Austin

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Meet Molly,” Tate said, his voice gruff. Briefly, he sketched in the outlines of the call Libby had gotten from her friends at the animal shelter in town, told how he and Garrett had gone straight to the sparse pasture where the mare had apparently been abandoned—they weren’t sure how long ago.

  Never taking his eyes off Molly, Austin listened to the account, swore again, once he’d heard it all and processed it. The mare’s halter was so old and so tight that it was partially embedded in the hide on one side of her head—evidently, somebody had put it on her and then just left it. Her slatted sides heaved with the effort to breathe, and the look of sorrowing hope in her eyes as she gazed at Austin sent his heart into a slow, backward roll.

  “You’re going to be all right now, Molly,” he promised the mare.

  She nickered, the sound barely audible, then nuzzled him in the shoulder.

  The backs of Austin’s eyes stung. He stood and got out of the way, feeling worse than useless, so Garrett and Tate could get the mare to her feet, a process that involved considerable kindly cajoling and some lifting, too. Molly stumbled a few times crossing the barnyard, and they had to stop twice so she could rest, but finally she made it into her new stall.

  Some of the other horses whinnied in greeting, watching with interest as the mare took her place among them.

  Molly had spent her strength, and she immediately folded into the thick bed of wood shavings covering the stall floor.

  “Farley’s on his way,” Garrett said, standing behind Austin in the breezeway, laying a hand on his shoulder.

  Farley Pomeroy was the local large-animal vet; he’d been taking care of McKettrick livestock for some forty-odd years. When their dad, Jim, was ten or twelve, he’d fallen off the hay truck one summer day and splintered the bone in his right forearm so badly that he required surgery. It had been Doc Pomeroy, who happened to be on the ranch at the time, ministering to a sick calf, who treated Jim for shock and rigged up a splint and a sling for the fifty-mile trip to the hospital.

  Austin nodded to let Garrett know he’d heard. If ever a horse had needed Farley’s expert attention, it was this one.

  Tate came out of Molly’s stall, took off his hat.

  Austin realized then that Libby and Paige were standing nearby.

  “You’ll wait for Farley?” Tate asked, meeting Austin’s gaze.

  Once again, Austin nodded. “I’ll wait.”

  He was aware of it when Tate and Garrett and Libby left the barn, aware too, even without looking, that Paige had stayed behind.

  Austin opened the stall door and stepped through it, dropping to one knee beside the little mare.

  He didn’t ask her to do it, but Paige found a bucket, filled it from a nearby faucet, and brought it into the stall. Set it down within Molly’s reach. Austin murmured a thanks without looking back at Paige and steadied the bucket with both hands, so the animal could drink.

  “Slow, now,” he told Molly. “Real slow.”

  When she’d emptied the bucket, Paige took it and went back for more water.

  Molly drank thirstily, then rolled onto her side, thrusting her legs out from under her and making both Austin and Paige move quickly to get out of the way.

  Shep peered into the stall from the breezeway, Harry at his side.

  The dogs made such a picture standing there that Austin gave a ragged chuckle and shook his head. Molly didn’t seem frightened of them, but he stroked her neck just to reassure her, told her she was among friends now, and there was no need to worry.

  “Shall I take them into the house?” Paige asked.

  “Might be better if they weren’t underfoot when Doc gets here,” Austin answered, not looking at her. “Thanks.”

  She left the stall and then the barn, and while Harry was cooperative, it took some doing to get Shep to go along with the plan. He wanted to stick around and help out with the horse-tending, it seemed.

  Insisting to himself that it didn’t matter one way or the other, Austin wondered if Paige would come back out to wait with him or stay inside the house.

  She returned within five minutes, handed him an icy bottle of water.

  He thanked her again, unscrewed the top and drank deeply. His back didn’t hurt, but he knew he’d be asking for it if he continued to crouch, so he stood, stretched his legs, finished off the water.

  Paige looked almost like a ranch wife, standing there in that horse stall, her arms folded and her face worried. Maybe it was the jeans.

  “How can things like this happen?” she muttered, staring at poor Molly.

