Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
With only the locusts for company, I traipse through the yard toward Crowe Ranch. At ten ‘til six, the sun is just now peeking over the horizon, giving the eastern clouds an almost ethereal glow while the deep blue of night clings to its futile claim of the heavens to the west.
It’s humid as hell, and while my Stetson, jeans, and lightweight flannel aren’t exactly helping me stay cool, I’ll be grateful for the protection from the sun later. What I’m not grateful for is how tight my pants are after eating three stacks of pancakes. I should’ve stopped after one, but with Ryker softly humming to himself while he cooked, I couldn’t bring myself to say no each time he resupplied my plate.
I’m sure I’ll have a massive mess to clean up when I get home tonight, but it was a nice change of pace having someone cook for me for once. It somehow made the drab avocado kitchen feel brighter and my morning way less lonely. The pancakes were also surprisingly delicious, and my reluctant enjoyment of them seemed to please Ryker, who said he’d be making French toast tomorrow.
I’m not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to being fed again.
Despite how tired I am, I cross over the property line of the ranch with the ghost of a smile plastered on my lips and a lightness in my step.
I glance toward the light streaming out from the half-round windows of the big house, then to the other structures dotting the property. The windows and doorways of the barn and the bunkhouse glow a warm-yellow while soft music plays from somewhere in one of the paddocks. Crickets chirp from their perches atop tall blades of grass, and cows bellow in the distant fields. A goat bleats, and a cowboy curses while the rich aroma of hay and coffee ride the thick morning air. Crowe Ranch is alive , and there’s something about this place that’s always given me a sense of nostalgic longing, although for what, I can’t say.
I glance over my shoulder toward my house, where a single light remains on in the kitchen. Maybe I should’ve asked Ryker if he wanted to come along. He used to do odd jobs around the ranch before he moved, and Mrs. Crowe would’ve loved to see him. Hell, she probably would’ve put him to work for a few hours—at least until Noah woke up.
I shake my head. No . That’s crazy. Ryker might’ve made breakfast and said he’d play nice, but that doesn’t mean we’re friends. I mean, he literally threw me over his shoulder and spanked me yesterday, for God’s sake. If that’s not an indication that I should steer clear of him, I don’t know what is.
“Willa!”
I jump at the sound of Elanor Crowe’s shrill voice and the steady click of her cane against the wooden wraparound deck. It’s way too early to be using that volume, but judging by the gleam in her eye, she’s likely been up for hours.
“You ready to track down some missin’ livestock, darlin’?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I bound up the steps, giving her a tight hug and breathing in her familiar almond-oil-and-clean-laundry scent that always reminds me of warm evenings spent on the wraparound porch watching fireflies.
Both sets of my grandparents passed away before I was born, so Elanor stepped up to not only fill the role of surrogate mother but their vacant roles as well. When I was younger, she watched Noah and me when Dad was at work—usually bringing us to the ranch where we got ourselves into more trouble tramping around and overfeeding the animals than we would’ve if we’d been left home alone.
As I grew, Elanor became a confidant, helping me navigate the emotional turmoil that is early womanhood, including picking out period products when Dad was rendered mute on the subject and taking me to get a birth control implant in my arm last summer to help with my painful, irregular periods when Dad was too squeamish.
I adore Elanor and don’t know where I’d be without her.
She squeezes me tighter and then releases me, snagging her sleeve on my hip holster when she pulls away.
“Oh good, you’re armed and dangerous,” she says with a wink, her tawny skin crinkling near her smile lines when she flicks the brim of my Stetson. “A gun won’t be much use against skinwalkers, but it’ll help against everything else.”
“Do I even want to know?” I ask with an exaggerated eye roll. “Or is this going to be like when you told me about the Chupacabra and I couldn’t sleep for a week?”
“I’m afraid skinwalkers are much worse,” she says solemnly.
I look away, biting my lip to keep from barking out a laugh.
Mrs. Crowe has a habit of collecting cryptid legends from her transient ranch hands. When I was younger, her tales were full of harmless half-rabbit, half-deer jackalopes and fairy rings, but as I’ve aged, the legends have gotten progressively darker.
Any time the ranch gets a new hand, I brace myself for the day she shows up with an excited glint in her eye, knowing without fail that my nightmares will soon be plagued by various monsters—like the blood-drinking coyote-esque Chupacabra; the unholy half-wyvern, half-demon Leeds Devil; or the shape-shifting werewolf-like Rougarou.
