6. Five
By sundown, John had eaten again and slept most of the afternoon in a bunk built for an ordinary man. I left him there with one arm hanging off the mattress, snoring loudly enough to rattle the window, while Rafe sent Linc and me to check the north fence before dark.
I hadn't put more than a wall between us since the pit, and I felt every step of it.
We worked the north fence and turned up nothing but loose wire, rabbit tracks, and one gate somebody had failed to latch. I kept measuring the distance back to the bunkhouse anyway, counting how long it would take to cover it if John woke up and needed me.
Close to midnight, the mare stopped beneath me.
She lifted her head and pinned her ears on the path ahead. Nimue tightened once around my throat.
Something pale lay across the dirt.
I dismounted and found the fox. It lay in the open, nowhere an animal would have crawled to. Somebody had set it down where I'd have to get off the horse and put my hands on it.
Linc's headlamp snapped on and blinded me. I growled and put a hand over my eyes.
"Sorry." He angled the light toward the ground. "Mountain lion?"
"No." I dropped my hand and stayed over the fox. Somebody had arranged it. My hackles came up before I had a reason.
I squatted over the carcass with Nimue heavy around my neck. The fox had been dead a few hours. Its belly remained full, the soft organs untouched. Four cuts opened its side from shoulder to hip, straight and evenly spaced.
I spread the fur around the top cut with two fingers. Claws caught and tore. These edges were smooth. I lifted the hindquarters with a stick and breathed through my nose. Blood. Dirt. No musk. No cat piss. Nothing had claimed the meat.
"Knife," I said.
Linc crouched beside me. "Somebody cut it?"
I nodded. "Four times, then combed the fur over the wounds to make them look like claws."
"Why?"
"To make sure we came looking. He wants me out here."
Somewhere behind me, John slept in a bunk. I shut the thought down and went back to the trail with my chest still tight.
Linc reached back for his rifle.
I put the fox down and read the dirt around it. One man had stood near the head. Big boot, deep heel, broad through the ball. The other had knelt beside the body to make the cuts. Smaller boot. The outside edge of the right heel had a chunk missing, leaving a clean square notch in the prints.
Two men had carried the fox in from the north and left the same way.
"They crossed the fence," I said.
"Javelinas?"
"Zaroff likes signatures."
I turned to the tree line.
The night was quiet. No bugs in the brush, nothing calling. Even the horses had quit grazing, heads up and pointed north.
Loose dirt still sat on the edges of the tracks.
Linc took the radio from his belt. "North patrol to Rafe."
Static, then Rafe's voice. "Go."
"We've got two men inside the fence. Looks staged. Coyote says they came from the north and walked back out."
"Any sign they're still close?"
The smaller mare had her ears pinned toward the trees.
"Yes," I said.
Linc relayed it.
Rafe answered after a moment. "Follow long enough to see which direction they're moving. Do not engage unless you have to. Check in at the north wash."
"Copy."
Linc put the radio away and looked at me. "You heard the part about not engaging?"
"I hear everything. I only ignore most of it."
"That's comforting."
I stood and started along the tracks.
They had walked single-file once they reached the brush, the smaller man stepping into the prints of the larger. Smart enough to hide the count after leaving it for me at the fox. They kept to low ground where the dirt stayed soft, angling north and east toward the old service road.
That road ran the back of Pae Saco down to the south fence and the equipment sheds. If they reached it, they could drive back toward the ranch without using the main gate.
Ignoring the trail would have meant leaving two men loose on our land with a road to the house. So we followed.
The tracks crossed a patch of bare caliche and disappeared. I stopped at the edge and worked my light across the hard ground.
Linc shifted behind me. "Lose them?"
"The tracks stop. He didn't."
I walked the perimeter a step at a time. A crushed stem leaned away from the trail. Dust sat on one side of a stone and not the other. Farther on, a juniper branch had twisted and failed to settle back into place.
I found the large heel again beyond the hardpan. The smaller man had kept stepping in his partner's prints. Or that was what they wanted me to believe. I crouched and put two fingers beside the heel. Deep. Same weight as before. The toe pointed toward the service road.
"We keep going," I said.
Linc looked back toward the dark behind us. "You think they're headed around to the south fence?"
"I think they want us to think they are."
The radio hissed when Linc tried Rafe at the wash. The walls stood too high on either side to push a signal out. Neither of us expected anything else out of the north wash.
"We can ride back until we hit signal," Linc said.
"And lose whatever they're doing out here."
"Or walk straight into it."
