“Will—” He cut off his own protest, then nodded before gesturing the men to move back.

“How can she stand it?” Lily murmured, shivering with Tess beyond the corral fence. “How can she stand it?”

“Because she has to.” Tess shuddered as Willa sloshed gas on the small heap. “We all have to,” she added, draping an arm over Lily's shoulders. “Do you want to go inside?”

More than anything in the world, Lily thought, but she shook her head fiercely. “No, we'll stay till it's finished. Until she's finished.”

Willa adjusted the bandanna she'd tied over her nose and mouth and took the box of matches from Ham. It took her three attempts to get a flame to hold in her cupped hand,
and with the teeth of the wind snapping against her, she had to crouch low and close to start the fire.

It burned high and fast, spewing heat. In only seconds, the odor of roasting meat was thick, and sickening. Smoke whipped out toward her, making her eyes water and her throat clog. She stepped back, one step, then two before she could hold her ground.

“I'll call Ben.” Nate shifted to her side.

She kept her eyes on the flames. “For what?”

“He'll want to know. You're not alone in this, Willa.”

But she felt alone, and helpless. “All right. I appreciate your help, Nate.”

“I'll be staying the night.”

She nodded. “No sense in me asking Bess to make up a guest room, is there?”

“No. I'll do a shift on guard, and use Tess's room.”

“Take whatever gun you want.” Turning, she moved to Ham. “I want a twenty-four-hour watch, Ham. Two men at a time. Nate's staying, so that makes six of us tonight. I want Wood to stay home with his family. They shouldn't be alone. Billy and I'll take the first, you and Jim relieve us at midnight. Nate and Adam will take over at four.”

“I'll see to it.”

“Tomorrow I want you to find out how soon we can sign on the two hands from High Springs. I need men. Offer them a cash bonus if you have to, but get them here.”

“I'll see they're on within the week.” In a rare show of public affection, he squeezed her arm. “I'm gonna tell Bess to make coffee, plenty of it. And you be careful, Will. You be careful.”

“No one's killing any more of mine.” Her face set, Willa turned, studied the women huddled together at the corral fence. “You get them inside for me, will you, Ham? Tell them to stay inside.”

“I'll do that.”

“And tell Billy to get a rifle.”

She shifted again and watched the flames shoot into the black winter sky.

SPRING

A little Madness in the Spring
 . . .

—
Emily Dickinson

B
EN LOOKED OVER THE OPERATION AT MERCY
,
THE STEADY
activity in the pole barn, so like the activity he'd left back at Three Rocks, the piled and tattered snow in the corrals, the gray puffs of smoke from chimneys.

Except for the blackened circle well beyond the paddock, there were no signs of the recent slaughter.

Unless you looked closely at the men. Faces were grim, eyes were spooked. He'd seen the same looks in the faces and in the eyes of his own hands. And like Willa, he had ordered a twenty-four-hour guard.

There was little he could do to help her, and the frustration of that made his own mouth tight as he gestured her away from the group.

“Don't have much time for chatting.” Her voice was brisk. He didn't see fear in her eyes, but fatigue. Gone was the woman who had flirted him into a date, who had laughed with him over a white tablecloth and wine, shared popcorn at the movies. He wanted to take her away again, just for an evening, but knew better.

“You hired on the two men from High Springs.”

“They came on last night.”

Turning, she studied Matt Bodine, the younger of the two new hands, already dubbed College Boy. His carrot-colored
hair was covered by a light gray Stetson. He had a baby face, which he'd tried to age with a straight line of red hair over his top lip. It didn't quite do the job, Willa thought.

Though they were nearly the same age, Matt seemed outrageously young to her, more like Billy than herself. But he was smart, had a strong back and a well of fresh ideas.

Then there was Ned Tucker, a lanky, taciturn cowboy of indeterminate age. His face was scored with lines from time and sun and wind. His eyes were an eerily colorless blue. He chewed on the stubs of cigars, said little, and worked like a mule.

“They'll do,” she said after a moment.

“I know Tucker well enough,” Ben began, then wondered if he knew anyone well enough. “Got a hell of a hand with a lasso, wins at the festival every year. Bodine, he's new.” He shifted so that his eyes as well as the tone of his voice indicated his thought. “Too new.”

“I need the help. If it's one of them who's been fucking with me, I'd just as soon have him close by. Easier to watch.” She let out a little breath. They should have been talking about the weather, the calf pulling, not about murder. “We lost eight calves, Ben. I'm not losing any more.”

“Willa.” He laid a hand on her arm before she could walk away. “I don't know what I can do to help you.”

