The Smartest Horse in Texas (The Traherns #2) (11 page)

PROLOGUE

Tragedy gave no warning.

Slamming the door on her mother’s new Range Rover, twenty-six
year old Perri Linn started to pull on her much-traveled suitcase, then paused
to watch the swiftly approaching car.

Her step-father's home was perched on the edge of the mesa near
Phoenix, and was the last house on the road. If the car passed the next
driveway...which it did...it must be coming here, to his place.

Squinting to see better through the heat waves, Perri recognized
Walt's silver gray Mercedes. She knew they weren't expecting her yet, so why
would he and her mom be coming home in the middle of the day? Could it be an
emergency—they were traveling awfully fast?

They must slow down to turn into the driveway!

As if in defiance, the car
roared on past and smashed into the large rocks set as a barricade on the
mesa's edge. Red dust swirled upward towards the hot Arizona sun, cloaking the
twisted metal.

With a noiseless scream,
Perri raced down the gravel drive. A woman lay half out of the car on the
driver's side, her light golden hair, so like Perri's own, revealing her
identity.

The wreck burst into
flames, but Perri ignored the furnace-like heat and half-carried, half-dragged
her mother out of danger; then used her hands to snuff out the fire on
Crystal's dress.

Blood. Everywhere. Flowing
from Crystal's face and arms and body—mainly her head. Perri yanked off
her own blouse to press against the deepest wound. "No...no...no,"
she whimpered, trying vainly to stop the torrent. Wasn't anyone around to help?
She didn’t have her cell phone, she had dropped her purse as she ran.

"Papa? Was he with
you?" she shouted.

"No. He's...he's still
working..."

Perri sighed in relief. Her
step-father was deaf, but that wouldn't have hindered his escape if he wasn’t
injured.

"My pendant." Her
mother yanked at the large ivory pendant around her neck as if it were choking
her. A favorite piece of jewelry, it had been given to her by a friend working
in Africa.

"Leave it, Mom." Frantic,
Perri looked toward the nearby homes. Hadn't anyone heard the crash?

"Take it,"
Crystal insisted, in a voice so weak Perri had to concentrate to hear.
"Take it to..." She faltered, recovered, tried to speak again; all
the time struggling with the pendant's leather thong.

Her actions pushed Perri's
hand away; started the flow of blood again. "Mom, please. Lie still."

But her mother fought the
thong until Perri unscrewed the ivory clasp. With the pendant's removal,
Crystal relaxed and let Perri reapply the compress.

"You go—” Her
words were slurred.

"I can't. You'll
bleed—”

"No. You go. You go...
must have it..." Crystal's eyes glazed and she seemed to lose her
thoughts.

"Mom!" Perri
shouted, desperate to keep her mother conscious. "Mom, what happened?"

"Scorpion."

Perri kept the shirt
pressed against her mother's head as she glanced over at the burning wreck.
A scorpion in the
car?
No
wonder her mom had crashed. She had an excessive fear of all snakes and bugs
and spiders.

"It's cooked
now," Perri assured her, looking back down. Her mother's next words were
almost too faint to hear.

"No. No. Pendant. Take
it. Inside..." Giving a small sigh, Crystal dropped into unconsciousness.

"Mom!"

The crunch of gravel next
to her caused Perri to look up, seeing her parent's nearest neighbor, a nurse,
running to them. Crouching down, the woman took Crystal's wrist, feeling for
the pulse.

"She's still with us,
Perri. Keep that pressure on." The woman had brought a first-aid kit with
her, plus an armful of clean towels. She bandaged as she talked. "My son
called 9-1-1, then Walt, while I grabbed these things."

"Thanks."

An ambulance pulled up a
few minutes later, followed by a fire truck and patrol car. "Anyone else
in there?" a fireman shouted, undoing a hose as two medics ran up to
Crystal.

Perri glanced at the
flames. "No." Helplessly she stood aside, silently praying for her
mother's life. The neighbor placed a towel around Perri's shoulders and she
huddled into it, her mind struggling with reality. This couldn't be happening.

After five minutes one of
the medics stood up, shoulders sagging. "She's gone. Anyone here know
her?"

"It's her
mother," the neighbor lady answered, putting her arms around Perri.
"Crystal Putman."

Then Walt arrived, his face
pale and strained. In silence they clung together, the image of her mother
blocking out everything until a voice broke in, insistent in its authority.
"Perri. Did you see it happen?"

