by Carter Ashby
Jared sank into a bar stool, stunned. “Jesus. Gideon’ll kill him. I have no doubts about that at all.”
“Which is why we have to keep this quiet.”
Jared frowned at her. “Of course I won’t tell anyone. I’d never out a man like that, especially not a son of Gideon’s. But I do intend to let Cody know that I know. I’m sure he could use another supporter.”
Ivy turned back to the stove and flipped the burner off. She slid the omelette onto a plate and handed it to Jared. Movement on the floor above them had them both looking up. “I’ll go get him,” Ivy said.
She made it to Jordan’s room in time to stop Cody from climbing out the window. He had the screen out and one foot on the roof when she walked in. “My dad knows,” she said without prelude. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Shit,” Cody said, going pale. He returned the screen to the window, gave Jordan an apologetic look, and followed Ivy back downstairs. She took some comfort in the fact that she wouldn’t be the one getting the fatherly lecture. Still, she was a little sick to her stomach on Cody’s behalf.
“Are you hungry?” she asked Cody as they entered the kitchen.
If looks could be sarcastic, his definitely was. Ivy shrugged, hopped up on the counter, and watched as Cody stood at the end of the bar.
“Have a seat, son,” Jared said.
“I’d just hop right back up, sir.”
Jared smiled and pushed his empty plate away. “I’m sorry it’s come about like this. I was walking past Jordan’s room and the door was cracked. I peeked in just to make sure he was okay.”
Cody nodded. “It was stupid of me. I haven’t been sleeping much lately. Soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.”
“You’re welcome to stay over any time. That goes for Jake as well,” Jared said, with a pointed look at Ivy.
Her eyes flew wide and she shook her head frantically, glancing back and forth between Jared and Cody. Jared frowned.
“Jake?” Cody asked, turning to frown at Ivy.
Ivy laughed artificially. “Right? Why would you say that, Dad? That’s so weird.”
Jared narrowed his eyes at her. He turned back to Cody. “When do you intend to come out to your family?”
Cody’s attention snapped away from Ivy. “Never. God, never. I can’t even…there’s just no way…”
“Son, you’re too old to be living under your father’s thumb.”
Cody laughed. “There’s such a thing as too old for that?”
“I see the way he treats you boys. Kept you home all your lives, homeschooling you so he could have your help on the ranch—”
“My dad believes in family, sir. Family’s the strongest bond you can have. Nothing wrong with that.”
Ivy watched in wonderment as Cody snapped to attention and practically recited the Gideon code.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Jared repeated. “But as a parent, you’ve got to understand that your children are individuals, that they might one day want to go their own way.”
“Ranching’s my life, sir. I’m happy to live and die on that land.”
More recitation. Programmed words. Programmed behavior. Jared and Ivy shared a knowing look. They both understood that whatever Cody’s beliefs about himself and his life, they weren’t going to get past the fortress that Gideon had built around his mind. Not today, anyway. Seeing Cody like that made Ivy profoundly grateful for her parents. Both her mother and father had always treated her with respect. Treated her as an individual with the right to become whoever she needed to become.
Jared turned back to Cody. “That’s good. That’s fine. You still ought to be able to be yourself, though. Hiding a thing like you’re hiding…that ain’t healthy.”
“I’m not gay. I just have a problem. I’m working on it, I swear, please don’t tell Gideon—”
“Cody, calm down. I’m not going to tell him. I just want you to know, if you need some support, I’ll be happy to help. If you decide to tell him yourself.”
Cody’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you. That’s kind. But there’s no reason for me to ever tell him. I’ve got this under control.”
“It’s not a drug addiction, son. It’s who you are.”
“That’s not what the Bible says.”
Jared laughed in frustration. He shook his head and stood to shake Cody’s hand. “You’re right. That’s not what the Bible says. Just let me know if I can be of any help.”
“Thank you, sir.”
With that, Jared left out the back door to get to work.
“I’ll get out of your hair, Ivy,” Cody said. “I’m sorry for falling asleep like that.”
