The Winslow Incident (3 page)

Hazel glanced at her
blood-spattered arms before grimacing at him. “People will find out.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll let that
happen. You know why?” He gestured at the sky; the answer so obvious, surely it
was written there. “If we lose our reputation, we lose
everything.
Not
just my ranch, but this whole damn town. Right now I’ve got this under control,
but you two have to promise me you’ll all keep your mouths shut.”

“Whatever.” Sean shrugged before
he kick-started his motorcycle to life. “We’re outta here.”

Hazel nibbled at her bottom lip,
distraught over the animal remains stuck to the front of her shirt. Looking
back at her uncle, she raised her voice to be heard over the bike’s engine:
“It’s not safe to eat the beef, is it?”

“Dammit, Hazel!” Pard threw up one
massive arm. “Repeat that and I promise you I’ll dig up that mess between Sean Adair
here and Hawkin Rhone.

Hazel and Sean swapped haunted
glances.

“Going on five years now, I
believe,” Pard continued, leaning down toward them with his forearm against
Blackjack’s mane. The horse looked smug, Hazel thought, showing them his yellow
teeth and breathing hot foul air in their faces.

Pard added, “That whole sorry
business was never actually settled up. Was it?”

When Hazel looked at Sean again,
his mouth moved but nothing came out.

A burning sensation crept across
her scalp, and she caught herself chewing her lip—a habit she had fought
hard to break ever since that day at Three Fools Creek when she witnessed
Hawkin Rhone bite clear through his own tongue.

She stomped up to the gate and
yanked the horse by the bit. Blackjack’s head snapped back into her uncle’s
chest, the animal’s frightened eyes rolling her direction. “You do that,” she
yelled, “and I’ll tell everyone in Winslow—everyone down in the whole
valley—that your beef is poison!”

Pard pushed her back a couple of
feet with the bottom of his boot against her shoulder. “Don’t force me to tell
Zachary Rhone what really happened. Or about how your father lied. Because you
know, sheriffs can lose their badges over a helluva lot less.” Pard glanced at
Sean before he drew closer to Hazel and whispered in a conspiratorial tone,
“Not to mention what might happen to your friend, here. How’s a boyfriend in
prison sound?”

Feeling herself begin to shake,
Hazel shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts and turned her back on
her uncle, stupefied that he was threatening them. “Who cares about your cows
and your shit-filled ranch anyway,” she said, instantly aware of how weak that
had sounded. She climbed on her own motorcycle and kicked and kicked the
starter until the engine finally sparked.

“Good,” Pard shouted while
Blackjack reared from the buzz of both engines. “We’ve got a deal. You stay out
of my business and I’ll stay out of yours.”

Instead of heading back the way
they had come earlier from Ruby Creek, Hazel and Sean blasted the opposite
direction up Loop-Loop Road toward town. After a minute of riding flat out,
they were forced down into the ditch in order to get around a white truck parked
across the road.

It wasn’t until they had skidded
around the west gate that Hazel stole a glance over her shoulder.

Her stomach sank.

From that higher vantage point,
she could see that there were more than a mere half dozen. Strewn across the
pasture like passengers from a plane crash, at least fifty head of Holloway
cattle lay dead.

“
B
e gentle!” Hazel cried.

“Be brave,” her grandmother said,
even as her mouth turned down in sympathy.

They sat side by side in high-back
chairs at the walnut table in the formal dining room, Sarah Winslow digging
splinters out of her granddaughter’s hand with a sewing needle and pair of
tweezers.

To distract her mind from the
operation and slaughtered animals and threats of blackmail, Hazel studied the
fresco painted on the ceiling. She stared at swans and fountains and ladies
with parasols, at all the things Winslow never was except on the plaster
ceiling of her great-great grandfather’s home. One man’s fruitless stab at
bringing civilization to an uncivil mining camp, she supposed. The Winslow
stood four stories high, counting the round room at the top of the tower where
the ghosts resided. Built in 1889, the fifteen room, Italianate-style mansion
was too fancy for its own good, and as caretaker, Sean’s father had to do
constant battle with the elaborate roof and ancient plumbing.