She stared at the short
gray-haired man. Walt's new boss, Luke Rogers. He must have brought him.
"Yes. She didn't even try to stop." She glanced over at the blackened
wreckage. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have borrowed her car for my
trip."

“My car,” Walt moaned. “I
should have been driving. Not her.”

"It wasn't anyone's
fault," Luke Rogers insisted, touching her step-father's hand so he would
lip-read what he was saying. "I'll have Jordan check the car, Walt. Just
in case."

"Do that."

"Who's he?" Perri
asked, signing the words as she spoke. She always signed when speaking to him.

"An insurance
investigator. He finds things the police miss. Crystal should have slowed down
for her own driveway."

"A scorpion was in the
car."

"A scorpion? You're
sure?"

"Yes. She told me.
She’s terrified of them."

Luke frowned. "You're
positive she was talking about an insect."

"Well...sure."
Perri looked at him, puzzled. What other kind was there?

"We won't bother
Jordan then. I'll take care of your latest project, Walt. Don't worry about
things at the office." Bending down, Luke Rogers picked up the pendant by
its leather thong. "You won't want to lose this," he added, dropping
the smooth ivory into Perri's hand.

She clutched the pendant
with both hands. "Mom kept saying she wanted me to have it. She wouldn't
let me take care of her until I took it."

"Injured people tend
to focus on one thing," Luke said. "Usually it's an object; sometimes
a person."

His words made Perri
remember her step-brother, in the middle of a three-week business trip.
"Owen. He needs to know."

"Right," Walt
agreed, then looked straight at his boss. "Ask the company to bring Owen
home. He needs to be here."

"Regardless?"

"Yes."

"Alvaro, wasn't
it?" Luke Rogers mouthed the words, but Perri could read lips very well,
having practiced with her step-father.

"Yes. Just don't tell
Owen why he needs to come home. I wouldn't want him to get careless."

*
* *

"Is he
dead?"

"No. His wife
took the car."

"I thought you
never missed."

"I don’t,
normally. But an accident, like you requested—well, it's not so certain.
I’ll set up another."

"Cancel that.
I've a better plan; one that will rid me of both him and his son."

"He has a
daughter."

"Splendid. She can be
the bait."

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A short pioneer story by
Nancy Radke

(The Traherns Series)

I hitched my creaky old rocker out onto the wooden porch of my
old home and set a bit, watching the early summer sun fall down over the
Tennessee mountains. There was no one around to ask me to get them a bite to
eat, or for help, or for anything. I was all alone on the mountain.

Mallory Buchanan hadn’t been gone two days and already I missed
that gal. I missed the knowledge of her being there, just a few miles away on
the other side of the mountain. She should be almost in Kentucky, if she took
the most direct trail to Missouri.

Mally was the last of ‘em, God bless ‘er. With my husband,
Jacob, gone five years now, alive or dead I had no way of knowing, and all my
boys off to this war between the states or the western lands, I had a whole
mountain to myself. I was used to loneliness, but this here went a mite too
far.

“Well, Abigail Courtney, what you gonna do now?” My voice
sounded strange. I was used to talking to the animals, but not much to myself.

I had the rest of the summer to answer my question. I needed to
be off this mountain before winter, for I sure as shootin’ wouldn’t live
through another one. Last winter had just about done me in. Mally had come over
to help me drag in some firewood. Said she had thought about me, and wondered
how I was, so left off nursing her sick mother and come to see if I was still
kickin’.

The wood had froze to the ground, complements of an ice storm,
and we hacked at it until we had enough broke loose I could rebuild my fire. It
had gone out two days before, and I hadn’t been able to cook or keep warm. I
had finally decided I was going to have to pull down some of the barn siding,
when she came.

When Mally and her mom had been next door, we women would get
together to do the heavy lifting and hauling. Now they were gone. Although I
didn’t need them at the moment, I sure would later on. Should I even try to
keep farming through the summer? Sooner or later I was gonna have to leave.

The mountain farm had been my home ever since my man Jacob had
brought me here as a new bride, and tears watered my eyes at the thought of
leaving it. He’d built it strong to withstand the mountain storms. A strong
house for a strong man. It had stood against the storms for many years, but
things needed done to it that a woman couldn’t rightly do. There’d been a few
shingles blown off and the door didn’t quite close snug anymore, so the wind
howled as it passed through. Two windows needed repair, and a new post put on
the porch roof.

Also, I’d lived here so long, I figured the rest of the world
had passed me by whilst I was raising my brood. I had no idea what the world
was like, apart from the small settlements at the base of the mountains.