“It’s not a—”
Her phone dinged on the counter next to her. It was a text from Boone.
Go to Myra’s blog. Now.
Ivy frowned. It was unlike Boone to text her at all without it being about Molly, let alone give her a straight order like that. She picked up her phone and navigated to Myra’s blog.
“Ivy, what’s wrong?” Cody asked. His voice was distant as she listened to Myra’s voice. Somehow, Cody was at her side. He reached over and scrubbed the video backwards so he could watch.
After it was over, Ivy said, “This isn’t true, right? Myra’s a gossip. This is just gossip.”
Cody took the phone and clicked the link to the actual news story. He held the phone out so they could both read.
“My God,” Cody muttered.
Ivy gripped the countertop and poured all her focus into trying not to vomit. She sucked in a breath, and then the room wobbled. Cody wrapped his arms around her. She rested against his chest, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said.
“She was murdered.”
“I’m so sorry.”
It had happened the night she’d been hit on the head. Oh, God, how close had she come to getting killed? It seemed selfish to be feeling both fear and relief when her friend was dead.
She pushed Cody away gently and dashed the tears from her eyes. “Um…you need to get home, right?”
Cody glanced at the time on her phone. “Shit,” he said, handing it back to her. It was nearly seven, well into the work day for the Deathridges. Ivy walked him out the door. Just before reaching the porch steps, he turned to hug her. “Thank you for everything. And again, I’m really sorry.”
Ivy might have answered him if she hadn’t found herself staring at Myra Tidwell’s iPhone, raised in full video-recording posture with Myra smiling wickedly behind it.
“I’ve gotta get a guard dog,” Ivy muttered.
Cody turned. “Jesus Christ, Myra, don’t you ever give it a rest?”
Myra clucked her tongue and put her phone away. “Such language, young man. Ivy, dear, I’ve been out gathering statements on the Molly Allen situation. I wanted to get one from you, but this is even better. It will give us all something distracting to cheer us up after this senseless tragedy.” She pulled a notepad and pen from her quilted handbag. “Now, where were you the night Molly was killed?”
“Myra, you’re not the police,” Cody said. “And nothing happened here between Ivy and me. If you insist on posting that damned video, would you at least include that statement?”
“Of course, dear. Ivy? Anything to say concerning your relationship with Cody?”
“There is no relationship,” Ivy replied numbly.
“Then what was he doing in your house, hugging you goodbye and whispering sweet nothings in your ear?”
“He wasn’t…” She trailed off when she realized that, for Cody, gossip about his sleeping with Ivy would go over way better than the truth. “Can you just not post it, please? It’s nobody’s business.”
Myra pressed her lips together and lifted her notepad once again. “What do you have to say about Molly’s death.”
“Nothing. I have nothing to say. I just got the news a couple of minutes ago and now you’re hounding me. Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“So t
ouchy. That’s very unbecoming in a young lady, you know. Oh, well.” She tucked the paper and pen back in her bag and turned to walk to her little, orange bug. “You know how it is, Ivy. If you don’t give me something to talk about, I’ll simply make something up.” She winked, got in her car, and drove away.
She was going to post that video. Jake would see it. Just another nail in her coffin. “I hate my life.”
Cody was pacing, his hands in his hair. “So, worst case, people think you and me are together. That’ll get me in trouble with Gideon, but he’ll believe me when I tell him it’s all a lie. What about you? How will this hurt you?”
She looked up at him, suddenly thinking she might could use another day in bed. Jake thought she was the whore of all whores. Her only close girlfriend was dead. A murderer might know who she was. “I’ll be fine. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
Cody studied her for a moment. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. You go on home before you get into trouble.”
After a long second, he said, “Okay. Thank you, Ivy.”
“No problem.”
Dallas only wanted to make the cows sick. Truth be told, he hadn’t thought past the point of slowing down business enough to encourage Gideon to sell to Turner. It didn’t occur to him that the hemlock might affect some of the pregnant cattle.
There had been three miscarriages so far, and some of the other cows were showing signs of sickness.
