“Sounds very similar to what happened to my cattle,” Sly said. “Carpenter must think I’m retaliating for what he did. Oh, that’s rich. What am I supposed to do now?”
“My suggestion is for you and Carpenter to meet with a mediation attorney. I can recommend one who’s top-notch. I spoke with him earlier and he’s willing to work with the two of you to reach some kind of resolution.”
“There’s nothing to resolve,” Sly said. “I didn’t do it.”
“As you know all too well, your counter-plaintiff is claiming the same thing.”
Sly mumbled a few choice words and for the first time, considered a new angle. What if someone else was involved? “Let me think about the mediator and get back to you.”
He spent most of the next two days alone on his horse, galloping across the ranch in search of calves that had become separated from the herd. He didn’t find any. Which was a good thing, but he needed the distraction that herding a lost calf or two would have provided. With effort he managed to steer his mind away from Lana and their night together. It’d become too painful to remember.
Instead, he focused on the new turn of events with Carpenter. Before the countersuit, he’d believed the situation was as bad as it could get. He’d been wrong. His life seemed to be spinning out of control.
The poisonings were too similar to be a coincidence, which meant someone was messing with them. But if another person was involved, how would he ever recoup the money he’d lost, and how could he possibly find that person?
Late Friday morning he made a decision. He couldn’t go on like this, and hoped Carpenter felt the same. He’d attempt to talk to his neighbor again, so they could straighten out this mess. Just the two of them, without a mediator or any lawyers involved.
His mind made up, he rode Bee to her favorite pasture, removed her saddle and slapped her lightly on the rump. She trotted to a big shady hawthorn and began to nibble sweet grass. He slid his cell phone from his pocket. He was searching for Carpenter’s number when the thing rang. His screen identified the caller as Timothy Carpenter.
Speak of the devil. “Carpenter,” he said by way of greeting. “I was about to call you.”
“Is that so. Planning on cussing me out?”
“Something like that. You and I need to sit down and talk. No lawyers—just you and me, man-to-man.”
“Damn straight, we do.”
That the rancher was willing to talk with Sly at all was progress of a sort. “Where and when?” he asked.
“My place. Now.”
“As long as you don’t point any guns my way or try to take a punch at me.”
“I won’t, if you don’t accuse me of something I didn’t do.”
“No guns, no accusations,” Sly agreed. “Just the two of us talking things through.”
Fifteen minutes later he drove up Carpenter’s driveway, past a barn that had seen better days. He stopped next to the house, which could use a coat or two of paint. The buildings at the Lazy C needed work, but the fields beyond were green and populated with livestock. He noted a tractor and a few men in the distance.
Wearing reflector sunglasses and a Stetson, his neighbor stood on the porch. As Sly crossed the yard, Carpenter folded his arms over his chest.
Matching his unwelcoming scowl, Sly climbed the stairs. Neither of them removed their hats or their shades. “I didn’t poison your cattle,” he stated.
“Yeah? Well, I didn’t poison yours, either.”
Though Carpenter had five or six years on Sly, they were roughly the same height and both muscular and strong. Despite the sunglasses, Sly sensed his hostile glare.
He rested his hands low on his hips. “Gonna ask me to sit down, or are we going to do this standing up?”
His neighbor nodded at a pair of lawn chairs in the front yard, in the shade of an old black walnut. They both sat down, their weight causing the old chairs to creak.
“I’d have bet my left arm that you poisoned my cows to get back at me for dragging out the lawsuit,” Carpenter said.
Sly snorted. “That’s not how I work. Ask anyone in town. I prefer to solve my problems by talking them out.”
The ones that weren’t too personal, that was. He tended to keep those close to the chest. “I’m starting to wonder if someone else might have set us both up.”
Carpenter bent down and plucked a blade of grass, the expression of doubt on his face reminding Sly of Lana.