“Nothing.” Sorry for the snap in her voice, she slipped her hands into her pockets and softened her tone. “There's nothing anyone can do. We've got to get through it, that's all, and things have been quiet the last couple days. Maybe he's finished, maybe he's moved on.”

She didn't believe it, but it helped to pretend she did.

“How're your sisters handling it?”

“Better than I could have expected.” The tightness around her mouth eased as she smiled. “Tess was out here pulling calves. After the first couple, and a lot of squealing, she did okay.”

“I'd have paid money to see that.”

For an instant the smile spread into a grin. “It was worth the price of a ticket, especially when her jeans split.”

“No shit? You didn't take pictures, did you?”

“Wish I'd thought of it. She cussed a lot, and the men—well, I got to say they appreciated the moment. We got her a pair of Wood's cords.” Willa glanced over as Tess approached, in the cords, a borrowed hat, and one of Adam's cast-off coats. “They fit her a sight better than that sprayed-on denim she was wearing.”

“Depends on your viewpoint,” Ben said.

“Morning, Rancher McKinnon.”

“Morning, Rancher Mercy.”

Tess grinned at him, adjusted her hat to a rakish angle. “Lily's brewing up a few gallons of coffee,” she told Willa. “Then she'll be out to help stick needles into cow butts.”

“You gonna pull some more calves?”

Tess eyed Ben, then Willa. From the expressions on their faces, she could see that her reputation had preceded her. “I figured I could give it another day, seeing as I'm going to be spending the weekend at the spa in Big Sky.”

Willa's grin fell off her face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Our little bet.” Gotcha, Tess thought, and smiled sweetly. “I pulled two more calves than you the other day. Ham was doing the counting for me.”

“What bet?” Ben wanted to know, and was ignored as Willa stepped into Tess's face.

“That's bull.”

“No, it was calves. Of course, some of them might have been bulls, but you'll fix that in a few months—and that's something I won't lend a hand with. Mercy Ranch owes us a weekend at the resort. I've already made the reservations. We leave first thing Friday morning.”

“The hell with that. I'm not leaving the ranch for two days to go sit in some stupid mud bath.”

“Welsher.”

Willa's eyes slitted dangerously, causing Ben to clear his throat and move, subtly he hoped, out of range. “It has nothing to do with welshing. After the trouble around here, I was hardly thinking about some lame bet. I had calls to make, the cops came out. I didn't pull calves for more than a couple hours all day.”

“I did. And I won.” Tess shifted forward until the toes of their boots bumped. “And we're going. You try to back out, I'll make sure everyone within a hundred miles knows your word isn't worth diddly.”

“My word's solid, and anybody who says different is a liar.”

“Ah, ladies . . .”

Willa's head whipped around, and her eyes seared Ben where he stood. “Back off, McKinnon.”

“Backing off,” he murmured, spreading his hands as he did so. “Backing way off.”

“You want to go when we're hip-deep in this mess,” Willa continued, and poked Tess hard in the shoulder, “you go. I've got a ranch to run.”

“You're going.” Tess poked her right back. “Because that was the deal. Because you lost the bet, and because Lily's counting on it. And because it's time you started thinking of the people around here with as much respect as you give the goddamn cows. I busted my ass to fix this. I've been stuck on this godforsaken ranch for nearly six months because some selfish son of a bitch wanted to play games beyond the grave.”

“And in another six months you'll be gone.” Why that—simply that—should infuriate her, Willa couldn't have said.

“Damn straight,” Tess tossed back. “The minute my sentence is up, I'm gone. But meanwhile I've been playing the game, sticking to the rules. You're, by Christ, going to stick to them too. We're going if I have to beat you senseless, tie you up, and toss you in the nearest jeep.”

“Rig.” Willa angled her chin up as if inviting a fist. “It's a rig, Hollywood, and you couldn't whip a blind three-legged dog.”

“Fuck your rigs.” Fed up, Tess gave her a hard shove. “And fuck you.”

That snapped it. The temper was there and full-blown before Willa could suck it in. Her fist was there, in full swing before she could pull it. It snapped Tess's head back, left an ugly red mark on the side of her jaw, and sent her butt first onto the slushy ground.

Even as Ben swore and stepped forward, Willa was apologizing. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I—”

Then her breath pushed out of her lungs in a whoosh as Tess bulleted up and rammed her, full body. They tumbled to the ground in a flurry of arms and legs and shrieks.

It took Ben about five seconds to decide to keep his own skin whole and stay out of it.

They wrestled into the piled snow, back onto the wet ground, grunting and punching. He expected hair pulling, and he wasn't disappointed. Tipping his hat back on his head, he held up a hand as men came out of the pole barn to see what the excitement was about.