“Ouch!” Hazel jerked her hand away
after her grandmother probed her pinkie with the needle. “That’s gentle?”

Sarah took firm hold of her hand
again. “Only a few more.”

Hazel clenched her teeth as her
grandmother pulled a splinter from the tip of her finger.

Eyes concentrated on her task,
Sarah said, “Are you planning to tell me what happened?”

Hazel studied her grandmother’s
smooth cheeks and thick silver hair, hoping she would look that good at
sixty-two. “Well, let’s see. I saw your boyfriend Cal at the Fish ’n Bait. He told
me to tell you he’ll pick you up at one sharp tomorrow to escort you to the
rodeo. He promised not to smell like trout.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Sarah
laughed—a warm cackle that always reminded Hazel of fall leaves underfoot
and made her feel in safe territory. And the idea of her grandmother hooking up
with worm-loving Cal made Hazel laugh, too.

But Sarah turned serious again,
asking, “And?”

“And I tripped and fell in the
woods,” Hazel replied.

Sarah glanced up, raising the dark
eyebrows that packed extra punch in contrast to her light hair. “I’ll wait
until you’re ready then.”

Hazel tried to frown but it felt
more like wincing. She had never lied to her grandmother before, and it made
her feel polluted and gore-splashed all over again. She had come to The Winslow
to get cleaned up and calmed down. After sneaking a shower in an empty
guestroom—rinsing blood from her arms and picking pieces of calf hide out
of her hair—she had donned one of Sean’s t-shirts over her shorts and
sought out Sarah to perform splinter surgery. Until she was in better shape,
she had to avoid home and her father because she couldn’t tell him what had
happened. As sheriff he’d be forced to report the sick and dead cattle to the
proper authorities. Then her Uncle Pard would make good on his threat. And then
her dad and Sean would both go to prison.

“My brave girl.” Sarah pulled away
the tweezers. “Shall we take a break?”

Hazel hadn’t realized she was
crying; now she felt tears running hot and itchy down her cheeks. Only she
wasn’t sobbing from the pain, it was due to blossoming panic. Sean had protected
her that day at Three Fools Creek, so now it was up to her to protect him.

But a new fear had begun to gnaw
at her—the fear that she might prove sadly incapable of protecting anyone
at all.

Day Two of
the Heat Wave

F
ritz Earley steered his flatbed truck around
the final curve up Yellow Jacket Pass and the simple truss bridge came into
view. Along the ridgeline, the early morning sun lit lodgepole pines like
candles on a birthday cake.
Tinderbox
, Fritz thought as he bounced over
the cattle guard.

He always felt uneasy crossing the
bridge. Not that it was so far across; but it was a gut-dropping distance
down.
He imagined that one day the weight of his fully loaded delivery truck would
collapse the bridge and send him plunging, falling end over end before he
slammed into the Lamprey River. There the twisted wreckage of metal and his
ample flesh would careen down river until it wedged against the bank to await
grisly discovery by some unlucky kid or angler.

So he
whistled relief when he popped out the other end of the bridge and passed the
familiar sign.

Welcome to Winslow

(Pop. 255)

“Jewel of the Stepstone
Range”

Home of Holloway Ranch

Rather than keep to the main route
leading downtown through a tunnel of quaking aspen, Fritz turned south onto
Loop-Loop Road and headed for the ranch. He preferred to get Pard Holloway’s
delivery over and done with first since the ranch boss was always hollering at
him. Then he could finish his deliveries and grab a bite at the Crock before he
had to re-cross the chasm and start the long drive back down the mountain.

