Liz’s heart skipped a beat in fear. Jake was 100 percent right. It should look like the fence broke under pressure, near the joins in the wire, and it would have been a mess, not neatly broken down the middle, in a perfect vertical line. Tanner jumped down and hauled up the broken side, examining it. Her stomach clenched along with her heart as he swore and ran a hand down his face, turning his back to the fence and stomping back over to Chip.
“It was cut,” she murmured to herself, understanding his reaction. “Jesus.”
She nudged Finnegan over to the other side, and looked at the crumpled panel of fencing, laid flat into the mud by the cows stepping on it as they left. The ends were cut in a neat line. Too neat.
She pulled her cell out of her pocket and texted Trevor to tell the staff the east pasture cattle were loose, and to stand by. She got a ten-four back from him, and shoved her phone away again so she could be alert. Looking around, she couldn’t see or hear the cattle, so they must have booked it down the embankment beside the fence line and through the rough to the access road. If they hit the small creek beside the road and crossed it, they’d be into the soybeans, and that could be dangerous. Grazing on too much raw soybean would kill them.
This was not good, so very not good. Dread filled her as she continued to scan the horizon.
“What in the hell. This is fresh, they can’t have gotten far.” Brady echoed her thoughts as he jumped down as well. “Where’s the nearest access road from here? Likely the dumb things will head straight for that.”
He and Tanner both pulled out their maps, and Jake nudged Sandy over to Liz again. He looked worried. He should be. If these cows were lost, it was a huge hit to their revenue.
“What happens now?” he asked quietly.
“We go look. If this was cut, it could just be some asshole thinking it was funny, and the herd should be close by. Worse, it could be theft, but people who steal cattle wouldn’t do it in broad daylight unless they were stupid. So likely just kids being idiots.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice quiet and serious. “Does this happen a lot?”
“No,” she said. “Let’s move out. We may need to bring in the rest of the crew if we can’t find them easily. Gotta do it while we have light.”
Tanner and Brady remounted after quickly picking up the downed fence and rolling it up to the next post. They filed through the gap, everyone on alert, heads on a swivel, and made a sharp left, heading down a hill where the scrub brush was beaten flat. They reached the gravel access road lined with birch and ash trees, and Liz craned her neck one way, then the other, looking for hoof marks, anything to tell them which way the cows had gone.
“There! Tracks!” Jake shouted, and turned his horse, kicking her forward and heading toward what he saw.
They rode down the road, following the distinct marks of a herd of cows on the move. Flattened grass, kicked-up gravel, the odd plop of manure. After a few minutes, Liz thought she saw something shiny glint through the trees farther down on a bend, but lost it when she reverted to scanning the side of the road. If any cattle were in the ditches or had veered off to the crop fields that were on their right or through the stands of trees on either side of the road, they needed to act fast.
Nothing appeared as they rode carefully at a walk. The cattle had stayed on the road, and were moving, from the looks of it, quickly. Odd. Normally cattle that were loose and looking for food would meander, and they would crop the grass along the side of the road as they went.
“What is that noise?” Jake exclaimed, breaking the relative silence as they all listened and craned their necks to see around a bend in the road. Everyone’s heads snapped up, and Liz squinted to where Jake was pointing. More of the flashing metal, this time with the distinct sound of a diesel engine.
“I see it! A cattle hauler! What the—” Zane sprayed gravel as Brady immediately kicked him forward, Jake following right behind with Sandy.
Liz held Finnegan, about to shout for them to stop, but Tanner was already shooting past on Chip, uncoiling his rope as he kicked his horse into a gallop. Finnegan reared, the others leaving too much for him to handle. She let him go, coming in behind them as they rounded the corner. As they got closer, the sounds of cows bawling and the rumbling idle of a semitruck filled the air.
Dear god, was someone actually stealing their cattle in broad daylight? She’d just told Jake how stupid that would be, how unlikely it was, but now she had to eat her damned words, because there was a full-on commercial cattle hauler in the middle of the road.
She kicked Finnegan forward, hoping to catch up. This could get messy if they had guns. These assholes could be dangerous, and a herd of cattle was not worth any of their lives.
“Come on, Finny.” Fear took hold, and she couldn’t breathe as she bent over her horse’s neck.
The semitruck was hidden behind a band of thick trees at a narrow spot on the road with fencing on either side. The back was blocked by beat-up plywood chute panels, and the cows were milling about in front of it, being funneled forward by three men, all with rigged-together cattle prods in their hands. Liz made a mental count, and figured they had half of the livestock already loaded.
“HEY!” Tanner bellowed. All three thieves turn in unison, startling the cows.
They scattered, but with nowhere to go on the fenced access road, and horses rapidly approaching, they stopped in a big, seething lump of mooing animals. Dust rose in the air, and the danger of the situation lodged in Liz’s throat. This was not good. Not good at all.
“Steady, Finny. Steady!” she crooned as her horse tensed. He was still getting used to cattle, and the entire herd left outside the truck at risk of stampeding through them was not going to help. He reared as she thought it, and she kicked him, clucking and grabbing his mane with her hands to stay in the saddle. He landed on his front feet, but stood stock still, shaking like a leaf. He was ready to turn and run, his back humped, his neck arched as big, loud fearful snorts blew his belly in and out.
“Easy, easy!” she breathed at him. If she got off now, he’d be gone, and that was not a good idea. Her hands full of Finnegan’s mane and both reins, her cell phone was a useless lump in her pocket. So much for calling 911.
Liz was mentally preparing to let Finnegan’s head loose to ride for help when everything went into slow motion. Tanner and Brady were riding right for it all, like fucking idiots, Brady at the rear looking for a way through the side.
“Stop! Stopstopstop!” she shouted, but it was no use.
Tanner and Brady swung down from their saddles, Chip and Zane skidded to a halt the moment they did, and stood firm, staring down the cattle as they had done hundreds of times before, well-trained cow horses.
Then she saw Jake, already dismounted and running, Sandy a few feet behind him, her ears back as she stared down a cow of her own. Liz wanted to shout again, but it died on her lips when he reached the mass of animals. He ducked between two cows like he’d done it a thousand times, slapping one on the ass to get it to move, sending it bucking forward into another cow.
