by Rachel Lee
He didn’t need that now, not when he was a long way from settled in himself.
If his life was a ledger, he wouldn’t have known whether he was more in the red or the black. How would he? He seldom knew the real purpose behind much of what had been asked of him. He had been given mission briefings; sometimes he knew he was after terrorists, other times he just had to go on faith that his country needed this thing done.
That left him suspended somewhere between heaven and hell, he supposed. In purgatory. Regardless, things came back to haunt him—everyone got haunted to some degree—and they’d flash through his mind. If nothing else, memories goaded him to find a different way to leave the world a better place. Problem was, he hadn’t found that way yet.
Maybe that was because he felt like he’d been through an emotional blender. He hadn’t expected such an abrupt end to his career, although he was no fool and had known it was possible. If he’d expected anything, it was that he’d come home in a bag or box. He’d been wounded before and had recovered. So, idiotic or not, he hadn’t exactly planned for an abrupt shift into civilian life. Truthfully, he admitted to himself, in his job neither he nor anyone else looked that far down the road. It was dangerous. You had to live for the mission and then for the next mission, and keep your focus tight.
Then, boom, every parameter of your life changed. You went from fitting perfectly into a machine to fitting nowhere at all.
Interesting, really. A different kind of challenge, one he hadn’t been up to so far.
But he supposed it was hard to go from a tight focus, where damn near every moment had been directed, to one where nothing was directed. It was like going from narrow tunnel vision to full vision. It was certainly a different way of existing.
He dozed occasionally, but sleep was fitful, more as if he was in a dangerous situation than completely safe in a house in a nice little town. It was okay, though. He’d learned to get a whole lot out of catnaps, just as he’d learned to take one whenever he got the opportunity.
He’d be fine in the morning.
And maybe he’d go over and offer his assistance to Allison. Sampling for a poison that dangerous didn’t seem like something she should do alone.
Maybe it was time he reached out to someone. Just one person. It would be a big step out of the shadows that dogged him still.
* * *
Allison blinked in astonishment as she looked up from loading her sample case into the back of her car and saw Jerrod Marquette crunching through the snow toward her. A cup of coffee and suddenly he was no longer a loner? Uneasiness trickled through her.
She gave herself a mental shake, telling herself not to be ridiculous. If he’d moved in two days ago, she wouldn’t even question his approach. He was a guy with a shell, as she had seen last night, but he’d done not one untoward thing.
“Good morning,” he said as he reached her.
“It’s certainly a beautiful one. Cold, though.” Her breath was visible as she spoke, and she was grateful for her one-piece snowmobile suit. How much nicer if the weather hadn’t gone crazy or she could just let this ride until the unusual cold passed. But the toxin couldn’t wait.
“I was thinking how dangerous it might be for you to hunt this toxin all by yourself. Is someone going with you?”
She bridled. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m sure you do. But if something goes wrong... Do cell phones even work when you get out of town very far?”
“Intermittently,” she acknowledged. “Ranches are spread so far apart that it doesn’t seem worth the cost to put in a lot of towers. But the lines of sight are good until you get into the woods and mountains, so...intermittent.”
Reluctantly, however, she admitted he was making a good point. She’d been thinking in terms of wandering ranch land, shoveling away a little snow and drilling contained cores of about six inches of dirt. No big deal. But he was also right about being out there alone. Any accident could cause serious trouble if she had no way to call someone.
“I guess I need to get a radio,” she said finally. “To call the sheriff if I need help.”
“Good idea. Can you get one this morning?”
“I doubt it. I don’t know how long it will take, and while we’re standing here that toxin could be spreading.”
“Okay, then, how about I tag along? I’ll bring my own truck if you would be more comfortable, but if you twist an ankle or something, I can be there.”
She studied him, thinking he didn’t look quite so much like a devil in the bright morning light. But every bit as attractive, even bundled up as he was.
“Are you a born caretaker or something?” she asked.
“Not exactly. Or possibly. What I know is, I almost never went on a dangerous mission alone. The smallest team I ever went out with was three. The average was six.”
“Backup?”
“And rescue.”
“Dang,” she said. Mostly because he was right and she should have thought of it herself, persuaded one of her students to go along or something. No, she’d just been hot to trot to get those samples. “You know, I have to talk to the ranchers before I go out on their lands. They’ll know where I am.”
“Okay, then. Stay safe.” He turned and started to walk away. For the first time it occurred to her that he might need something to do himself. Everything about him seemed to be at loose ends, though she couldn’t exactly say why she sensed that.
“Jerrod, wait. I’d appreciate the company.”
He turned back, nodding shortly and giving her a small smile. “You’ve got it.”
But she made him take his own truck. She was not ready to get all cozy with this guy, no matter how much her hormones awoke when he was around. Even though her conscience did twinge when she considered the waste of gas and the pollution of unnecessarily taking two vehicles.
