Sinister

by Nancy Bush

  “Will you dig a hole?” Davis asked the men.

  The two men, both Shoshone, exchanged a cautious look. “We’ll dig,” Mick Ramhorn said. “I don’t mind being part of a proper burial. But I won’t touch it.”

  Davis held up the shovel. “Might as well get started. The boss will have to do the grunt work this time.”

  The men got off their horses and began searching for a good burial spot, a tall task in the deepening snow. Lou started digging while Mick retraced his path through the snow to the truck for a pickaxe.

  Turning away from them, Davis looked back once again toward the tree where the coyote lay. In just the past few minutes, snow had collected on the carcass. If you didn’t know, you’d think it was just a boulder at the base of the tree.

  If you didn’t know.

  Wind stung his face as the scene washed over him again. He closed his eyes, but it was still there, last night’s vision of a thin, lithe spirit dancing in the snow, a dark shadow waving pine branches like feathers as she twirled and circled the dark mound at the foot of the tree.

  A snow spirit dancing in the night.

  Standing at the trail’s end at the edge of the woods, he had thought the snow and cold were messing with his mind. As he watched and waited, however, he realized he recognized the snow sprite: Kit Dillinger.

  He had left her to her snow ritual, thinking it was the harmless dance of a woman whose only home was out here in the valley, away from houses and people and the problems they caused. But he had thought wrong. When he’d returned this morning on his way to search for strays, he’d brushed snow from the mound. As he’d removed the branches, alarm had shot through him at the sight.

  A dead coyote, half-skinned and mutilated.

  “I hope you’ve got a good reason for calling me out here.” Ira Dillinger slammed the door of his truck and stomped over. He was a tall man, and a force to be reckoned with. “Because some of these snowdrifts are taller than a damned elephant.” He trudged up to Davis and demanded, “What the hell is that?” as he stared at the mutilated carcass at his ranch foreman’s feet.

  “A dead coyote.”

  “What the hell happened to it?” Keeping his distance, Ira crouched down for a better view.

  Davis looked away, able to see it all in his mind. Chunks of fur and flesh were gone; blood covered the rest, the coyote’s head nearly severed from its spine, legs sliced at the joint, at least one tooth missing. No wild animal had feasted on the dead cur. No jagged bite wounds were evident, but it was hideously carved. Not the killing of any hunter Davis had ever seen.

  Ira scowled. “It’s like a mad butcher had at it.”

  Davis nodded. This was no cougar or wolf attack. “Someone stripped him with a knife.”

  Scanning the horizon, as if he could find the culprit hiding in the stands of snow-covered aspen that rimmed this valley before it gave way to white mountains, Ira frowned. “I don’t like it.”

  Davis nodded. “I thought you’d want to see it. That’s why I radioed you.” The ranch hands used walkie-talkies since cell phone use in the area was spotty at best.

  “You know I got no love of coyotes,” Ira admitted. “The only good coyote is a dead one.”

  That was cattle ranching. Most ranchers shot coyotes to keep them from attacking young calves. That was different. A quick, clean shot was the way of the West, but no one, at least no one he worked with, advocated torture.

  “But this is weird. Some sicko playing survivalist?” He spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the snow.

  Davis said, “The men are spooked.”

  “Well, they’ll feel better once they clean it up and we’ll call it done.”

  Davis Featherstone shook his head. “None of the men will touch it. That’s why I called you.”

  Ira’s face flushed red. “It’s a dead coyote. You can leave it until the snow stops, but after that, have someone cover it with dirt and bury it.”

  “Coyote is a part of Shoshone legend. A real trickster, but responsible for the creation of the Shoshone people. Messing with a coyote, that’s what you call bad karma.” Davis nodded toward the men on the other side of their horses, where a mound of dirty snow was growing. “They won’t go near it. It’s like a bad totem to have a hand in the evil.”

  “Of all the pansy-ass …” He took off his Stetson and slapped it against his thigh, bits of snow flying, to reveal a head of thinning gray hair. “Don’t act like a damned dead varmint is the work of some higher power.”