  Austin knew Paige didn’t expect an answer; she was thinking out loud, that was all. He wanted to put an arm around her shoulders right about then and just hold her against his side for a little while, but he wrote it off as a bad idea and kept his distance—insofar as that was possible in an eight-by-eight-foot stall.

  A silence fell between the two of them, but it was a comfortable one. Austin moved out into the breezeway, and he and Paige stood side by side in front of the half door of the stall, both of them focused on the mare.

  Soon, Doc Pomeroy’s old rig rattled up outside, backfired, then did some clanking and clattering as the engine shut down.

  Austin and Paige exchanged glances, not quite smiles but almost, and turned to watch as the old man trundled into the barn, carrying his battered bag in one gnarled hand. Probably pushing eighty, Doc still had powerful shoulders, a fine head of white hair and the stamina of a much younger man.

  “Come on in here, Clifton,” he said, half turning to address the figure hesitating in the wide, sunlit doorway. “I might need a hand.”

  Clifton Pomeroy, Doc’s only son, hadn’t shown his face in or around Blue River in a long time. Not since Jim and Sally McKettrick’s funeral, in fact.

  As kids, Cliff and Jim McKettrick had been the best of friends. Later on, they’d been business partners. When Jim had shut down the oil wells on the Silver Spur, though, Cliff had objected strenuously, since he’d been making a lot of money brokering McKettrick crude to various small independents. The association—and the friendship—had ended soon after that.

  Austin’s dad had never said what happened—giving reasons for things he regarded as his own business had not been Jim McKettrick’s way. On the rare occasions when Cliff Pomeroy’s name had come up, Jim had always clamped his jaw and either left the room or changed the subject.

  Now, finding himself back on a ranch he’d left on bad terms, Cliff hung back for a few moments, sizing things up. Then, in that vaguely slick way he had, he strolled easily into the barn, approaching Austin with one hand extended in greeting. His smile was broad and a little too bright, reminiscent of Garrett’s late boss, Senator Morgan Cox.

  Because there was no way to avoid doing so without hurting Doc’s feelings, Austin shook hands with Cliff and said hello.

  By then, Doc was in the stall with Molly and Garrett. Tate and Libby were entering the barn.

  Everybody clustered in front of the stall door.

  Doc, crouching next to the mare, looked up and frowned. “What is this?” he demanded. “Some kind of convention?”

  Doc had always been a cranky old coot, but he knew his business.

  Cliff chuckled nervously, took off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “You want a hand or not, Dad?” he asked, his tone falsely cheerful.

  Austin recalled his mom saying that Clifton Pomeroy must have taken after his mother’s people, since he looked nothing like his father.

  Doc opened his bag and rooted around inside with one of his pawlike hands. Brought out a round tin and a packet of gauze. Catching Austin’s eye, he said, “You’ll do. The rest of you had better occupy yourselves elsewhere and give this poor horse room to breathe.”

  They all stepped away from the door, so Austin could go through.

  Garrett struck up a conversation with Cliff, and the whole bunch receded, including Libby and Paige.

  By then, Doc had
filled one large syringe, set it carefully aside and filled another, and his expression was so grim that Austin was momentarily alarmed.

  “What is that stuff?” he rasped, kneeling next to the veterinarian, near Molly’s head.

  Doc’s mouth twitched, but he probably hadn’t smiled, or even grinned, in decades, and he didn’t break his record now. “Antibiotics, a mild sedative and a painkiller.”

  Austin nodded, scratching lightly behind Molly’s ears and speaking to her in a soothing tone while Doc administered the shots, one right after the other.

  The mare flinched, but that must have been all the resistance she had in her, because she lapsed into a noisy sleep right away.

  Doc used some hand sanitizer from a bottle in his bag and began pulling away the half-rotted remains of Molly’s halter. Now and then, some hair and hide came away with it, and there were places where scabs had grown right over the strips of nylon.

  Austin felt sick to his stomach.

