Dead Pile (Maggie #3)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  For fifteen minutes, Maggie drives in circles around the house. She grows more confident about driving and more concerned about Lily as time passes. By now, Maggie is wise to Lily’s favorite flight paths. She’s exhausted all her close-in spots. Maggie will have to go farther out.

  For a moment, she second-guesses herself. Lily is a big, strong animal, and she’s smart. But she’s alone. And if anything happens to her, especially after fucking Louise let her out, Maggie will never forgive herself. If only she’d kept Louise inside. It’s her fault.

  Despair wells up in her. She’s failing at this ranch-hand thing. Failing like she fails at everything. Faking it like she’s faking everything these days. Faking at being a Crow. At being a Wyomingite. At being a girlfriend. Things are so much easier for her in Texas. She knows how to be a junker, a washed-up singer, and a free-and-easy single woman. Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe. All her life she’s been the risk-taker, ready to jump. Running off to Nashville at seventeen. Touring the country playing for tips at eighteen. Even trading the rights to her recordings for her shop and house in Giddings in her early twenties had been a huge risk.

  But those risks had been about her music and her livelihood. Now that it’s her heart at stake, it’s not nearly so easy to be brave and real. To tell Hank she loves him. To commit to a future with him. To confront him about not shutting her out.

  Going after Lily isn’t nearly as hard as those things. She points the Ranger into the wind and guns the engine. Whether Maggie is faking it or not, Lily is out there, and Maggie’s the only one who can help her.

  Forty-Nine

  An hour has passed, and there’s been no sign of Lily. The snow is falling horizontally, and it’s almost a whiteout. Maggie follows fence lines to keep herself from getting lost. Twice she’s come upon hulking black objects, but both times she finds cows huddled in small groups. Sweat drips down her face. How can she be so cold and so hot at the same time? She wiggles her fingers. There’s barely any feeling in them or her toes. She’s not sure how much longer she can stay out here. The gas gauge on the Ranger doesn’t work, and running out of gas in this storm would be bad news for a flatlander like her.

  It’s time to head back in. She hates it, but she knows it is.

  She decides to make a circuit of the fence in one last pasture, even though it’s not one of Lily’s haunts. The land out here is wild, she knows, prone to unseen gulches, rock formations, steep hills, mini-cliffs, and irrigation ditches. There’s no two-track inside this fence as there has been in the others. The Ranger putts along slow and steady, up, down, and over terrain and obstacles unfamiliar to her.

  Suddenly the steering wheel is wrenched from her hands, and the whole unit tips. With no seatbelt to hold her in place, Maggie braces herself against the steering wheel and floorboard. The Ranger lands on its side, ripping its door apart. Louise falls on top of Maggie’s side, but Maggie manages to hold them both suspended over the snowy, rocky ground. The roof is on the downhill side, and the ATV begins to slide. Snow and mud cover Maggie head to toe in seconds. There’s a painful scraping sound and the Ranger comes to a jarring stop.

  “Oomph.” Maggie shakes her arms and legs and rotates her neck. She’s all right.

  But the Ranger isn’t. She opens the other door. Dog and woman crawl out. Maggie takes a few steps around the Ranger to inspect it. There’s no way she can right the thing. She feels as much as hears a crunch and finds her driving goggles under her boot.

  “Come on, Louise.” Maggie scrambles on her hands and knees to the top of the ravine. She holds her hands out and walks slowly until she finds the fence, which just skirts the top of it, leaving no room for an ATV to pass, which would explain why she ended up at the bottom of the little gulch.

  Just as she’s about to retrace their path and start the long, cold walk home, she hears a whinny.

  “Lily!”

  A horse whinnies again. In the wind and weather, Maggie can’t get a fix on the direction the sound is coming from. She doesn’t even know for sure if it is Lily. But she can’t go back in without checking, when the horse is so close.

  She follows the fence out in the direction they’d been headed, calling every few seconds. Without the goggles, Maggie is nearly blind, even with her scarf wrapped around her forehead as a shield. She and Louise trudge on.

