No Justice; Cold Justice; Deadly Touch

by J K Ellem

  Maybe Daisy’s father had drilled them—without anyone knowing.

  More questions with no answers, and Shaw didn’t like it when he didn’t know the answers.

  As they returned to the Dodge, his mind ticked over. He wanted to get back to the homestead and go over Daisy’s father's study again, and he didn’t care if he had to pull it apart piece by piece to find the answers.

  * * *

  Daisy came from the kitchen and stood in the doorway of the study with a yellow steel wrecking bar in her hands. “Will this do?”

  “Perfect,” Shaw said, taking it from her. He had spent the last ten minutes trying to open the filing cabinet in the study. There was no key to be found anywhere. This made opening the cabinet even more important. Stan McAlister obviously had hidden the key and didn’t want anyone else to know what was inside.

  Shaw worked the beveled end of the wrecking bar into the gap near the top drawer, just under the lock, and looked at Daisy expectantly.

  She nodded.

  He levered the bar upwards in one violent motion and the top drawer sprang out with a grating noise as the lock snapped.

  The top drawer was filled with hanging files crammed in tight. Shaw ran his fingers across them, but they were mainly old bills paid and the typical paperwork for running the ranch; hardware accounts, delivery slips for fodder and cattle supplements, utility bills, equipment repairs and cattle sales, and purchase folios. The paperwork was dated years ago, but all faithfully kept and filed away. Since taking over the ranch Daisy had set up a small office off the kitchen, in a tiny alcove where she had a table and chair, and a stack of files. She had never needed to go into the study to look for anything.

  The next drawer revealed much of the same, just older invoices paid, the tops of the files yellowed and faded with age. A few silver fish and dust mites scuttled between the files as he ran his fingers over them, pulling out some to take a closer look.

  As Shaw searched, Daisy went to the kitchen to make something to eat, the shotgun never far from her reach. She looked out the window near the kitchen sink as she worked, keeping a watchful eye up at the sky.

  She came back to the study, carrying a large plate of sandwiches and a fresh pot of coffee, and placed them on the desk.

  “Still haven’t heard from Callie?” Shaw asked without turning. He was starting on the bottom drawer.

  “Not a word. I don’t know where she’s gone.”

  “Has she ever gone away, maybe out of town or interstate before?” Shaw was rifling through the files. There were fewer here, not packed in as tight as the others.

  “She has no other family here or close by. I think she has a cousin in Alaska. She mentioned her once.” Daisy sat down and poured the coffee, making sure she had brought the cream for Shaw. She picked up a sandwich and started picking at it. They hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but she had no appetite.

  “What do we have here?” Shaw said, tilting his head so he could see towards the back of the cabinet drawer. He slid the hanging files towards the front and reached behind them. At the back of the drawer was a file, an inch thick, laying flat, almost hidden.

  He pulled it out and stood up, rubbing his neck.

  “Let me see,” Daisy said.

  Shaw placed the folder on the desk and opened it. “This is more like it.”

  The first page was an invoice from a company called Integrity Drilling LLC based in Kansas. It was addressed to Stan McAlister, three years ago, to drill several test holes. The next page was a similar invoice, but from a different company. The file contained various invoices, receipts, and documentation for soil analysis, scientific analysis of core samples, surveying, and a lot of rock and geological work that Shaw had no idea about. Just a lot of scientific jargon, numbers and explanations of work conducted by local and interstate companies and contractors.

  Shaw turned to Daisy. “Do you know what all this was for?”

  Daisy had a puzzled look as she picked up one of the invoices. “No idea,” she said slowly. She picked up another. “Why would my father engage a geologist?”

  “Maybe he was interested in prospecting after all? Maybe he wanted to open up that old mine pit of your grandfather's. You said there was silver there.”

  Daisy shook her head. “I said my grandfather used to prospect for silver, but my father had no interest. He said nothing at all.”

  Shaw could tell she was getting angry, like she had been betrayed. Her father had kept secrets from her.

