Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ace
We wait for dark.
Not city dark. Real dark. Arizona dark, where the only light left is the stars and the cherry of Jett's cigarette glowing in the passenger seat of my truck.
The ranch is silent. Hunter took Wyatt and Lola home hours ago. The hands are in the bunkhouse. Even the horses are quiet. The only sound is the engine idling and Jett humming something under his breath that's supposed to be Johnny Cash but sounds more like a dying cat.
Colten's truck is parked behind mine. Headlights off.
I pull out onto the dirt road and kill my headlights.
I've driven this land in the dark since I was fifteen.
Dad used to send me and Colten out to check fences at night because he said a man who can't navigate his own property blind doesn't deserve to own it.
"You bring the irons?" I ask.
Jett reaches behind the seat and pulls out a canvas bag. Two branding irons, the Sterling Ranch mark, SR, forged in the same shop where my great-grandfather made the originals a hundred years ago. A can of lighter fluid. A box of matches. Two pairs of leather gloves.
"And I brought marshmallows," Jett says. "In case we get hungry."
"You brought marshmallows to an arson."
"It's not arson if you own the moral high ground."
Seven and Dolly, Jett's mare, are in the trailer behind us. The last stretch has to be done on horseback.
Twenty minutes south, we pull up at the boundary fence, our fence, the one that was cut two days ago.
We unload the horses without speaking. Seven stamps and snorts as I tighten his cinch. Colten swings up onto his buckskin, Bowie, and checks his rifle in the scabbard.
"Rules," he says, voice low. "Outbuildings only. Nothing occupied. Message, not murder investigation."
"Buzzkill," Jett mutters, mounting Dolly.
"If someone comes out, we handle it clean. No shots unless they shoot first. In and out, thirty minutes." Colten looks at me. "Ace. I mean it."
"What? I'm the picture of restraint."
I don’t know what he means. I’m a saint.
"You set a man's truck on fire last year because he cut you off at a gas station."
"He deserved it."
Colten stares at me.
"Thirty minutes. Got it."
We ride.
Ranch 42 sits in the valley below the ridgeline. From up here, we can see the main house, bunkhouse, and outbuildings scattered along the east fence. Equipment sheds. A hay barn. A tack room. No lights. No movement.
Good.
We tie the horses in the tree line and go on foot. Jett takes east. I take west. Colten positions himself on the ridge with his rifle and scope, watching the main house. If a light comes on, he whistles, one short, one long. Our signal since we were kids.
The first outbuilding is a wooden equipment shed. Nothing valuable inside, which is exactly the point. We're not here to cripple their operation. We're here to let them know we were inside their walls while they slept.
And that if they want to play with fire. They will get fucking burned.
I pull on the gloves, soak the base of the shed with lighter fluid along three sides. They'll see it burning from their beds.
Then I take the branding iron, kneel at the main gate post, the big wooden beam at the entrance to their property, the one every rancher in Arizona knows is sacred, and I carve.
SR.
Not burned. I think this is better. Cuts into the wood, gouging out the letters an inch deep. I want them to see this in daylight. I want them to run their fingers over it and understand that we were right here, close enough to touch, and we chose to leave a signature instead of a body.
This time.
Across the property, a flicker of orange. Jett's started his fire. I strike my match. The lighter fluid catches with a soft thump, and blue flame races up the walls, turning orange as it finds the timber. Within thirty seconds, the shed is engulfed.
Two buildings. Two fires. One brand.
Message sent.
I whistle for Jett and start moving back toward the tree line. The fires are roaring now, and I can hear shouting from the main house. Lights begin flicking on and doors are slamming. Men stumbling out in their underwear, staring at their property burning.
Good. Look at it. Remember whose initials are on your gate.
I'm fifty yards from the tree line when the shot cracks past my head.
Eight, maybe ten inches to my left. I hear the snap of the bullet cutting air before the sound of the rifle reaches me.
I drop flat. Face in the dirt, heart slamming.
The second shot kicks up dust three feet in front of me.
"Contact right!" Colten's voice from the ridge. I'm between him and the shooter.
I roll left, putting a fence post between me and the water tank. Third shot splinters the wood above my head.
This isn't a ranch hand. Ranch hands don't shoot controlled, spaced rounds, adjusting for movement. This is someone with training. Fuckin’ great.
I hear him before I see him. Boots on hard ground, closing the distance. So I hold my breath and wait. Thirty yards. Twenty.
Fifteen yards.
I explode off the dirt. Fuck it. I ain’t letting him shoot at me again.
He doesn't expect it. Nobody trains for the target to sprint directly at them. Nobody trains for a man who rides two-thousand-pound bulls for fun and has absolutely no respect for his own mortality.
I hit him at the waist at full speed. His gun flies and we hit the ground together, the air blasts out of his lungs.
He gets an elbow into my jaw and tries to roll out. I pin his wrist, drive my knee into his ribs, and slam my forehead into the bridge of his nose.
The crunch is deeply satisfying.
He goes limp. Blinking at the stars with blood pouring from his nose.
Jett appears, rope already in his hands, tying the guy's wrists behind his back.
I grab the man's jaw and turn his face toward the firelight. A tattoo on his neck with geometric, angular letters that I don't recognize.
"Who the fuck are you?" I ask.
He spits blood at my boots and says something I don't understand.
Colten rides up on Bowie, rifle across his lap.
