14. Zack
14
ZACK
“ F uck!” I roared. “Fuck!”
Hot rage clawed underneath my skin. My vision turned hazy at the edges, the animals and people blurring together like a kaleidoscope. I wanted to rip it all apart with my bare hands. The people, the animals, the auction, the world. Myself, most of all.
I kicked at the ground, sending a cloud of dust and gravel into the air. People shouted; I didn’t care. I did it again. I threw my hat on the ground, and then I kicked that, too.
There was a light touch on my shoulder and then Hannah’s soft voice cut through the storm. “Zack.”
“What?” I shouted, rounding on her, my fists clenched.
“Come with me.”
She didn’t give me a chance to say no before wrapping my elbow in her small hand and tugging me along with her. I could have shaken her off, but even furious as I was, there wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t want her touch, so instead I followed her like a dog on a leash.
Hurricane Red was gone. Loaded up on some single deck trailer crammed full of other horses, most of which he probably hated, because Red hated most horses. Terrified and pissed as hell. Whether he was heading to Canada or Mexico, he was in for at least a solid twenty-four hours of misery. He wouldn’t be allowed off to stretch his legs or piss. He wouldn’t be given any food or water, because what was the point? He would be dead soon, anyway.
It would have been kinder for me to put a bullet between his eyes than put him through the slaughterhouse pipeline.
“Give me your keys, Zack.” Hannah held out her hand, palm up.
Somehow we had made it out of the auction grounds and to the parking lot without me being aware of it.
I dug the keys out of my pocket and tossed them to her, not trusting myself to put them into her hands. She fumbled them and huffed a little as she scooped them off the ground, then opened the driver’s side door.
How was I supposed to go home without Hurricane Red?
I kicked the tire, and when that wasn’t enough, I slammed my hand against the truck bed. “Fuck!”
She nudged and prodded me until I was seated inside and then shut the door. I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and then thumped my forehead down between them.
“I don’t think I should drive yet,” I muttered. “I need a minute.”
She didn’t answer, but I took her silence for agreement.
Shit. I tried to breathe. My heart was pounding like I had just taken an eight-second bronc ride.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t known about the dark side of rodeo. There was abuse, both of people and of animals. I knew washed-up animals sometimes ended up in slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. I hated it, but I didn’t love rodeo less because of it, as crazy as that might sound. There wasn’t a damn thing in this world that didn’t have a dark side, and you couldn’t let all that darkness push out the bright spots. What would be the point of living?
I could live with knowing rodeo wasn’t perfect and doing my best to make it better where I could.
But knowing that Hurricane Red’s last hours on this earth would be miserable, followed by a hellish death, and that it was my fault? I didn’t know how to live with that.
Fucking hell.
“All right,” I said. “Give me the keys.”
My words were met with more silence.
I pushed off the steering wheel and stared at the empty passenger seat.
Hannah was gone.
I groaned and thumped my head against the seat rest, wishing I could knock some damned sense into myself. Of course Hannah was gone. She had witnessed a full-grown man have a meltdown. I felt sick when I remembered how I had kicked the dirt. How I had raised my voice at her with my hands in fists. Shit, had I scared her?
I bolted from the truck, my phone pressed to my ear. She didn’t pick up. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There was no sign of her in the parking lot, so I started for the auction pens.
“Hey.”
I whirled and found her behind me, cheeks flushed, breathing heavily. My knees damn near buckled with relief. Slowly I lowered the phone from my ear. “Hannah.”
“Were you calling me?” she asked. “I figured that was you. I could feel my phone buzzing in my bag, but my hands were full.” She waved two white paper bags. “Are you?—”
She didn’t get another word out. I wrapped my arms around her waist and hauled her against me. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m so sorry.” I buried my face in the crook of her neck.
“For what?”
“For being a damn fool. For scaring you. I wouldn’t have hurt you, I promise. But I’m sorry if it seemed like I might.”
“I know. You didn’t scare me, Zack.” She had her arms around me, returning the hug as best she could with the bags in her hands. “You said you needed a minute, so I gave you a minute.”
Oh. Right. I had said that.
I still didn’t want to let go of her, though.
“What’s in the bags?” I asked, pulling back, but keeping my hands on her hips.
“Lunch. Chicken strips and fries was the best I could do, but I’m starving and we’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
Three hours wasn’t what I considered long, but I wasn’t going to argue with her just because fried foods scared the shit out of me now. Anyway, I’d made her feel bad enough for one day. “Chicken strips and fries are my favorite.” I grabbed the blanket I kept behind the seats. “You want to eat in the back?”
