Page 4 of July’s Cowboy Dallas

I closed the folder and moved to the next pen.

Dallas fell into step next to me, and I probably should have told him to leave. This was Hollister business. Or depending on what I uncovered, a Hollister mess. It was my family's reputation on the line. But I needed someone who knew what normal looked like, and Dallas had been working stock around Mustang Mountain longer than I'd been licensed to treat them.

That was the reason I gave myself, anyway. It had nothing to do with the way he matched my stride without being asked, or how the knot between my shoulders loosened half an inch just because he was there. Nothing at all.

The red roan gelding in pen six shifted when I approached, but he settled fast. Good temperament. Clean legs. I checked his teeth, ran my hand along his flank, and watched him move. There was nothing that would scratch him from competition.

His file had an old certificate number that corresponded to a January inspection, not June. And the brand description didn't match what was burned into his hip.

“This one came off the same trailer as the brindle,” Dallas said.

I looked up. “Are you sure?”

“I was here when they unloaded. Holt's crew brought three trailers. This one and the brindle were on the second load.”

I pulled the brindle's folder from under my arm and opened both side by side on the top rail of the pen. Different certifying vets. Different dates. Same inconsistencies in the details that shouldn't vary if someone was just filling out forms properly.

“Who handled the gates when they unloaded?”

Dallas thought for a moment. “Pritchard. He's worked Hollister stock for years.”

“And after they unloaded?”

“Holt separated them himself. Told Pritchard which pens.”

That didn't sound right. Holt didn't usually micromanage sorting. He had crew for that.

I closed both folders and moved to the next pen, my jaw so tight my teeth hurt. This wasn't sloppy, and it wasn't an accident. Someone had gone through the trouble of falsifying veterinary certifications, switching animals between registered stock, and covering their tracks just barely enough that no one would notice unless they were looking hard.

Or unless a vet pulled an animal for lameness three days before the rodeo and started checking the rest of the Hollister-supplied stock.

The next two animals were clean. Solid health, matching paperwork, brands that lined up. I almost relaxed.

Then I hit pen nine.

The dun mare's papers listed her as four years old.

She had to be at least seven.

I stood there staring at the certification page, my stomach turning over, because that wasn't a typo. That was fraud. Age affected value, competition eligibility, and insurance. Why would someone forge a horse's age? Who would benefit from three years disappearing off a paper trail? Someone had shaved three years off this mare's record, and the vet's signature at the bottom of the page said it was legitimate.

“Sadie.”

I looked up. Dallas wasn't looking at me. He was looking past my shoulder, and I knew before I turned that Holt was back.

He crossed the space between the stock office and the pen in long, unhurried strides, and this time he didn't bother trying to look calm.

“You need to stop,” he said.

“I'm doing my job.”

“Your job is to clear stock for competition, not manufacture problems where there aren't any.”

“There are problems, Holt. Real ones. These certifications are⁠—”

“Minor clerical errors that you're blowing out of proportion.”

He stopped a few feet away, but close enough I could see the muscle working in his jaw. “You pull more animals, people are going to notice. They're going to ask questions. And the Hollisters don't need that kind of attention right now, not with the Kincaids already looking for any excuse to make us look incompetent.”