Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Reeling from Dave Swain’s message, Sly stepped outdoors. Tim Carpenter’s accusations and countersuit—all of it was a big load of bull crap, stuff he would deal with when he contacted the attorney in the morning.
What he couldn’t handle was Lana’s off-the-cuff gut reaction to the news. Her expression had clearly revealed she suspected he’d poisoned Carpenter’s cattle. That stung and also made him mad, mostly at himself for breaking his own cardinal rule and trusting her. And for starting to care.
What a damn fool he was. He wanted to head for the barn, jump on Bee and gallop through the darkness until his mind emptied. But he needed his boots for that, and they were in his bedroom. He wasn’t about to return to the house or face her again until he pulled himself together.
Nothing to do but pace the porch in his bare feet. The motion-activated lights kicked on, and he could easily see where he was going. Step around the porch furniture. Thud-thud-thud. Pivot around and don’t think. Thud-thud-thud.
He was starting his third lap and nowhere near calm when the back door opened and Lana slipped outside. Light from the kitchen sliced right through the T-shirt he’d loaned her, silhouetting her naked body. The body he lusted after and couldn’t get enough of.
Even now, smarting and angry, he wanted her. Silently, he called himself every name in the book—idiot, lamebrain, stupid jerk, and a few four-letter epithets he wouldn’t use on his worst enemy.
She reached out to him. “Please, can we talk?”
“What for?” He stepped away from her. “You assume I poisoned those cows.”
On the slim hope he’d misread her, he sucked in a breath and waited for her to deny it. She didn’t.
His laugh sounded hollow even to his own ears. “You should leave.”
“Not like this.”
“That’s right—you’re wearing my shirt. Go upstairs and get your clothes.”
“That’s not what I meant, Sly, and you know it. If you want me to go, I will, but not while you’re angry. First, we have to straighten this out.”
“You should’ve thought about that before you assumed I poisoned your cousin’s cows.”
Barefoot or not, if he didn’t get some space, he’d explode. He strode down the porch steps and kept going, wincing as he stepped on pebbles and God knew what else, until he heard the kitchen door close as Lana reentered the house.
Before long she was outside again, in her own clothes, purse slung over her shoulder and keys in hand. She stopped right in front of him, just beyond the reach of the porch light. Even so, he could see the pleading gleam in her eyes.
“You wouldn’t poison anyone’s cattle,” she said. “Neither would Cousin Tim. I just... His countersuit caught me by surprise.”
Nothing she said explained the shock and horror on her face when her mother had told her about the countersuit. That Lana had suspected him, even for a moment, was unacceptable. Unbearable.
His heart constricted painfully. He’d trusted her, but she couldn’t trust him. He gave a terse nod. “Good night, Lana.”
Her mouth trembled, and for a minute he feared she was going to cry. He hoped not. He was already treading on thin emotional ice himself, hurt to the quick and barely holding it together.
But she only raised her chin and walked past him, into the darkness and toward her car.
Sly woke up Wednesday in a bum mood, and things only got worse after he spoke with his attorney. “I didn’t do it,” he told Dave.
“I know that.”
His attorney believed in him. Why couldn’t Lana? He was still kicking himself for letting his guard down last night. For allowing her to get too close.
“The question is, can you prove it to Tim Carpenter?” Dave asked.
“How in hell am I supposed to prove I didn’t do it?” Sly grumbled. “I assume he had an autopsy done on the animal that died.”
“He used the same vet as you. His heifer had arsenic poisoning. The three that are sick have the same symptoms, but they’ll probably survive.”
“Sounds very similar to what happened to my cattle,” Sly said. “Carpenter must think I’m retaliating for what he did. Oh, that’s rich. What am I supposed to do now?”
“My suggestion is for you and Carpenter to meet with a mediation attorney. I can recommend one who’s top-notch. I spoke with him earlier and he’s willing to work with the two of you to reach some kind of resolution.”
“There’s nothing to resolve,” Sly said. “I didn’t do it.”
“As you know all too well, your counter-plaintiff is claiming the same thing.”
Sly mumbled a few choice words and for the first time, considered a new angle. What if someone else was involved? “Let me think about the mediator and get back to you.”
He spent most of the next two days alone on his horse, galloping across the ranch in search of calves that had become separated from the herd.
He didn’t find any. Which was a good thing, but he needed the distraction that herding a lost calf or two would have provided.
With effort he managed to steer his mind away from Lana and their night together. It’d become too painful to remember.
Instead, he focused on the new turn of events with Carpenter. Before the countersuit, he’d believed the situation was as bad as it could get. He’d been wrong. His life seemed to be spinning out of control.
The poisonings were too similar to be a coincidence, which meant someone was messing with them. But if another person was involved, how would he ever recoup the money he’d lost, and how could he possibly find that person?
Late Friday morning he made a decision. He couldn’t go on like this, and hoped Carpenter felt the same. He’d attempt to talk to his neighbor again, so they could straighten out this mess. Just the two of them, without a mediator or any lawyers involved.
His mind made up, he rode Bee to her favorite pasture, removed her saddle and slapped her lightly on the rump.
She trotted to a big shady hawthorn and began to nibble sweet grass.
He slid his cell phone from his pocket. He was searching for Carpenter’s number when the thing rang.
His screen identified the caller as Timothy Carpenter.
Speak of the devil. “Carpenter,” he said by way of greeting. “I was about to call you.”
“Is that so. Planning on cussing me out?”