  “It’s not God’s work we’re afraid of. It’s the devil.” Davis’s arms were folded across his chest, solid and intractable.

  “And you don’t have hands around that aren’t Shoshone?”

  “Not too many wanted to travel in the blizzard.”

  “Fine. Get me a tarp and a shovel. Everything’s damn near frozen, but I’m not about to leave that corpse out here to attract cougars and wolves.” They were the enemies of a cattleman, and he’d be a fool to leave bait sitting out here.

  In the meantime the men had carved out an impressive ditch in the nearly frozen-solid ground. By the time Ira dragged the carcass over, the pit was deep enough for a burial. Davis sent the other men on their way and took a shovel to cover the poor creature with dirt.

  Ira stared across the fields. “You think one of the Kincaids is behind this?” he asked suspiciously, mentioning the rival family with a ranch down the road a piece. Ira always thought the Kincaids were behind everything bad that happened.

  Davis kept his own counsel and didn’t say what he was thinking: that the dead coyote was a bad omen, and that he’d seen one of Ira’s own flesh and blood literally dancing on the animal’s grave. But then, Ira hadn’t seen what he had.

  “Just keep a cool head about it,” Ira said as they finished up. “And keep this to yourself.”

  “I don’t share business with Sam, if that’s what you mean.” Davis’s brother, Sam Featherstone, was the sheriff of Prairie Creek.

  “Well, good. And tell the other men to shut up about it if they want to keep their jobs here. We don’t need anyone poking around at the Rocking D, looking into my family’s business.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Although the slain creature was under the dirt now, covered with dignity, a knot of dread was still lodged in Davis’s throat. He shouldn’t be afraid of a seventeen-year-old girl who was skinning animals on the ranch. Kit Dillinger, he could handle her.

  The real fear was the thing that drove the rage … the lust to kill and deface the victims. If Kit was possessed by a bad spirit, he would see to it that she got help. He would take her to rehab personally. Shit, he knew plenty of people there.

  And if it wasn’t Kit doing these things, and a big part of him hoped that it wasn’t, well, God help them all. There was true evil among them.

  Run, old man, the killer thought, dropping his binoculars to stare at the disappearing vehicles of Dillinger and the foreman. The other men had led the stray cattle off a few minutes ago, but these two had lingered to bury the kill.

  An amusing sight, watching grown men dig in the midst of all the snow. Poor bastards. Little did they know that this was just beginning. If they were going to serve old Ira, then they’d be busy indeed.

  Taillights winked as Ira Dillinger hit the brakes before turning and driving over the ridge. The killer smiled to himself and dropped a hand into the pocket of his cargo pants. There he ran his finger over the sharp fang he’d pulled from the coyote’s jaw. It rattled against the molar he’d taken from the California girl before hiding her body. Just a little memento, to help relive it.

  Jangling with the thrill of it.

  He licked suddenly dry lips.

  The wind slapped him in the face and he backed away from the cover of scrub oak and pine, inching his way toward his cave. He’d have to move soon, find a new place to hide out. Especially since he knew his message had been delivered. But he’d expected as much.

  He would need to back off, sta
y out of sight. He couldn’t always have this bird’s-eye view of their torment, though there were plenty of other ridges around the valley that would give him a good vantage point.

  And it was just so damned good to see the old man squirm.

  Chapter Three

  Colton sprawled in his easy chair in front of the fire—more embers now than flames—and sipped at a glass of scotch. The blizzard was shrieking around the corners of the house as he stared at the glowing red coals, his thoughts drifting. He was reminded of another fire, the one that changed his life, the smoke and crackling flames casting a gray haze over what had once seemed like a bright future. Colt had lost his uncle, he’d lost his girlfriend and he’d pretty much lost track of his own clear path.

  There had been terror that night, roaring terror, along with a realization that being born a Dillinger didn’t make one infallible. Well, yeah. These days, he knew that firsthand.

  Straightening, he saw that he’d forgotten to include the RSVP card in the fire, where his father’s initials were entwined with those of Pilar Larson, a woman who could well be his daughter.