If she’s got a new creature to torment me with, I’d prefer not to hear about it, but I’d also never dream of robbing her of the joy of telling me.
Steeling my spine, I fill my lungs with a big gulp of fresh oxygen and make a mental note to invite Isabel for a sleepover this week. “Alright then, tell me about these skinwalkers.”
Mrs. Crowe leans on her cane. “Let’s hold off on that story until we grab the side-by-side. We’ve got a lot of miles to cover today and I don’t want to scare you off just yet.”
I breathe out a small sigh of relief but then cock my head.
“Side-by-side? We’re taking a UTV instead of horses?” I try to keep the excitement from my tone, but it leaks through anyway. I’m of the firm belief that some body frames just aren’t made for horseback, mine being one of them. No matter how many lessons the Crowes gave me, I’ve never quite gotten the motion down, and no matter how hard I try, I always end up so sore I can barely walk the next day.
The Crowes, on the other hand, are old-school ranchers through and through. And while I’ve seen a few of the hands using four-wheel-drive UTVs, I never thought I’d see the day Elanor chose a vehicle over a horse.
“I’m afraid my days in the saddle are done.” She pats her hip with a tight smile, the drawn set of her mouth and the deep sadness in her eyes sending a ripple of pain straight through my heart.
“Don’t you dare make that face at me, Willa Dunn,” she scolds playfully. “Age is a fate none of us can outrun, and I won’t have your pity. Not when I’ve loved harder and lived better than most.”
I force a weak smile, the weight on my chest heavier than it was moments before.
On the walk to the barn, I match Elanor’s slow, steady pace, nodding along as she points out the birds emerging to greet the dawn. Above us, the sky fades from orange to pink, while the deep-purple horizon finally gives way to soft-morning blue.
Unfortunately, the exquisitely painted sky isn’t enough to drown out the nauseating smell of manure as we pass the horse stalls. Holding my breath, I untie the bandana from around my throat, unroll it, then retie it around my nose and mouth. Thankfully, I came prepared, the sharp tang of lemon essential oil giving immediate relief to my overwhelmed nose.
“We’ll run the perimeter of the north fence to check for any holes or gaps a predator might be using to slip inside.” Elanor grabs onto my arm when the path becomes uneven where rain washed away the crushed granite last month. “I’ve got lunches and water all packed up in the barn fridge. Be a dear and load them up for us when we get there.”
“Sure thing.”
Mrs. Crowe waves to a ranch hand I don’t recognize. When he’s out of earshot, she taps my shin with her cane. “By the way, I heard about what happened with Houston.”
I grimace. Of course she did.
She tuts in displeasure. “We should’ve known better than to hire a Blackthorne. Daniel fired him as soon as we heard he was harassing you last night. Didn’t even let the moron through the gate when he came rollin’ in, drunk as a skunk, at damn near three in the mornin’. I won’t have a man who can’t respect boundaries workin’ my land.”
I grab the barn door, holding it open for Elanor as she wobbles through, her limp already more pronounced than it was when we set out from the house.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Truthfully, I wish they hadn’t… It makes my own actions feel ineffective. Like I couldn’t defend my brother or myself and needed someone to step in for me. It’s also frustrating that what started off as calling out an idiot’s problematic bigotry somehow morphed into being solely about his unwanted advances on me…
“That’s what family does, hon. We look out for each other.” She points to the ancient yellowing fridge near a neat line of rusty red fuel cans. “Don’t forget the lunches.”
“On it,” I say with a half-hearted smile .
“You ready for that skinwalker story?” she asks, shuffling feet kicking up a cloud of dust and hay as she heads for the side-by-side.
“ Ready as I’ll ever be ,” I mutter under my breath, followed by a dip of my chin and a much more audible, “Hit me with it.”
Elanor beams. “You’ve seen the man riding with Daniel?” She waits for me to bob my head before continuing. “Well, he and his family own a horse ranch out in Colorado.”
“Why is he working here, then?” I grab the mini cooler and water from the fridge, wincing at the sharp twinge of pain in my bruised shoulder when I load them into the side-by-side.
Elanor frowns, a strained grunt escaping her thin lips as she plops into the passenger seat. “Chayton doesn’t exactly work here. He’s been shadowing Daniel to learn the business before we sell the rest of the herd to his family.”
