6. Cici
6
CICI
I watched my brother withdraw further into himself with each passing day. The confident, energetic kid who used to light up a room had been replaced by someone I barely recognized. His mood swings were getting worse, and the isolation wasn’t helping. After finding another empty bottle of Jack hidden under his bed—our dad’s brand—I couldn’t ignore the signs anymore.
The kitchen was quiet except for the scrape of Mav’s fork against his plate. He’d barely touched his food, pushing the meatloaf around like a sullen child instead of the almost-man he was supposed to be. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, matching the ones I saw in the mirror every morning.
The recipe was one of Mav’s favorites of our mom’s—one of the few things of hers I could still get right—but lately, even comfort food wasn’t enough to get him to eat.
The kitchen smelled of onions, red peppers, and mushrooms—Mom’s secret ingredients. She’d taught me how to make her signature dish one rainy Sunday, both of us laughing when I made a mess of the breadcrumbs. “Cooking with love means getting your hands dirty,” she’d said. Now, I followed her instructions like a ritual, as if getting each step perfect might somehow bring back those easier days.
“You need to eat,” I said, trying to keep my voice gentle despite the worry gnawing at my gut.
He shrugged, a gesture so reminiscent of our father that it made my chest ache. “Not hungry.”
“Mav—”
“Don’t.” His fork clattered against the plate. “Don’t use that tone. The one that sounds exactly like Mom when she was about to lecture us.”
The comparison stung, mostly because he was right. I’d been trying so hard to fill the void our parents left that sometimes I forgot I was his sister first. “I found another bottle.”
His face went blank—another habit he’d picked up recently. “So?”
“So, you’re seventeen. And mixing alcohol, that you aren’t old enough to even have, with your pain meds?—”
“I’m fine.” He pushed back from the table. “The meds barely help anyway.”
“Then, we’ll talk to Dr. Mitchell about adjusting them.” I reached for his arm, but he jerked away.
“What’s the point? My leg’s never going to be the same. Might as well accept it like everyone else has.”
The bitterness in his voice cut deep. “That’s not true. The physical therapy?—”
“Is a waste of time.” His laugh was harsh and empty as he smacked his thigh. “I can’t even remember how it happened. Just woke up in the hospital with everyone telling me—” His jaw clenched when he stopped himself.
“Telling you what?” My pulse quickened, already knowing he wouldn’t continue. He never did when the conversation turned to that night.
“Nothing.” He grabbed his crutches, the movement too fast, too desperate. “I’m tired. Going to bed.”
“It’s only eight.”
“Then, I’m going to my room to stare at the ceiling and think about all the things I’ll never do. Better?”
I watched him hobble away, each uneven step a reminder of everything we’d lost. The sound of his door slamming echoed through the house—a house that felt too big, too empty, too full of ghosts and secrets.
The floorboards creaked under his uneven gait, a sound that had become as familiar as breathing. Before the accident, he used to take the stairs two at a time, always in a rush to get somewhere, do something. Now, each step was measured, careful, like he was afraid of falling.
The kitchen seemed to close in around me as I cleaned up, my muscle memory taking over while my mind raced. Mom used to say the kitchen was the heart of a home, but lately, it felt more like a museum of what we’d lost. Her copper-bottom pots still hung in the same order she’d kept them. Dad’s coffee mug—the chipped one with the bad joke about cowboys—sat in its spot by the maker, untouched since that night. I thought about washing it once, but couldn’t bring myself to erase the coffee ring beneath it—the last thing he’d left behind.
Knowing sleep was a long way off, I pulled out the ranch’s ledgers, but instead of diving into the numbers, I found myself drawn to the photos stuck between the pages. Our dad showing Mav how to rope when he was barely big enough to hold the lariat. Mom teaching me to read a horse’s body language, her patience infinite as I struggled to understand. Family snapshots that felt like artifacts from another life.
A particularly loud gust of wind rattled the windows, drawing my attention outside. Porter was crossing the yard toward the equipment barn, his stride purposeful even at this hour. It wasn’t late, but the workday had ended long ago.
Part of me wanted to tell him to get some rest, but that would mean acknowledging I cared about his well-being, and I couldn’t afford that kind of weakness.
Still, I found myself watching him disappear into one of the outbuildings. He’d been working nonstop since the fire, taking on tasks I hadn’t even known needed to be done. It was getting harder to hold on to my anger when his every action seemed focused on saving what was left of my family’s legacy.
The sound of breaking glass upstairs shattered my thoughts. I took the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding. “Mav?”
No answer. I tried his door—locked.
“Maverick! Open up!”
Silence, then a muffled curse followed by retching sounds.
I didn’t hesitate. The old bobby pin I kept in my pocket made quick work of the lock—a trick Dad had taught me. The scene inside knocked the breath from my lungs.
