by Kate Morris
“What?” he asks as he pulls a hardboiled egg out of the fridge in the other hand. “I’m sorry I’m not using the correct fork.”
Sam chuckles again.
“Any fork would be an improvement at this point,” Simon retorts and rolls his eyes behind his glasses.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Cory asks. “We were rushed through dinner and had to be back out at the barn an hour later for the births.”
Earlier, after they’d heard about the caravan pulling out of the Gaylord, they had two heifers go into labor at the same time. One of the calves had to be pulled. It’s always a labor-intensive job but necessary to prevent the loss of the cow and her calf.
“No,” Simon answers. “I actually came in to get Sam.”
This causes her stomach to flip. “Why?” she asks cautiously, hoping he doesn’t want to talk again. Just being around Simon is painful. Lately, he’s even more confusing than usual.
“There’s an injured horse in the barn,” he explains. “It seems bad, or I wouldn’t have wanted to wake you. I observed him behaving very strangely in the pasture and was able to catch him. I tied him in a stall.”
“Did you note your observations, nerd?” Cory asks, teasing Simon as he must always do. It earns him a nasty look.
“Oh, no,” Sam whispers with worry. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m not sure. I just noticed a lot of blood on him back. This is your area of expertise, so I figured you’d be more help than I would. I hope you don’t mind. I felt terrible forcing you out of bed at this hour, but I see you’re already up.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” she says, remembering Parker’s offering of sleep aides.
“Is everything alright?” Simon asks with concern and steps toward her.
“Let me pull on a jacket,” she says, ignoring his question. It’s none of his business how she’s doing.
“Bear? Lion?” Cory asks.
“I don’t know yet,” Simon answers and moves toward the kitchen door again.
“I’m coming, too,” Cory says, getting a nod from Simon as Sam pulls on her jacket.
“You’ll want a toboggan,” Simon suggests and hands her one from his pocket.
“Th…thanks,” she stammers but feels angry just the same. His hat smells like him, clean, soapy, musky, irritating.
Cory escorts them to the barn where Simon shows her to the gelding in his stall near the end of the aisle. He is, indeed, bloody and frightened.
Sam coos to him as she enters his stall, knowing he could freak out and strike or bite at her. “Shh, that’s a good boy. Easy. Easy, boy.”
“Here’s some light, Sam,” Simon offers as he holds a flashlight for her. “Cory, pull that lantern off the hook in the aisle and hang it in here. This is too dark to see much.”
“Do you have a rag? We’re going to have to irrigate to see what we’re up against,” she says.
“Let me get some water in a bucket,” Cory offers and jogs away.
Simon returns a moment later with a rag wetted down, and Sam gently dabs at the horse’s back. He is less jittery and has begun to calm down.
“His wounds must be shallow because I don’t think he’d let me do this if they were deep,” she tells them.
Simon continues to hold the horse as well as the flashlight while Cory holds the bucket of water. They even move him into the aisle where Sam wipes him until the blood is mostly gone. There is some down around his stomach, but she’s reasonably sure it is just from it running over his sides from the top of his back.
“This is strange,” she observes.
“What is, kiddo?” Cory asks.
Sam takes the flashlight from Simon and aims its beam right into the thick, winter coat of the gelding.
“I can’t find anything,” she says. “Seriously. Simon, help me.”
He spreads the animal’s fur every few inches as she directs the light. She wipes with a new towel and fresh water and still finds nothing.
“What the heck?” Simon marvels.
“Normally when a horse is attacked, the predator animal goes for the stomach,” she informs them. “That’s why horses are very funny about humans messing with their stomachs and tightening the girth for the first time when they are young. It’s also why it’s important to start them young so that they can get used to it. They have a lot of trust issues that have been ingrained into their DNA code from hundreds of years as a prey animal. But this is strange.”
“Still not finding the source?” Cory asks from a few feet away. He closes in and begins searching for wounds, too.
“Nope,” she answers. “You?”
“Nothing yet,” Cory says. “What the hell, Professor? What’s going on?”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Simon comments. Then he, too, begins digging through the thick coat. “I’m not finding anything, either. Could the wound have come from another horse that brushed up against this one, perhaps fled and ran into this gelding in its haste to escape further attack?”
“The only way we’ll know is to check each horse,” Cory says.
“Well,” Sam says, “we don’t have to check anyone that’s in here. This gelding wouldn’t have had access to them. He was in which pasture?”
Simon answers, “The lower one right out here in the back of the barn. There are four more geldings out there with two mares and the Angus bull. Reagan wanted him with them.”
“It’s weird,” Cory whispers.
“What is?” Sam asks him as she returns the gelding to his stall.
He explains what he’s thinking, “If something was attacking one of the horses, the dogs would’ve started barking. Remember last month when the coyotes were comin’ around? The dogs let us know every time they were in the vicinity.”
“True,” Simon agrees. “And why not attack one of the cows or horses in the pastures much further out? Why go for an animal close to the barns and the humans? We’ve been on patrol all night. We would’ve heard or seen something that close. Heck, I was down by the goat barn just a half hour ago.”