I stop dead in my tracks, clutching the roof of the UTV to steady myself. It’d been quite the shock when the Crowes cut their cattle operation by half last year, but this is damn near unfathomable. “What do you mean the rest of it?”
“ Ah , well, I’ve been meaning to tell you, honey… Daniel and I are finally retiring.”
“You’re not moving away from Deadwood, though, right?” A jolt of panic zips up my spine. Austin is five hours away and Noah works in the Gulf half the month… If the Crowes leave, who’s going to take care of Dad? More importantly, when will I see them again?
My pulse batters against my temples as I scramble into the seat next to hers.
“Hush now, sweet pea,” Elanor comforts, extending a hand for me to take. “I can see that busy mind of yours going a mile a minute. We’re not going anywhere. Not yet, anyway.”
The tension in my shoulders eases as I place my hand in hers, but the crease in my brow remains. It feels like she’s only giving me partial information. “What do you mean not yet ?”
A soft smile stretches across her lightly freckled cheeks, one that doesn’t quite touch her eyes. “After the herd is carted off, our plan is to sell off the majority of the land but keep the big house,” she says, rubbing soothing circles over the back of my hand when my frown deepens.
“This is the natural order of things, sweet pea. People get old, children leave the nest. You and that brother of yours will leave one day, too. Although, I suppose Noah will insist on goin’ wherever you go so he can look after you… Who knows, maybe once you two are out of the house, Joel will go out on a date every now and then.”
There it is again, the reminder of how I hold everyone back.
I retract my hand, but Elanor just keeps smiling.
“You’re stuck with me for a few years yet, darlin’. So unwrinkle that pretty forehead of yours and let’s get to work.”
Six hours later, we’ve found no sign of the missing livestock, but Mrs. Crowe has relayed every single horrifying fact she’s learned about skinwalkers in excruciating detail.
I don’t think of myself as someone who spooks easily, but the idea of malevolent shape-shifting beings that can take the form of any animal will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Each time a twig snaps, I almost break my neck trying to find the source of the sound. Even now, as we sit under the shade of a massive oak tree near some crumbling stone ruins on the ranch’s northeastern fence line, I can’t help but eye every hawk and rabbit with narrow-browed suspicion.
“Oh dear, I’ve terrified you, haven’t I?” Elanor laughs, popping a dried apricot into her mouth. “One day on the job and I’ve already managed to scare you off. Daniel will be furious.”
“You didn’t scare me,” I say indignantly, forcing myself to stop eyeballing the falcon soaring overhead. “And even if you had, I’d do just about anything for a car, including fighting a skinwalker.”
“Is that so?” she says thoughtfully, like she’s speaking more to herself than to me. “In that case, I might have a way to entice you back a few more times. Remind me when we get back to the house or I’ll forget.”
“Sure,” I reply, although there’s a high probability I’ll also forget. Without a list to keep me on track, things tend to go in one ear and out the other. On the off chance I do actually remember, it’s at two in the morning three weeks too late.
Something slithers in the grass next to me, and I scoot farther to my left, stopping when Elanor reaches for me.
“Not that way, dear,” she says hesitantly. “You see those weed-lookin’ flowers behind you—the ones with the thin stems and clusters of small white flowers on the top?”
I barely have to tilt my chin to see what she’s talking about. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That right there’s hemlock. It usually needs to be ingested to be poisonous, but if you touch too much of it, you might find yourself hallucinating or on the wrong end of a seizure. You’re gonna want to steer clear of it either way,” she says, retying the bandana she used as a napkin around her neck. “We lost thirty head of cattle a few years back from just a few bales of hay tainted with that little devil plant.”
Cautiously, I scoot away.
Skinwalkers, poisonous plants… I can’t catch a break. It’s bad enough that we decided to have lunch so close to the water tower and the burn patch from last night. What’s Elanor going to tell me next, the stone ruins behind us are haunted by one of the Cartwrights who originally settled this land?
I am curious, though, what she meant by usually needs to be ingested… Is there a chance I could get sick from being close to it?
Something rustles in the bushes just beyond the fence.
Something big …
I scramble to my feet, fear constricting my chest with an icy grip as my toxic brain conjures up images of skinwalkers and the rabid Chupacabra. Attention on the tree line, I bring my shaking right hand to my gun, slowly sliding it out of my holster when a hunched shadow emerges from the thick cedar .
