Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Spur
The photo on Dakota's phone is a forty-second-old picture of me kissing the top of her head on the porch of the main house, taken from somewhere up high, somewhere on this property, by a man I haven't found yet.
I am going to find him.
Phantom is in the doorway.
He moves aside, and I walk Dakota past him into the kitchen with my hand at the small of her back and my piece in my free hand.
Phantom shuts the door behind us, kills the bolt. "Show me the picture again, baby girl," he says.
She holds the phone out. He looks at it. His face does what his face does when something on his ranch has gone wrong—nothing visible, but the room knows.
Marlena must be in the bedroom with Cal, who is still taking his nap.
Banshee pounds on the front door once—his knock, three quick beats, two slow.
Phantom unbolts the door.
Banshee comes through. Hat pushed back, breathing hard from the run, his Glock already in his hand at his hip.
He clocks Dakota first from pure adrenaline. "Prez."
"Hayloft, main barn," I tell him. "I'd put money on it. The angle in the photo's a downward angle. The only place on this property tall enough is the loft of the main barn, or the oak line on the north fence. The loft is closer to the porch she was standing on."
"Going alone?"
"You're going with me."
"Yeah, I am."
Phantom looks at us both.
"Sweep starts now. You two go. Banshee—you take the loft. Spur—you take the perimeter. Then we trade and double-check each other's work because this man knows our property, and I don't want either one of you missing something because you're tired or in love."
He looks at me on the second one.
"Yes, Prez," I tell him.
Dakota's hand is still on my arm. "Spur."
"I know."
"Don't —"
"I know. I'm coming back to you."
I kiss the top of her head again.
The same kiss the man with the camera took the picture of, and I do it where he can't see it now because we're inside the main house with the curtains drawn, and I hope he saw that part.
I hope he understands he can take pictures of moments, but he can't take them away from me.
I leave her with Phantom in the kitchen.
Banshee and I walk out the back door of the main house instead of the front.
The man with the camera is going to be expecting us to leave through the front.
We go out the back, around the kitchen garden, past the chicken run, and we move along the fence line.
How the fuck did he sneak onto the ranch?
I mean, it’s not like we have a chain link fence across one-hundred thousand acres, but damn… we’re better than this.
The afternoon light is thick and yellow.
The cicadas are loud.
The cattle in the back pasture aren't spooked, which tells me he's not in there with them.
The mustang at the round pen rail is at the gate side—facing the main barn—which tells me he was watching something happen there recently.
That horse has become a barometer.
"Loft," I tell Banshee.
"Yeah."
We split at the round pen.
He cuts west toward the main barn. I cut east, around the back of the bunkhouse, looping the property the long way to come to the barn from the opposite side.
We do this without talking because we've done it a hundred times before—for cattle rustlers, for people who came onto this property without an invitation, for men who needed to be told one time that Sharp is not a place they're welcome.
I don't see anyone on the perimeter.
I see the bunkhouse porch, where Buckley and another prospect are sitting with their hands in their laps and their cuts buttoned up because they heard church got called and they know to wait.
I nod at them without slowing down. They nod back. Buckley doesn't meet my eye.
Past the bunkhouse, along the back of the rescue paddock where the saved horses are nosing the gate hoping for grain, past the south side of the main barn where the old tractor sits up on blocks.
The afternoon hum of the property has gone quiet around me—the brothers know something is happening, even if they don't know what yet.
I come up to the main barn from the south door.
Banshee is already inside.
I hear his boots on the loft ladder. Quiet. He's good at this.
I climb up after him.
The hayloft of the main barn smells like alfalfa, old wood, and dust that's been in the rafters since my grandfather's time.
The loft window faces the main house. From the open doors of the hayloft you can see the front porch of the main house, the gravel drive, the round pen, and a piece of the back pasture beyond.
Perfect angle for the photo.
Banshee is crouched in the straw near the open loft doors.
His Glock back in his belt now. He's looking down at the floor. "Spur."
I come over.
There's a boot print in a thin layer of dust at the edge of the loft.
A man's boot. Work tread. Size eleven, maybe twelve.
The print is fresh—straw doesn't sit on a boot print for long because horses move air through this barn and dust resettles in minutes.
This print was made within the hour.
Next to the print: a cigarette butt. Filtered. A brand I don't recognize.
"Pick it up?" Banshee asks.
"Yeah. Gloves."
