Chapter 2
Jake
My skull throbs with each hoofbeat. Vince’s knuckles left a tender spot above my eye that pulses in time with the hangover.
I squint against the January sun reflecting off the snow as I follow the fenceline.
Somewhere ahead, my Longhorns are trampling all over Moorhead land, probably leaving steaming piles of shit right where Steve, the oldest son of old man Moorhead, can step in them.
I touch the bruise and see Ella’s face again—the way her smile froze when Vince’s fingers dipped below her waistband. My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache. The memory burns hotter, keeping me warmer than my sheepskin coat.
A coyote’s yip brings me back to the present, which was a good thing, because the mare beneath me hesitates, one hoof hovering above the crusted snow before breaking through to dirt. I lean forward, easing back on the reins. “Easy, Hourglass,” I murmur, watching how her ears flick back at her name.
That’s the last thing we’d need is to be stranded out in the middle of nowhere with a blizzard approaching.
I had named her Hourglass, maybe because when I looked at her, I saw the shape of days getting away from me. Mostly what she did was hang her head and side-eye the other horses—never spooking, but never warm—like she was reserving judgment for every living beast.
The first fence break was a tangle of barbed wire and two snapped posts.
I pulled up, dismounted, and unclipped the repair kit from the saddle.
It took less than ten minutes to cut the wires loose and bend the ends backwards, so that any animal wouldn’t catch themselves on it.
The posts would have to wait til the spring thaw.
That meant the cattle would be let out closer to home, which was fine by me.
I’d done it at least a hundred times since buying the ranch and would likely do it a hundred more.
Back in the saddle, we made our way another half-mile up.
Here, the snow deepened considerably. I scanned the drifts, but all I saw was the white-blanketed chaos from last night’s wind.
If the steers had made it this way, their tracks were buried.
Instead, I focused on the horizon, where Moorhead’s land curved into the old cottonwoods by the creek.
Best chance was they’d holed up there—steers hated an open winter pasture more than I did.
I clicked my tongue and nudged Hourglass on. I was almost to the creek when I heard the low, angry bawling. Relief—it meant the herd was close. Then I heard voices.
The Moorheads. I slowed and kept to the shelter of the trees.
I tied Hourglass to a branch and stalked through the brush and saw the three Moorhead boys, Steve, the oldest, flanked by the twins, their faces pinked up from the cold, and their brand-new cowboy hats still stiff on their heads.
Between them, they had lashed five of my longhorns together with hog wire, two of the steers bleeding where the wire bit in.
The twins were arguing over which of them could ride a heifer back to the barn, and Steve was smoking, doing the ugly-lipped squint that passed for thinking. All of them were facing away from me.
This would be the part where I burst in waving my rifle, but I didn’t. The problem with escalation is that it never worked—just made for bigger, meaner fireworks next time.
So I stepped on a stick instead, making enough racket to make Steve spin around.
“Well, hey there, Jakey-boy,” he called. One of the twins pulled out his phone to film, already grinning.
“You mind telling me why you’re tying up my herd?” I asked.
“Strays,” Steve said, flicking his cigarette to the snow. “We figured if you couldn’t keep ‘em fenced, we ought to keep ‘em for you.”
I scanned the steers. Two were mine for sure—one with the white blaze, the other with a crimped horn from when I’d tried branding her solo in August.
“You cut ‘em loose and walk away, Steve. We don’t need another mess,” I said, every word measured.
But the second twin—Danny, the meaner one—stepped forward. “Or what, Jake?” He said my name as if it tasted sour. “You're gonna come crying to those good-for-nothing police chief? Tell him the Moorheads are picking on you?”
I could’ve threatened them, but instead I looked calm, hands out of my pockets. “You three really need the trouble? Over a couple steers?”
That got a rise. For a second, Danny looked to Steve for a signal. None of them were built for quick thinking. I waited, let them stew.
Steve shrugged, flicked his chin at the twins, and they started unraveling the wire. I took small steps forward, not wanting to spook the steers or antagonize the Moorhead into trying something stupid.
