His brown eyes turned as cold and hard as frozen cow chips. “For years your daddy hoped you’d come back here and take over. Except we all know he was delusional when it comes to you and your crazy sister.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to defend Hope. No one had the right to call her crazy but me.
But Kit wasn’t finished. “You always thought you was too good to stick around these parts. You couldn’t even be bothered to show up before your daddy passed on. No big surprise you’re finally back here, now that you don’t have to look him in the eye as he was wasting away to nothing. I’m glad he ain’t around to see the heartless creature you’ve become, God rest his soul.”
Wind rustled through the elm leaves. A drawn-out, high-pitched hawk’s screech made me twitchy.
Hiram moved in. “He don’t mean it, Mercy.”
I stared at Kit. Revulsion stared back at me. “Yes, he does. So now that I know how you really feel, Kit, don’t hold back.”
“Fine. Here it is: you don’t know all the problems you’d be causing if you sell out to someone who ain’t local. Who’s it gonna hurt? Your neighbors. Remember them? The ones who helped out your family when your mama died? When your daddy’s diabetes got so bad they chopped off his leg and he couldn’t take care of this place? When your granddad nearly lost everything in the dirty ’30s? Oh, and let’s not forget way back when your great-grandma Grace nearly lost her mind.”
Seemed old Kit knew my family history better than I did.
When he spit a wad of tobacco out the side of his mouth, I expected to see a forked tongue.
“Think those fellers from Florida give a rip that your daddy’s been letting the Marshall family hunt here off-season so they don’t starve in the winter? Them rich snobs will close the land off to all hunting except for their bigwig buddies.
“Sure, they’re willing to pay you top dollar. They don’t have to worry about some damn conglomerate moving in next to
them,
sending ag-land values through the roof and forcing them out of
their
heritage. By then they’ll probably already have bought up half the damn county and sent the people who’ve lived in this area for generations into town so’s they can work for Wal-Mart.”
His venomous declaration wasn’t a revelation to me. So far he’d been the first person to voice his concerns to my face. For that alone I ought to have given him props. I might have, if it weren’t for the sneaky-ass way he’d gone about it.
Oh, and his shitty opinion of me and my family.
“You done?” I asked coolly.
“No. Some powerful people are backing me on this. Life on the ranch is mighty rough, especially for a city girl like you.”
Whoa. That was a name I hadn’t been called. Ever. “City girl?” I repeated.
“Yeah, you ain’t cut out for this life. Never were. Wyatt kept you in the dark about what it really takes to run a ranch this size. Neither you nor your sister has the guts to do it. ’Sides, you never know what can happen around these parts. Accidents and the like.” Kit lifted his hand and casually studied his fingernails.
Oh. My. God. I could hardly keep a straight face. Talk about him acting like a caped villain in a bad melodrama. He should’ve been cackling evilly while he twirled his mustache. Was he secretly imagining tying me to a railroad track as I cried for help?
Screw that. Screw him.
“Don’t got nothing to say?”
“You threatening me?”
“Consider it a fair warning. You may act tough, but when it comes down to it, the years away made you soft. With the right kinda pressure, I suspect you’ll give way like a marshmallow in the sun.”
Soft. With that suggestion my humor vanished. My gun arm lifted of its own accord. I fired at the right headlight on his truck. Metal chinked. Glass exploded. Gun smoke hung in the air. I didn’t flinch, although Hiram hit the ground pretty damn fast.
Kit screeched, “What in the
hell
are you doing?”
“My way of warning you that I don’t deal well with any kind of threats, Kit.”
“You’re just as crazy as your sister and the rest of the women in your family.”
“Maybe.”
“You just made a big mistake.” He shook his finger at me. “You’re gonna pay for that.”
“Yeah? Then go ahead and put this one on my bill, too.” I shot out the other headlight just for fun.
Hiram crawled away.
Chicken.
Kit’s face matched the color of his rig. “You just bought yourself a whole passel of trouble, Missy.”
I swung the barrel away from his front tire and aimed at his sweat-covered brow. “Wrong. You breathe one word of my little misfire to anyone and I’ll come for you.” I inched closer, and he backed up. “When you’re all alone, Kit. I’ll have you pissing yourself in the dark before I shoot off your worthless dick. Then we’ll see who’s tough and who’s soft.” I pointed at the driver’s-side door. “Now get the hell off my land.”
