Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Lincoln
Instinct was the only thing that saved me from being plowed into. Jumping off the log, I landed and immediately pivoted to my left to keep out of its path. Still, I grunted when something whipped across my shirt.
Rubbing my chest, I turned to watch as the apparition fled and when it suddenly separated itself from the running form and floated toward me, I batted it away.
I’d never heard of spirits dividing into parts before either.
Nor was I aware of anyone ever being able to touch an actual phantom, much less hold one.
The white settled to drape over my hand and my arm as well as swept against the ground.
Correction, it wasn’t totally white. Dark splotches dotted the surface.
“Polka-dotted Casper-wannabes do not exist,” I stated firmly.
“Mooooooooo!”
Childhood beliefs evaporated as I realized the mass was the very cow I’d been searching for and that the “ghost” I had captured was actually a sheet.
I turned to look in the direction the cow had come.
Why would a sheet be in the middle of the woods?
And who had been screaming? When another moo, this one sounding far more urgent was bellowed, I left stories behind to deal with reality.
Having left my lariat on the saddle horn, I twisted the sheet into a makeshift rope.
It was far too thick to be used as a lead, but with a few light touches, worked to direct the expectant cow to the break in the fence.
The long scratch down her side confirmed she’d run into the barbed wire taking this path.
When the hole was again in sight, I could only hope that the wire I’d kicked aside had gone far enough away so as not to twist around her hooves.
I held my breath until she was safely through, following close enough behind to keep her motivated but well out of kicking range in case she got tangled up again.
The thought of us both on the ground bleeding wasn’t exactly the cherry on top of the day’s sundae I wanted to taste.
“Come on, girl, let’s get you home,” I said.
“Now that sounds like a great idea!”
“Fuck me!”
“Hate to break it to you, bro, but you can slap lipstick on a hog but it’s still a hog and that is one kink I’m never going to be into.”
“You’re lucky shooting you in the balls isn’t one of my kinks,” I muttered, ignoring my brother’s chuckle from where he rode close enough so I could see he was sitting astride Duke.
His laughter broke off mid-chuckle. “Whoa, is that blood? Shit! Why didn’t you tell me you’re hurt?”
He was staring at the sheet that had started to unfurl when he’d startled me. As much as I’d like to scare the hell out of him, I appreciated the concern his tone held. “Not mine,” I said as my heart rate began to return to normal.
“Hers,” I clarified, nodding toward the cow who’d continued her run toward the pasture as if she’d just remembered where her next meal would likely be found.
Lifting the sheet, I looked back toward the woods then to him again. “Either she ran into some clothesline or something was ingenious enough to use this as a bandage.”
“Something?” Luther asked, his gaze following mine. “Are you saying you ran into Old Hairy?”
To say this was the strangest night of my life was an understatement.
Chalk it up to exhaustion, but at the moment, I was ready to believe in lost spirits, Bigfoot, aliens, and creatures that had supposedly gone extinct sixty-five million years ago.
But I wasn’t about to share those thoughts with Luther.
It would be like giving a middle-aged man a joke book and then wonder why in the hell I was forced to listen to Dad jokes every single hour of every single day.
With a shake of my head, I shrugged. “Hell, your guess is as good as mine.”
Luther looked as if he’d like to question me further, but evidently saw the same fatigue I saw on his face reflected in mine.
“While I love a good tall-tale as much as the next guy, what do you say we tell it over a glass of whiskey?”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, echoing his earlier words.
He waited while I stuffed the sheet into my saddle bag, slid the rifle back in its case, and mounted Zephyr.
“Hey, remember the one about bare-neck Ed?” he asked when I rode up beside him.
Despite myself, I chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a classic.”
His laughter rang out as we both clapped our heels against our horses’ flanks and headed home.