“And I was in the top of this barn about twenty minutes ago. I didn’t hear or see anything.”
“Let’s get a look at those horses,” Simon recommends.
They stick together and begin inspecting the other horses closest to the barn. It doesn’t take long to catch them because they know people are in the barn. That usually means food. One by one, they bring them into the barn aisle where she and Simon check them out while Cory releases and catches the next. Not a single horse has been injured. None of them have blood on their coats, either.
Cory hurries down the aisle toward them after releasing another mare and says, “Hey, bring him with you and turn him out.”
He’s talking about the last gelding they’re reviewing with no results or signs of an attack. Sam holds onto his lead line and walks toward Cory with him.
“What’s going on?” Simon asks as they approach Cory.
“Not sure. I just found blood on the ground near the back of their pasture when I walked around to look for signs of an animal attack.”
“What the heck?” Sam asks. “The bull maybe?”
“No, I was able to get a good long look at him using my flashlight. He’s fine. He was just eating and ignoring me.”
Simon asks, “Do you think your dog killed something and the horse accidentally rolled in the remains?”
“Simon!” Sam reprimands. “They’re not that stupid. Give them some credit. Horses have a keen sense of smell. They are terrified of the smell of blood. They’d never roll in it. Geesh.”
“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I’m just trying to figure this out. I know the dogs do stuff like that.”
“Yeah,” Cory agrees. “They do. This is getting weirder by the minute. Something bled out in that spot, though. It’s not just a tiny amount.”
“Do you think it could be from a human?” Simon asks. Then he proposes a frightening idea, “One of the family?”
Cory shakes h
is head, “No. No way. Not a chance. Let’s go do a head count, but I don’t think it was from any of us.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Sam says with growing frustration and a touch of anxiety.
They walk to the house together, and Simon suggests, “The only one other than us who was up at this hour was Parker apparently. And Sam.”
“Yep,” Sam agrees. “I made sure to be quiet, too. Everyone else was asleep.”
“Right,” Cory says. “Except maybe a few of Robert’s men. I think he had them patrolling the area back there around the cabin. John told them to take a few nights off, though. They’ve been going at it twenty-four-seven lately.”
“Yes, they have,” Simon concurs.
“We’ll check in with them next,” Cory says.
They look in on the family, but accidentally wake John and Kelly, who are both light sleepers. They go into immediate tense, battle mode. Sam helps explain the situation, the guys go out and look at the horse, and they wait for them in the aisle of the barn. She yawns and pulls her jacket closer. It’s chilly tonight, and Sam can see her breath.
“Want my jacket? It’s warmer,” Simon offers.
“No, thanks,” she says with a scowl. Then she feels bad because he looks hurt. “I mean, I’ve already got your hat.”
“It’s fine,” he instantly returns with and adds, “I wanted you to have it. I’d gladly give you whatever you need. I want you to be warm.” He pauses and says in a much more husky, sensual tone, “If this situation weren’t so pressing, I might suggest other ways to warm up.”
This gets her attention, and Sam jerks her head to look up at him. He offers a pained grin as if he’s embarrassed for saying something so racy and looks at his boots. His expression turns to one of confusion. Had he really meant it that way? He’d certainly said it in a suggestive manner, which is nothing like Simon, ever. Did he just hit on her? She turns away quickly with ruddy cheeks and stares at nothing instead. John and Kelly come out of the stall with Cory on their heels. They peer into the bucket of bloody water.
“Something’s off here,” John observes quietly, in a deadly tone.
“Well, I’m awake!” Kelly announces brightly and smiles broadly. “Wanna’ catch an early morning run, girly man?”
He’s addressing Cory, of course. She knows he means to do a perimeter run but is being casual about it so as not to heighten everyone’s fear and anxiety. She’s quite sure that she’s the only one who feels fear, though. The rest of them have that look they get on their faces right before a fight, and even Simon has become tense and serious. He gets a tiny line between his brows when this moment happens, and it’s there now.
“You sure you can keep up, you fat bastard you?” Cory jabs.
When she first came to the farm, their terrible badgering of each other made Sam uncomfortable. Now she thinks they’re funny. It also makes her a little sad sometimes, too, that she’ll never have that brotherly teasing again with her own brother.
Kelly chuffs through his nose and retorts, “I know you like starin’ at my ass, so you’ll get a nice, long view of it for the next hour.”
This banter continues as they jog away from the barn through the back pasture. Then there is silence. She knows they have switched from silly, playful banter, to stalking and tracking mode. Kelly had his rifle on his back.
“Simon, would you please escort Sam back to the house?” John requests.
“Yes, sir,” he returns immediately.
“Sam, lock the kitchen door.”
“Are you sure? You guys can’t get in if you need to,” she says with worry that they’ll be locked out if something bad is about to happen.
“We’ll be fine. Just lock it,” he orders. “Wake Derek and let him know what’s going on.”
“Ok,” she says softly, suddenly feeling anxious.
John touches the top of her wool hat covered head. “Don’t worry, kiddo. We’ve got this. Probably all just a big pile of nothing. Go to bed after you tell Derek. Get some sleep.”
She nods with a frown and follows Simon from the barn.