  Shaw pulled out an invoice and handed it to her. “Linton Geological,” he said. “Let’s give them a call and find out what they were doing here.”

  It was dated two weeks before her father died. It was for the preparation of a preliminary report and initial site assessment. It referred to a location reference that she didn’t recognize, somewhere on the ranch, just a bunch of letters and a number. Linton Geological was based just out of Kansas City.

  Sliding the phone on the desk towards Daisy, he said, “Call them. Tell then you’re Stan McAlister’s daughter and that you are cleaning up his old files, and you want to know if this invoice has been paid.”

  Her father’s familiar scrawl across it with a date said it had been paid. More secrets. More things about her late father she didn’t understand.

  She picked up the phone and dialed. It was answered on the third ring.

  “Hello, Astron Geological.” A woman’s voice, middle aged, prompt and efficient.

  Daisy hesitated, then recovered. “Hello, my name is Daisy McAlister. I was after an Edward Linton please.” She read the name off the invoice. Edward Linton’s name was under the company name, in tiny script. He had a string of abbreviated post-nominal letters after his name that meant Linton was very qualified at what he did.

  “I’m sorry, but Edward Linton no longer works here. He retired a few years back.”

  Daisy looked at Shaw as she spoke. “He did some work for my father, Stan McAlister, a few years ago. We have a ranch in Kansas, Ellis County. I just wanted to make sure we paid his invoice for the work.”

  “Yes, that would have been under Linton Geological. We bought his business back then. It’s called Astron now. I’m sure it was paid, but let me check.”

  Daisy gave the woman the reference number and date. She could hear the woman on the other end tapping on a keyboard.

  “We digitized all of the old invoices and documents,” the woman explained as she typed away. “Here it is.”

  Daisy visualized the woman on the line staring at the digital equivalent of what she was holding in her hand, paper that was crinkled with age like old papyrus.

  “It had been paid,” the woman said. “There’s nothing outstanding.”

  “Can you tell me what it was for?”

  More keys clicked on the line. “I’m afraid I can’t. The invoice just says for test drilling, sub-surface intrusion. Not much else.” Then a pause. “Hold on, a report was commissioned as well, as part of that job number. But I don’t have a copy of the final report. It was sent to your father some time ago. I just have a few file notes that were taken by Mr Linton that were scanned and put into our system when we took over the business. The original files would have been archived and put in storage.”

  Daisy looked around the study. The report must be here, somewhere.

  The receptionist on the line said, “Sorry I couldn’t be much help. But if you get your father to contact us, I’m sure we can locate the original archived files. We can only release them to him.”

  “No, that’s fine. Thanks for your help.” Daisy hung up and explained everything to Shaw.

  “So the report must be somewhere here.” Shaw said.

  “But where? We have turned this place completely over. There’s nothing here.” It was true. The filing cabinet Shaw had jimmied open was the only locked thing in the study. Every book, file, map, drawer they had pulled out and gone through. Shaw knew how to turn over a room, he had done it many times before. He had even pul
led back the rug to see if there was a hidden compartment under the floorboards.

  There was nothing. Short of ripping up the floor or taking a hammer to the walls, there was nowhere else to hide anything.

  “Did your father have a safe-deposit box at the bank, or was there some other place on the farm he kept valuables?”

  There was nothing else she could think of that would have been obvious. In the barn you could hide something small. The report could be just a few pages long. That could be easily folded and slid between boxes, or planks of lumber. There were some parts of the barn she had never gone near. There was no need.

  “It would take us forever. We would have to completely search the entire ranch,” she replied.

  Shaw poured more coffee. He looked around the room trying to get more of a sense of Stan McAlister. He had already built up a profile of the man. Now Shaw added to this secretive and it made the puzzle worse.

  Daisy’s cell chirped. She looked at the screen and her face relaxed. “It’s Callie. She says she’s out of town for a while. Visiting friends. Not to worry, she’ll be back in a few days.” Daisy started to type a reply.