The men hadn't tried very hard to hide. That bothered me. So did the silence. Whoever was ahead knew we were following and wanted us to keep following.
But the prints still angled toward the road behind the ranch.
"We go as far as the ridge," I said. "From there we can see the service road and call in. If the trail keeps north, we turn back."
"The ridge," Linc said. "Then we turn around. I mean it, Coyote."
"Ransom get up to Albuquerque this week?" I asked.
"Tuesday." Linc kept his eyes on the fence line. "Says his brother's holding a fork now. Fed himself some eggs."
"That's good."
"That's eleven years and a fork." Linc reined around a cholla. "Ransom drove home doing ninety. Happiest I've seen him since Winston."
The trail climbed out of the wash and crossed another strip of hard ground. I found the large man again on the other side. His stride had shortened going uphill. The left foot turned outward slightly when he put weight on it.
No second edge. No partial toe. Nothing from the smaller boot.
It was possible he was still walking in his partner's tracks.
Men did it to hide their count, and I'd watched this pair do it once already.
But nobody steps in another man's prints for a mile without landing short somewhere, one lazy heel, one half-moon of toe outside the line, and this trail didn't have one in it.
My teeth started aching low in the back.
I kept on it anyway. The prints still angled toward the service road, and the road was what mattered.
The ridge rose ahead. Past the top, a low orange glow moved once and disappeared.
Linc saw it too. "Fire?"
"Lantern. Somebody's got a coat over it."
We tied the horses in the wash and went the rest of the way on foot.
The tracks led us through a narrow break in the rocks and into a shallow bowl protected from the wind. Somebody had made camp there.
One bedroll lay open beside a small fire. A coffee pot sat near the coals. Empty gas cans stood against the rock. A stone pinned a county map to the dirt. Somebody had marked the north fence in black and drawn an arrow toward Pae Saco's service road.
Linc crouched by the fire and held his hand above it. "Still warm."
I worked the camp without touching anything. One cup, one plate, one bedroll. The food tin held enough for one man. A single set of boot prints moved between the fire, bedroll, and rocks.
Linc looked around. "Where's the other one?"
I walked back to the entrance and found the large heel in the dirt.
The camp hadn't been left in a hurry. The man had walked out north less than an hour ago, leaving a trail as easy to follow as the one that brought us there.
Everything in the bowl pointed the same direction, and that was convenient. Too convenient.
My skin tightened across my shoulders. I worked the camp again, slower this time. The map was new. No dust beneath it. The gas cans were empty but didn't smell like fuel. The coffee pot held warm water darkened with dirt.
This wasn't a camp. It was a picture of one.
"Linc."
He stood. "What did you find?"
"One man came out here and built this for us to find." I kicked the nearest gas can. It rolled hollow across the dirt. "The other never crossed the caliche."
Linc looked toward the entrance. "You found his prints after."
"I found the big man's. I assumed the smaller one kept stepping inside them."
The hard ground came back to me. The twisted juniper branch. The large heel waiting clean on the far side. The smaller man had split off where the ground became unreadable. He had turned south over rock while his partner laid a trail toward this camp.
"They didn't draw us away because I made a mistake," I said. "They put two men inside our fence and gave me a trail aimed at the service road. They knew I'd have to follow."
Linc's face paled. "Big John."
The words hit me low in the gut.
John was at the ranch. Hurt. Unarmed. Sleeping in a bunkhouse with too many windows and a stolen motorcycle sitting under a tarp two buildings away.
I ran.
The rocks tore at my boots as I dropped down off the ridge. Nimue lay cold and tight at my throat the whole way down. Linc stayed close behind me, the rifle knocking against his back.
The horses heard us and snapped alert in the wash.
I grabbed the mare's saddle horn, jammed one foot into the stirrup, and swung up before she settled. Pain flashed through my knee. I ignored it and pulled her around.
Linc reached for the radio. "Rafe. Rafe, come back. North patrol returning. Possible attack at the ranch."
Static. He tried again. Nothing. The ridge still stood between us and the signal.
I dug my heels into the mare. She came off the rock and hit dirt running. Linc shouted something after me. I didn't answer him. He had his own horse and he could find the ranch in the dark.
John was miles off with no idea anything was coming. Hold on, big man.
The wash opened up in front of us. I flattened down over her neck and gave her all of it. Her mane whipped my face and I didn't feel it. They'd baited me with my own work. Laid a trail because they knew my nose would do the rest, and I'd followed it like a dog while they walked in behind me.
Fine. They knew what I did for this ranch. They were about to learn what else I did.
I was going home to kill every man who had touched what was mine.