  Then Louise barks once, a shrill yip. Maggie takes another step, then another, calling for Lily, and runs into something large and unyielding.

  Fifty

  Maggie screams and jumps back, but not before she realizes the something is also warm, and it snorts. She moves back to it and brushes snow from a big animal’s back and uncovers black fur. She works her way to the head and gets a big puff of Lily’s breath in her face.

  She smashes her face into Lily’s long, hard one, holding the horse’s head with both hands. “You big, dumb horse. What are you doing out here? Why do you always have to be so damn independent? Look what it gets you. In trouble. Alone.” She lifts her head, kisses Lily’s velvety muzzle. “Let’s go home.”

  Maggie is wearing a halter and lead over her torso, bandolier style. Lily submits easily to them. But when Maggie gives the lead a tug, the horse doesn’t move an inch. Steadily increasing pressure does nothing either. Lily huffs.

  “What’s the matter, girl?” Maggie strokes her nose. She gets out her phone and uses the flashlight to inspect the animal.

  Barbed wire is wrapped around three of Lily’s legs. Panic rises like a tsunami in Maggie’s chest. “Oh no, Lily. Don’t move.”

  She pulls her knife from the scabbard. But Lily isn’t in rope and bramble like last time she’d rescued her. This is wire. And what good is a knife against wire?

  Think, Maggie, think. She’s going to have to unwind the wire to get Lily free. Thank God the horse is standing still instead of giving in to the instinct to fight against pressure. Squatting, Maggie searches hand over hand for an end to the wire. She can’t unwrap Lily only to send her into more. She traces the piece to a post, where she finds four individual strands attached, all of which lead back to Lily. A whole fence’s worth.

  There are no ends. The fence is down. Lily walked into it.

  Okay. That’s all right. You can do this. One strand at a time.

  She crouches by the least tangled strand. Louise presses against her, and Maggie appreciates the dog’s warmth and loyalty. “It’s okay, Lily. Good girl.” She takes a deep breath and starts pulling the wires apart, inch by inch. Her gloves are shredded in seconds. She takes them off and works bare-handed. Now the wire nips at her skin. Blood drips into the snow, and she’s not sure if it is coming from her or the horse. The cold makes her fingers stiff. She can barely feel the wires. Lily snorts and shifts her weight, but she doesn’t move her feet, even when Maggie removes barbs embedded in her hide.

  “Such a good girl, Lily.” She strokes the horse’s belly, then gets back to work.

  It takes about ten minutes for Maggie to liberate the first strand. She moves it as far as she can out of the way, then repeats the process with the other three pieces. It’s hard to stick with it. Her feet feel like pincushions from the cold. The wind is burning her face and making her eyes water so badly that she can barely see what she’s doing. But she can’t give up, and she’s desperately glad she came. Lily was—is—in trouble and needs her.

  When she finally has all the barbed wire far to one side of the mare, she runs her numb hands up and down Lily’s legs. Her fingers come away bloody. She sweeps her forearms under Lily’s enormous belly. The foal kicks out. Her arms come away bloody.

  Maggie tries not to panic. It’s a long way back to the ranch house, and Lily is injured. It’s too dark to see how badly. She can only assume it’s better to walk her in than to leave her out here, but what does she know? Moving her could make it worse. There’s no one here to make the decision for her, though. She puts her tattered gloves back on and makes the call—they’re going home.

  “Come on, big girl.”


  This time, Lily offers no resistance to being led. They walk the fence in the blowing snow, the only sounds their breathing and the wind. Occasionally, Maggie has to high-step through drifts above her knees. Louise lunges and leaps to get through them and disappears under snow with each landing. The exercise keeps Maggie’s core warm, although now she’s sweating so hard her clothes are wet from the inside out. The only thing really cold anymore is her face, feet, and hands, and the ripped gloves aren’t helping matters much. At times she can’t feel the rope in her hands. Or, when she does, the line is so slack she doesn’t think Lily is back there. But she is. The horse knows where they are going, and she’s on board.