“Keep your pistol with you,” he says quietly as he walks her to the house again.
“I will,” she promises. She doesn’t need to be told twice. She actually didn’t need to be told at all. Her first instinct was to go upstairs and get it before she even told Derek. She feels another yawn building but suppresses it. Then Sam remembers something she wanted to tell them. “Hey, I forgot to tell you guys. Parker said something strange tonight.”
“That’s par for the course with the pale one. What’d he say?”
“That he could get me sleeping pills, that he has them in the cabin,” she tells him.
“Why is that strange?” Simon asks as they approach the back porch.
“I don’t know. It just seemed weird the way he offered them like he has so many drugs, even prescription sleep aides. Maybe I’m just tired. It seemed odd.”
“They have a lot of hoarded drugs up at Knox. Remember the storage building full of supplies that Cory found?”
“Yes,” she answers, having been told about this. “But the way he was talking about how he went on runs seemed braggy about it.” Sam pauses to think.
“What is it, Sam?” Simon asks, touching her arm. Sam steps up onto the bottom stair, which puts her closer to eye level with him.
“He said he confiscated them, not that he found them on a run. It just didn’t sound right the way he described it. We find things. We scavenge things. We loot for things. We hunt and go on supply runs. We never use the term confiscate. That means to take something from someone.”
Simon’s gaze jumps straight to hers with a directness that she doesn’t always get from him. He is shy, unsure of himself most of the time. The intensity in his stare is not reserved this time.
“Go inside and lock this door, ok?” he says after a long pause.
Sam nods. He cups her cold cheek for a second. Simon’s hands are not cold, though he is not wearing gloves tonight. His hand is warm and sure.
Sam turns and climbs the rest of the stairs but pauses as she opens the door to the kitchen to look over her shoulder. Simon is still standing there but has his back to her. He is guarding her entry while her own back is to the yard.
Without turning to look at her, Simon says over his shoulder. “Lock the door, Sam.”
It sends a chill up her spine as she closes the door behind her and turns the locking mechanism home with a loud clank. Her concern for waking anyone in the house with too much noise has dissipated as her fear for their safety has risen.
Chapter Fifteen
Reagan
“I don’t get it,” Reagan says during breakfast, for which John had come to collect her and Grandpa from town. She is seated at their table in the dining room, and the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. Her concern for the gelding is high. “How the hell did Storm get blood on him if he wasn’t attacked? This doesn’t make any damn sense.”
“Reagan,” Hannah reprimands quietly.
“I’m serious,” she reasserts, although nobody really needs her to say it. “What’s going on around here? Was it the highwaymen?”
Cory breaks in to say, “We looked all night. I only saw the one spot where the blood was in the pasture that would indicate something being killed at that site, the area we showed you guys this morning. Nothing else. No other kill spots. No drag marks, no clumps of fur or bone, nothing. All of the animals have been accounted for.”
He looks to Simon, who adds, “Yes, the animals are all alive. If it was a chicken or duck, there would be feathers, the coop would be restless. Nothing like that happened. Even the dogs were fine.”
“And Shadow,” Cory says about his dog, “wasn’t riled up. She was with me all night. I had her doing a perimeter check with me. When this happened, I was probably a mile beyond the west field and then back in the top of the horse barn when we came back. It doesn’t add up.”
“And we did a
head count,” Simon continues. “Everyone’s fine. None of the family was outside at the time. Parker said all of his men are in the cabin. The two that were on patrol are back in their bunks.”
“The children are safe,” Hannah says. “That’s all that matters.”
“No, it’s not!” Reagan argues, her voice getting too loud for the confines of the dining room. “Sorry. Sorry, Hannie. I don’t mean to snap. I’m just freaking out. The guys said that the horse had a lot of blood on it. The spot Cory showed us had a pool of blood on the ground. No animal tissue. It was just blood, splatter, pooling, and a trail that goes cold. If it isn’t from the horse being injured, where did it come from?”
John takes her hand in his and gives it a gentle squeeze. “It’ll be ok, boss. We’ll figure this out.”
Cory breaks in again and says, “I tracked through the woods, too. I found fresh hoof prints from one of the horses, not on our normal paths. That was strange. It could be one of them got loose and got themselves back in, maybe got cut up on the barbed wire.”
Grandpa nods thoughtfully, “That’s happened before. They want out, achieve their goal, and decide the grass isn’t greener. They find a way back in, usually through the same hole they exited.”
Reagan agrees, “Yeah, I know. I’ve seen them jump the fence, get messed up, and come right back through the same way, messing themselves up even more. They aren’t too bright when it comes to fences sometimes.”
Kelly says, “Yes, but what if it isn’t from one of our horses? What if it’s from someone who trespassed last night? How old were those tracks, Cor?”
“Hours,” his brother answers.
A hush falls over the table as everyone contemplates this possibility and all it could mean. People could’ve come very close to their farm, possibly even onto their land.
“Did anyone call the neighbors and see if they’re missing someone?” Kelly asks. “I know the Johnsons just took in a few of the women from the Gaylord.”
“Derek called them a little bit ago,” Sue offers.