  Shaw moved to the bookcases. They had already pulled out each book, looking behind them and fanning out the pages, looking for the filing cabinet key, but there was nothing there. It was pointless. He looked at his watch. It was close to 4:00 p.m.

  “What now?” Daisy asked. “I need to finish up a few things with the cattle, feed and check on the horses before it gets too dark.”

  They agreed to split up. Daisy with shotgun in hand would finish her chores for the day, Shaw would check on the barn and see if he could find anything. They agreed to meet back at the homestead in an hour. Shaw warned Daisy again not to stray too far from his sight, he had no doubt she could look after herself, but there was something bigger at play that he couldn’t quite figure out.

  But he had a plan on how to get all the answers.

  33

  It was cold and the air smelled of wood smoke. The dying embers glowed a dull orange in the dark of the bunkhouse, and light flickered through the windows and across the couch to where Shaw slept in his shirt and jeans.

  It had been a restless sleep after he retired for the night following dinner with Daisy. His mind swirled with too many unanswered questions and dead ends.

  Despite Daisy’s request to stay with her up at the house, he preferred to go back to the bunkhouse. It spread their presence. It was just the two of them and he didn’t like the idea of being concentrated in one location. They would be any easy target. So he bid her good night, but not before she grabbed him and plunged a deep, lingering kiss on his lips, then said thank you.

  For what, he wasn’t sure.

  He had done another round of the property, checking external doors and windows, before paying a visit to his friends in the stables with a few more carrots stolen when Daisy wasn’t looking. He was determined to bribe his way to acceptance from Jazz and Freddy. He then called it a night, but sleep eluded him.

  After tossing and turning for nearly two hours, at 1:00 a.m. he rose, threw a blanket over himself, stoked the stove and sat and pondered the last few days, the fire and the lingering taste of Daisy keeping him warm. He eventually drifted off to sleep an hour later on the old battered couch.

  Dawn was still an hour away, but the orange glow intensified. Shaw was a light sleeper and he stirred slightly under the blanket. The orange flicker came again, this time more intense and a pungent smell rode the cold air from outside.

  Then a scream pierced his sleep, not human, but still terrified.

  Fear.

  His mind locked into place and he woke instantly. No grogginess, no disorientation, just an immediate compulsion that something was wrong and he needed to move.

  Shaw jumped up barefoot and wrenched open the door of the bunkhouse to a scene from hell, consuming his vision.

  Another scream. More.

  Across the yard, the horse stables were engulfed in flames.

  Shaw hurdled over the porch rail, dropped to the ground and ran flat-out towards the burning stables.

  Within a hundred feet, a wall of heat hit his face like a fist, hot and stinging, searing his skin and eyes. He raised his arm and looked around hopelessly for a hose, a bucket, anything.

  The fire raged at the front of the stables and was eating its way along the structure, moving towards the back. Thick black smoke poured out windows that cracked in the intense heat, funnels of flame spiraled upwards into the night sky.

  It was hopeless. There was no hose. The taps were at the rear of the stables in the mounting yard where the horses were washed and cleaned. Precious seconds would be lost, if he ran around the rear of the stables to reach the hose—the fire was building by the second. One hose with low pressure would be useless anyway.

  Shaw spotted the water trough and ran towards it. Without stopping he rolled into the trough, completely submerging himself before jumping out, sheets of water cascading off him, his clothes drenched.

  He sprinted towards the mouth of the stables, a boiling mass of heat and a million tongues of flame that curled and licked around the edges of the opening. The screams of dying horses filled his ears and a pure rage burned white hot in his head, hotter than any fire.

  Save the horses his mind screamed before the fiery torrent engulfed him and he entered the furnace.

  * * *

  They buried the dead horses far from the smoldering stables so in the years to come the other horses, the survivors, couldn’t smell what remained of their friends while grazing.

  They used the backhoe to dig a pit, deep enough and wide enough, then the steel bucket of the backhoe to scoop up then tip the charred carcasses into the pit. They tumbled in, twisted, brittle and blackened, mouths contorted in wild fear, heinous and frozen in painful, sorrowful death.