No, she thought as she backed out of the driveway, this was the wisest decision. If he got bored, he could leave. She wouldn’t feel pressured by him being stuck with her. And she’d have her own escape route if she needed it.
She wasn’t ready to trust yet. No way.
But thinking about Jerrod as she drove out to the Madison ranch where the initial incident had occurred, she wondered if she was being too distrusting. Yes, she had little to go on, and how could she be sure he really was ex-military? How could she be sure he hadn’t spoken a pack of lies to her?
But she’d met a few con men, and as a rule they were smooth, charming talkers. He hadn’t tried any smooth talk at all. Quite the contrary, he hadn’t done a damn thing to win her over. Instead, he had struck her as a box full of tightly locked secrets. Everything about him screamed, “Watch out!”
Hardly the way to put anyone’s fears to rest.
So she laughed off her doubts about him. Military vet, probably still struggling to make his way back to this life after one so very different. There were more than a few around this county. The adjustment to coming home always seemed far harder than the adjustment of arriving in a strange land. She’d even heard that from people who traveled for long periods of time.
She wondered if anyone had studied that adjustment issue. It seemed odd, but hadn’t she read that Peace Corps volunteers also had reentry problems? She seemed to remember she had.
By the time she reached Jake Madison’s place, she thought she had settled the issue, in her own mind, anyway. Until given some evidence that Jerrod wasn’t trustworthy, she’d let it lie.
The wind bit at her as soon as she stepped out of her vehicle. Jake knew she was coming and why, so she wasn’t at all surprised when he stepped out onto the porch, warmly dressed and ready to go.
“You sure picked a fine day for this,” he remarked.
“I didn’t pick it. It picked me.”
He grinned and started do
wn the steps. “I’ve even got my horses in the barn. Are you sure you should be out?”
She spread her arms. “I came dressed.”
He glanced toward the truck. “Who’s your compadre?”
“My neighbor, Jerrod Marquette. He seems to think I shouldn’t be out doing this alone.”
“Well, you shouldn’t. But I didn’t intend to leave you alone. Nora will be thrilled that I can come back as soon as I show you the site. Then the two of you be sure to stop in for something hot to drink. You’re going to need it.”
She noted that Jerrod didn’t get out of his truck. Jake noticed, too, glancing that way again, but quickly turning to his own truck parked alongside the house. “I’ll lead the way. Damn winter came early, didn’t it? Ground is already frozen.”
“How are your stock doing?”
“Unhappy, but surviving. We’re spending an awful lot of time checking on them.”
A minute later, Jake pulled away from the house, leading the small convoy across his rangeland. They had to stop a few times while he opened gates to let them through, then waited while he closed them.
Jake had a decent-size ranch, but they could have gotten to the problem location faster on a galloping horse. They weren’t driving on a road, and Allison bounced up and down, her seat belt locking up frequently but preventing her head from hitting the roof of the car. Small mercies, she thought.
At last they came to what she would have guessed to be the farthest reach of his range, judging by the stream that still rippled and sparkled in the sunlight and the almost abrupt rise of the ground toward the mountains just beyond it.
An area was surrounded by yellow tape, and no cattle were in sight anywhere.
Jake climbed out and walked back to her as she exited her vehicle. Jerrod finally decided to emerge from his truck and she made introductions. The two men shook hands and exchanged measuring looks.
Jake got right to business. “Sheriff Dalton roped this off. It includes where we found the dead animal that might have been coyote bait, and the spot where my cows died and a considerable piece around it. For safety, I moved my stock to a different pasture.”
“Those pin flags? What are they?”
“The red one is where we found the bait. The yellow ones are where we found the cows. They didn’t get very far, but you could see where they convulsed and vomited before we got this fresh snow.”
“Damn,” Allison whispered.
“What?” Jerrod asked.
“I get that cows don’t move far very fast usually, but this toxin affects the nervous system and brain. Most animals when they’re exposed will run crazily, have seizures, try to bite at themselves. In short, I would have expected the cows to travel farther.”
Jake looked at her. “You think the toxin was that strong that it killed fast?”
“They had to be eight hundred or so pounds?”
“They’re Angus. They both tipped the scales close to a thousand.”
“Damn,” Allison murmured. “That was a lot of poison.”
“Did you get results from the state lab?”
“Only as to what kind of poison. They haven’t given me concentrations. I guess I need to call them Monday. I’m also wondering how they could have gotten so much of it. A little meltwater....” She trailed off, trying to imagine it. “Given what cows eat, this is weird.”
“Scary, too,” Jake said. “I’m still amazed my dogs didn’t get into the bait. They should have found it irresistible.”
“Given that the poison is odorless and tasteless, yes, they should have. Maybe the cows’ reactions were so fast they moved away.”
“They sure moved the rest of the herd away.” Jake shook his head. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’d like some answers, but I’m not expecting them overnight.”