But halfway down Loop-Loop Road,
Fritz had to slam on his brakes to avoid T-boning Maggie Clark’s white Chevy
truck parked across the middle of the road. He was surprised to see Maggie—sole
Holloway Ranch cowgal—leaning sentry-like against the passenger side.
More surprising was that the middle-aged woman’s usually wild hair was reined
into a ponytail so tight it looked painful. That and the fact that she was
wielding a rifle.

After Fritz eased to a stop, Maggie
set her gun inside the Chevy’s cab and then came around to his open window.
“Need to unload into mine.” She cocked a callused thumb toward her four by four
truck. “I’ll take it overland.”

“What’s doin’?” Fritz asked, worried
about what Maggie’s new hairdo and brandishing of weapons could mean. Did this
woman—known to round up cattle and sling chow with the same brutal
efficiency—feel threatened? Or was she the one doing the threatening?

Squinting in the direction of the
ranch did her crow’s feet no favors. “Road’s washed out up ahead.”

Fritz leaned forward against the
steering wheel as far as his belly allowed, and peered through his bug-splashed
windshield at the dirt road beyond Maggie’s truck. He had been up this road
just last week. And it hadn’t rained in over a month.

“
I
don’t have time for this, Dad.” Hazel threw
her spoon and cereal bowl into the kitchen sink with a clatter. “I’m late for
work.”

All night she’d been haunted by
images of calf brains leaking into pasture grass and Sean in handcuffs that
sliced into his wrists and the badge ripped from her father’s shirt. So this
morning she was feeling, as her grandmother would say, burnt around the edges.

“You don’t start work till eight.
Don’t you think I know that?” Her father set his own bowl on the counter. Cereal
was as elaborate as breakfast ever got around their house. Hazel noticed that
he had barely touched his and the flakes looked soggy and bloated. “Now, where
were you last night?” he asked.

“Can’t you find somebody else to
interrogate?” she said. “You’re the sheriff—shouldn’t you be out
protecting the town or something?”

He opened the breadbox and pulled
out a loaf, all the while giving her his look that said,
I don’t know what
to do with you.
Then he warned, “I’d better not find out you bought pot from
those carnies.”

“You’re completely paranoid!” She
couldn’t handle this right now. Pretending last night never happened was hard
enough, she didn’t need extra grief from him today, especially considering that
her evasiveness was for his sake. His and Sean’s. She spun out of the kitchen,
griping, “Quit harassing me.”

He followed her into the living
room. “I wouldn’t be ‘harassing’ you if you’d come home at a reasonable hour.”

The knot in Hazel’s stomach just
kept growing. After she had crept home from The Winslow and snuck quietly (or
so she’d thought) up the staircase to her room, it had been past one in the
morning. Now she glanced around at the overstuffed furniture in their Victorian
house, and felt like she was suffocating.

Continuing to avoid her father’s
dark blue eyes, she said, “I was at Patience’s house helping her with her rodeo
outfit.” A lame lie, but she was too nervous to invent a better one. She’d
never lied to her father before either. Not about anything important anyway.
More inner pollution—she was beginning to feel downright toxic.

“How was I supposed to know where
you were? When you were coming home?” He ran a hand through his short hair,
making it stick up in dark spikes all over his head. “
If
you were coming
home. You could’ve been lying dead in the ravine for all I knew.”

That’s a lovely image, she
thought. “You’re always worrying about things that never happen. Relax,
Dad—take a pill.”

He stared at her without saying
anything else. It was his way of making her think about the things she’d said,
to consider her next words. And it always pissed her off. She bit down hard on
her lip, battling the urge to tell him everything, resenting him because,
really, wasn’t he supposed to protect her and not the other way around?

Finally, she huffed in
frustration. “I can just leave, you know.” She slammed out the front door and
stomped extra loud down the porch steps.

Then she glanced back and
instantly regretted saying those words, words that for all she knew were the
last her mother had ever spoken to him. For there her father stood at the open
screen door, still holding the bread, looking at her with a crumbled
expression.

Hazel flushed with shame for
getting into it with him in the first place. This situation wasn’t his fault;
none of it was ever his fault.