Quinn (2 page)

“Lucky guy.” The cowboy shook his head from side to side.

“Or cursed.” Flora lowered her voice as though revealing a state secret. “His wife Seraphine’s gone missing without a trace. The police and the private investigators that Cole and Big Jim hired have all come up empty.”

Across the room Quinn couldn’t hear what was being said, but the sudden silence in the diner had his food sticking in his throat like a boulder and he sensed the keen interest of the other diners.

Everyone, it seemed, had something to say about his family. Everyone except the people directly involved.

He and his brothers had learned to avoid all mention of their mother or risk their father’s stony silence or, worse, his embarrassing, unexpected, heart-wrenching grief. Given a choice, they would prefer silence to grief. It went completely against the grain to see their strong, stoic father crushed by the weight of his loss, his eyes red rimmed, his spirit broken for days and weeks at a time.

And so they had adopted a code of silence.

Quinn had a sudden itch to breathe fresh air.

“Come on.” He shoved away from the counter, and his younger brothers looked up in surprise.

“I’m not done,” Jake said.

“Bring it with you.”

The little boy shoved the last of his fries into his mouth and began sucking down the dregs of his shake before sliding off the stool to follow his brother.

Josh, determined to flaunt his independence, took his time, dipping his fries in ketchup and eating every last one before following the other two.

“Bye, now, you sweet things,” Flora called. “You be sure and bring your daddy and granddaddy with you next time you come calling.”

“Yes, ma’am.” As usual, Quinn spoke for all of them.

Once outside, Quinn spotted his grandfather’s truck at the end of the street. Without a word he started toward it, with the other two trailing slowly behind, stopping to peer in the windows of the Odds N Ends shop, the barbershop, and even the doctor’s office.

Quinn kept his head down. The last thing he needed was to run into any more busybodies wanting to cluck over the poor, motherless boys.

His mother’s absence had left a terrible hole in their family. A hole none of them knew how to fill.

The ride back to the ranch was even more subdued than the ride to town had been. Big Jim pulled up next to the barn and spotted Cole inside, mucking stalls like a man possessed.

“You boys might want to take the horses out for a while,” Big Jim said. “Give your daddy more time.”

Quinn didn’t need any coaxing.

As he saddled the big brown gelding, Quinn’s grandfather said, “You keep an eye on your brothers, you hear, boyo?”

“Yes, sir.”

A short time later, after Quinn and Josh helped Jake saddle the spotted mare, the three boys headed into the hills.

“I’m tired. Why are we riding way out here?” Jake’s high-pitched voice broke through the stillness.

Quinn reined in his mount and looked over his shoulder. “ ’Cause Pa’s not ready for company.”

“We’re not company.”

Quinn rolled his eyes and urged his horse into a run, with the others following.

Behind them, the rusted gate leading to their ranch was swinging back and forth, creaking and moaning in the wind. Burned into the wooden arch above it was the letter
C
for
Conway
, though Big Jim often joked that the ranch should really be called Devil’s Wasteland. That’s what he thought he’d entered when he’d first come upon this wild, primitive place.

Their horses moved single file along the sage-covered meadow. Though it was mid-May, here in the Wyoming wilderness there were still patches of snow beneath some of the bushes in the higher elevations.

“Come on, Jake. Keep up.” Quinn kept looking back at Jake, riding between him and Josh. Not that Jake needed tending. Despite his young age, their little brother was absolutely fearless. A fact that caused Quinn endless trouble.

As Quinn’s horse came up over a rise he caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. Curious, he slid from the saddle and led his horse toward a fallen log. Even before Quinn reached it, a tiny black and tan wolf pup gave a welcoming yip and bounded toward him.

Jake and Josh, following Quinn’s lead, dropped to their knees beside the pup. At once three more wolf pups emerged and began climbing playfully among the children.

“Oh, look. Aren’t they cute?” Jake was clearly enchanted by their antics.

“I wonder where their mama is?” Josh couldn’t resist picking up one of the pups, which began licking his face.

“Maybe she’s gone, like Ma.”

At Jake’s words Quinn felt the hair at the back of his neck rise. Eager to deny it, he shook his head and gathered a wriggling pup into his arms. “She’s probably off hunting food while these little guys are supposed to be sleeping.”

The three children were soon laughing out loud as the pups tumbled over one another vying for their attention.

Jake looked over at his big brother. “Maybe that’s where Ma went. To hunt some food for us.”

Quinn’s smile was wiped away at another sudden, wrenching reminder of their loss. Would it never end?

“That’s dumb.”

“Why?” Jake stared at him with all the innocence of a five-year-old.

“ ’Cause there’s enough beef in the freezer to feed us for years.”

“Maybe she wanted to ride into town and buy us something special.”

“Like what?” Josh picked up two yipping pups and tucked them inside his vest to warm them.

“I don’t know. Cookies, maybe. Or a birthday cake. Ma knew I was turning five.”

“You don’t know anything.” Josh’s voice trembled, and
he tried to cover the quick flash of pain by burying his face in the pup’s fur.

“Do, too.” Jake stuck out his chin in an eerie imitation of their grandfather. “Ela says Ma was taken by evil spirits, but we’re not ’posed to say so in front of Pa, ’cause it makes him sad.”