Hiram scrambled to his feet. “Come on, Kit. Let’s go.”
“Next time I see you trespassing I’ll shoot you—or anyone else—on sight. Feel free to pass that around.”
I fully expected Kit to crank down the window to shout out something lame and ominous like, “This ain’t over.” But he hauled ass away as fast as his ten-cylinder allowed.
After they’d gone, I slumped against a hay bale. This was the first confrontation, but I knew it wouldn’t be the last. And I couldn’t get rid of all my problems by shooting them.
Pity.
Despite the dust and bugs, I rolled the windows down. I slowed for a baler taking up half the gravel road. I waved at Tim Lohstroh as I passed, inhaling the deliciously sweet scent of yellow clover.
The breath-stealing heat had abated, leaving a perfect summer evening, where the air is velvety soft. I glanced across the horizon at the myriad of colors: a swirl of sapphire, salmon, and scarlet, indicating the sky’s magical transformation from day to night. I’d seen sunsets all over the world. Nothing beats a summer sunset on the high prairie. Nothing.
I parked in the dusty field at the Viewfield Community Center. The knee-high bromegrasses were dead in places from lack of moisture and flattened from Buicks, pickups, and ATVs leaving skid marks on the concretelike ground.
I slid the beer cooler across the truck bed. Alcohol wasn’t allowed inside these family events, so we all snuck out for a nip between songs. Or we tucked a flask in our boots. The Wild Turkey in my ropers sloshed with every step.
It was hard to believe that barn dances were still the summer highlight in Eagle River County. Was it because country and ranch people clung to traditions, rejecting anything new or different on principle?
Nah. These gatherings were actually fun. As a kid I’d loved dances, even when Dad—as sheriff—kept an eye on every cowboy who asked me to two-step.
Tonight’s festivities weren’t taking place in a barn, but in a steel building a few enterprising souls had remodeled from an abandoned wool-shearing shack into a much-needed community center. As it was the biggest building in the county, we’d held the finger sandwiches and sympathy assembly here after my father’s funeral. At the time I hadn’t paid much attention to the surroundings.
The interior owed more to function than decor. A big, open kitchen, lined with assorted old stoves and refrigerators and a huge concrete dance floor with a wooden platform serving as a stage. Flags hung from the metal rafters: Old Glory, the pale blue South Dakota state flag, local chapters of FFA, 4-H, Stockgrowers Association, SD Beef Council, SD Pork Producers, VFW—banners that meant something and were hung with pride.
In the far back corner chipped white Formica folding tables were piled high with sweets. Crisp, sugary cookies covered in sprinkles, drenched with powdered sugar, and bursting with nuts and chunks of chocolate. Pans of bars coated with frosting in every color of the rainbow. Thick, gooey brownies and rows of fruit pies with perfectly browned crusts—all homemade goodies, not a Keebler bag in sight.
Four watercoolers abutted the wall between the men and women’s bathrooms. Six industrial-sized coffee urns were set up beside the dessert station. Each pot would be emptied and refilled at least three times before the evening’s festivities concluded. My mother used to say, “Those Lutherans sure love their coffee.” Not all the attendees were Lutheran. Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians were welcome, too. We do have
some
religious diversity in South Dakota.
Coffee was one thing we all agreed on: black. The rage for lattes, espresso, cappuccino, and confections topped with whipped cream and flavored syrups hadn’t caught on. A few people preferred cream and sugar, but mention a half-caf, sugar-free, caramel macchaito with light foam, and you’d get a blank-eyed stare like you were speaking Farsi.
I’d barely stepped foot inside when people descended on me like a pack of locusts. Most everyone in the county felt entitled to grill me on my plans for the ranch. When I hedged, they gave me a suspicious look usually reserved for outsiders. Then they left me standing alone like I’d developed mad cow disease. In that moment I missed my father with an ache so painful I almost turned and ran out.
A Gunderson never runs.
As I debated ignoring Dad’s phantom words of wisdom, Hope materialized by my side.
She looked worse than dog crap. Makeup didn’t mask her waxy complexion, and the thick black mascara accentuated the hollowness in her eyes. Why couldn’t Doc Canaday figure out what was wrong with her? “You sure you should be here, sis?”