  “There are sterile wipes in my bag,” Doc told him quietly in a tone that indicated both understanding and stern competence. “Disinfect your hands, boy, then start cleaning the wounds as I uncover them. We’ll apply some ointment after that, and hope to God an infection doesn’t set in.”

  Austin did as he was told, working quickly.

  Maybe forty-five minutes had gone by when they’d finished. Molly came to right away, shook off the sedative and even scrambled to her feet.

  Doc finished cleaning her up and dabbed on more ointment.

  “She’s a good strong girl, then,” the old man proclaimed, patting Molly’s flank. “What she needs now is some supper and some rest and a whole lot of TLC.”

  Austin fetched an armload of grass hay and dropped it into Molly’s feeder, then made sure the automatic waterer in her stall was working. Doc tarried long enough to watch her eat for a few moments, then picked up his bag and left the stall.

  Austin shut and latched Molly’s door.

  The other horses snorted and nickered, calling for room service.

  “Thanks,” Austin told Doc.

  Doc merely nodded. He wasn’t much for idle conversation.

  While Austin fed the rest of the critters, Doc washed up at the sink in the tack room. Austin finished the chow chores pretty fast and washed up, too.

  For some reason, Doc lingered in the tack room, rolling down the sleeves of his shirt, carefully buttoning the cuffs.

  He and Austin left the barn at the same time, while Tate and Garrett came out of the main house by way of the kitchen door. Clifton was with them.

  Austin looked for Paige, but there was no sign of her.

  Probably for the best, he thought.

  But he wasn’t quite convinced.

  Libby hooked her arm through his and smiled up at him. “Paige went to town to fetch Calvin,” she said.

  Austin chuckled, shook his head. He liked Libby, liked Julie, too—they were the sisters he’d never had. Paige was harder to categorize.

  “Did I ask where Paige got to?” he challenged, grinning a little.

  Libby just made a face at him, then walked over to speak to Tate.

  Doc and Clifton said their goodbyes, got into Doc’s old truck and drove off at a good clip, stirring up a dry swirl of dust behind them. Libby stood on tiptoe to kiss Tate’s cheek, then she got into the red Corvette and made for the main road.

  That left Tate, Garrett and Austin standing in a loose circle in front of the barn, strangely quiet now that the crowd had thinned out a little.

  Tate rubbed the back of his neck, looked as though he might be nursing a tension headache.

  “How long’s it been since Clifton Pomeroy paid his ole daddy a visit?” Garrett mused, his gaze following the departing rigs.

  “Long time,” Tate remarked. He seemed distracted.

  Austin wondered if his oldest brother had more on his mind than the sick horse he and Garrett had rescued at Libby’s request.

  Just two months before, they’d had some trouble with rustlers, and one of the thieves turned out to be Charlie Bates, a longtime employee on the Silver Spur. Charlie and a few other crooks were in jail now, unable to make bail, but nobody figured the bad guys were all in custody. Charlie didn’t have the mental capacity to run an operation that big and complicated, but he wasn’t naming any names and neither were any of his partners in crime.

  “How are things in the cattle business?” Austin asked, keeping his tone light.

  Tate frowned, and his jawline hardened. Evidently, he’d used up his daily allotment of good cheer saving the horse. “As if you gave a damn,” he retorted, peevish as hell, just before he turned to walk away, vanishing into the barn.

  Austin watched him go, didn’t look at Garrett when he spoke. “What’s chewing on him?”

  “We’re still losing livestock,” Garrett replied after a long time and with significant reluctance.

  Austin faced Garrett straight on. “Stolen?” Before Charlie and his gang had been rounded up, they’d raided the McKettrick herd a number of times, carted off a lot of living beef in semitrucks. Another half-dozen cattle had been gunned down and left to rot.

  “About a hundred head, as far as we can tell,” Garrett replied. “A few more were shot, too.”

  Austin swore. “You and Tate were planning on mentioning this to me—when…?”

  Garrett sighed, folded his arms. Scuffed at the ground with the toe of one boot. “We figured you had enough to worry about, what with your back being messed up and everything.”

