The Winslow Incident (2 page)

A growl replaced the barking, a
sound so menacing it startled Simmons. Because there wasn’t a dog in Winslow
that wouldn’t recognize the vet’s scent.

Truth is
,
Simmons realized,
I don’t recognize myself.

He looked down.

Beside the girl, the Irish setter
drooled copious amounts of saliva onto the porch.

“Mad dog!” Simmons screamed. “Mad
dog!”

The girl shot the vet a look of terror
before bounding down the porch steps, the dog at her heels.

Simmons walked to the top step . .
. slowly.
What’s the hurry?
he thought.
No one in Winslow is going
anywhere. Not anytime soon.

The girl made it to the driveway with
the dog running protective circles around her.

Simmons raised his rifle and took
aim.

I
n a town so small, how can so
many people be lost?

—
Hazel Winslow

Day One of
the Heat Wave

H
azel Winslow quickened her pace up the hill,
each anxious step churning up dirt. A shadow’s length ahead of her, Patience
Mathers braced her back against the
No Trespassing
sign and raised a hand to cover her mouth, revulsion spoiling her flawless
features.

“What’s wrong?” Hazel asked, her
heart batting away at her chest like a bird caught in the house.

Patience let her hand fall from
her face. “They’re dead,” she said.

“Who’s dead?” Hazel crested the
rise and saw for herself—and her mouth flooded with thin saliva. Dusk
washed the hundred-acre pasture an agreeable orange. Tall weeds spun sparks of
sunlight. The sky hung heavy with the sinking sun.
It’d be pretty
, Hazel
thought,
if it weren’t for all those dead cows.
Half a dozen corpses
littered the pasture: bloated bellies crushing grass, legs jutting out at odd
angles, black masses of flies feasting.

“What the hell?” Sean Adair said.

Hazel jumped at her boyfriend’s voice
behind her. She spun to face him, and they gaped at each other in astonishment.
The dying light created a halo around Sean’s long brown hair, and he looked
sun-kissed and sturdy, as if the mountain air agreed with him.

Paler and lankier, as though he
lacked some vital nutrient, Hazel’s cousin Tanner Holloway skidded to a stop
next to Sean and made a grave face at her. “Uncle Pard is
screwed.
”

Hazel gestured at the carnage with
a sweep of her arm. “You said they were sick, Tanner. Not—”

“Sicker than we thought.” Tanner smirked.
“Apparently.”

“This is bad.” Patience sank to
her haunches on the dirt road and clasped her hands together as if praying that
she, too, would not suddenly be struck swollen and dead.

There was no breeze, yet Hazel could
sense the stench of death. Scanning the pasture, she whispered, “What happened
to them?”

Tanner flipped straight blond
surfer hair out of his face. “Mad cow disease.”

“No way.” Hazel flashed on the
steak and eggs she’d eaten during the mid-morning lull in her shift at Rose’s
Country Crock.

“No way,” Sean said. Hazel had
served him a cheeseburger for lunch.

Patience rose to her feet and swung
toward Hazel, her beautiful dark eyes seeking reassurance from her best friend.
“Mad cow?” she said.

“Okay, they don’t know yet,” Tanner
admitted. “Doc Simmons was out poking and prodding the poor dumb beasts all
morning. Now Uncle Pard’s waiting for the vet to come back with test results.
But I do know one thing.” His pale blue eyes brightened. “They are damn
worried—and that was
before
any beef went belly up.”

Feeling hot and grimy, Hazel
gathered up her long hair and knotted it into a sloppy, strawberry blond bun.
Fanning the back of her neck with one hand, she scrutinized her cousin,
uncertain if she trusted him. They were all seventeen, but unlike Patience and
Sean, Tanner Holloway was something new. Two weeks ago he’d been shipped up to
their uncle’s ranch for the summer to straighten out and fly right. And experience
had taught Hazel that the Holloway side of her family kept secrets like thieves
hoard plunder. Certainly her mother had, and took nothing but secrets with her
when she left. Hazel turned from Tanner, unhappy to be reminded that her mother
hadn’t chosen to take her along either.

