Chapter Five
West
Monday afternoon, I’m grilling steaks and corn in my outdoor kitchen while Ham headbutts me, probably for eating his long-lost cousin.
Wyatt should be showing up any minute. We may all live on this ranch, but we don’t live in each other’s pockets more than we need to.
My family knows you call ahead when you’re coming to my house.
A boundary I put in place after being caught jerking off on my damn front porch by my brother’s and Cash.
Didn’t live that one down for a long time.
Wyatt’s bright orange truck tears up the drive and pulls to a stop just inches from my back bumper. He’s always driven like a maniac. I blame Wade for teaching him to bash around the pastures at ten.
“Smells good,” Wyatt shouts from his open window.
“Get on up here then, it’s ready.”
My brother collects the stack of books from the front seat and climbs out, bumping it with his hip to close the door.
I grab a paper plate from the counter and throw on a steak, some charred bell peppers, and a couple cobs of corn and hold it up out of Ham’s reach.
He’ll eat anything at head height. Wyatt places the stack of books on the table and takes the food I offer.
I fix my plate, and pull a couple of beers from the mini fridge.
When we turn back around, Ham is licking the stack of paperbacks.
“Hey, outta that.” I growl. Bull spit is fucking sticky, and I don’t want the pages of Wade’s newest dragon rider books ruined before I can find out what the hell happened after that cliffhanger.
“I still can’t believe we’re not eating this little shit,” Wyatt says.
Ham bellows at him as if he knows exactly what he’s saying.
“Don’t you talk that way about my son.” I throw Ham a cob of corn and tuck into my meal, suddenly ravenous. “Took you long enough to finish this one, by the way.”
“I needed a little extra time with Xaiden.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Dude, bull saliva better be the only thing tacking up those pages.”
My brother grins. “Maybe you should think about getting a kindle.”
“All I’m taking from that is I need a full hazmat suit to read those books.”
“Couldn’t hurt.” He shrugs. “Speaking of blowing your load, how’s driving Miss Daisy?”
“Knock it off,” I say sternly.
Wyatt laughs. “So touchy.”
“Thanks for telling Lemon about my reading habits, by the way. She had a field day with that one. Even brought it up in conversation to the date she set me up on.”
Wyatt says, “I heard you got bitch slapped. Besides, you know what Lemon’s like. It’s impossible to keep anything from her.”
“Be honest, she beat it outta you, didn’t she?”
“She twisted my arm, like literally. And she’s really damn strong.
” We both laugh, because our sister has always been kind of a bully.
I sip my beer and grin when my phone buzzes in my pocket, hoping it’s a text from Daisy.
My smile quickly vanishes, when I get a 911 sent from Wade, only this is not to the family group chat, but to a chat I share with only my brothers, Colt, and Cash.
Wyatt glances at his phone too, his face dropping, and I call Wade as we both stand and head for his truck.
“Brother, what’s happening?”
“You gotta get down here, I was driving past the east pasture. There’s ... hundreds of them. West ...” static crackling filters through the speaker.
“You’re breaking up,” I say, climbing in the cab of Wyatt’s truck. He peels out of the drive and heads east. “Hundreds of what?”
“Just ... down ...” More static. This is bullshit. I’m getting about every second word Wade is saying. “I don’t ... wrong with ’em.”
The call cuts out. I slam my fist against the glove compartment. It pops open, and I rifle through it for a walkie. Cell reception often sucks here on the ranch, so we always have walkies handy for this very reason.
“Where’s your walkie?”
“Uh ... in the barn, on the charger.”
“Fuck. Is there a reason it’s not in your vehicle, where it’s supposed to be?”
“Yeah,” my brother sasses. “Because it’s charging in the barn.”
“No shit, dickhead.”
Wyatt tears around a corner and I swear we get air over a few bumps and a cattle grid or two on the way to the east pasture.
I have to clutch the “oh shit” handle more than once.
Twenty minutes later, we grab flashlights and a shotgun from Wyatt’s truck.
I hold the barbed wire apart for Wyatt to climb through the fence, and then he does the same for me.
A few moments later, we’re following Wade’s flashlight signals.
Colt and Cash are already on scene, and as far as I can tell, there’s no one else here.
Then it dawns on me, there’s supposed to be fifty head of bred heifers in this field.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask. All three men point their torches over the pasture and all I see are red, white, brown, and cream bodies lying on their sides, not breathing.
