Chapter 3
O ut here, the night is black, and the silence is deadly. Grid four is the most remote section of the ranch, and the line-camp cabin we have out here is the perfect place for our talk with Trevor Henson.
When we hear a truck pull up outside, Wade puts out his cigarette and sits a little straighter in the wooden chair he’s resting in. I don’t know how he always manages to stay so relaxed. But then, I figure that’s the privilege you get when you're the little brother of a family.
Wade left home to join the rodeo when he was eighteen, and Pops saw him off proudly. Me? I can’t even spend an extra hour in town without him calling my phone and asking me where I am or telling me something’s gone wrong.
The door to the cabin opens, and when Cole steps inside, I don’t know how I feel about him being here.
Yeah, I’m relieved he showed up, but he’s being a dick, and if he sees through on his word and ends up leaving the ranch, it’ll be me that suffers it.
“Didn’t think you’d be coming. You weren’t at dinner,” I let him know I ain’t happy by the tone of my voice. Pops is marrying Cora, whether we agree with it or not. If she is a gold-digging whore, it should make Cole all the more determined to stick around and defend what belongs to us.
“I told you I’d help get the herd back, didn’t I?” He moves across the room and rests his ass on the table beside Wade.
“Hey, at least one good thing has come out of this ridiculous marriage. The daughter ain’t bad to look at, is she, Garrett?” Wade wiggles his eyebrows, as
I clench my fists and tamp down the niggle inside me.
“Ain’t noticed,” I lie.
Of course I fucking noticed. It’s impossible not to, and I already know the girl’s gonna be trouble. The boys in the bunkhouse ain’t gonna be getting much work done this summer with her around, that’s for sure.
“I got a look at her when I left earlier. She’s pretty enough.” Cole readjusts his hat and rolls up his sleeves.
“Pretty, blue eyes. Long, blonde hair and an ass as tight as….”
“Will you shut the fuck up?” I cut Wade off. I’m about to do whatever it takes to get information from Trevor, the last thing I want is the image of her in my head while I do it.
“Jeezzz, good to see nothing’s changed around here. You’re still as uptight as ever.” Wade rolling his fucking eyes at me makes me bite.
“Yeah well, we don’t all get to ride broncs and buckle bunnies for a living. Some of us have a job to do.”
“A job? I got a job, Garrett. My job’s to entertain and stay a-fuckin’- live!
” Wade is usually hard to get a reaction from, but I’m getting one now.
“Don’t you dare blame me for the fact you feel trapped here.
” His chair falls back when he stands up, and he’s looking the maddest I’ve seen him in a real long time.
“I ain’t trapped. I’m just doing what’s right. This ranch is ours, and I want something to leave behind when I’m gone.”
“Leave behind, to who? When was the last time you were with a woman, one who you didn’t meet in a bar, after an auction, and fuck in a motel room?
” My little brother sniggers, and when I look to Cole for backup, he just shrugs.
I remind myself that arguing is a pointless exercise, and instead of answering back, I cold-stare him.
“There's a life beyond this ranch, Garrett. The only person keeping you from it is you.”
I ignore the fact that all he says is true. Even if I did want a woman, I can’t imagine it’d be easy to find one prepared to make a life with a man who works fourteen hours a day. And if by some miracle I did, she sure as shit wouldn’t accept the things I’m willing to do to protect this place.
The sound of another engine cuts through the tense silence, and when the door bursts open and Trevor Henderson tumbles through it, he’s followed closely by Finn and Tate.
Tate was the first person I employed when I figured we needed to go back to the way my grandfather ran the ranch.
He’s done some time in County, but I’m hardly one to judge him on that. Only difference between me and him is that I’ve never been caught.
Tate’s got the brawn, he’s got the courage, and he just needs to learn how to be smart about things.
There are plenty of good lawyers out there, but a Carson needs a dirty one.
Miles managed to get Tate a reduced sentence on his manslaughter charge, and since it’s hard to find a job when you're on parole, he was happy to take the one I offered him here. So far, he’s proved himself to be reliable, and he’s worked hard and shown me loyalty. From my men, I ask for nothing more.
Finn’s new. He came here on Mitch’s recommendation. I don’t know much, other than the fact he’s linked to an old friend of his. He called in a favor when the kid was due for release from jail. Finn may be young, but I already see a fight in the boy that I know will be invaluable.
