* * *
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
* * *
He was trying, oh, Knox was trying.
He reached for his computer and opened it, the light illuminating the entire room. The news article about the NBR-X bombing came up, and he read it again, although he knew every line.
Arnie Gibbs, from Lubbock, Texas. Deceased at age 41. Body found in the rubble of the bombing. Investigators had found the ingredients for a bomb at his house, but even Knox had fertilizer in his barn. It didn’t make him a terrorist. Of course, Knox wouldn’t think of mixing the ammonium nitrate with fuel oil, boosting it with C-4, and adding a blasting cap. Gibbs had wrapped it all in a plastic bag and dropped it into an empty water bucket in the temporary stock holding area in the arena.
Only the fact that one of the stock handlers had moved it over to the dumpster area protected the arena from more lethal devastation. The blast had been localized to one area, secured inside what effectively acted as a cement bunker.
No one had answers to what Gibbs had been doing in the stock area, lingering for his own demise, a glitch Knox simply couldn’t get out of his brain.
But it wasn’t his puzzle to solve. Nor was figuring out who the two cowboys were in the picture, and what connection they might have to Gibbs. He’d called Torres, but the man gave him a total of two-point-three seconds, just short of hanging up on him.
Yeah, so maybe he should just let it go.
Except every night Kelsey kept slipping out of his hands. And every night he heard himself say, I told you, I’m going to get you out of this.
And he had, hello.
It had been her decision to walk away from him. And why not? It wasn’t like they had a passionate, torrid romance.
Not with Safe, and Old, Knox.
Aw, that wasn’t fair. He was older than her.
And safe.
Shoot, he needed coffee.
Knox was closing the computer when he heard a knock at the door.
His mother walked in, her curly brown hair pulled back in a headband, dressed in an oversized flannel shirt and a pair of yoga pants. She was carrying two mugs of coffee and set one on the desk.
“Early start,” she said, blowing on her coffee.
“You too.”
She slid into a leather cigar chair in front of the desk. “Your father couldn’t sleep, either, when he was worried.” She raised an eyebrow.
Tall, willowy, and strong, Gerri Marshall seemed to be able to see right through him. He always felt thirteen under her scrutiny.
“I’m not—”
“I heard you set up an appointment at the bank.” She took a sip of the coffee. “Are we in trouble?”
Seriously. He couldn’t jaywalk in the small ranching town of Geraldine without it getting back to his mother. “How did you hear that?”
She lifted a shoulder. Then, a smile. “Hardwin Colt is the bank president.”
Oh. Which, by the way, “Tate told me you two were seeing each other.” He ran his thumb along the handle of his mug. “When did that happen?”
She drew in a breath. “We’re not really seeing each other. He came to one of my watercolor classes at the library, and we struck up a conversation. He took me out for dinner a couple times.”
A couple times— “Ma. Listen. We don’t know anything about Hardwin. He just moved here—”
“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, son. He’s lived here for five years, so he’s not exactly new in town. But he’s just a nice man who lost his wife a few years ago. We have a lot in common is all. Besides, I get lonely sometimes.”
Lonely. “You have me.”
She gave him a look.
And that felt a little weird, so he didn’t chase it.
She took another sip of coffee. “So, if it’s not the ranch, is it what happened in Texas? Tate called to tell me about it.”
Clearly Tate was trying to mend his demolished fences.
“No. I’m fine. I’m just…”
“Something is eating at you. A mother knows, and I hear you roaming around this house in the wee hours of the night.” She leaned forward. “Thank the Lord that no one other than the suspect was killed—” She held up her hand. “No other human being was killed. I know you’re upset about Hot Pete.”
“Hot Pete could have landed in the NBR-X championships. Again. He pays—paid—the mortgage on this ranch.”
She went silent. “And you raised him from a calf.”
He drew in a breath, looked out the window. The moon had fallen, leaving a gray-red wash upon their land, undulating over pasture, coulee, and ridge, all the way until it reached the Garnet Mountains, still snowcapped and jagged in the distance.
