I. The Watchtower
By Wednesday, Ryder Stone had decided that hell wasn't fire and brimstone. Hell was a porch swing and a leg that wouldn't bend.
He sat on the wrap-around porch of the farmhouse, his left leg propped up on a cooler Cole had graciously provided as an ottoman. The cast was heavy, itching in places he couldn't reach with a coat hanger. His shoulder was throbbing in time with the crickets.
He was bored. Violent, claw-your-eyes-out bored.
For a man whose baseline dopamine requirement was "near-death experience," sitting still was a form of torture. He watched the ranch operate without him.
He saw Cole driving the new tractor (purchased, apparently, with Maya’s magical money). He saw Maya—the "Partner"—walking the fence line with a clipboard, looking like she owned the place. He saw the new cabins rising on the ridge, sleek and modern and offensive to his cowboy sensibilities.
He was a spectator in his own home. A ghost haunting the porch.
He reached for the pack of cigarettes he had hidden in his pocket. Elena had confiscated his lighter ("Nicotine constricts blood vessels and slows bone healing. Do you want the bone to knit, or do you want to smoke?"), but he just liked holding the pack. It was a vice he could control.
He closed his eyes, listening to the wind in the cottonwoods.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A sound. Not the wind.
Ryder opened one eye.
Something was moving near the lilac bushes at the edge of the yard. A small, frantic shape.
A dog? A coyote?
Ryder sat up straighter, wincing as his ribs protested.
The bushes rustled. A figure burst out.
It was a boy.
He couldn't have been more than five or six. He was wearing denim overalls that were stained green at the knees, a striped t-shirt, and a pair of red rubber boots that looked comically large on his feet. He had a mop of unruly dark curls that bounced as he ran.
He wasn't running aimlessly. He was running a pattern. He would sprint ten feet, stop, spin, and throw his hand in the air.
Ryder watched, fascinated. The kid was living in a movie only he could see.
The boy stopped near the porch steps. He didn't see Ryder in the shadows of the swing. He was focused on the object in his hand.
Ryder squinted.
It was a toy bull. Plastic. Black and white. One horn was broken off.
The boy crouched down in the dirt. He positioned the bull. Then he picked up a stick—his "rider"—and smashed it against the bull.
"Pshhh!" the boy made a sound like an explosion. "Eight seconds! And the crowd goes wild!"
Ryder smiled. He couldn't help it.
"He's bucking too flat," Ryder called out.
The boy froze. He dropped the stick. He spun around, eyes wide, searching for the source of the voice.
"Up here," Ryder said, waving his good hand.
The boy looked up. He saw the man on the porch. The man with the cast. The man with the scars.