  Time slows to a crawl. Maggie isn’t sure how long it takes them to reach the two-track at the corner of the pasture. It could have been fifteen minutes or it could have been an hour. She’s tired. Very tired. And sleepy. In her flashes of alertness, she has a new worry. What if she passes out?

  In the distance, she sees lights blinking. At first, she’s worried she’s taken a wrong turn. Those can’t be the ranch lights. But then she sees them moving. It’s some kind of vehicle. But who, and how far away?

  “Hey!” she yells. “Over here.” Idiot. They can’t hear you. They can’t even see you.

  She urges the horse and dog faster, worried about Lily hurting herself worse, but even more worried they’ll freeze to death in their own dead pile. The snow is packed somewhat from her Ranger tracks, so the going is easier. Trotting, they make the next fence line, intersecting the path of the approaching lights. Maggie waves frantically, which makes Lily back a step. Maggie loses her balance and falls after the horse onto her butt. She hears the puny honk of an ATV, and Maggie waves from the ground in relief.

  Fifty-One

  Michael doctors Lily as the storm rages against the barn walls.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Maggie asks.

  “Yeah.” He pats the mare’s haunch. “Horses heal fast. Faster than people. You’ll hurt worse than she does.”

  Maggie’s hands had looked like bloody pincushions, purple and swollen from cold, but they’re washed, dabbed with ointment, and wrapped now. “Do we need to call in the vet?” Doc Billy isn’t someone she trusts or wants to see. But she’ll suck it up, if Lily needs him.

  “Nah. She’s good. Can I walk you back to the house? We’ll be fired if we lose you twice in one day.”

  Andy walks into the barn, dusting snow off his jacket. He doesn’t look at Michael, and Maggie feels the ongoing tension between them.

  “How’d you know I was gone the first time?”

  Andy answers. “I was closing up the barn, and the Ranger was missing. Didn’t take much to figure after that, since you and that mutt were gone, too. You didn’t even take one of the walkie-talkies.” He puts one back on the charging station. “So I took one and waited here, and Michael went with the other in the ATV.”

  “I’m so sorry. I feel like an idiot. I’ll take the offer of the escort, Michael, but let me feed Lily first.”

  Maggie mixes an ounce of Mare Magic in sweet feed. She hopes it’s helping strengthen Lily’s uterus, because it hasn’t stopped her running off. Maggie opens a stall door and pours feed into a trough. Then she leads the horse in.

  “What will I do about you when I’m back in Texas?” Lily doesn’t appear to listen, all her attention on the oats, corn, and molasses. “I sure can’t go until after your foal comes.” She thinks about the appointment she made to meet with the contractor. Maybe she can push it back some.

  “What happened here?” Hank is standing in the doorway to the barn.

  Andy has disappeared. Michael is cleaning up veterinary supplies. His hands and clothes are stained with blood.

  Michael looks nervous. “Lily got out, then caught herself in some barbed wire.”

  Hank’s eyes lift. He looks in Lily’s stall and sees Maggie, with her two bandaged hands. “Maggie.” He hurries to her and grabs her by the wrists, holding her hands in the air. “What happened to you?”

  “Lily’s barbed wire.”

  “You went out with them to get her?”

  “Not really.”

  Hank frowns. “What does that mean?” Then he turns to Michael. “Give us the barn, please.”

  Michael doesn’t need to be asked twice. “I have to meet someone in town anyway. Chores are all done. Good night.”

  “Good night, Michael.” Maggie lifts her chin at Hank. “I went alone.”

  “How?”

  “A Ranger. And I remembered to take this.” She holds up her knife in its scabbard, hoping to lighten the mood.

  He glowers, his eyes taking inventory around the barn. Maggie sees the second he starts counting machinery and comes up short.

  “Where’s the Ranger?” he demands.

  “About that. I’ll pay for the damage.”