“I think you just need to put this horrible tragedy behind you.”
He looked back at her. “Yes. Absolutely. It’s behind me.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Sighed. “I was thinking…maybe we should think about renting out the land.” She leaned back. “Hardwin’s looking to expand his herd and could use more grazing land.”
“We need our grazing land for our herd.”
“The herd is half of what is was when your father—”
“That’s because we’re breeders now, Ma. Of champion bucking bulls.”
He didn’t mean to raise his voice, especially when she tightened her mouth. “Knox. I know you mean well. And I do trust you. You have your father’s instincts, and more. You took a gamble with Gordo and it paid off. But my family has run cattle just as long as the Marshall family has, and I know a few things about ranching. And I know we don’t need all this land for twelve hundred head of cattle, even if we keep one section fallow and one section for fescue and one for alfalfa. One cow calf only needs two acres of forage land a year. That’s less than three thousand acres. We can afford to lease one section—”
“Okay!”
She recoiled.
Oh, he hadn’t meant for his voice to emerge with so much edge. “I’m sorry, Ma.” He ran his hand over his jaw—he needed to shave. “I’m just…yeah, you’re probably right… It’s just that Dad never had to lease the land and…”
Now he sounded pitiful and thirteen. He took a sip of coffee, unable to look at his mother.
“Knox. You are not a failure. Not by a long shot. Your father would be so proud—”
He met her eyes, and she drew in a breath.
“You need to stop wondering if you were the right one to take over the ranch,” his mother said quietly.
“It doesn’t matter. We didn’t really have a choice, did we? I gotta check on Daisy. She’s about to birth.” He finished his coffee. Got up. “Thanks for the coffee.”
She nodded, her mouth a tight line, and she wore the same look she had when Reuben told her he was leaving.
He might not be a failure, but if he’d stuck around, then Dad wouldn’t be gone, would he?
Just another person he’d let down.
He pulled on a lined flannel shirt and his work boots, then exited the house and followed the trail to the barn. He’d spent three summers re-siding the barn, installing pens for the bulls, and creating a corral where he might train them. It wasn’t a science—the breeding or training—as most bucking bulls simply possessed the genes to throw off a cowboy. But he could add to their Pavlovian response by training them to buck when they felt the pressure of a dummy.
More of a remote-controlled box than the form of a rider, the twenty-or-so-pound dummy was harnessed to the youngster bull. When the bull bucked especially hard or jumped high, Knox released the dummy. The practice wasn’t widely heralded, but he’d used it on Hot Pete…
Knox drew in a breath at the stab. Swallowed down the memory of him singing to the animal that last night in the stock barns.
And of course, Kelsey’s voice sneaked in beside his.
<
br /> He’d found her album online, downloaded it, and even sang along to a couple songs.
Cowboy, don’t lie—Take me away and make me fly.
Once, he’d turned it on in the barn when he was mucking out a pen with his hired man. Fell into the memory of her at the concert when her lonely ballad came up.
* * *
But you don’t know if you don’t start
So wait…for one true heart…one true heart…
* * *
He eased open the door and flicked on the overhead light to the barn. Gordo glanced over at Knox with big brown eyes, his big white leathery Brahma bull body shifting in his pen.
“Hey there, Buck,” he said. Gordo turned, shoving his bony snout between the bars of the gate. Knox reached into his pocket and pulled out a baggie of old apple slices, now browned. Opened the bag and pulled out one, feeding it into Gordo’s mouth.
Gordo’s long tongue drew it in, chomping it, and Knox ran his hand between his eyes. Scrubbed his nose. “You’re going to have to give me a few more champions, buddy.”
He fed the bull another slice, then headed down to where Daisy stood, heavy with calf. He checked her udder, found it to be swelling, the same for her birth canal. Her pelvic bones had started to loosen, but so far she hadn’t seemed uncomfortable. He ran his hand over her face, those long-lashed eyes blinking at him. “Hey, sweetheart. Give me a good bull, okay?”