“Well, goddamn my ass,” Ham said wearily. “What finally set them off?”

“Something about a bet, a mud bath, and a rig.”

Ham took out his tobacco while the men formed an informal circle. “Will's outweighed, but she's mean.” He winced when a fist connected with an eye. “Taught her better than that,” he said with a shake of his head. “Will shoulda seen that coming.”

“Think they'll start scratching?” Billy wondered. “Jeez.”

“I think they'd both turn on anyone who got in the middle.” Ben stuck his hands in his pockets. “That Tess has mighty long nails. I don't want them raking over my face.”

“I say Will takes her.” Jim nipped back as the two women rolled dangerously close to his boots. “I'll put ten on her.”

Ben considered, shook his head. “Some things you're better off not betting on.”

It was the fury that made Tess forget all her self-defense courses, her two years of karate training, made her just fight like a girl in a playground brawl. The red haze over her eyes darkened every time Willa landed a blow. Here there was no defensive padding, no rules, no instructor calling time.

She had her face pushed into wet, muddy snow and spat it out of her mouth on an oath.

Willa saw stars explode in glorious color as Tess yanked her hair. Tears of pain and rage burned her eyes as she
wriggled around and fought for leverage. She heard something rip and had time to pray it was cloth and not her hair coming out at the roots.

It was only pride that prevented her from using her teeth.

She regretted the pride when she found herself flipped headlong into the snow.

Tess had remembered her training and decided to combine it with inspiration—she sat on her sister.

“Give it up,” Tess shouted, fighting to stay aboard as Willa bucked. “I'm bigger than you.”

“Get your—fat—ass—off!” With one concentrated effort, Willa managed to shove Tess backward. She pushed herself away, swiveled, and struggled to sit up.

As the men stayed respectfully silent, the two women panted, gasped, and stared at each other. It was some satisfaction to Willa, as she wiped blood from her chin, to see the sleek, sophisticated Tess covered with dirt, her hair mashed and dripping into her eyes, and her mouth swollen and bleeding.

Now that she had time to breathe, Tess began to feel. Everything hurt, every bone, every muscle, every cell. She gritted her teeth, her gaze on Willa's face. “I say it's a draw.”

However huge her relief, Willa nodded slowly, then flicked a glance at the fascinated, grinning men. She saw money changing hands and swore under her breath. “Am I paying you worthless cowboys to stand around scratching your butts?”

“No, ma'am.” Judging it to be safe, Jim stepped forward. He started to offer a hand before he saw by the glint in Willa's eyes that it was premature. “I guess break's over, boys.”

At the jerk of Ham's head, the men wandered back into the pole barn. The conversation and laughter came rolling out within seconds.

“You finished now?” Ham demanded.

Shrinking a little at the tone, Willa scrubbed at the dirt on her knee and nodded.

“That's fine, then.” Ham tossed down his cigarette,
ground it out with his heel. “Next time you want to get into a catfight, try to do it where you won't distract the men. Ben,” he added, with a flip of a finger on the brim of his hat.

A wise man, Ben suppressed the grin as Ham strode off. “Ladies,” he said, with what he hoped was appropriate sobriety, “can I help you up?”

“I can get up myself.” Willa didn't quite swallow the groan as she struggled to her feet. She was wet, freezing, filthy, her shirt was torn, and her left eye was throbbing like a bad tooth.

Thinking of teeth, she ran her tongue over them and was relieved to find them all in place.

“I'll take a hand.” Like a princess at a ball, Tess held out her hand, let Ben pull her out of the heap of muddy snow. She wanted to shudder at what she was going to see in the mirror but managed a cool smile. “Thank you. And,” she added, aiming the smile at Willa, “I'd say that the matter is now settled. Friday morning, and pack a decent dress for dinner.”

Too furious to speak, recognizing the danger in uttering a single word, Willa spun on her heel and stalked into the pole barn. The laughter inside instantly cut off into silence.

“She'll go.” Ben said it quietly, took out a bandanna, and gently dabbed at the blood at the corner of Tess's mouth. “You got her on pride and honesty. She can buck just about anything but those.”

“Ouch.” She closed her eyes a moment, then gingerly fingered the rising lump on her temple. “It cost me more than I bargained for. That's the first real fight I've been in since ninth grade, when Annmarie Bristol called me Wide Load. I cleaned her clock, then I went on a diet-and-exercise program.”

“It worked.” He bent down and picked up her crushed hat. “All around.”

“Yeah.” Tess set the hat on her dirty, wet hair. “I'm in damn good shape. Never figured she'd be so hard to take down.”