The other thing Dallas hadn’t accounted for was the horses.
When he’d taken the bags of weeds for Jake, he’d realized that he didn’t know how much he needed to make a significant impact on the cattle. Maybe a few handfuls wouldn’t be enough. So he’d dropped the bags off in a part of the woods where no one would be visiting, and told Jake that the deed was done. Later, he’d spread some of the dried weeds in the grass where the cattle were grazing. But as he watched, he saw that most of the cows were avoiding it.
So he took the mulcher out to the weeds, mulched them up, and sprinkled two bags’ worth in the feeders. That did the trick.
Except somehow, Jake’s pregnant mare, Eloise, must have eaten some of it. Now, Jake was on his knees with Eloise’s head in his lap, crying while the vet worked to help deliver the premature foal. Night was falling. Boone turned on the lights in the stables, filling the room with a buzzing, white light.
“It’s okay, girl,” Jake said, over and over. Silent tears spilled down his otherwise stoic face. He looked over at the vet. “She’s been acting sick all day.”
“Mmm,” the vet, a man Gideon’s age, but with a kind, bespectacled face. His kind face suddenly turned severe. “Shit. It’s breech.”
He began pushing the foal back in in order to try and turn it. The mare bucked and whinnied. Jake stroked her and hushed her. “Everything’s gonna be all right,” he said soothingly.
Dallas stood back in the shadows, sick to his stomach. The lights were too harsh and accusatory for Dallas. Cody was running around fetching anything the vet wanted and making sure Jake stayed hydrated. Gideon was cleaning up, trying to be useful. Boone was pacing.
“She’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay, girl,” Jake said.
Dallas felt like throwing up.
“Have you been riding her?” the vet asked through strained teeth.
“No, sir. I quit when she was about four months along.” Jake looked up at his brothers. “Any of you ridden her lately?”
They all shook their heads. They could have been angry at him for asking such a stupid question. Of course they hadn’t ridden her. She was Jake’s. But the man was in distress, so no one, not even Gideon, was going to further upset him by arguing unnecessarily.
The vet’s assistant was late in arriving. He hurried to the vet’s side to help. With a grunt of satisfaction, the vet pulled his hands out of the mare and breathed hard. “Got her. Being premature, she’s small. That’s one blessing, I guess.”
“Will she survive? The foal, I mean?” Jake asked.
“We’ll see.”
Eloise panted and occasionally whinnied. The foal came slowly at first and then slid the rest of the way out. The doctor immediately started checking her vitals. Dallas held his breath. Looking around, he noticed everyone else holding their breath too. Jake’s eyes were locked on the foal while his hands continued stroking Eloise. The only sounds were Eloise’s stilted huffs and the evening wind rattling the panels on the roof.
“Well, what do you know?” the vet said with a smile. “She’s breathing. Right on schedule.”
Everyone watched the first risings and fallings of the foal’s chest. Dallas closed his eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks.
The vet moved away from the foal and stood, stretching and rolling his shoulders. “The next hour will tell. Hopefully momma will pass the placenta just fine and baby will stand up. But she looks pretty good, Jake. Definitely some lack of development, but not nearly as bad as we’d feared. I’d say she’d have come on her own in a week or so.”
For Dallas, it was like the storm clouds of judgment parting and offering him reprieve. But then he looked at Jake, who was intently staring at Eloise, stroking her mane and muttering to her. “Doc, she’s gone limp,” Jake said.
The vet immediately knelt next to the mare and started checking her vitals. Her whole body seemed to be trembling. Dallas leaned back against the wall.
The vet moved up to check Eloise’s face. “She’s showing late signs of poisoning. We weren’t looking for it because of the foaling. Shit. Ricky, go to the truck, bring in the stomach tube and some of that charcoal. Jake, you move on aside.”
“Is she gonna make it?” Jake asked. His face was devoid of color.
“We’re gonna do our best, but I’m guessing there’s not much left in her stomach. At this point, probably not much to do but hope she survives as it runs its course.”