The four two-years-olds were asleep in the pens in the back of the barn, their red bodies rising and falling with slumber.
The Marshall Triple M would be just fine. He’d purchase Calamity Jane, breed her with Gordo, and hopefully produce another monster in the ring.
They’d land back on their feet, no problem.
He wasn’t going to drop anything. Or anyone.
Knox fed the cattle, both in the barn and the calves and cows in the nearby breeding pen, and by the time he returned inside, the sun bit into the cool morning air, burning off the chill, leaving glistening teardrops on the grassy pastures around the house.
Three generations ago, Great-Grandfather Marshall had headed West, built the Triple M for his three sons, including the homestead cabin still tucked below the ridge, which was protection against the elements.
Two left, one for Texas, the other for Minnesota.
One stayed. The two-story log home was built by Knox’s grandfather, Joseph, in the fifties, and his own father, Orrin, had inherited it when Joseph died too young at the age of forty-six. Knox loved this house, this land, ripe with the husk of earth, cattle, prairie grasses. He loved sitting on the front porch, watching the sunset burn through the land, and in the winter, playing a mean game of Sorry! with his family in front of the hand-hewn rock fireplace that soared two stories in the family room. Even loved their annual re-chinking, where they filled in gaps in the hand-cut logs, inside and out. The second story bordered the family room area with a balcony edge, the bedrooms off the walkway. He remembered sneaking out of his bedroom as a child to dangle his feet between the spindles, watching Magnum, P.I. on the television below through the slats.
He still slept in the bedroom he’d shared with Reuben, although he’d replaced the twin beds with a king.
And, now, just like for as long as he remembered, the smell of bacon and eggs greeted him as he came in from chores in the morning. That and the sight of his mother, her hair pulled back, wearing her blue-checked apron, cooking bacon as savory smoke rose from her cast iron pan on her gas stove.
As usual a plate of buttered, homemade wheat bread sat on the counter.
She looked up and smiled at him as he came in. “There’s coffee left.”
He came over to her, put his arm around her, and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Ma.”
She swallowed, nodded, and he hated that he’d hurt her.
“Listen,” he said as he slid onto a stool. “I know what I’m going to get you for your sixtieth birthday.”
She put a plate of bacon, soaking into paper towels, on the counter. He stole a piece.
“A new set of paints?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Really, do you need—”
“No! You’ve given me that every year for the past four years.”
Oh. He didn’t realize he was so boring. Add that to Old. And Safe.
She ladled eggs onto a plate. Set it in front of him. “Which is fine. But…what?”
He added bacon to the plate. “I’m going to make sure every one of my siblings is here.”
She stilled. Looked at him. “You…how? Even Ford?”
“I’m going to give it my best shot.”
She sat on the stool next to him. “You are a good son.”
He let the words heal the wound between them.
She turned on the news and they watched it in silence, eating their eggs.
A report of the bombing came up, a wrap of the events as investigators closed the case. He said nothing. But a tiny hum lingered in the back of his head. Cowboy, don’t lie—Take me away and make me fly.
“Good,” his mother said as the report ended. “It’s over. You can put it behind you.”
He nodded, finished eating, and washed his plate. “I’m going to shower.”
Then he filled another cup of coffee and headed across the great room, up the stairs, with the dawn gilding the smooth pine floors, and into his room.
He set the cup of coffee on his bedside stand. Walked over to his closet. Opened it and considered the contents.
Inside, pictures of the bombing, taken from the internet—aerial shots, layouts of the arena, crowd photos, anything he could find—were tacked to the back wall, along with news articles with highlighted and circled data. He’d included the entire roster of cowboys, stock animals—with the deceased underlined—and a rough timeline of events.
He’d even run down a list of Kelsey’s crew, although they seemed unlikely culprits, as well as the security staff, thank you, Tate.
