Chapter 10
Conner
I’m out of excuses.
Garrett asked me to find out who the outsiders are. That was Sunday. Five days ago. In that time, I’ve learned their first names, that Willow’s from Arkansas, that she knows cattle, and that she laughs like someone who’s forgotten she’s allowed to. That’s not an intelligence report. That’s a crush.
Time to do the job.
I start at the general store. The clerk—same woman who’s been behind the counter since I was buying candy bars at eight years old—is pricing canned goods when I walk in.
“Morning, Conner.”
“Morning, Deb. Got a question for you. The woman who’s been in here the last few days—auburn hair, out-of-state plates. You remember her?”
“Sure. Come in twice. Saturday and Sunday morning. Bought water, trail food, a county map. Paid cash both times.” Deb sets down a can of peaches. “Polite. Didn’t linger.”
“She say what she was doing in the area?”
“Saturday, she said she was passing through on her way to Austin. Asked if I knew of anyone looking for ranch hands. Said a friend of hers had come through a while back looking for work. Sunday, she just grabbed supplies. Didn’t say much.”
Passing through, then supplies. The first visit was casual, covering ground, asking about work. The second was picking up provisions. Consistent with someone settling in rather than passing through.
“Anything else? Anything that stood out?”
Deb thinks. “She seemed to know what she was buying. The trail food she picked: jerky, electrolyte packets, high-calorie bars. That’s what the ranch hands buy when they’re working a long day in the hills. Not tourist food.”
I thank her and head to the hardware store. Carl’s behind the counter, replacing a spool of fencing wire on the rack.
“The woman who’s been checking the notice board,” I say. “What do you remember?”
“Looked at the flyers. Took pictures of the ranch hand postings with her phone. Came by twice: Saturday and again on Sunday.” Carl straightens the spool. “She ask you for a job yet? She’s been calling around. Martha Caldwell told me she rang Tuesday asking about seasonal work.”
“What did Martha tell her?”
“Same thing Martha tells everybody: We don’t hire strangers, try the Forresters.”
I nod. “Anything else?”
“Nothing worth mentioning. Seemed capable. Didn’t waste time.”
The gas station is next, though I already know what I’ll get from Jake. Three words, if I’m lucky.
“The woman with the out-of-state truck. She’s been in a few times.”
Jake fills a windshield-wash reservoir without looking up. “Couldn’t say.”
“She bought gas Tuesday. Paid cash.”
“Lot of people buy gas.”
“Jake.”
He looks at me. Sets down the jug. “She came in. Paid for gas. Didn’t say anything interesting. Didn’t do anything strange.” He picks the jug back up. “That’s all I got.”
That’s Jake. The man would describe a tornado as “some wind.”
I lean against my truck outside the gas station and lay it out.
A woman—Willow—arrived Saturday with a companion.
She spent the first day scouting the town and asking about work.
Her companion spent the day in the hills…
Tate’s trail on the eastern ridge. Since then, she’s been around town intermittently: general store, hardware store, gas station, Dutch’s.
She’s asked about ranch work at two properties and been directed to us both times.
She bought field provisions. She knows cattle, knows ranching, knows how to move through rural country without drawing attention.
Her companion—Briar—likes the outdoors. Stays out of town. That’s all I’ve got on the second one.
Nothing I’ve found today contradicts the picture of two women traveling together, looking for work, passing through. The story is consistent. Nobody flagged anything suspicious. Nobody saw anything that didn’t fit.
I should be satisfied.
The problem is that satisfaction came too easily. I went looking for confirmation that she’s clean, and I found it, and the relief I feel tells me I wanted this answer before I started asking the questions.
Sometimes it just is what it is, Conner.
I don’t examine this thought too closely. I put the truck in gear and head for the compound.
Garrett’s at the south pens when I find him.
He’s overseeing a crew moving yearlings from the lower pasture: the fall sorting, separating the keepers from the ones headed to market.
He’s on the fence rail, hat pushed back, watching the work with the unhurried attention of a man who’s been handling cattle since before he was handling the pack.
Two of the younger wolves are working the pen, moving animals through a chute while Garrett calls the cuts.
He sees me pull up. Doesn’t get off the fence. That means I go to him.
I climb the rail beside him. We watch the yearlings move through the chute for a minute. A red heifer balks at the gate, and one of the hands swings wide to push her through.
“Anything on the outsiders?” Garrett asks. Not looking at me. Watching the cattle.
“I made the rounds this morning. General store, hardware store, gas station. Called Martha Caldwell.”
“And?”
“She’s been asking about ranch work. Tried Caldwell, tried Hollis.
Nothing from Hollis. Caldwell turned her down.
Both pointed her to us.” I watch the heifer finally clear the chute.