“I’m sick of being at home. I want to have some fun and dance.”
A hairy head the size of a moose popped between us. “Did someone say dance?” Tubby Tidwell wrapped a flabby arm around each of our shoulders. “You’re in luck tonight, ladies, because ‘Tubby the Texas Two-Step Master’ is here. Who’s first?”
Hope giggled and leaned into him.
I resisted pulling out my flask right then.
Without warning the lights dimmed and the band launched into “Whiskey River.”
“Mind if I steal this gorgeous young thing for a while, Mercy?” Tubby yelled over the music.
I glanced at Hope. Her eyes pleaded with me. I smiled tightly. “She’s all yours, Tubby.”
He whooped and dragged her to the crowded dance floor.
Hope’s defection spurred mine. No such luck I’d get away easy.
Our neighbor Iris Newsome cornered me. “Mercy. I’m surprised to see you here, although I am glad I ran into you. I’ve been meaning to come by. How are you holding up?”
I’m drinking more than usual and my career is toast, but besides that, I’m peachy keen.
Nah. Not a good response. “I’m taking it day by day.”
“I know how that goes.” She smiled sadly and turned to focus on Hope and Tubby twirling around on the dance floor.
Dealing with Iris always set my teeth on edge, mostly because I didn’t know how to deal with her.
When Hope was five, she was playing cowboys and Indians in the shelterbelt behind our oldest barn with her best friend, Jenny, Iris’s daughter. Somehow Jenny had managed to sneak her father’s eight-inch Bowie knife into her Barbie backpack.
Hope’s jealousy that Jenny had the real thing, while she had to make do with a plastic toy gun, spurred Hope to sneak inside and grab Dad’s snub-nosed Ruger revolver from his nightstand drawer.
After Hope captured Jenny, she’d tied her up and interrogated her. Just like on TV. When Jenny’s answers weren’t to her liking, Hope placed the gun barrel to Jenny’s forehead. Just like on TV. But unlike on TV, when Hope pulled the trigger and fired, she blew Jenny’s brains all over the barn and all over herself.
When Jenny didn’t hop up and laugh, just like on TV, Hope started to scream. She screamed until her voice gave out and she went into a catatonic state.
Dad literally picked up the pieces.
Even through their grief, Jenny’s parents hadn’t blamed Hope. They knew everyone in our part of the world kept their guns loaded; the circumstances could’ve easily gone the other way and we’d have been buying a pine box and planning a funeral.
The incident became another turning point in our lives. Dad burned the barn to the ground and purchased a gun safe. Within two months he quit wallowing in the grief and whiskey that’d followed my mother’s death and signed on with the sheriff’s department as a deputy. Hope still suffers from random periods of depression. Rather than medicating her, we all tread lightly during these episodes and use our family strength to shield her from others and herself.
The catastrophe hadn’t dimmed my love of firearms; it merely increased my respect for the deadly consequences of misuse. Killing, even accidentally, will make some people delicate, like my sister. But killing is the one thing I’m good at, even if the payoff is some sleepless nights.
Iris faced me. “I’m calling a meeting next week with Bob Peterson about some of the changes those LifeLite people who bought the old Jackson place have made.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have you been by there yet?”
“Ah. No.” It was hard to imagine the kind of changes that could require the attention of our county commissioner.
“It’s an abomination. Eight-foot-high electric fences and manned gates twenty-four hours a day? They’ve got to be doing something illegal, especially with so many new outbuildings popping up practically overnight… heaven only knows what for.”
“What can Bob do?”
“First of all, he can check to see if their permits are up to snuff.”
“And if they aren’t? What then?”
“He can bring it to the county commission and stop any additional building. Hopefully all of the landowners with adjoining property, who are affected by the blight on the landscape, can make our voices heard. Or at least encourage the county to enforce legal actions and heavy fines for building violations. If enough of us sign the petition to enact some sort of covenants to keep it from happening again, we can bring it to a countywide vote.”
I snorted at her casual use of the word
covenants.
No rancher I knew would ever consider voting for that type of restriction. Sure, they may hate what those outsiders were doing to the property, but they’d never allow their own personal freedoms to be dictated by local government. Or the local busybody.