“I don’t know,” Wade says, shaking his head. “I was out clearing my head, took the ATV because the weather man said it might rain, and I drove past the herd looking like this.”
“Fuck!”
“Could be bloat,” Wade says.
“All fifty of them?” I ask.
“Could be poisoning,” Cash adds. “Alfalfa?”
“We don’t plant that shit,” I snap.
“We don’t,” Colt says. “But what if someone laid it down after dark?”
“Wouldn’t the trail cams pick it up?” Wyatt asks.
I shake my head. “We don’t have any in this field.”
There’s a long pause as we all take in the utter decimation of so many lives, then Colt says quietly, “How many men in the bunkhouse know that?”
I frown at my best friend. “You think this is an inside job? Who would be stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds?”
Colt spits. “Let’s go find out.”
“We need to call your brother first,” I grumble and glance at Cash. “Get his team out here.”
Rhett Williams is an old teammate from high school, and now, a Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) special ranger. He’s an asshole, but I think that’s why we understand one another.
“Wade, you and Cash are staying under the stars tonight.”
Wade’s head snaps in my direction. “The fuck?”
“Don’t fucking test me on this, brother.” I get up in his face. “If our cattle have been poisoned, this is a fucking crime scene.”
“I’ll stay,” Colt says. “If we cut the fence, I can back my truck in and sleep in the bed.”
“Your wife is pregnant. You’re not staying out all night. The less Mama and my sister know about this, the better. We don’t need them worrying.”
“Shouldn’t we all be worried?” Wyatt says.
“You,” I point to Wyatt. “Drive me home so I can call Rhett. They won’t send a team ’til the morning.”
“Sooo, I guess Cash and I will just sleep on the ground, then?” Wade calls to my retreating back.
“I want you both awake and alert. Wyatt, give him your shotgun.”
“I bought my own.”
“I’ll take it,” Cash says. “I only grabbed a pistol before I left. Wasn’t sure what kind of fight we were in for.”
Wyatt sighs. “You better take care of her.”
“Wyatt! Get your ass in the Truck. Now.”
Colt and I are already halfway across the pasture by the time my little brother catches up. “Who woulda done this?”
“Don’t know.” I spit. “But we’re gonna find out.”
The three of us head to the bunkhouse and question some of the ranch hands. I know beyond a doubt that no one who has worked this land for the better part of their lives is at risk of being guilty, but these drifters are just that—they drift—with no loyalty to any specific ranch or outfit.
Despite our efforts, there weren’t a lot of answers down that avenue. Just tired, hardworking men who had bled for my land and didn’t appreciate the interruption to their supper.
Wyatt drops me home. I clean the mess Ham has made of my porch and pick up the overturned bottles of beer covered in bull spit. Typical teenager. Then I put Ham to bed in his barn and walk inside to call Rhett.
“Winchester, you better have a real good reason for calling my number after ten and interrupting my date.”
“Can’t have been much of a date if you’re answering my call.”
“Fair point. It ended early anyway,” he deadpans. “What’s happening?”
“We got a situation at the ranch. Fifty bred heifers, springers, and cows, poisoned.”
He cusses. “What kind of poison?”
“That’s why I’m calling you.”
“I’ll bring a team in the morning. We’ll collect samples. Tell me you’ve stationed someone there you trust?”
“Wade and Cash.”
“Good. Make sure they know it’s a crime scene.”
“They know it’s a crime scene, Rhett. What we don’t know is who committed it.”
“Well, that’s why I’m paid the big bucks.” He laughs humorlessly. “I’ll be there at first light.”
“East gate. I don’t need your people trekking shit all over my pastures and I don’t want to worry my Mama and sister with this.”
“Understood.”
We hang up, and I toss my phone on the couch.
I pour myself a stiff drink and scrub my hands through my beard.
We can’t afford a loss like this, especially not coming into winter.
The Bed and Breakfast slows down, feed costs grow due to frost, and this head of cattle would have been sold next summer, with a calving season in spring.
Now they’re all dead, and there will be a lot less calves on the ranch next year.
Fuck. A loss like this could ruin my family, the ranch, my sibling’s livelihoods, and my mama’s home.
“Fuck!” I roar and hurl my glass at the fireplace.
Shards of glass litter the stone and floorboards; whiskey runs in rivulets down the brick.
Outside, Ham bellows his unrest from the barn.
Tomorrow, I need to plan to bring us back from the brink of bankruptcy but tonight, I’m okay drinking myself to damn death.