26. Red
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Red
I shove through the crowd just as Travis throws his leg over the bronc. “Get down.”
He glances over his shoulder, his hat tipped back, and the grin on his face tells me everything before the whiskey on his breath reaches me. “You scared I’ll beat you, Bronson?”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“I’ve ridden worse.”
“You’ve barely walked straight all afternoon.”
He snorts, settles deeper into the saddle, and reaches for the bronc rein while one of the pickup men hesitates beside the chute. “Open it.”
The cowboy keeps his hand on the latch, looking between us.
“Don’t.” I climb onto the fence, my fingers wrapping around the top rail. “He’s drunk.”
Travis spits into the dirt. “You planning on riding instead?”
“I’m planning on getting you off that horse.”
He laughs, loud enough for the crowd to hear. “You’d like that.”
“I don’t give a damn what I’d like. Climb down.”
His smile disappears. “You don’t tell me what to do.” He jerks his chin toward the gate. “I said open it.”
The latch snaps free.
“Travis!”
The gate swings wide before I can reach him.
The bronc bursts into the arena already twisting, its front hooves striking the dirt before its hindquarters launch skyward with enough force to throw Travis forward over the neck.
He fights his way back into the saddle, but I can already see the timing’s gone. Every jump pulls him farther behind the horse instead of with it.
“Come on…”
The bronc drops onto its front feet, twists, and launches skyward again, throwing Travis farther out of position until his right leg slips free of the stirrup but his left boot stays trapped.
His hand catches in the rein at the same time, leaving him pinned to twelve hundred pounds of terrified muscle.
“Travis!”
I throw myself over the fence, but I’m already too late.
The horse bucks again, slamming him shoulder first into the dirt before dragging him through another violent twist. He tries to pull free, clawing at the leather wrapped around his hand, but the rein only bites tighter as the bronc comes down again.
The crack reaches me before I reach him.
It tears through the arena, followed by a scream I still hear every time I close my eyes. Leather groans beneath the strain, dirt sprays beneath pounding hooves, and I run harder, my lungs burning while every step leaves me farther behind than the one before it.
Then the arena dirt crumbles into black ash beneath my boots.
I stumble, catching myself as heat rolls across my face. Flames race along the side of the stock trailer, climbing higher while Arizona runs straight toward it with her hair whipping behind her.
“Arizona!”
She doesn’t even look back.
She disappears through the smoke, and by the time I reach the trailer the fire has become pine trees swaying overhead.
Arizona’s weaving between them, chasing the figure I’d seen watching the ranch, her copper hair flashing through the branches every time I think I’ve caught up.
“Stop!”
She keeps running, and the trees thin into the practice pens.
The gelding stands where he always does, his feed bucket waiting beneath the fence. He lowers his head for another mouthful, then stumbles so hard his knees buckle beneath him.
“No…”
The gelding’s legs buckle beneath him, sending the feed bucket crashing onto its side. Grain spills across the dirt, but instead of oats scattering across the ground, black paint pours out with it, thick enough to swallow the earth until the bucket disappears beneath it.
The paint spreads across the yard, climbing the barn wall exactly where I’d scrubbed until my shoulders burned.
RED brONSON PAYS HIS DEBTS.
I grab the wire brush leaning against the wall and scrub until my hands ache, but every stroke only drags the letters farther across the timber.
Black smears over my palms, creeps beneath my fingernails, and stains my sleeves while fresh paint keeps bleeding through beneath the brush.
“You can’t scrub this one away.”
I turn.
Travis stands beside the fence where the gelding should be, his hat pulled low and his shirt hanging open at the collar. The blood running from the corner of his mouth trickles down into his beard, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
I take a step toward him.
“You should’ve stopped me.”
“I tried.”
He gives a hollow laugh that sounds wrong coming from a man who shouldn’t even be standing.
“You always try, Red.” He lifts a hand toward the black words covering the barn. “Then somebody gets hurt anyway.”
I shake my head and keep walking. “Travis…”
He looks at me with the same disappointment I’ve carried around for years. “Who’s next?”
I wake with a gasp, my chest heaving as sweat clings to my skin while the darkness of my bedroom replaces the ranch.
It takes a few breaths before I stop expecting to hear hooves pounding outside the window. My hands still shake when I push the blankets aside.
I sit on the edge of the bed with my elbows braced on my knees, staring at the floorboards until the room finally settles back into the one I’ve slept in for years.
My jaw aches from grinding my teeth, and I roll it once before rubbing both hands across my face.
I’ve spent enough nights hoping sleep will come back to know better.
I pull on yesterday’s jeans, shove my feet into my boots, grab my jacket, and head outside.
The cold catches me the second I step onto the porch, and I pull my jacket tighter before crossing the yard. Most of the ranch has turned in for the night, leaving only the porch light burning behind me while the horses shift lazily in the pastures beyond the fences.
One lets out a soft nicker as I pass, then drops its head back to the grass.
I’ve walked this route almost every night for years. My granddad started the habit long before I was born, insisting a ranch would tell you when it needed attention if you bothered paying enough attention.
A loose hinge, a nervous horse, water where it had no business running. Little things always showed themselves before they grew into bigger ones.
Tonight, the unease starts before I’ve even reached the equipment shed.
The door sits slightly ajar.
I stop.
I latched it before supper. I remember pulling on the handle to make sure it caught, the same way I always do.
Every muscle in my body tightens as I cross the last few yards and push the door open.
Moonlight reaches through the far window, giving me enough light to see the shelves inside, and I know before I take another step that somebody’s been here.
The shovel rack stands half empty. A toolbox has been dumped across the floor, sockets and spanners scattered beneath the workbench, while one of the storage cabinets hangs crooked from a single hinge.