When the last steer shook himself free, I said, “Appreciate it.” I took the lead and started herding them away.
Steve muttered, “Watch your line, Jake. Next time we’re keeping ‘em.”
“Next time,” I said, “they won’t break through.”
As I rounded up the herd, Hourglass fussed over the ground near a patch of grass and glared at me. I knew she wanted to bolt, to run, to be anywhere but in a standoff with the Moorheads.
But I kept her steady, nudged her behind the steers, and didn’t look back till we’d crossed the creek.
The sky above was crystal clear, not a cloud in sight for now, the kind of pale blue that made you think things could start over if you wanted them to. I did, and I didn’t.
Instead, I counted the steers and kept on, because all anybody expected from a Harper son was keeping the line straight, even when the world wanted to twist it.
At the next break in the fence, I saw the blood. Fresh and gleaming against the snow.
Human blood, and a trail leading east, away from my land and toward the empty prairie. My first thought was the twins, screwing around. My second was worse: maybe it was left for me.
I spurred Hourglass and followed the trail. All the while, I heard that sound again, that ugly struggle at the bar—a chair falling, someone gasping, my fist connecting with flesh.
And the look in Ella’s eyes right at the end. The way she stared at me, not with gratitude, but like she knew I’d never change the way things worked in this valley, only hold them at a simmer.
The barn came into view as I herded the cattle up an incline and pushed Hourglass into a trot.
Tomorrow I’d patch the last run of fence, but by dusk I had nothing more left in me than to latch the barn, check on the horses, and listen to the flanks of cattle breathing in the dark.
I slopped feed into the trough, my hands thawing with each shovel.
Hourglass watched me from her stall, ears canted with suspicion that I was about to make her work again.
I stroked her muzzle, felt the warmth, the steady pulse under her skin, and wished for a second that I could live like that—just eating oats, immune to the world’s harder edges.
I’d barely shut the barn door behind me when the wind brought that coppery smell again, iron bright and wrong even among the aromas of manure and hay. It was a trail from the barn to the base of the porch stairs. I drew closer.
On the top step, doubled over and shivering under empty feedbags, was a man. He was thick through the neck and forearms, with a face that looked familiar. I couldn’t tell how much of the red on his hands was from bloodstain or if it was frostbite.
“Goddammit,” I muttered.
I shake his shoulder. His eyes pop open, blue as creek ice.
“Jake?” More breath than voice. “They said you’d—”
I stare at him, the recognition slow and sour. The last time I’d seen my brother, he was in body armor, standing on the steps of Kabul’s airport. He was thinner now.
“Caleb,” I say.
He shivers so hard I can hear his teeth chatter. I heft him up, blood seeping through his sleeve and onto my glove. My body moves out of habit, unlocks the deadbolt, drags him over the threshold, and kicks the door shut. I get him to the couch and grab the ancient first aid kit from the kitchen.
He blinks up at me with a look that’s part apology, part accusation.
“You gotta help me,” he says.
My hands shake as I rinse the cut with whiskey, the cheap stuff I wouldn’t even use for company. He yelps, then passes out from the pain.
I want to ask a thousand questions, but part of me already knows the answers. I work on the gash in silence and tape him up. I cover him with a blanket, then head over to the window.
Outside, night settled as heavy as concrete. I sat at the kitchen table, not hungry, not tired, just waiting for something to happen next.
In the back room, Caleb’s breath evened out. There was a peace in the silence until the phone buzzed—unknown number. I almost didn’t pick up.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“Jake Brennen?” The voice was cold and female. “You don’t know me. But I know what you did last night. If you want the rest of your herd alive tomorrow, you’ll stay away from Ella.”
I could hear wind in the background. I could see the whole thing, the fence break, the scraps of longhorn hide in the wire, the look in the cattle’s eyes.
“You think you can scare me?” I said, but my voice was barely above a whisper.
“We’re not trying to scare you,” the voice replied. “We’re trying to save what’s left. And you’re in the way.”
She hung up. I let the silence settle, then stood, loaded the rifle, and sat at the kitchen window, watching the night.