“Something like that. You and I need to sit down and talk. No lawyers—just you and me, man-to-man.”
“Damn straight, we do.”
That the rancher was willing to talk with Sly at all was progress of a sort. “Where and when?” he asked.
“My place. Now.”
“As long as you don’t point any guns my way or try to take a punch at me.”
“I won’t, if you don’t accuse me of something I didn’t do.”
“No guns, no accusations,” Sly agreed. “Just the two of us talking things through.”
Fifteen minutes later he drove up Carpenter’s driveway, past a barn that had seen better days.
He stopped next to the house, which could use a coat or two of paint.
The buildings at the Lazy C needed work, but the fields beyond were green and populated with livestock.
He noted a tractor and a few men in the distance.
Wearing reflector sunglasses and a Stetson, his neighbor stood on the porch. As Sly crossed the yard, Carpenter folded his arms over his chest.
Matching his unwelcoming scowl, Sly climbed the stairs. Neither of them removed their hats or their shades. “I didn’t poison your cattle,” he stated.
“Yeah? Well, I didn’t poison yours, either.”
Though Carpenter had five or six years on Sly, they were roughly the same height and both muscular and strong. Despite the sunglasses, Sly sensed his hostile glare.
He rested his hands low on his hips. “Gonna ask me to sit down, or are we going to do this standing up?”
His neighbor nodded at a pair of lawn chairs in the front yard, in the shade of an old black walnut. They both sat down, their weight causing the old chairs to creak.
“I’d have bet my left arm that you poisoned my cows to get back at me for dragging out the lawsuit,” Carpenter said.
Sly snorted. “That’s not how I work. Ask anyone in town. I prefer to solve my problems by talking them out.”
The ones that weren’t too personal, that was. He tended to keep those close to the chest. “I’m starting to wonder if someone else might have set us both up.”
Carpenter bent down and plucked a blade of grass, the expression of doubt on his face reminding Sly of Lana.
That she believed him capable of poisoning Carpenter’s cows hurt. But he didn’t want to think about that. Pushing the pain inside, he waited his neighbor out.
Carpenter straightened again, stuck the blade of grass between his lips and rolled it to the corner of his mouth before he went on. “You’re smarter than you look, Pettit. Something came to my attention this morning that put me of the same mind.”
Sly tipped his hat back and pulled off his shades. “What’re you saying?”
Carpenter, too, removed his sunglasses and looked directly at Sly. “That someone who wanted to do me serious harm set me up by poisoning your cattle and making me look guilty. When things didn’t go as fast as he wanted, he upped the ante and poisoned some of mine.”
Sly swore. “You must have made some nasty enemies.” Given Carpenter’s sour disposition, not hard to believe. “Just who is this crazy person?”
“A son of a dog by the name of Pitch Alberts.”
Sly had never heard of the man. “I’m not familiar with him.”
“You wouldn’t be. About a year and a half ago, he came into town looking for a job.
He worked for me until mid-November of last year.
That’s when I found out he was stealing hay and cattle feed from me.
Of course, I sacked him. He didn’t have any money.
I knew he’d never pay me back for what he’d stolen, and the loss wasn’t big enough for me to press charges.
“Pitch didn’t appreciate losing his job just before the holidays, but that was his fault. I told him he was lucky I didn’t call the sheriff.”
Sly probably would have done the same thing.
“Pitch hadn’t crossed my mind since, until Eddie, a guy on my summer crew, said he ran into the guy last night at a bar. Pitch had had a few and was bragging that he’d fixed my wagon. From there it was a matter of putting two and two together.”
Sly shook his head. “I trust you’ve been in touch with Sheriff Dean.”
“This morning, right after Eddie told me. The sheriff’s been out searching for Pitch, to take him in for questioning. As yet, that’s all I know, but I’d stake my ranch he did it.”
“If that’s true, then I owe you an apology,” Sly said.
“I’ll take it. I’ll owe you one, too. By the way, my lawyer advised me to keep all this to myself for now. I wouldn’t want Pitch suing me for slander.” The corner of Carpenter’s mouth lifted, the closest he’d ever come to smiling.
“Copy that. I’ll do the same, then. Keep me informed.”
“After my lawyer, you’ll be the first person I’ll contact.” They shook hands and parted almost amicably, Sly in a much better mood than when he’d arrived. Things hadn’t turned out at all as he’d expected, and he shook his head at that.
Regardless, he still needed the new drainage system and still didn’t want to borrow money to pay for it. He’d been so focused on either getting reimbursed by Carpenter or taking out a costly loan that he hadn’t considered other options. There had to be another way.
His mind spinning, he returned home. Sitting in the truck in his driveway, he phoned Dave and filled him in. “I’ll keep you updated,” he promised.
Then he contacted Bob Haggerty, the engineer who owned the drainage-system company, and set up a meeting for later that afternoon.
It was a relief to have the answers to all the questions he’d had for months now. Lana would want to know what had happened, and Sly itched to fill her in. But he and Carpenter had agreed to keep it quiet for now. Besides, after the other night, Sly wouldn’t be telling her anything.
His high spirits nose-dived and his chest constricted. He felt as if he was suffocating. If not for a recent physical and the news that he was as fit as a kid half his age, he’d have called his doctor.
There was just time to fit in a ride on Bee before the meeting with Haggerty. He stalked toward the pasture and whistled for his horse. He rode her bareback, racing into the wind until finally his mind cleared and he could breathe again.