“What the hell…”
The words barely leave my mouth before I crouch beside the scattered tools, picking up a spanner and setting it back where it belongs.
Whoever came in here tipped half the toolbox across the floor but never bothered taking any of it, which tells me they weren’t interested in anything they could sell.
I head straight for the inventory shelves instead.
The fuel cans are exactly where I left them, and the spare bridles still hang from their hooks, but the hardware shelf tells a different story.
Three gate chains are missing. The bolt cutters that usually hang beside them have disappeared too, and the box of heavy-duty fence staples sits open with only a handful left scattered across the shelf.
I reach for the baling wire out of habit, only to find the hook sitting empty.
I let my gaze travel around the shed again, taking in the overturned toolbox, the hanging cabinet door, and the gaps left behind on the shelves.
This wasn’t a thief grabbing whatever looked valuable. They came here with a list.
I step outside and scan the ranch, letting my eyes work their way across the barns, the corrals, and the tree line beyond them. Horses wander through the pasture, stopping every so often to tear another mouthful of grass from the ground, but I don’t catch a single sign of anybody else.
Whoever walked onto Dusty Spur finished what they came to do hours ago, and I’m standing here looking at the trail they left behind.
I pull the shed door closed, lock it, and give the handle a firm tug before turning back toward the house. My boots carry me across the yard on instinct, but I never make it inside.
Instead, I lower myself onto the porch steps with a mug of coffee cradled between both hands and watch the ranch wait for morning.
The coffee cools long before I drink half of it.
A few horses drift toward the water troughs as the eastern sky begins to brighten. The chickens start raising hell before the sun clears the mountains, and somewhere inside the house I hear a floorboard creak as the rest of the ranch slowly comes back to life.
I’ve always liked these hours, they usually settle my head.
This morning they don’t do a damn thing.
Every creak of timber makes me glance toward the barns. Every shadow between the corrals has me checking twice before I look away. Whoever walked through my ranch last night didn’t come looking for money.
They came prepared.
By the time I finally step inside, I’ve already decided I’m going through every shed, every fence line, and every inch of Dusty Spur until I know exactly what they took.
The smell of coffee, bacon, and pancakes hits me before I reach the kitchen, and every conversation around the table dies the second I walk through the doorway.
Willy studies me over the rim of his coffee before pointing his fork my way. “You look like you’ve spent the night boxing grizzlies.”
“I lost.”
“I can see that.” He tears off another piece of pancake. “A grizzly’s kinder than whatever got hold of you.”
I grunt into my coffee instead of answering.
The joke dies on its own.
Across the table, Emmett looks up from cutting Sadie’s toast into strips. He watches me for a beat before setting the knife down. “What’s happened?”
“I found the equipment shed turned over last night.”
His brow furrows. “What’d they take?”
“I found bolt cutters, three gate chains, baling wire, and a box of heavy-duty fence staples missing. There could be more.”
He pushes his chair back. “I’ll come.”
I shake my head. “Stay with Sadie. I need Beau to go through the inventory with me.”
He looks toward his daughter, who’s busy convincing a strawberry slice to balance on the edge of her toast, then gives a reluctant nod. “Alright.”
I leave the mug beside the sink and head back outside.
The ranch is already moving. Horses crowd the fence waiting for feed while two of the younger hands wrestle hay bales off the trailer.
Beau steps out of the west barn with a saddle over one shoulder, spots me crossing the yard, and changes direction.
“Mornin’, boss.” He gives me one look and snorts. “You sleep in a thorn bush?”
“I’ve had better nights.”
“I wasn’t expecting that answer.”
He shifts the saddle against his shoulder and falls into step beside me. “What’s going on?”
I unlock the equipment shed and pull the door open.
Beau steps inside, his eyes traveling across the shelves before dropping to the tools scattered over the floor. “Well… hell.”
“Found it like this.”
He sets the saddle against the wall and walks deeper into the shed, stopping in front of the hardware shelves. “I was in here yesterday.”
“So was I.”
His hand hovers over the empty hooks. “They’ve taken the bolt cutters.”
“And three gate chains.”
He checks the next shelf, frowning as he reaches toward the empty space where the baling wire should be. “Wire’s gone.”
“And most of the fence staples.”
He lets out a breath and turns another slow circle around the shed. “They walked past everything worth a dollar.”
“They weren’t shopping.”
His eyes meet mine. “They came after whatever’d help them.”
“That’s how I see it.”
He rubs his beard while he looks around again. “You reckon this ties in with everything else?”
“I quit believing any of it’s separate.”
Neither of us says Travis’s name.
We don’t have to.
Beau reaches for the clipboard hanging beside the door. “I’ll go through the inventory again. Fresh pair of eyes catches what the first pair misses.”
“I won’t argue with that. We got to take whatever we can to the sheriff.”
He flips to the first page and pulls a pencil from behind his ear. “I’ll check every shed while I’m at it.”
“Take another hand with you.”
His head lifts. “You think they’re still on the ranch?”
“I think they’re getting more confident.”
He follows my gaze across the yard where Willy’s chasing a rooster away from the porch with far more enthusiasm than success. Sadie laughs herself breathless every time the bird slips past him, and anybody driving through the front gate would swear Dusty Spur looked like every other morning.
Only the people who live here know better.
Beau closes the clipboard. “I’ll keep watch.”
“I need you to do more than watch.” I wait until he’s looking at me again. “If a fence is out of place, if a stranger asks too many questions, or if your gut tells you a thing isn’t right, I want to hear about it.”
“You will.”
I give him a nod before stepping back out into the yard.
Whoever this is thinks they’re hunting me.
They’re about to find out I’ve been protecting this ranch a hell of a lot longer than they’ve been trying to destroy it.