Chapter 4 #3
I swing down from Seven and crouch by the nearest post, running my fingers along the severed wire. The ends are bright. This wasn't last week. This was last night. Maybe early this morning, while I was passed out in Hunter's spare room, dreaming about a girl who won't text me back.
"Paulie."
He walks over, dust on his boots, sweat already staining the band of his hat.
Paulie's been working at Sterling Ranch since before I was born.
He's in his fifties, bowlegged, built like jerky, and there isn't a man alive who knows this land better.
He basically taught me everything I know about this ranch.
I had my dad, but I also had Paulie to look up to.
"When'd you find this?" I ask.
"First light. Rode out to check the line like I always do. Found the gap, saw the tracks, and called it in."
"Tracks?"
He points. I follow his finger to the dirt on the far side of the fence, the side that doesn't belong to us. Boot prints. Two sets, maybe three. And tire tracks, deeper and wider, the kind made by a flatbed or a stock trailer backing up close to the gap.
My jaw tightens.
"This isn't drift, Paulie. Someone opened this fence on purpose."
He nods. "That's what I reckoned."
I stand and look out across the fence line. From here, it runs straight south for about two miles before it hits the property boundary. And on the other side of that boundary, separated by a strip of land that the Bureau of Land Management doesn’t really enforce, sits Ranch 42.
The same ranch whose boys I put on the floor twelve hours ago.
A cold feeling settles in my gut.
"Where does this line go?" I ask, even though I already know. I want to hear him say it. Make sure my hangover isn’t disrupting my brain.
"Runs straight down to the 42 boundary," Paulie confirms. "This is the closest point between our herds and Carson's land. Always has been."
I pull my phone from my back pocket and dial Colten. He picks up on the second ring.
"If you're calling to tell me you're dying, I don't care. I feel worse than you do," Colten groans.
"Colt. I need you at Pasture Fifteen. Now."
Something in my voice cuts through his hangover. I hear the shift, the creak of a chair, the jingle of keys, Colten going from brother to soldier in half a breath.
"What's going on?"
"Fence line's been cut. Done last night or early this morning. Three sections down on the south line."
"The south line." A pause. "That's—"
"Ranch 42's boundary. Yeah."
Silence.
"I'm on my way. Twenty minutes."
"Bring your rifle."
I hang up and turn back to Paulie. The old man's watching me with pride.
"Paulie. I need a full count. Every head. Every single one. And I want the calves counted separately, check the tags, check the ear marks, match them against the registry. If we're missing so much as one calf, I want to know about it before lunch."
He tips his hat. "You think they're rustling?"
"I think someone opened our fence on the same night their boys picked a fight with us at Rosie's." I swing back up onto Seven and gather the reins. "And I think that's a hell of a coincidence."
Paulie doesn't argue. He's worked for Sterlings long enough to know that when one of us says something isn't a coincidence, it isn't a question.
He mounts up and rides east toward the scattered herd, already counting, doing the quiet, meticulous work that keeps a ranch this size from bleeding out at the edges.
I sit on Seven at the top of the rise and look south. Toward Ranch 42. Toward the tire tracks and the boot prints and the cut wire that tells me last night wasn't just a bar fight between drunk cowboys.
It was a play.
Brady and his boys rolling into Rosie's, picking a fight they knew they'd lose, making enough noise to keep us busy and distracted while someone else slipped out here in the dark with bolt cutters and a trailer.
The question is: what were they after? A few head of cattle? That's petty theft. Hardly worth the beating Brady took. No, if Carson is making a move, it's bigger than that. It's a message. A test. Seeing how long it takes us to notice, how we respond, and whether we've gotten soft since Dad died.
They're about to find out we haven't.
I pull out my phone and text Hunter.
Me: Fence cut on south line. Looks deliberate. Tracks heading toward 42. Colt's on his way. Getting a full count, calves included. Might be nothing. Gut says it isn't.
His reply comes in thirty seconds.
Hunter: Handle it. Keep me posted. I'll deal with Carson when I'm back.
I tuck the phone away, settle my hat on my head, and click my tongue. Seven moves out at a trot, heading down the slope toward the scattered herd, and I let the rhythm of the ride clear the last of the hangover from my blood.
The sun climbs higher. The grassland shimmers with heat. Somewhere south of here, someone thinks they can take from us and get away with it.
They can't.
The Greeks tried to fight their way in, tried to tear our family apart. They failed, but they ain’t dead yet.
As I ride, pushing cattle back toward the gate to Pasture Nine, there's a small, stubborn part of my brain that won't stop circling back to a cracked phone screen and an unanswered text.
Miss you.
I whistle for Seven, and we ride. Life goes on.