  “I get a little sore once in a while,” Austin bit out, stung to a cold, hard fury, “but I’m not a cripple, Garrett. And what happens on this ranch is as much my concern as it is yours and Tate’s—whatever you think to the contrary.”

  Tate came out of the barn again. Because of the angle of his hat brim, his face was in shadow, and there was no reading his mood, but Austin figured it was still bad.

  As if you gave a damn, Tate had said.

  Where the hell had that come from?

  Garrett thrust out a sigh. “Tate’s pretty worried,” he said, keeping his voice down. “And I can’t say I blame him. Rustling is one thing, and killing cattle for the hell of it is another. It’s hard not to conclude that somebody out there has worked up a pretty good grudge against us, for whatever reason, and we figure it’s bound to escalate.”

  Tate waved but headed for his truck instead of joining the conversation between Austin and Garrett.

  At the moment, that was fine with Austin, because he was pissed off at being left out of the loop. Okay, so he had a herniated disc. He couldn’t ride bulls anymore, and for the time being, he wouldn’t be doing any heavy-duty ranch work, either. But one-third of the Silver Spur was his, and he had a right to know what went on within its boundaries, whether it was good or bad.

  He watched as Tate got into the truck and drove off.

  Garrett started toward the house and, after a moment’s hesitation, Austin fell into step beside him, but there was no more talk.

  Once they were inside, Garrett headed for his part of the house, and Austin went to his, glad to find Shep there waiting for him. It made him feel a little less lonely.

  A little, not a lot.

  He fed the dog, then made for the bathroom, kicking off his boots and stripping down for a hot shower.

  The spray eased some of the residual knots in his back, and he felt damn near human by the time he toweled off and pulled on fresh clothes. He ran a comb through his hair, put his boots back on and then went downstairs.

  Shep, having finished his nightly kibble ration, went along, too, curious and companionable.

  Austin searched the large storage room adjoining the garage until he found the camping gear. He took a rolled-up sleeping bag out of a cabinet—it smelled a little musty—and returned to the kitchen.

  There he ate two frankfurters straight from the package, drank what was left of the milk and called it supper. If he got hungry later, he could always raid t
he kitchen again. Before going off to El Paso to take care of her niece and the new baby, Esperanza had cooked up and frozen enough grub to last for weeks.

  He was in no danger of starvation.

  THE TEENAGE ACTORS WERE ON A BREAK, and Paige sat with Julie and Calvin in the front row of the small auditorium, the three of them sharing a submarine sandwich from the supermarket deli.

  Paige wanted to tell her sister all about the little mare, Molly, and how gentle Austin had been with the animal, but with Calvin right there and some of the drama club kids within earshot, that didn’t seem like a good idea.

  “Did you decide whether or not you’ll take the job?” Julie asked, finishing her part of the sandwich, crumpling the wrapper and stuffing it into the bag.

  “What job?” Paige asked, momentarily confused.

  Of course, the moment the words left her mouth, she remembered Garrett’s offer, made that morning in the ranch-house kitchen. Basically, he and Tate wanted her to play nursemaid to Austin.

  “You knew Garrett and Tate were planning to ask me to serve as Austin’s nurse?” Paige wondered aloud.

  Of course she had, and Libby, too. Most likely, her sisters had set her up, hoping she would fall for Austin the way they had for his brothers and make the wedding a triple.

  Even after a long day of teaching, Julie’s smile was brilliant. She seemed to have boundless energy, and it took a lot to catch her off guard.

  “Sure I did,” she replied, unfazed. “Garrett and I talked about it last night.”

  Paige sighed. “I see.”

  Julie elbowed her lightly. “Answer my question,” she said.

  “Right now, I’m inclined to refuse,” Paige replied, taking the sandwich bag from Julie and dropping in what remained of her supper and a couple of wadded paper napkins. “Austin didn’t exactly take kindly to the idea.”

  “That’s just his pride,” Julie said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “This is serious, Paige. If Austin isn’t careful, he’ll have to have surgery, and that’s always a risk.”

  Paige widened her eyes at Julie. “Yes,” she said pointedly, “as an RN, I’m familiar with the risks.”