That’s the last thing we’d need is to be stranded out in the middle of nowhere with a blizzard approaching.
I had named her Hourglass, maybe because when I looked at her, I saw the shape of days getting away from me. Mostly what she did was hang her head and side-eye the other horses—never spooking, but never warm—like she was reserving judgment for every living beast.
The first fence break was a tangle of barbed wire and two snapped posts. I pulled up, dismounted, and unclipped the repair kit from the saddle. It took less than ten minutes to cut the wires loose and bend the ends backwards, so that any animal wouldn’t catch themselves on it. The posts would have to wait til the spring thaw. That meant the cattle would be let out closer to home, which was fine by me. I’d done it at least a hundred times since buying the ranch and would likely do it a hundred more.
Back in the saddle, we made our way another half-mile up. Here, the snow deepened considerably. I scanned the drifts, but all I saw was the white-blanketed chaos from last night’s wind. If the steers had made it this way, their tracks were buried. Instead, I focused on the horizon, where Moorhead’s land curved into the old cottonwoods by the creek. Best chance was they’d holed up there—steers hatedan open winter pasture more than I did.
I clicked my tongue and nudged Hourglass on. I was almost to the creek when I heard the low, angry bawling. Relief—it meant the herd was close. Then I heard voices.
The Moorheads. I slowed and kept to the shelter of the trees. I tied Hourglass to a branch and stalked through the brush and saw the three Moorhead boys, Steve, the oldest, flanked by the twins, their faces pinked up from the cold, and their brand-new cowboy hats still stiff on their heads. Between them, they had lashed five of my longhorns together with hog wire, two of the steers bleeding where the wire bit in.
The twins were arguing over which of them could ride a heifer back to the barn, and Steve was smoking, doing the ugly-lipped squint that passed for thinking. All of them were facing away from me.
This would be the part where I burst in waving my rifle, but I didn’t. The problem with escalation is that it never worked—just made for bigger, meaner fireworks next time.
So I stepped on a stick instead, making enough racket to make Steve spin around.
“Well, hey there, Jakey-boy,” he called. One of the twins pulled out his phone to film, already grinning.
“You mind telling me why you’re tying up my herd?” I asked.
“Strays,” Steve said, flicking his cigarette to the snow. “We figured if you couldn’t keep ‘em fenced, we ought to keep ‘em for you.”
I scanned the steers. Two were mine for sure—one with the white blaze, the other with a crimped horn from when I’d tried branding her solo in August.
“You cut ‘em loose and walk away, Steve. We don’t need another mess,” I said, every word measured.
But the second twin—Danny, the meaner one—stepped forward. “Or what, Jake?” He said my name as if it tasted sour. “You're gonna come crying to those good-for-nothing police chief? Tell him the Moorheads are picking on you?”
I could’ve threatened them, but instead I looked calm, hands out of my pockets. “You three really need the trouble? Over a couple steers?”
That got a rise. For a second, Danny looked to Steve for a signal. None of them were built for quick thinking. I waited, let them stew.
Steve shrugged, flicked his chin at the twins, and they started unraveling the wire. I took small steps forward, not wanting to spook the steers or antagonize the Moorhead into trying something stupid.
When the last steer shook himself free, I said, “Appreciate it.” I took the lead and started herding them away.
Steve muttered, “Watch your line, Jake. Next time we’re keeping ‘em.”
“Next time,” I said, “they won’t break through.”
As I rounded up the herd, Hourglass fussed over the ground near a patch of grass and glared at me. I knew she wanted to bolt, to run, to be anywhere but in a standoff with the Moorheads.
But I kept her steady, nudged her behind the steers, and didn’t look back till we’d crossed the creek.
The sky above was crystal clear, not a cloud in sight for now, the kind of pale blue that made you think things could start over if you wanted them to. I did, and I didn’t.
Instead, I counted the steers and kept on, because all anybody expected from a Harper son was keeping the line straight, even when the world wanted to twist it.
At the next break in the fence, I saw the blood. Fresh and gleaming against the snow.
Human blood, and a trail leading east, away from my land and toward the empty prairie. My first thought was the twins, screwing around. My second was worse: maybe it was left for me.
I spurred Hourglass and followed the trail. All the while, I heard that sound again, that ugly struggle at the bar—a chair falling, someone gasping, my fist connecting with flesh.
And the look in Ella’s eyes right at the end. The way she stared at me, not with gratitude, but like she knew I’d never change the way things worked in this valley, only hold them at a simmer.
The barn came into view as I herded the cattle up an incline and pushed Hourglass into a trot.