He pulls a pair of work gloves from his back pocket—Banshee always has gloves, always has a folding knife, always has a length of paracord, has never once in all the time I’ve known him failed to have what was needed when something went wrong.
He picks the cigarette butt up by the burnt end and puts it in a sandwich bag from another pocket.
"What brand?"
"Don't know yet. Ash isn't from a Marlboro."
"Camel?"
"Maybe. We'll get a better look at the cabin."
I look at the loft window. The angle. The way the light falls through the open hayloft doors onto the porch of the main house.
I picture the man standing here. Phone up. Patient. He waited.
He saw us walk out hand in hand from the kitchen meeting and he took the shot and he sent it before we made it down the porch steps.
He was here ten minutes ago. Maybe less.
He could still be on the property.
Banshee reads my face. "He's gone, Spur."
"How do you know that for sure?"
"Because if he was still here, the dogs would be barking. They're not."
I listen.
He's right. The kennel is quiet. Six working dogs, all of them quiet—which means whoever was on this property left the property, because those dogs lose their minds when there's an unfamiliar person inside the fence line.
But how the fuck did he get this close to us?
How did no one, or nothing see him?
"He came in through the north fence."
"Yeah," Banshee says. "Or he had a vehicle on the access road and walked in."
We stand in the loft for a minute looking down at the porch.
"I'm going to kill him," I tell Banshee.
"Yeah, you are."
"I want him to know it was me."
"He'll know."
We climb down the ladder.
Church is in a little while.
I walk back to the main house with Banshee. Phantom is on the porch waiting for us. Dakota is in the front window, watching, her hand on the curtain.
I can see her there even from thirty feet away because I have spent years learning the shape of that woman through any kind of glass.
Banshee gives Phantom the sandwich bag with the cigarette butt and tells him about the boot print.
Phantom looks at the bag for a long time. "Camel Wide," he says.
I look at him. "How do you know?"
"Color of the filter ring. It’s the same brand my brother used to smoke."
He puts the bag in his cut pocket and looks at me. "Office. After church."
"Yes, Prez."
He walks inside.
Banshee and I head for the clubhouse.
* * *
Church goes the way you'd expect it to go when the property has been breached.
Phantom's at the head of the table, brothers around him.
Buckley and the prospects are outside.
Phantom slams the gavel down once everyone is inside, and the room goes quiet.
"Dakota’s got a stalker, and he’s been on the property within the last hour," he says. "A photo was taken from the main barn loft. Boot print, fresh. Cigarette butt—Camel Wide, like my brother used to smoke. Spur and Banshee swept the loft and the perimeter."
Bullseye sits forward in his chair. "He still on the property?"
"No," Banshee answers. "Dogs would be barking. They're not."
Shadow puts both hands flat on the table. "How'd he get in?"
"North fence or the access road," I tell him. "Either way, he knew where the cameras don't reach."
Thunder, on Phantom's right, taps the table once with his knuckle. "He's been watching us. Not just her."
"Yes," Phantom says. "He has."
The room takes that in.
Shadow at my left side leans back in his chair and crosses his arms.
Longhorn says nothing—Longhorn never says anything in church unless Phantom asks him to, and when he does say something, you listen.
Phantom keeps going.
"I want a twenty-four-hour patrol on the perimeter around the houses, barn, and clubhouse, starting now," he says. "Two-man shifts. Six-hour rotations. Banshee, you build the schedule by the end of the day."
"Yes, Prez."
"Every patched member checks in every two hours via the group thread. I don't care if you're on patrol or in your cabin or eating dinner with a clubwhore on your lap. Two goddamn hours."
Everyone says, “Yes, Prez.” from around the table.
"Dakota doesn’t leave this property without Spur and one other patched member. I don't care if she's going to the gas station. Two patched men, every time."
"Yes, Prez," I tell him.
"Marlena, Cal, Grace, and Waylon stay at the main house with me.All of them. Shadow's there as second. Nobody splits up."
Shadow nods once. "Grace and I will get some stuff together before sundown."
"Good. Banshee—same goes for the women on patrol. If Bex comes out to the property for farrier work, she stays at the main house too."
"Yes, Prez."
Phantom takes a breath and looks at me. "So, about Friday."
Everyone in the room knows what Friday is.
The Abilene qualifier.
Dakota's already entered, already paid her entry fee.
She’s already on the schedule.
"You want her to ride," Phantom says. Not a question. He's testing me.
"I want her to ride, yeah."
"Why?"