Jake moved out from under Eloise’s head, gently resting it on the floor. He stood back, but not very far.
The vet fed the tube down Eloise’s throat and sent down some of the powdered charcoal to hopefully absorb any toxins still in her digestive system.
“She’s breathing on her own,” the vet muttered.
“That’s good,” Jake said. It was half question.
“Yes. Her heart rate’s high, but not dangerously so, at least not for now. We’re just going to watch her for a while. Ricky, take some blood, get to the lab, see if you can find out what happened here.”
Ricky, the assistant, hurried back to the truck, returning with needles and a tourniquet. While he was busy doing that, the vet stood and turned to address everyone. “That foal is going to need milk, and Eloise is in no position to nurse.”
“I’ve got a bottle in here somewhere,” Gideon muttered. He disappeared into a nook where they stored a bunch of miscellaneous supplies.
“The Turner’s have had a couple foalings,” the vet said.
“I’ll text Ivy,” Boone said, whipping out his phone. A few seconds later he smiled. “She says they bagged some colostrum for the freezer. She’s bringing it over right now.”
Gideon appeared, then. “I’ll be damned if I accept help from that son-of-a-bitch. What about the Gleasons? I’m sure they got a nursing mare.”
“Ivy’s on her way,” Jake said sternly.
“Then I’ll send her ass back where she came from. I don’t want no Turner on my prop—”
“It’s not your call!” Jake shouted. “The Gleasons live twenty minutes away. Ivy’s on her way now. This is my mare, my foal, my call!”
Gideon turned red all the way to his ears. But if there was one thing he hated more than being talked-back-to by one of his sons, it was letting outsiders witness family business. The look Gideon gave Jake promised a near-future conversation that would definitely not go well for poor Jake. In that moment, though Jake didn’t appear to give a shit.
Ivy actually took a few minutes longer than everyone expected. During that time, the foal began m
oving, trying to stand. Its umbilical cord broke and the vet applied iodine to the stump, but otherwise left it alone. Dallas was silently rooting for the little gal to get up on her feet. If they lost Eloise, he’d never forgive himself, but if the foal survived, at least there would be some light amidst all the darkness.
Dallas turned toward the sound of a pickup truck. He peeked out the stable door. Dusk was settling and Ivy’s headlights appeared over the hill, her truck bouncing with the dips and ruts in the field. When she pulled up next to the door, Dallas saw that she’d brought her father.
Ivy hopped out of the driver’s seat, bottle in hand, and hurried past Dallas into the stables. “Already got it warmed up,” she said, handing it to the vet.
“Thank you, Ivy, that’s a big help,” the vet said. “Looks like she’s just about to stand. We’ll wait until she does to feed her.”
Jared Turner walked in the door, not far behind his daughter. How old man Turner could withstand the hatred evident in Gideon’s countenance was beyond Dallas’s understanding. Clearly his father wanted nothing more than to beat Jared to a bloody pulp.
But Jared merely shot him a friendly smile and nod before approaching Jake. To Dallas’s surprise, Jake met Jared halfway, hand extended. “Thank you, sir,” he said.
“That’s what neighbors are for,” Jared responded, shaking Jake’s hand and giving him a pat on the back.
Jake turned to Ivy, hand extended. But for some reason, she folded her arms over her chest, refusing the gesture. Dallas couldn’t see her face, but her shoulders were tense and her head tilted up, blond ponytail hanging severely down her neck. Jake frowned, dropping his hand. “Thank you, too, ma’am,” he said.
Ivy shook her head, what sounded like a snort of disgust accompanying the gesture. Jake glanced back at Gideon before taking another step backwards, away from the Turners.
“Guys, she’s gonna make it,” Cody said.
Everyone turned to watch the foal take its first, shaky stand. Jake fell to his knees in front of it, grinning like a proud papa. “Good girl. You’re such a strong girl.” The vet put the bottle in Jake’s hands. He held it about utter level, squeezing a little of the colostrum out of the nipple. The foal licked hesitantly at first, then latched right on and suckled.