“I got you thinking, didn’t I?” Iris asked smugly.
“No. I don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“But as a landowner—”
“Which is in question right now, isn’t it?”
Her mouth tightened. “You aren’t seriously considering selling?”
I offered her a greasy politician’s smile. “I’m seriously considering peeing my pants if I don’t get to the bathroom pretty damn quick.”
Iris retreated, taken aback by my rudeness.
She was probably thinking if my mother hadn’t died, I would have better manners. Or if her daughter Jenny had lived, she certainly wouldn’t have uttered such a crude comment.
Mumbling “Excuse me,” I made a break for the bathroom, locked myself in the stall, and dug the whiskey flask out of my boot. After sucking down three gulps of liquid fire, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the burn.
Mature, Gunderson.
How often in the last month had I looked to Jack Daniel’s or Jim Beam for strength? Too many.
Reluctantly I exited the stall. At the crowded sink, I glanced in the mirror as I dried my hands. Molly, the oldest daughter of my oldest friend, Geneva, winked at me and grinned. “You hiding in here?”
“Yep. Are you?”
“We both are.” She nudged the lanky Indian girl standing next to her. “Sue Anne, this is my mom’s friend, Mercy.” Molly added slyly, “She’s also Levi Arpel’s aunt.”
Sue Anne’s brown eyes widened. “Really? Is Levi here?”
I’d forgotten to ask Hope if Levi had tagged along. “I don’t know. I could ask his mom if you want.”
“No, no, don’t, it’s okay. Maybe we’ll see him around.”
“Sue Anne thinks he’s a total hottie,” Molly said. “They’re actually sneaking—”
“Shut up!” Sue Anne blushed and pushed her.
My nephew a hottie? Whoa. Hanging out with these girls for even two seconds made me feel every one of my thirty-eight years. “If I see Levi, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”
I ducked out of the bathroom and considered leaving. As I debated, I saw Hope slow dancing with some guy I didn’t know. Weird. I scanned the group of kids lined up against the far wall like they were facing a firing squad, but didn’t see Levi.
“Hey-o, you
are
here.”
“I told you I would be, Sophie.”
“You’re not smiling. No wonder you’re standing here alone while everyone else is out dancing, eh?”
“Don’t you have grandchildren to harass or something?”
Sophie shuffled into my line of vision. “
Shee
. They don’t fight back. They say ‘yes
Unci
’ or ‘no
Unci
,’ where you snarl like Devlin’s pit bull. You’re more fun.”
I gave her a droll stare. “Comparing me to a dog to see if I bite? You must be bored.”
“Curse of the elders. Got nothing to do but stir up trouble.” Her wrinkled face brightened, and she waved to someone across the way.
“Well, have fun mixing things up. I’m going home.”
“Wait.” Sophie grabbed my sleeve. “There is someone here who wants to talk to you.”
Visions of Sophie’s (bad) matchmaking attempts twisted my guts into a knot. “Who?”
The song ended. A round of applause broke out.
Jake sidled up behind Sophie and squeezed her hunched shoulders. “Ready for that dance,
Unci
?”
“Afraid you’re too late,
takoja
. I’m off to sit with some friends. But Mercy told me she would like to dance.”
Talk about stirring up trouble.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Jake led me to the dance floor. Tempting to glare at Sophie, but her genuinely happy smile doused my burning look. Plus, if I stuck around, she’d probably fix me up with someone worse than Jake.
One dance. What could it hurt? It’d probably be something fast like the “Cotton-Eyed Joe” anyway. But the singer belted out the mournful, slow ballad, “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere” by Dwight Yoakam, and I ground my teeth.
Jake put his hand in the small of my back, pulling me close. I set my free hand on his shoulder and pretended this was no big deal. Like we danced together every weekend, not once every two decades.
We started to move, a slow,
one
two three,
one
two three. I shut my eyes for a moment as we fell into the familiar rhythm. But when I couldn’t see him, my other senses kicked in. The feel of his rough palm on mine. The heat from his hand on my spine. Clean cotton, tangy lime aftershave, male musk, and the underlying hint of horseflesh. Scents that were uniquely Jake and hadn’t changed in twenty years. Scents I’d spent a lot of time trying to forget.