“Found the fucker pulling out from the Mason’s ranch,” Tate informs me, slamming his toecap into Trevor’s ribs before lighting himself a smoke.
“Wonder what he was doing there?” Wade steps forward and starts circling the floor where he lies.
“We followed him for a few miles, then pulled him over,” Tate continues.
“You shot out my back window, you asshole!” Trevor looks up at him from the floor where he’s lying with his hands roped behind his back, and we hear all the air hiss from his lungs when Tate stamps on his stomach.
“Now, are you really in the position to be calling me an asshole?” He crouches down to his level, and his eyes threaten to unleash hell.
“Get him in the chair,” I order Finn, who immediately does as I ask, pulling Trevor off the floor and slamming his ass into the chair that Wade’s already positioned in the center of the room. I nod my head at Cole, who drags the bear trap from the corner and places it in front of him.
“What…What the fuck’s that?” Trevor asks, staring down at it as if he’s never seen one before.
“You’ve lived in these mountains long enough to know what that is,” I laugh at him, as Cole pries the jaws of the contraption open, to set it.
“Yeah, but…but, what ya gonna do with it?” The sweat dripping out of his pores, and the way his eyes flick between mine and the trap that’s just inches from his feet, suggests to me he knows exactly what I intend to do with it.
“That’s up to you. See, I know you had something to do with the robbery that happened here last night. And for that, you’re gonna be punished. How bad that punishment is will depend on how fast you tell us how we’re gonna get our cattle back.”
“I don’t know where they are, I swear, and I didn’t have anything to do with it.” He shakes his head and lies to me. Stupid fucking bastard.
“Trevor, make this easy on yourself, and think back to that night a few months back when you saw me and Cole in Cahoots. You’d drank too much whiskey.
Your mouth was running away with itself, like usual, and you were bragging about how you’d made enough money to buy that shiny, new truck of yours.
” If it’s possible, Trevor’s face turns even whiter.
“We go back a lot of years, Trevor. Your pa even wore the brand.” Trevor nods his head frantically. Maybe he’s relying on that fact to save him, the same way he did when we were kids.
“Do you remember back in high school, when your slut sister was flashing her pussy around like a mare in heat? How all the boys in our year fucked her for sport? Who showed you some fucking loyalty by turning her whore ass down, when she put it on a plate? Who beat the shit into Will Sommerton when he knocked her up, because her daddy had skipped town and her pussy-assed brother was too fucking weak to do anything about it?”
The pathetic piece of shit has tears rolling out of his eyes because he knows everything I’m saying is true.
“Your daddy tried screwing us, and he feared the repercussions of his actions so bad he left his whole family behind and ran. Did we ever make you suffer for it?” I question him.
Trevor’s head shakes, and he fails to look me in the eye.
After Grandpa died, a lot of the men who wore our brand abandoned their post. Mitch blames my father for the fact he’s the only one of them left now, and he’s right to.
Pops never did see the value in the men who vowed their loyalty to us, men who would do whatever it took to ensure the ranch kept running and the Carson name got upheld.
The branded men were a brotherhood, reprobates who formed a family of their own in the bunkhouse.
Men like Tate and Finn, who were looking for a place to belong and found it here on our ranch.
They weren’t owned by us. The brand they wore only showed where they belonged, and who they were loyal to, and they were fucking proud of it.
Now they’re extinct.
I never blamed anyone for leaving after Grandpa died. Pops made it clear to them all that the brand meant nothing to him, but there are ways of going out, and the way Roger Henson chose to make his exit proved he never had any real loyalty to our family.
I’d bet the fact he’s never come back to town ain’t out of fear. How can you be fearful when you're dead? And knowing how seriously Mitch takes the promise he made my grandpa as a boy, that’d be my guess as to where Roger is.
“I guess we should have judged you on your old man’s actions, after all. Turns out you're the same kinda dishonest cunt he was.”
Trevor closes his eyes and takes a deep breath when he realizes there ain’t nothing that’s gonna get him out of the shit he’s in.
“I told ‘em the easiest route in and out,” he mumbles feebly. “But I wasn’t with ‘em, I swear. I even got an alibi to prove it.” He looks up at me with eyes begging for mercy, and I decide that I’ll show him a little.
“Arm or leg?” I ask, calmly watching the horror spread on his face.