  “You wrecked it?”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “You could have gotten yourself killed out there.”

  “But I didn’t. And Louise and Lily are fine, too.”

  “You’re too damned independent for your own good. But I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. You’ve been running off since the day I met you.”

  “I didn’t run off. I went to find Lily. That fucker Louise had let her out. Michael and Andy told me not to go, but I wasn’t going to be able to live with myself if she got hurt or died.”

  “Great. You could have gotten the hands killed, too.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “And every time I turn around, you’re holed up with Michael.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maggie, I’m having a rough week, in case you haven’t noticed. I need something I can count on. You’re not it.”

  Her first thought is that his brain injury is making him irrational. “Bullshit. You can count on me and you know it.”

  “Really?” He points at her. “I read your phone last night.”

  “You what?”

  “You have meetings set up with contractors in Texas. Next week.”

  A meeting. Singular. Her second thought was that the pot was sure the hell calling the damn kettle black, but she’s too busy defending herself to point it out. “I was going to tell you. There hasn’t been a chance.”

  “But you didn’t.” Hank stomps out of the barn.

  “I was going to reschedule,” she calls after him. Then, softer, “I’m sorry.”

  He disappears into the snow. Then she realizes what she should have said instead, those words she can’t get out. That she loves him. Because she does. She’s in love with Hank, and she wants to help him through his injury and the loss of his mother. She’s in love, and it feels fucking . . . terrifying. Can she do this love thing? Because right now it feels like she’s messing it up big-time.

  Maggie shuts Lily in her stall, then walks alone through the storm back to the house. She enters, then sinks back against the door and sits on her heels with her head in her hands.

  Fifty-Two

  Maggie wakes to the sound of loud snoring. She smiles. Hank. She rolls over, and Louise licks her face.

  “Not you, Fucker.”

  Thump-thump-thump goes a tail.

  Hank had been here when she fell asleep—sullen, uncommunicative—but he’s clearly not here now. She wishes she’d found the courage to tell him how she feels. She kept waiting last night, waiting for a perfect time that didn’t come. But in the light of day, she knows the perfect time is a fallacy. Now is the perfect time, and now passes by all too quickly. Case in point, Mrs. Sibley’s funeral is set for Tuesday. Time marches on. People lose each other. She needs to make the most of every moment with Hank.

  “Hank?” she calls.

  No answer from the bathroom or hallway. He’s probably already out working, because of the storm. Animal welfare comes first. Maggie’s nose is cold and her breath makes an icy cloud in front of her face. Sunlight is streaming through the window. Her phone sounds a notification from
the bedside table. She picks it up. It’s a motion alarm from the cameras at the summer cabin. In the small picture on her phone and with her bleary eyes, she sees the figure of a man, thick like he’s bundled against the weather. Then her phone rings. Hank. She can’t read the caller ID. She picks up anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, honey. It’s Mom.”

  “Mom. Good morning. What time is it?”

  “Seven thirty.”

  “Which makes it six thirty here.”

  “Oh no, did I wake you?”

  Ya think? “It’s fine. What’s up?”

  “I led women’s Bible study at my house last night, and I just wanted you to know that it came over my heart that we should pray for you. We set up a prayer chain, and I’ve been calling the entire congregation this morning.”

  “Why? What did I do this time?” She checks the irritation in her voice. She shouldn’t complain. She can use all the help she can get. “Never mind. I know why.”

  “Is it so bad to want you where you belong?”

  “And where is that?”

  “Back here, happily married, within your own faith?”

  “Mom, I think we’ve been doubling back on this tired old gene pool long enough. Besides, don’t you think that’s ironic coming from a woman who just married outside the faith?”

  “He’s a Christian.”

  Maggie thinks of the Amish Christians, the Wendish Christians, Edward’s Catholic faith, and Hank’s cowboy Christian. There’s Christian, and then there’s Christian. “So is Hank.”

  “Everyone needs their own people, Maggie.”

  “I’ve got what I need.”