Mav was hunched over his trash can, the broken remnants of another whiskey bottle scattered across the floor. The smell of alcohol and vomit filled the air. His room was a mess of tangled sheets and discarded clothes, pain medication bottles lined up on his nightstand like silent accusers.
His rodeo trophies still lined the shelves, collecting dust now. Junior championships, buckles he’d won before he could drive—evidence of the future he’d been building. I’d offered to pack them away once, but the look he gave me had stopped that conversation cold. Some wounds were still too fresh to touch.
“Let me help,” I said softly, picking my way through the broken glass.
“Go away.” His voice was raw, defeated. “Just…go away, Cici.”
Instead, I helped him clean up and get into bed, ignoring his weak protests. He was asleep before I finished picking up the glass, his face finally peaceful in a way it never was when he was awake.
Back in the kitchen, I sat down, knowing I didn’t have the energy to review the ledgers but also that if I went to bed, I’d just lie there, worrying.
A knock on the door made me jump. Juan Martinez, a ranch hand who’d worked for us since before my parents died, stood there, looking uncomfortable. “Miss Morris? Sorry to bother you so late, but there’s something you should see in the west pasture.”
I followed him out into the night, the wind cutting through my jacket. The beam of his flashlight swept across the ground, illuminating fresh tire tracks just outside our fence line. Beside them, something metallic gleamed in the darkness—shell casings.
“Found them while doing my evening checks,” Martinez said quietly. “Look fresh.”
I crouched down, my fingers hovering over the brass cylinders. They were indeed fresh, probably from today. Someone had been on our property, armed. What bothered me the most was that I hadn’t heard any gunshots. Why not? What about Mav or Porter? Had they?
“You said you found them while doing evening checks? Are you always out working this late?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, I was gone most of the day on a personal matter.”
“It’s okay,” I muttered, thinking about my dad again when the brass caught the moonlight, reminding me of the way he used to check his own shells before heading out to deal with predators. He’d had a sixth sense about threats to the ranch. “Trust your gut,” he’d say, “but verify with your eyes.” Right now, both my gut and my eyes were screaming that something was very wrong.
The threatening letters stuffed in my desk drawer suddenly felt more real, more dangerous.
“Don’t tell Mr. Wheaton,” I said, surprising myself with the order. “Not yet.”
Martinez nodded, but I caught the doubt in his expression. I couldn’t deal with that now, though. Whatever decisions I made had to be based on what I thought was best for my brother and me.
Once back at the house, I heard Mav moving around upstairs, probably searching for another bottle he thought I didn’t know about. I’d say I’d fire whichever ranch hand was helping my underage brother get his hands on alcohol, but it could literally be anyone. Hard drinking was part of the “cowboy way of life.” Anyone who didn’t know that had never set foot on a ranch.
I rubbed the back of my neck as the weight of everything—our roughstock struggles, my brother’s pain, Porter’s mysterious arrival, and now, armed trespassers who’d fired shots I hadn’t heard—pressed down on me until I could barely breathe.
The ranch was more than just land and livestock—it was the story of my family written in fence posts and bloodlines. Every corner held a memory—the round pen where Dad had taught me to gentle wild horses, the creek where Mom had showed me how to find arrowheads after spring floods, the oak tree Mav fell from when he was ten, swearing he could fly. The tack room still held my dad’s training journals, leather-bound books filled with his careful observations about each horse that passed through our gates.
I’d found myself reading them lately, trying to understand not just his methods with horses, but his thoughts about the ranch’s future. The last entry was dated three days before the accident, the pen strokes rushed like he’d been distracted.
Now, those memories were tangled up with newer, darker ones. The north barn, for which I didn’t yet know the full extent of the damage. The empty bottles under Mav’s bed. The shadow of Porter Wheaton moving through spaces that used to belong only to us.
I pulled Dad’s old shotgun from the closet and checked the loads—a habit he’d drilled into me that seemed more necessary with each passing day. The shell casings in the west pasture meant someone was watching us, waiting. But for what?
The light in the equipment barn finally went dark. I watched Porter’s figure move through the moonlight toward the bunkhouse, his steps heavy with what I assumed was exhaustion. At some point tomorrow, I’d have to face him and pretend I didn’t see him checking on things day and night when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Just like I pretended I didn’t notice how my brother retreated further into himself with each passing day.
I stepped outside, breathing in the night air that carried the scent of snow. That crisp, clean smell always reminded me of better times—weekend rides with Dad, Mom’s hot chocolate waiting when we got back, Mav’s laughter echoing across the yard. Now, it just felt like another layer of cold, another reminder of how much we’d lost and how much more we stood to lose.
Standing guard over my broken family, I realized time might not be on our side. Something was happening to the ranch—to all of us—and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was only going to get worse before it got better. If there was still a chance for better, at all. Another thing my dad used to say was that hope was like a good horse—you had to work to maintain it, train it, and believe in it even when it fought you. These days, hope felt more like a wild thing, slipping through my fingers no matter how tightly I tried to hold on.