My blood screams, terror freezing my fingers in place at the sight of the unnatural shape before us. I squint, trying to understand what the hell I’m looking at, but with the sun blinding me, I still can’t make sense of it.
What the hell is that thing… Where is its head?
“Kane?” Elanor calls. Rising unsteadily to her feet, she hobbles her way over to the rickety fence. “What are you doing out here?”
Reholstering my pistol, I bring my arm up to shield my eyes as Ryker’s half brother lumbers out of the brush. His half-up, half-down raven man bun glints in the sun as he dusts off his pale-blue western-style shirt and tweed sport coat.
“Elanor Crowe,” Kane drawls, sliding his wire-rimmed Jeffrey Dahmer-esque glasses up his nose before adjusting his silver bolo tie that looks like it’s been molded into the shape of some kind of bug. “It’s a pleasure seeing you out and about on this beautiful day.”
At twenty-three, every item of clothing he’s got on has to be thirty years older than he is…but it works for him—even if he is crazily overdressed for this heat. The thing I can’t get over is how different he looks from Ryker.
The Bennett brothers both have broad shoulders as well as their mother’s black hair, defined cheekbones, and maiden name, but that’s where the similarities stop. While Ryker is all hard lines and defined muscles, Kane is lean and slightly gangly. Ryker’s style is a little 1950s and a lot of rock ‘n’ roll cowboy, while his brother’s fashion sense is straight out of a 1970s western. Kane’s not an unattractive man by any means, quite the opposite, but the way his oversized clothes droop off his shoulders definitely isn’t doing him any favors.
“And who might—” Kane pauses, dark eyes twinkling in the afternoon sunlight before his mouth twitches up on one side. “Well, if it isn’t Willa Dunn. Deadwood’s very own phoenix. You sure grew up right, didn’t you?”
He holds his hand out over the fence, palm facing upward and angled in my direction, beckoning me to him.
The hackles on my neck rise, but not wanting to be rude, I step forward, hesitantly placing my palm on his. The moment our flesh touches, a shiver ripples across my skin—the feeling so unsettling I almost rip my hand away.
Kane just smiles, as if my disquiet gives him satisfaction.
“Let go of the girl and answer me,” Elanor says with significantly less courtesy than I’m used to hearing from her. “I asked what you’re doing all the way out here. Our attorney already told you we’d consider your offer, but we’re still thinking it over.”
Kane releases me, albeit a bit slowly, and opens his arms—the same way someone does when showing a cop they’re unarmed. That’s when I notice the faded black leather book he’s carrying. There’s something red etched onto the cover, but I can’t quite see what it is.
“You take all the time you need, Elanor. Selling the land is a big decision,” he says with a solemn nod. “As to why I’m out here, I heard there were a few fires set around town last night. I needed to make sure my property wasn’t affected.” His eyes flash to mine, something unreadable in their depths.
Elanor’s head snaps in my direction, brow knitted, as if she expects just mentioning fire around me will leave me shattered in a million pieces—which is exactly why I haven’t told her what Ryker and I saw on her land yesterday.
“Well then, we’ll leave you to it.” Her tone is clipped and cordial, but her brow remains creased. “Come along now, Willa.” She grabs my arm as if to pull me back toward the side-by-side, but I plant my feet, digging my boot heels into the dry dirt.
“Ryker’s been trying to get a hold of you,” I toss at Kane, hoping he feels the bite in my tone. “Are you seriously going to lay the entire burden of your sister’s safety on your younger brother’s shoulders?”
His expression hardens, a deep shadow flashing across his eyes that almost makes me regret saying anything. “My brother and I spoke a few hours ago and sorted things out.” He tilts his chin up to watch the buzzard circling above us. “You should stop by the estate sometime. I’m working on some changes to the property I think you’d be interested in seeing.”
What the hell? Why would he think I’d care about him rebuilding that godforsaken church?
I clench my fists. First the lighter, now Divine Mercy? It’s almost like these Bennett boys have a sick obsession with wanting me to face my fears…
Kane’s eye twitches when I don’t answer. “Think it over,” he says with a smile, but there’s something about his toothy grin that makes my stomach crawl. “You can stop by any time, day or night. They have your name at the gate.”
“Sure,” I say offhandedly, already stepping away.
Kane inclines his head, his brow bone casting deep shadows beneath his eyes. “I’ll be expecting you.”