He nodded to her and Jerrod, climbed back into his truck and drove toward the ranch house.
Allison stood looking at the roped-off area, feeling utterly creeped out.
“Maybe,” Jerrod said presently, “you should have a whole decon team out here.”
“It’s crossing my mind. I’m trying to think of all the ways that quantity of poison could have wound up here. A single bait? It seems a reach. Maybe someone was screwing around out here doing something they shouldn’t have been doing and spilled a bunch of the stuff. I told you how little it takes. But in terms of its effects on those cows, I’m thinking it was more than a teeny bit.”
“Yeah. Enough to kill five or six men?”
“Or maybe cows react differently. I need to talk to someone after I get done here. The thing is, that poison usually takes a couple of hours to start working. That makes it even stranger that the cows and the bait were found so close together. They should have wandered away before it hit, even if they were grazing normally.”
“Unless the supposed bait was still wandering itself when it got here.”
“Which opens up a whole other can of worms. Where had it been? Where did it find the toxin? How far had it come?” She shook her head. “I’m going to get my gear. Maybe you should stay outside this circle.”
He didn’t look as if that sat well with him, at least insofar as she could tell from his stony facade, but too bad. She had the gear to protect herself, and he didn’t.
Five minutes later she had disposable decon boots pulled up to her knees and big rubber gloves over her hands that reached up to her elbows even over her snowsuit. Then she picked up her sample case, corer and a shovel and headed for the circle.
Given what she had just learned, this was no longer looking like such an easy job. If the quantity of toxin was truly large, it could be all over by now. Some would have broken down, but she wondered how well. She had no idea how it reacted to the cold. She understood that fungi in the dirt would break it down, but how active were they near the surface now that it was so cold? Either way, she needed to be extremely cautious that she didn’t carry the toxin out of this area in any way.
So many variables right now that could make everything worse.
She ducked under the tape, then reached back for her supplies. It was going to be a long morning.
* * *
Jerrod watched her work, pacing around the outer edge of the delimited area. He figured he could help her if he had the protective gear, and he decided to ask her if she had any spares, and if he could help in some way. He got her concerns about exposure, but it was a lot of work for one person, he thought as he watched her use the snow shovel to clear away the snow, then twist her manual coring tool into the ground, pulling up samples that were at least six inches long. She strained occasionally as she met a particularly hard piece of ground, but as the hours passed she piled her small core samples, carefully labeled according to some grid system, into her case just outside the ring.
And everywhere she drilled, she added a blue pin flag.
Eventually, the place was fluttering with flags. She made her way back to the edge of the tape. “Can you get one of the big trash bags out of the back of my car? I need to ditch my rubber gloves and boots.”
He brought her the bag, watching the caution she exercised in removing the boots and gloves and stuffing them into the bag he held open. “Please seal it,” she said.
So she was worried she might have picked up contaminants. Great. He looked around again, wondering if it had ever crossed her mind to consider that someone might get upset if he or she thought Allison could track the toxin back to its origins. Then he remembered she had said that would probably be impossible. Given the way this crap spread, he supposed she was right. It all depended on whether the guy who’d done this understood that.
“What now?” he asked as he stood holding the tied-off bag and she bent to pick up her gear.
“I’m going to take a few samples outside the perimeter, then I want to g
o downstream and take some water samples.”
He looked at her, thinking that even after all that labor she was looking cold. “You should have brought a thermos of coffee. You’re chilled.”
“Rule one when dealing with toxic substances. Don’t eat or drink.”
“Bad enough you have to breathe, huh?”
She surprised him with a laugh. “Maybe. But I think the snowfall took care of that.”
He felt his lips twitch, wanting to join her laughter. The feeling surprised him. “Well, I’ve been standing here, too. I’d hate to spread it. What’s the likelihood I’m carrying some of this stuff right now?”
“Low. You’re uphill.” She waved her arm. “Just a couple more samples farther out, then we’ll drive along the stream.”
Her competence made him feel comfortable. He liked being around people who knew what they were doing, always had. The fact that he was the tyro here didn’t bother him. He was learning.
And even in that snowmobile suit she looked tempting enough to eat.
He watched her study the terrain, keeping his mouth shut, refusing to insult her by speaking. He was a capable judge of terrain himself, extremely capable, but she didn’t seem to need his help at all.
The back of his neck prickled. Moving slowly, he turned to scan the area. Someone was watching them, someone he couldn’t see. He knew it as sure as he was standing there.
But who? A hunter? Someone who wanted to keep an eye on Allison’s activities?
But then the feeling faded. Probably just a hunter, he told himself. Although given that everyone by now had probably heard of the poison, he was surprised that anyone would want to hunt in the area.
“Have they warned hunters?” he asked.
“You bet,” she answered, then marched away toward the stream’s edge where she took a few more ground samples. Then they were off, bucking alongside the stream.