“Sure.” She held up her arms. “Help me up?”
I boosted her into the truck bed and climbed in afterward with the blanket. I spread it out over the dust and dirt that had built up, since washing my truck was never high on my list of priorities, and we settled in for a picnic.
“How’s your leg?” she asked, watching me try to get comfortable.
“Nothing worth complaining about.” Because if I complained every time my leg or some other body part hurt, I’d never have time to do anything else.
“How do you think it would feel after a fourteen-hour road trip?”
I paused, considering her. “Why do I get the feeling you have a reason for asking me that?”
“Because I do.” She pushed up her glasses. “I asked around. Hurricane Red and the others that were bought for slaughter are being transported by Reliable Trucking. They’re headed to Canada, not Mexico.”
I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know this. The details didn’t change anything. Canada or Mexico, Hurricane Red was still going to die.
“So, anyway,” Hannah continued. “If they’re going to Canada from here, then Calgary is the most likely slaughterhouse, which means that they’ll unload the horses at Shelby, Montana, where there’s a feedlot and horse assembly center.”
“What the hell is a horse assembly center—no, you know what? Never mind.” My appetite gone, I pulled the brim of my hat down over my eyes. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because Shelby is fourteen hours from here.”
I tilted my head up just enough to squint at her from under my hat. “Hannah.”
“No, listen.” She popped a fry into her mouth, wiped her fingers on a napkin, and pulled out her phone. “I had some time to kill while I was in line for our food, and I took notes. It’s a fifteen-hour drive, but if you’re hauling horses in a long trailer, it probably takes longer because you’re driving slower. RT left here with Hurricane Red less than an hour ago. There are laws about how many hours truckers can work, and how long they can drive. A workday is no more than fourteen hours, and they can only spend eleven of those hours driving, and that’s only if the driver has had a full ten-hour rest before he starts working.”
Jesus. “How did you learn all this?”
Her spine snapped straight like I had offended her. “I am a librarian , Zack. Finding information is what I do .”
Why was that so fucking hot? I grinned at her. “Damn, duchess. I’m impressed.”
“Good,” she said tartly. “You should be.”
“I am,” I assured her. “But I don’t see why trucking laws matter to Hurricane Red. He’s headed to a slaughterhouse in Canada, and even if the driver gets to stop for a ten-hour rest, the horses don’t get unloaded until they reach their final destination.”
“That’s awful. You would think animal welfare laws would prevent that, even for animals sent to slaughter. Cruelty is cruelty.” She frowned. “But my point is that it’s only fourteen hours over two days, and there’s no way RT can get there before us, because his work day started a few hours before he got on the road with the horses, and he can’t drive more than eleven hours, anyway. When he gets to the horse assembly center, we’ll be there waiting, and we can just buy Hurricane Red back or something.”
What the hell was she telling me right now? She couldn’t mean?—
“It’s not too late to save him.” She leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “We can do this.”
I stared down at our hands. “It’s fourteen hours there and back. That’s nearly thirty hours. Four days of driving eight-hour shifts, at least. There could be accidents and delays that make the drive longer. You really want to do this?”
“I already asked someone to cover my Monday and Tuesday shifts at the library, and Essie said she’d feed my cats. And, look.” She showed me her phone screen. “I’ve got our route mapped out. We’ll go right by Yellowstone National Park, so even though it’s a long drive, at least it will be beautiful.”
Goddamn, this woman. She’d planned all this while I was throwing a tantrum? I’d shown her all my big, messy feelings and she hadn’t run away screaming. She’d done this .
I swallowed hard. “Why? I mean, you don’t have to do this. I could bring you home first.”
“That would add at least another three hours to the drive,” she argued. “Anyway, you’re going to want to take breaks. We’ll get there much faster if we take turns driving. I know you could do it alone, but why would you want to?”
I don’t want to . Why would I want to spend fourteen hours alone with my thoughts when I could have Hannah with me instead?
She nudged my boot with her own. “We’re friends, remember? Isn’t this what friends do?”
I smiled wryly. “I have lots of friends. I’m not sure any of them would volunteer to drop everything and drive to Canada to save a horse.”
“Well, then, you’ve never had a friend like me before,” she said. Ain’t that the truth . “But today’s your lucky day, because you do now.”
She kept using that word. Friend . I laughed, even though I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“Come on, Zack.” She tugged at my hand. “Let’s go get your horse.”