"That's not one of Carson's guys," he says.
"No shit."
He ain’t no cowboy.
"Get him up. We're taking him back."
I drag the man to his feet. He struggles until I lean in close enough that he can see the firelight in my eyes.
"You just took three shots at me on my family's border. I don't know who you are. But I know you ain’t part of this ranch. But you're about to tell us, or you’ll have the worst night of your life, and how bad it gets depends on how fast you start talking."
He stares but says nothing.
Jett brings me Seven, and I tie one end of Jett's rope to the saddle horn. The other end is already around the man's wrists.
"You can walk," I tell him, swinging up into the saddle, "or you can be dragged. Your choice."
He walks until we’re back at the truck, and then I shove him in the back seat and drive. It would be in silence if Jett stopped whistling.
Behind the equipment shed, past the round pen, in a corner of Sterling Ranch that doesn't appear on any map, we have the pen.
Fifty-foot steel-walled enclosure. Originally it was built for breaking wild horses. Dad repurposed it fifteen years ago for a different kind of breaking.
Inside is Brutus.
Twenty-three hundred pounds of black Brahma cross.
Horns wide as my arm span. A temperament that makes the rankest rodeo bull in the country look like a pet.
We keep him because he throws calves that sell for six figures, and because, occasionally, we need something in a pen that makes men reconsider their commitment to silence.
If I’m feeling like I need proper training, I jump on his back and see if I can hang on for my life. If I can ride this beast, I can ride any.
We shove the guy through the outer gate and into the holding chute. Steel walls on both sides. A gate at the far end that opens into Brutus's territory.
He can hear the bull. That heavy, wet breathing. The scrape of hooves.
The man's eyes go wide. Point proven. Not a cowboy.
"You hear that?" I crouch to his level. He's on his knees, hands bound, blood starting to dry on his face. "That's Brutus. Mean as hell. Hasn't been fed today; that's not related. He's just always angry. Terrible personality."
Jett leans on the fence, chewing a piece of straw. "Bit like you."
"Shut up, Jett."
I turn back. "Here's how this works. I ask questions. You answer. Every time you don't, that gate opens wider, and Brutus gets closer."
Colten slides the gate open. Enough for the man to see into the pen. The man starts talking in what sounds like Greek.
"English. Or the gate opens." I say.
He swallows. "I am security. Paid. I am paid to guard."
"Guard what? You're on a cattle ranch in Arizona. What the fuck are you guarding?"
Nothing. His jaw locks.
Colten slides the gate open another six inches. Brutus steps forward. The ground shakes around us.
"Who. Is. Paying. You."
"Nikos Kourakos," he chokes out.
The Greeks. Of course, it’s those fucking Greeks. We can’t seem to get rid of these fuckers.
"Why are you on Ranch 42?" I ask.
“Nikos bought into the Ranch."
I scoff. We know the Greeks want Sterling Ranch, so why the fuck are they buying neighboring land unless they want a fuckin’ war?
"What's in Arizona that your boss wants? Because I’m sure as shit they don’t want to come after us again."
He shakes his head. "I don't know. I swear. I am not told the plan. I am told to watch. To shoot. That is all."
Colten closes the gate. I stand and look at my brother. He nods. The man's hit the bottom of what he has to give.
"What do we do with him?" Jett asks.
"Zip-tie him in the tack room. I'll call Hunter."
Jett grabs the man by the vest and hauls him out, dragging him toward the tack room.
I call Hunter.
"It's done. Both buildings are ash. SR is on their gate." I pause. "But we've got a problem. Shooter on the property. Not Carson's. He’s Greek."
Silence. Long enough that I check the screen.
"Hunter?"
"I’m on my way."
Twenty minutes later, Hunter walks into the tack room, face like thunder. He crouches in front of the bound man. Studies his face. The neck tattoo. The tactical vest Colten stripped off and laid on the bench.
He reaches into the vest's chest pocket and pulls out a phone. Flips through it. His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes.
He stands.
"Fuckin' Greek restaurant," he mutters.
I frown. "What?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing. I'll handle it."
Colten and I exchange a look. Jett's leaning against the door, arms crossed. None of us knows what the hell that means.
"Get some sleep. All of you. I'll make some calls," Hunter says and then turns. "And Ace—"
I look up.
"Good work tonight." Half a smile.
"And he nearly got shot in the head!" Jett chimes in.
"Occupational hazard." I shrug, glaring at Jett.
The man who got shot a few weeks ago in broad daylight at a fucking rodeo.
Hunter’s gaze hardens. "Stop making it a habit. I need you alive, Ace."
He walks out, phone already to his ear.
Colten claps my shoulder just as Jett yawns. The man on the floor has gone very quiet; I would, too, in his situation.
“Jett, with me,” Hunter calls from outside.
Jett wiggles his eyebrows. “Looks like I’m in the good books today.”
And then he’s off. Fucking crazy man, I love him.
I head out to Seven. He nuzzles my chest as I loosen his cinch. I press my forehead against his neck and close my eyes.
My knuckles are bleeding. My jaw is bruised. There's a bullet hole in a fence post with my name on it, and a Greek mercenary zip-tied in our tack room, and my brother just said something about a restaurant that means more than it should.
I pull out my phone. No new messages.
Miss you.
Unanswered. Same as always.
I put the phone away, give Seven his extra grain, and then I ride back to my house on the Ranch in silence.