How the fuck did he sneak onto the ranch?
I mean, it’s not like we have a chain link fence across one-hundred thousand acres, but damn… we’re better than this.
The afternoon light is thick and yellow.
The cicadas are loud.
The cattle in the back pasture aren't spooked, which tells me he's not in there with them.
The mustang at the round pen rail is at the gate side—facing the main barn—which tells me he was watching something happen there recently.
That horse has become a barometer.
"Loft," I tell Banshee.
"Yeah."
We split at the round pen.
He cuts west toward the main barn. I cut east, around the back of the bunkhouse, looping the property the long way to come to the barn from the opposite side.
We do this without talking because we've done it a hundred times before—for cattle rustlers, for people who came onto this property without an invitation, for men who needed to be told one time that Sharp is not a place they're welcome.
I don't see anyone on the perimeter.
I see the bunkhouse porch, where Buckley and another prospect are sitting with their hands in their laps and their cuts buttoned up because they heard church got called and they know to wait.
I nod at them without slowing down. They nod back. Buckley doesn't meet my eye.
Past the bunkhouse, along the back of the rescue paddock where the saved horses are nosing the gate hoping for grain, past the south side of the main barn where the old tractor sits up on blocks.
The afternoon hum of the property has gone quiet around me—the brothers know something is happening, even if they don't know what yet.
I come up to the main barn from the south door.
Banshee is already inside.
I hear his boots on the loft ladder. Quiet. He's good at this.
I climb up after him.
The hayloft of the main barn smells like alfalfa, old wood, and dust that's been in the rafters since my grandfather's time.
The loft window faces the main house. From the open doors of the hayloft you can see the front porch of the main house, the gravel drive, the round pen, and a piece of the back pasture beyond.
Perfect angle for the photo.
Banshee is crouched in the straw near the open loft doors.
His Glock back in his belt now. He's looking down at the floor. "Spur."
I come over.
There's a boot print in a thin layer of dust at the edge of the loft.
A man's boot. Work tread. Size eleven, maybe twelve.
The print is fresh—straw doesn't sit on a boot print for long because horses move air through this barn and dust resettles in minutes.