“She bought field provisions at the general store. Knows what she’s buying—ranch hand supplies, not tourist gear.
Paid cash everywhere. Polite. Didn’t push. ”
“That it?”
“Her name’s Willow. No surname. From Arkansas. Traveled here with a friend called Briar. Says they’re looking for somewhere that fits.”
“Briar,” Garrett repeats the name. “The one in the hills.”
“Willow says she likes being outdoors.”
“She likes our eastern ridgeline, specifically.” He watches another yearling go through the chute. “Tate picked up her trail again yesterday. Same stretch. She’s thorough.”
That’s new information. Briar’s still walking the same terrain, and Tate’s still tracking her. I didn’t know. The fact that Garrett’s getting reports from Tate that aren’t coming through me tells me something I don’t want to hear: he doesn’t think I’m doing a good job.
“So one of them’s scouting our perimeter regularly,” Garrett says. “And the other one spent yesterday afternoon at Dutch’s with you.”
Here it is.
“We talked. She’s looking for work. I offered some information about the area.”
“Patty says you were there an hour. Says you were smiling.” He still hasn’t looked at me.
“Conner, I told you Sunday to find out who they are. What you’ve just given me is what I could’ve gotten from Deb and Carl in ten minutes.
What I can’t get from them is an answer to the question that actually matters: why are two women, one of them asking about work and the other one walking our boundary every day, in Cedar Falls at the same time? ”
I don’t have an answer. Or I do—they’re traveling together, looking for a fresh start—and I know it’s not enough.
Garrett’s right. The picture I’ve assembled today is a surface.
It holds up. But I haven’t looked underneath it because looking underneath means finding something that changes how I feel about the woman who sat three stools away from me yesterday and told me about a waterfall in a hollow.
“I’ll keep working it,” I say.
“Before Saturday.” He finally turns to look at me.
“The barbecue. Half the town’s already talking about Dutch’s.
If you walk her through the compound on Saturday like she belongs there, every wolf in Cedar Falls will take that as your endorsement.
And if she turns out to be something other than what she says she is, that endorsement comes back on you. And on me.”
“I hear you.”
“Keep your distance. I mean it. You want to see her on your own time, that’s your business. But at a pack function, with every wolf watching… You do not bring her inside the circle until I know who she is.”
I look at my brother. He looks at me. An ordinary day on the ranch. Two brothers on a fence, talking about a problem they see from different angles.
“I understand,” I say.
He holds my eyes a beat longer. Then nods. Turns back to the cattle. “Cut that brindle heifer to the left pen. She’s got good lines.”
Dismissed.
I drive up to the main house. My parents are on the porch, my father in his rocking chair, my mother beside him with a glass of iced tea. They fit here. This place that my grandfather built and my father ran, and my brother holds together.
My mother looks up as I climb the steps. “You staying for supper?”
“Not tonight, Ma. Early start tomorrow.”
She reads my face the way she reads everything: thoroughly, silently. “There’s brisket in the kitchen if you want to take some home.”
“I’ll grab some. Thanks.” I lean against the porch rail instead of going straight inside. “How’s the hip, Dad?”
“Still attached.” He shifts in the rocker, the wood creaking under him. “Doc says I need to walk more. Your mother says I need to sit still. I’m splitting the difference.”
“He’s being stubborn,” my mother says.
“He’s always been stubborn.”
“Wonder where you got it.” She takes a sip of her tea. “You look tired, honey.”
“I’m fine.”
She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t need to. The look she gives me says, “I raised you, I know what fine looks like, and that isn’t it.” But she lets it go, because that’s what she does. Gives you room to come to her when you’re ready.
My father’s eyes follow me as I cross the porch. He doesn’t say more. I touch his shoulder as I pass. He lifts his hand and covers mine for a second. His fingers are thinner than I remember.
Inside, I wrap brisket in foil, grab my keys, and head for the door.
On the drive home, I think about what Garrett said. The question underneath his question: why here, why now?
I don’t have an answer that would satisfy him.
But I have several days of digging that say she’s a woman looking for work who knows her way around a ranch.
Nobody I spoke to flagged anything. Her story holds at every point I checked.
And Garrett’s suspicion—real as it is—comes from the same place it always comes from.
Maren. The stray wolf on the ridge. The belief that any stranger could be the next disaster, because once, one was.
I understand that. I carry it too. But carrying it doesn’t make every outsider a threat, and the woman I sat with at Dutch’s yesterday isn’t a threat.
She’s guarded, she’s private, and she’s running from something she won’t talk about.
None of that makes her dangerous. It makes her a wolf without a home, looking for somewhere to land.
Saturday will be fine. She’ll come to the barbecue. She’ll meet the pack. And Garrett will see what I see: a woman who fits, in a way I can’t explain and don’t need to justify.
I’m sure of it.