In the center of the array was the picture of the two cowboys he’d seen, sketched out from memory. A bad sketch, but he’d inherited some of his mother’s skill. And on top of it all, he’d posted yellow notes with questions, along with a phone number to the private investigator he’d hired down in San Antonio. Probably not the wisest of expenses, but he just needed names. Somewhere to start to answer the questions he couldn’t escape.
The most important being—why would a cowboy clown from Lubbock, Texas, want to bomb a rodeo?
No, this wasn’t over. And he wasn’t putting anything behind him.
I told you, I’m going to get you out of this.
Tate didn’t know how to protect Kelsey. Not since she’d turned into a zombie. Or at least part of the walking dead, because every day she seemed to fade. Sure, she gave a rather gallant attempt at showing up for practice. Especially since they were opening this weekend in the city of Lincoln, Nebraska, for Brett Young, a country singer out of Nashville. Carter had nabbed them the fill-in gig when Young’s warm-up act had bailed.
Kelsey wore her game face during the day, rehearsing the finale she’d orchestrated as they practiced onstage at the Bourbon Theatre, another historic venue, a 1930s renovated movie theater. Tate had watched from the wings as she powered through her song, refusing to let the darkness own her as she walked offstage with Glo and Dixie.
The woman had the steel-edged spine of a warrior.
Reminded him a little of his sister, Ruby Jane. She would have joined the SEALs right alongside her twin, Ford, if the Navy would have allowed it.
Instead, Ruby Jane traveled the globe as a travel agent/interpreter. The woman was fluent in five languages.
In fact, all his siblings had scraped out spectacular lives. Knox, the legendary breeder; Wyatt, with his superstar career as goalie for the Minnesota Blue Ox; Ford, kicking down doors and saving lives as a SEAL; and even big brother Reuben, jumping out of planes like he might be a superhero, into a flaming forest.
While he, middle-child Tate, managed to—what?—w
ell, he’d emerged from his years working security for a Russian casino boss in Vegas alive. That counted for something. But while he liked hanging around the Belles, managing their security seemed at best low-end babysitting. Other than Kelsey’s midnight strolls, he hadn’t a clue why Glo had hired him.
Maybe for moments like this, when Kelsey slipped out of the tour bus for a midnight stroll. They’d given him a sofa on the bus while they figured out the last few weeks of their tour, and he hadn’t hated it. Sort of liked listening to the breathing of the three ladies, not to mention the snores of Elijah Blue. It reminded him of bunking with Wyatt and Ford back at the ranch.
Wow, he missed those guys.
Not that he’d let on, but yeah, every time Ma brought up coming home for her birthday, he wanted to ask—Will Wyatt and Ford be home? Not that he didn’t want to see Reuben and Knox, and especially Ruby Jane, but he’d never related to his older two brothers.
At least Wyatt and Ford looked up to him. Then.
And Ruby Jane thought he hung the moon.
Yep, he missed that. But as long as he’d committed to trailing after Kelsey and her midnight strolls, he would miss the big event.
Better to be employed, perhaps. Sorry, Ma.
He waited for Kelsey to tiptoe by him and open the door before he got up, grabbed his shirt, and followed her out.
He gave her a long leash. They’d arrived a few days early, so although Glo had voted for a hotel, Kelsey insisted they park the bus at a place outside town, the venue being locked in the concrete jungle. Elijah Blue and Dixie opted for a nearby hotel, which left him, Glo, and Kelsey to spread out in the bus. It also meant that he didn’t stress out when Kelsey went on her walkabout.
Most of the time she simply wandered the long tree-lined campground. Once, she sat at the edge of a river, staring into the swaying moonlit grasses.
He stayed back, in the shadows, her silent sentry.
But her restlessness shimmered off her. A very present wariness, as if at any time her world could drop out beneath her.
PTSD. Ben King had nailed it at the concert. Apparently, Ben’s wife, Kasey, suffered from occasional issues with PTSD from her time in Afghanistan. But a person didn’t have to be a soldier to be stressed out and traumatized.
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