“Why would evil spirits want to take away our ma?” Josh demanded.

The little boy gave an expressive shrug. “I don’t know.”

“There are no evil spirits.” Quinn’s eyes flashed.

“How would you know?” Jake challenged. “Ela says—”

“Come on.” With a snarl, Quinn deposited the pup on the ground and got to his feet, wiping his hands down his pant legs.

Whenever they started talking about their mother he got this terrible empty feeling inside, as though nothing in the world would ever be enough to fill the hole. Maybe this was how their dad felt when he went off to the barn and worked like a devil was after him.

“Time for us to head home.”

Despite their reluctance, the other two set down the pups they’d been petting and pulled themselves into their saddles. It never occurred to them to question Quinn’s authority.

As they turned away, Quinn pointed to a blur of shadow in the woods. “Just in time. There’s their ma now, heading home with their dinner. Let’s not spook her.” He wheeled his mount and the others did the same.

As they rode away they kept looking back, relieved that the mother wolf had returned to her pups.

For Quinn, it was a sign of hope. Maybe, by the time they got home, their own ma would be back, too.

Just as they topped a ridge they heard a single gunshot and the high, sharp cry of something wild, followed by a volley of gunshots that echoed and reechoed like thunder through the still air.

With the hairs at the back of his neck bristling, Quinn tugged on the reins, wheeling his mount, and the other two followed, urging their horses into a run as they raced back to the wolf den.

A neighboring rancher, Porter Stanford, was standing over the bodies of the female and her pups sprawled around her.

It was a grisly scene, the ground already stained with blood, the bodies twisted and still where only moments earlier they’d been filled with life.

The children stared in stunned silence as Porter spit a wad of tobacco. “Lucky I got here when I did. I just saved my herd and yours from these filthy predators.”

“But they didn’t—” At Jake’s protest Quinn reached over and covered his mouth, stifling anything more.

He saw the flash of fury in their neighbor’s eyes as he looked up at them, still seated on their horses.

“You got anything to say?” he demanded of Quinn.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Glad your daddy taught you to respect your elders.” He looked back at the wolves. “Murdering bastards got no right to live.”

With a muttered oath the man swung away and pulled himself heavily into the saddle. He dug in his heels and his horse took off with a flurry of hooves.

Without a word Quinn slid from the saddle and bent to cradle one of the dead pups. Despite its eerie stillness, the tiny body was still warm.

He knelt and set it gently inside the den.

Seeing what he intended, Jake and Josh did the same, placing the pups side by side in the hollowed-out earth.

It took all three of the children, sighing and straining, to lift the female’s body, which they placed on top of her pups. By the time they were finished, their clothes were stained with blood and dirt.

“Should we say a prayer?” Jake asked.

Though his brothers looked uncomfortable, they nodded, and Quinn murmured the words from one of the familiar nighttime prayers their mother had always insisted on, while the other two echoed his words.

They remained there for long, silent moments, bound together by their shared pain.

As they mounted their horses and started away, Quinn could no longer hold back his tears. Of rage. Of frustration. Of a deep, unexplained pain at the loss of beautiful creatures that had been so alive, so vibrant, just a short time ago. They didn’t deserve this cruel fate. They deserved to live, to grow, to play, and to howl at the moon. To mate, and have pups of their own.

Instead, their lives had been cut short by the whims of one man.

This cruel act was so final. So wrong and unfair.

As wrong and unfair as the twist of fate that had stolen a mother from the family that needed her.

As Quinn worked frantically to stem his tears, his fingers left filthy streaks of mud and dirt on his cheeks, like the war paint Ela had described to them when telling them about her Arapaho heritage.

The sight of Quinn’s tears had Jake nudging his mount closer to Josh for comfort.

Despite all that their family had been through, these two had never seen their older brother cry. Not even when they’d learned of their mother’s mysterious, unexplained disappearance.

The sight of their brave brother, his heart broken and raging against the injustice they’d been forced to witness, was an image they would carry with them for a lifetime.

And for Quinn Conway this mother wolf and her pups seemed connected in some strange way to his own mother, and to her sudden, wrenching loss.

This single incident was the germ of a passion, a wild longing in his heart that would forever set his feet on the path to his future.

Grand Tetons—Present Day

I
n the predawn darkness storm clouds hovered, threatening more snow. A ribbon of pale pink rimmed the horizon.

Red sky in the morning, sailors’ warning.

The childhood rhyme played through Quinn Conway’s mind as he stretched his long, lanky frame and slipped from his bedroll. As if to prove the wisdom of the words, the first fat snowflakes began dusting his hair, tickling his face. It may be springtime in Wyoming, but here in high country drifts were still waist deep.

For Quinn, the weather wasn’t even a distraction. He kept his attention focused on the wolf pack as they began emerging from their den. He could tell, by their happy yips and yaps, that they were content to be back on their home turf, after days of hunting and travel. These wild creatures could typically travel forty or more miles in a twenty-four-hour period while hunting food. And when
he was tracking them, he traveled the same route, keeping them always in his sight and grabbing his sleep whenever they did.