Chapter One
Approximately two months ago…
“The park sure looks pretty fancy today,” Tamsyn said to Mrs. Fafield, the perpetual chairwoman of the annual Rosewater Hills Founders’ Day celebration. “Your committee always does such a wonderful job with these events.”
“Thanks,” the harried woman replied. Eyeing the tray in Tamsyn’s hands, she pointed to a large booth across the lawn. “Donated baked goods go over there. If you can unwrap them it’d be great. If you have time to volunteer at a booth this year, I’d be so grateful.”
“No problem, the ranch hands and I figured we’d pitch in as needed,” Tamsyn said, keeping herself from rolling her eyes. Every year was the same—she was too busy running her large ranch sixty miles outside of town to get dragged into the planning for the various festivals, parades and events Mrs. Fafield insisted the town needed, but she and her crew routinely got drafted to help the minute they showed up on the day itself. She bet the organizer had a secret chart with their names penciled in.
Tamsyn didn’t actually mind too much. Working at the bake sale booth or one of the carny games was a good way to see most of the people she knew in town. She could get pretty isolated out on the ranch at times. Practically everyone showed up at these shindigs, not only because Mrs. Fafield was a powerful figure in town with a long memory for slights, but also because Rosewater was hours away from any of Randal Four’s major cities or even the good-sized towns. Entertainment of any kind was priceless out here. Tamsyn’s family was First Ship, like the Fafields had been but crew, not sponsors or officers, so while her ranch had been in the family since the colony was settled she was rich in land and livestock, not credits.
The Fafields owned the bank and the gas station, the grocery store, the drug store and what passed for a department store out here in the hinterlands. Other longtime residents owned the two restaurants, the feed store and various small shops but no one had the power the Fafields did to make or break anyone who crossed them.
The Fafields were a fact of life to Tamsyn and she didn’t give them much thought truthfully. She stayed in her lane and they did what they did and she rarely found herself in opposition.
Striding to the baked goods booth after Mrs. Fafield was pulled away by a crisis with the petting zoo, Tamsyn did a visual check on the ranch hands she’d brought. She paid for them to work a two hour shift at the festival and she saw the men had dispersed to various places they were needed.
Tamsyn exchanged hugs with her closest friend, Sally Meterly, the town’s lead teacher in the small school. They’d been close since elementary school in the same schoolhouse where Sally was now in charge. “I’m so glad you’re finally here,” Sally said. “It’s been the usual madhouse today.”
“If you need to take a break, I can handle it for a few minutes,” Tamsyn offered as she unwrapped her assortment of baked goods and added them to the stacks. Those who baked in Rosewater had been generous as always. The proceeds of the day were earmarked for the town’s hospital, which was a grandiose title for an expanded medical clinic. Doc Ortenbe wanted to install a fancy new diagnostic AI so the residents of the town wouldn’t have to make the long journey to the nearest city hospital for complex cases. The Fafields could have bought him one and not even noticed the dip in their credit account but Mrs. Fafield preferred the citizens to feel ownership. Or so she said, probably as a convenient excuse to save her from parting with any of her generational wealth.
“I’d love to go check out the crafts booths,” Sally said. “Stevr brought in a bunch of new jewelry he made and he’s saving a pair of earrings for me.”
Tamsyn remembered Sally and Stevr, who co-managed the feed store had been on a few dates recently and she expected her friend was interested in more than earrings, although she had a new boyfriend in the city as well. She envied Sally’s busy love life a little bit but what Tamsyn wanted was one good man to settle down with, which was what she never seemed to be able to find. There were certainly no likely candidates in Rosewater, not for her. “Sure, go ahead. I’ll let out a yell if I get swamped.”
The day unfolded about as Tamsyn had expected. She enjoyed talking to most of the people who showed up at the booth and when traffic was slow she and Sally chatted. School was due to start again soon and there was a new teacher in town, which was a rare happening. People didn’t ordinarily move to Rosewater.
“She’s here on a new government program,” Sally confided, eating a brownie. “Every year she stays here she gets credits on her student loans. The guys in town are circling already.” She nodded toward the area where the simple carnival games were set up. “I see your ranch hands aren’t wasting any time either.”
Tamsyn looked over to see two of her three ranch hands flirting with a pretty young woman, who was obviously enjoying being the center of attention. “Good luck to them. Think she’ll stay after her year is up?”
“I hope so because she’s a nice person and we can use new blood in this town. We’re having lunch together next week. I’d invite you but?—”
“We’ve got a big round up next week,” Tamsyn said.
“Exactly.” Sally laughed and shook her finger at Tamsyn as if to scold her. “You’re always too busy with that damn ranch.”
Tamsyn felt a flicker of guilt but shrugged it off. The ranch was her life and yes it was a constant responsibility and the chores were never done but she didn’t know any other way to live. And she had no desire to change the status quo.
Once she was done with baked goods duty, as two young mothers showed up to take over Tamsyn wandered through the merchant booths, tried a game or two and watched the last quarter of the friendly tisba game between the town’s police department and the firefighters.
“Congratulations,” she said to Sheriff Davis, who’d been the coach for the team in blue. “Nice win. Of course the fact you have three of the high school’s best tisba players on your team had nothing to do with it.”
The chief, an old friend of her late father’s, grinned and held up his hands helplessly. “Hey, it’s not my fault if those boys wanted to be deputy sheriff cadets for extra credit this semester and therefore eligible to play. We won fair and square.”
Tamsyn couldn’t argue with his logic and the chief moved on to chat with other spectators while she walked through the booths in search of a snack, ending up at the barbecue tent, where she dug into a plate of ribs and homemade corn bread, washed down with juice.
The day passed as usual at these events except for an incident in the middle of the afternoon when screams and shouts arose from the play area where the younger children were riding kiddie rides, having their faces painted and bouncing in a portable antigrav house designed to look like a fort on one side and a princess castle on the other. Many parents had taken holos of their offspring in front of one mural or the other. Tamsyn rushed to the spot along with everyone else, to find a weeping child being comforted by her mother, other children crying and wide eyed and several men cursing, including Drake, her senior ranch hand. He was holding his arm awkwardly.
“What the seven hells happened?” she demanded, trying to get a better look at his arm, which was bleeding.
“Kids were playing with a litter of feral kittens they found in the bushes,” Drake said. “Momma cat came home and went nuts protecting her babies. Little Maira got bit pretty bad, couple of the others are scratched. I got bit when I pulled the damn cat off Maira and threw it in the brush. Fucking thing came right back after me, tried to use my leg as a scratching post. Lucky my boots protected me. The kittens ran away and the mother followed. Coupla the boys are searching for them now.”
“Do you think the cat is rabid?” she asked.
“Wasn’t foaming at the mouth or anything. I been bit before,” he reminded her. “By bigger things than a cat.”
Tamsyn saw Doc Ortenbe kneeling beside the little girl who’d been attacked and she towed a protesting Drake over to him in time to hear the elderly physician say with great relief, as he checked his med sensor, “No sign of rabies in the bite. But it’ll need a couple of stitches and a good dose of antibiotic.”