  Pilar …

  He’d briefly been enthralled with her once himself, after Sabrina, after leaving his father and the Rocking D twelve years earlier. He’d spent a whole lot of time on the rodeo circuit and he’d met Pilar during those days of drinking and riding. Horses and women. The circuit had been a great place for both.

  Pilar had been in the picture for a while. A bender that had lasted a few weeks before he surfaced and shook himself free of both his ghosts and her. Even low as he’d been at the time, he’d still possessed the wisdom to see that a woman like Pilar would suck his soul dry if he let her get too close.

  Shortly afterward he’d moved to Montana and bought the ranch. Met Margo at a rodeo in Nebraska, and bit by bit, he’d climbed out of what could have been a very dark hole. They’d had Darcy, and Colton had left the rodeo circuit behind for a family that he’d cherished. But it all had come screeching to a halt with the car accident that had taken them from him.

  He’d been thrown into a dark depression, and only recently had he felt the fog lifting and the desire to possibly live life again. He’d been lucky that Cub and the hands had held the ranch together while he’d been dealing with his grief. A little over ten months earlier he’d run into Pilar at his mother’s funeral where, coincidentally, she’d connected with Ira, and though he’d tried to avoid her—he didn’t want to revisit his rodeo days any more than he wanted to talk about the family he’d lost—Pilar had been intent on cutting him from the herd of mourners and getting him alone.

  “Rourke is yours,” she’d told him without preamble, referring to her eleven-year-old son whom she’d brought in tow. “It shouldn’t be a surprise, Colt. Look at him. He’s got that Dillinger red in his hair, and he’s stubborn, just like you.”

  Colton had felt his soul shrink to a nugget. “You’re lying,” he accused, furious with her. “Rourke is Larson’s son.”

  Pilar gazed at him, almost with pity, as if she found his denial pathetic. “Rourke is not Chad’s son,” she said, referring to her deceased husband. “He’s a Dillinger.”

  “What’s your game, Pilar?” he’d demanded.

  “Get a DNA test,” she stated flatly. “Then you’ll know.”

  He’d wanted to strangle her. Such a beautiful liar. But then … then he looked at Rourke and started to wonder. A kid … a son? He hadn’t believed her, but she wasn’t wrong about the boy’s red hair. Colton was dark, like his mother, and also like his brother, Tyler, and their youngest sister, Nell. But sister Ricki was a redhead and Delilah, the middle child of Ira’s brood, had hair a red-gold color. Ricki and Delilah had taken after Ira and so … maybe had Rourke? Was it possible? Surreptitiously, his eyes had followed Rourke all around the funeral events, both during the service and the reception at the house afterward, where everyone met for food and drink and a remembrance of Colton’s mother.

  Then Pilar had sent him Rourke’s DNA, and Colton had seen if it was a match. It was. He was Rourke’s father. On that, she hadn’t lied. While he was figuring out what to do about that news, Ira, steeped in grief, had turned to Pilar to assuage his loneliness. And Pilar had turned right back! He couldn’t believe she would have the brio to date his father! Even knowing what an opportunist she was, he just hadn’t seen it coming.

  After that, he’d just stayed incommunicado from Ira and Pilar. He wasn’t sure what to do about Rourke, but until this damn wedding was over, he was staying in Montana.

  The ice in his drink had melted, so Colton poured it out and started over, this time taking the scotch neat. “What a joke,” he said to his dog, and as if he understood, Montana thumped his tail. Part German shepherd and Lab with a smattering of mutt, Montana had come with the ranch when Colton had bought it. His name had been Breezy or something equally stupid. Colton had redubbed him the name of his newly adopted state and they’d hung out ever since.

  He carried his refreshed drink back to his chair. His old man was going to be stepfather and grandfather to the same kid. That was both mind-boggling and sad. Ira just didn’t know what he was getting into. Pilar had agreed to keep the truth about Rourke’s paternity a secret as long as Colton coughed up child support. Pretty soon, the woman would be robbing the Dillingers from both ends.