Silently she counted cattle
carcasses: three nut-brown cows huddled in the shade of the aspens; a steer
felled before the bridge spanning the creek, his enormous head dunked halfway
underwater. But fifty feet away near the split-rail fence surrounding the
pasture, a red cow stood chewing her cud—alive and kicking and flicking
her switch. And close by, a calf romped around in a patch of clover. Hazel
started toward the animals, curious why they seemed okay when the others were
clearly not.

Sean grabbed her by the hand.
“Don’t go near them. You don’t know what’s wrong.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come
here, remember?” she snapped and writhed free. But as soon as she recognized
the hurt in his amber-colored eyes, a familiar remorse struck. She smiled in a
way intended to say,
Sorry
. “I won’t get too close. Promise.”

She pulled away from him and
headed for the pasture. As she approached the fence in a cloud of dust bothered
up by her black Converse, she flapped the front of her baby blue t-shirt to get
some air circulating against her skin. By late afternoon the sun had swallowed
the entire Pacific Northwest mountainside; now it was digesting it. Blowing out
her breath, she waved a hand in front of her face to fend off the swarm of
gnats that were losing their tiny minds to the heat.

“You’re an idiot, Winslow,” Tanner
yelled.

“Hazel, come back!” Patience
sounded alarmed.

Yet when Hazel glanced over her
shoulder, she found all three crossing the road toward her, Patience wide eyed
and Sean grimacing as though he had a bad taste in his mouth.

At the fence, Hazel noticed that
the red cow’s hind legs were trembling. Suddenly both legs buckled.

“Whoa!” Hazel cried and leapt onto
the lower fence rail. Out of instinct, she reached for the cow, arm
outstretched, and her fingertips skimmed stiff hide as the animal dropped to
the grass. The long-lashed creature emitted a pitiful moo, struggling to rise
on legs that refused to cooperate.

Coming up behind Hazel, Sean
wrapped his arm around her waist. “That’s not too close?” He pulled her off the
fence and plopped her indelicately on the ground. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, Sean,” she said. But by the
time she turned around, he was already headed back toward their motorcycles,
his head bowed in a way that tugged at her heart.

“You shouldn’t have touched it.”
Tanner sounded like he was enjoying himself. “It’s probably contagious.”

Hazel frowned. “Cow sicknesses
don’t spread to people that way.” But as she watched the animal struggle, she
began to feel less certain. She glanced sidelong at Tanner. “Do they?”

He scoffed. “Guess you’ll find
out.”

The calf that had been playing in
the clover tottered up, nudged the cow’s neck with his nose, and gave a sad
bleat. Then he scampered deeper into the pasture, not slowing until he put
fifteen feet between them as if he, too, were suddenly worried about contagion.

“This is bad,” Patience repeated. Between
strands of long black hair hanging in her white face, she eyed the animals with
obvious gloom. “And that ring around the moon last night meant it’s sure to
rain soon.” She flung back her head to search the sky. “I hope our rodeo isn’t
ruined.”

Hazel couldn’t care less about the
rodeo, but she did feel sorry for the animals—and realized this meant serious
trouble for their uncle. She squinted at Tanner. “What did Doc Simmons say?”

Tanner shrugged. “Only that they
might’ve gotten into something they shouldn’t have.” He knocked Hazel’s forearm
with his elbow. “Think it’ll be half-priced rib eyes at the Crock tonight?”

Ignoring him, Hazel crouched and
held her hand between the fence rails toward the calf. “Hey, buddy,” she said
softly.

The reddish-brown calf stared at
her for a moment before opening his mouth to say, “Blat.”

She realized then that the calf
wasn’t right either. His muzzle was coated in something sticky-looking and the
tips of his ears looked flaky and sore. At the sound of horses clomping across
the wood bridge, the animal gave a frightened toss of his furry head.

“Later.” Tanner was already
walking away.

“Wait for me.” Patience scrambled
after him.