  Shaw felt a pang of sadness in his gut as he watched the macabre scene. But his sadness was a mere tremor compared to the earthquake of anger he felt splitting apart his head. Over the days he had come to understand them. They were beautiful, graceful and intelligent creatures.

  The other horses, the ones that survived—Jazz amongst them—stood huddled, looking on nearby, unsettled, snorting, unsure of what they saw, wondering where their friends had gone, the charred smell filling their flared nostrils.

  Freddy was dead, one of the unrecognizable blackened shapes that lay at the bottom of the pit. Three dead, three survived.

  The curve of the sun rose, a ball of brilliant heat, fierce and uncontainable, a trillion destructive reactions. The fire truck had come from Hays, but it was too late by the time it arrived. They had lost all but three horses.

  It was well after midday before they finished. Shaw sat on the steps of the porch of the bunkhouse. He felt hollow and empty, but as the smoke cleared so had his mind.

  He had escaped the flames, but only just. He looked at the crumbled ribs and mound of ash that was once the stables, still smoldering. His hair, his clothes, and his skin stank of wood smoke, his face smudged with soot and charcoal, a film of grime and filth coating him. He could still feel the heat radiating off his body and face.

  She had nearly died, and he had nearly died saving her. Daisy had awoken just after Shaw had and she ran straight into the burning stables to save her horses. Part of the roof would have collapsed on her if Shaw hadn’t dragged her back kicking and screaming.

  Daisy. Her name turned over and over in his head.

  She sat on the tailgate of the ambulance while the paramedics tended to her. She had smoke inhalation, but no serious injuries. But some injuries you couldn’t see. Shaw had sat with her as they strapped an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, and she held his hand, squeezing it hard, refusing to let go, tears and raw anger in her eyes. With the mask on she couldn’t speak. But no words were needed as she glared at Shaw.

  What now? What are we going to do? This has gone too far.

  Where he was undecided before, others by t
heir actions had now made that decision for him.

  Where he was hesitant before, happy just to let things go, to ignore, to keep walking, head down, eyes ahead, he would not hesitate now.

  He knew exactly what he was going to do. He was committed. And the last time he was this committed, he had killed someone.

  Taylor Giles stood beside his police cruiser, a notebook in his hand, talking to one of the firemen as the others packed up their hoses and gear into the back of the fire truck. Daisy had finished up with the paramedics. They wanted to take her to the hospital, keep her overnight for observation, but she refused. She walked over to the bunkhouse and sat down beside Shaw on the steps.

  She said nothing, but Shaw could feel her fury.

  Finally the fire truck and the ambulance crew left, leaving only Daisy, Shaw and Taylor Giles. He had yet to take a statement from them.

  He walked over to where they were sitting. Daisy tensed, but Shaw placed a calming hand on her knee.

  “Look, I’m real sorry about what happened,” Giles said, nodding at Daisy. Shaw got to his feet, but Daisy remained seated, contempt in her eyes as she glared up at Giles, her face smudged with dirt and charcoal. Shaw understood, but there was a time and a place, and this was not the place to bring to the surface old feuds and past history.

  “I appreciate you coming out,” Shaw said, extending his hand to Taylor. Taylor’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the hand, half-expecting Shaw to berate him as he had when they last met. Then he smiled, shaking Shaw’s hand. “Just doing my job. Want to make sure no one was hurt.”

  “Three of my horses are dead!” Daisy snarled through gritted teeth.

  Shaw stepped across Daisy so he stood between her and Giles. “Look, come up to the homestead. I’ll put on some coffee and we can talk.”

  Giles thought about this. “Sounds good.” He flipped shut his note book and buttoned it away in his shirt pocket.

  Daisy stared at Shaw in disbelief. She got up off the steps and brushed past Shaw in anger, ignoring Giles, and said, “I’m going to tend to my horses—the ones the Morgans didn’t murder.”