  “You know what they say?” he asked, continuing his one-sided conversation with the mutt. “‘There’s no fool like an old fool.’” Was he referring to his father or himself? He wasn’t sure. Though barely sixty-six, Ira wasn’t exactly ancient, but he was certainly proving the adage true by marrying Pilar.

  The thought curdled the contents of Colton’s stomach even as he remembered Pilar’s ample curves, wild energy and perfectly arched eyebrows. Her smile was infectious, the twinkle in her eyes hinting at mystery. A beauty by any man’s standards, Pilar was complicated and sexy, but, Colton knew, with a heart as small and cold as the money she was so fond of. Why couldn’t the old man see that he was being played like an old fiddle?

  Hell. What man would open his eyes to that kind of duplicity while his cock and ego were being stroked with equal perfection?

  You weren’t immune to her, were you?

  No. And he had the son to prove it.

  And now, damn her, she was marrying his old man.

  So in the end, who was the bigger fool?

  The specter of the animal carcass stuck in Ira’s craw as he drove toward the ranch house. Much as he’d tried to dismiss his foreman’s warning of bad totems and karma, an ill feeling needled him, like a burr under the saddle.

  Despite the blinding snow, he veered south, cutting over toward the buildings of the original homestead. Set in a white thicket of cottonwood and pine, the burned-out shell of the once-grand old house came into view. He’d been born there, in the upstairs bedroom that was no more. Now there was just an insubstantial frame of blackened timbers on the first floor. One of the two tall chimneys had collapsed in a pile of rubble; the second still stood tall, though the stones were black as ebony.

  Ira eased up on the gas and let the Dodge Ram idle as he eyed the ghost of the home he remembered from his childhood. Long before the fire, this place had been abandoned for the newer, more modern ranch house that he still called home.

  Cutting the engine, Ira stared out the windshield as snow crystals tapped the glass. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror. Yep, Father Time had left his mark with the lines etched in his face. Once compared to “a young” Clint Eastwood, he felt like he’d aged a hundred years since Rachel’s death. No one had made the Eastwood comparison in a while. His oncered hair was now gray, holding only a hint of its former hue, and when the hell had these crow’s-feet near the corners of his eyes become so prominent? He still had the strong Dillinger jaw, a blessing from his ancestors, and his eyes, mounted over a Roman nose, were as intensely green and sharp as ever.

  Shoving open the driver’s side door, he braced against the
snow blast and buttoned his jacket a little tighter before kicking a path through the snow to the back of the building. Snow caked the rusted gate that hung at an angle.

  Inside what had once been the backyard, he glanced to one side where his mother had always tried to plant a vegetable garden. Snow coated the twisted remnants of fruit trees, their discolored branches having been devoid of leaves or fruit for nearly a quarter of a century.

  Covered with snow, the old homestead was pretty as a picture, but the charred ruins still pained Ira. After all these years, he was still mad as hell at Judd. Furious and disappointed and lonesome. Judd had been the closest thing Ira had had to a friend.

  Ira scowled at the remains of the old house, half blaming it for the loss of his younger brother. Blessed with a helluva lot more balls than brains, Judd had sneaked out here and met Mia Collins, when the fire had broken out. Ira, of course, had known that his brother was head over heels for the woman and, truth be told, she had been breathtaking in those days, in that same sensual manner that Pilar Larson possessed, and he’d felt damn guilty ever since. Ira certainly had no room to talk when it came to being a cheater, but he still felt he shoulda put his foot down where Mia was concerned, talked some sense into Judd, reminded him that he had a wife, a son and a daughter. But he hadn’t. He’d tacitly abetted the affair, letting it rage hot and wild, and it had come down in a burst of fire.

  He shivered as his mind flashed to the sirens and the flames. The acrid black smoke that burned his throat and obliterated the stars as it billowed into the sky. Judd and Mia had been locked inside. Mia had escaped, helped out by Ira’s own son, Colt, which had damn near scared the shit out of Ira, watching his son brave those scorching flames to save her.

  Judd hadn’t had a savior. He’d died inside that inferno, and Ira only hoped the smoke got to him before the fire did.

  No one had ever figured out who started that fire. Arson, the fire chief said, but who had set the blaze?