The calf studied Hazel with huge
wet eyes. A tuft of red hair stuck up on top of his head as if he’d just woken
from a long nap.

“It’s all right, little guy,” she
said. “Come here.”

On his rickety legs, the calf
started toward her, just as Sean yelled, “Get out of there!” from what sounded
like far away. But the horses seemed closer now: heavy hooves pounding soft
grass. The white, crescent moon markings on the calf’s face made her think of
rings and rain and the rodeo in ruin.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
she murmured. “Gonna grow up to be a prize Holloway bull.”

The animal was less than ten feet
away. He picked up his pace, small rump swaying, tail swishing to-and-fro. Then
he raised his pink nose and gave her a friendly bleat.

Hazel wondered why it sounded like
someone was running in the dirt. “That’s a good—”

“Get back!” a man’s voice boomed.
“Keep away from it!”

Thunder cracked and the calf’s
face exploded, showering her in bits of blood and hide. For a stark moment
Hazel thought she’d been shot too and toppled backward. Grabbing hold of the
rough fence rail to keep from falling, she felt her palm fill with slivers.

“Hold your fire, Clark!” the man shouted.
“That was
the
most asinine, half-cocked move! You’re damn lucky you
didn’t shoot her.”

Hazel’s eyes were locked on the
calf, crumpled on his side before her, silent and still. Blood erupted from the
hole where moments ago there had been one large brown eye. Through a second
hole in his skull, brain protruded.

She felt panic and vomit and tears
all rising at the same time and heard that sound again of shoes slapping dirt
right before Sean grabbed her up and away from the fence. Then she was running back
down the road so fast her body got ahead of her feet for one long scary moment
and she nearly tumbled to the ground.

Tanner and Patience were already
tearing off on the red Kawasaki, with Patience tucked behind Tanner, screeching
like a mouse clutched in the talons of an owl.

Heart hammering, Hazel clambered
over the cattle gate after Sean, swinging her legs over the metal bar and
landing next to their Yamahas in an explosion of dirt.

Three ranch hands on horseback
were bearing down on them fast.

Fear fought with relief when Hazel
realized it was her Uncle Pard leading the charge. Then she saw the fury
steaming off him and fear won that battle.

After reining his horse to face
Kenny Clark and Old Pete Hammond who followed, Pard held up his hand and yelled,
“I’ll handle this.” As soon as they turned their horses to head back, he rode
up to Hazel and Sean where they stood panting and sweating on the other side of
the cattle gate.

Pard Holloway was a big man
rendered even larger astride his horse, pointing down at them with a finger
that seemed huge. “You will not breathe a word of this. Not. A. Word.
Understood?”

“What’s wrong with your herd?”
Hazel asked. Despite her ragged breath, she sounded calmer than she felt. “Why
did Kenny shoot that calf?”

“That’s not your concern, Hazel.” Her
uncle started pointing again. “And I will not allow you or anybody else to
trespass on
my
property and interfere with
my
business. Matter of
fact, trespassing is a punishable offense. Go ask your father.” He reached into
his back pocket, retrieved a blue bandanna, and flung it to her. “And clean
yourself up before you catch something.”

She let the bandanna flutter to
the dirt. Her father always warned her to steer clear of his brother-in-law’s
ranch; now here she was: spattered in bits of baby bull, her hand full of
splinters, sick to her stomach after witnessing animal murder. When she
realized calf blood was trickling down her bare arms, a whimper escaped her.

She forced herself to swallow hard
and stand up straight. “
Something
?” she echoed her uncle. “If you don’t
know what’s wrong, why are you killing them?”

“All right, listen up!” Pard
shouted with such force that Hazel, Sean, and the horse all started. “That calf
was sick and we couldn’t chance it spreading to the rest of the herd.” He
pushed up his hat to reveal eyes the same greenish-brown as hers, hair the same
shade of reddish-blond—as if neither of them were willing to commit to
any one particular hue. Then he narrowed his familiar eyes. “And I will not
allow
news
of this to spread, either.”