Page 58 of Sheriff's City Girl

I inwardly shuddered at the thought, pushing it away. I had no desire to think about the two of them right now.

Ron sighed. “We just need to catch ‘em. All that patrolling around the Lowe place has moved them off, but I’m worried once we move off and start patrolling the other places, then he’s gonna get hit again.”

And he can’t handle another hit.

I stayed silent as we turned into John’s driveway; him and his wife were waiting for us on the front porch. It was a meager little farmhouse, not much to the whole place, really.

And it broke my heart to see the older couple facing any kind of trouble.

“Good morning,” I greeted them as I slid out, grabbing my cowboy hat and fixing it to my head.

“Morning,” John said, his voice full of the same defeat written all over his face. He was pushing seventy, and while he was in great health, today, he looked more fragile and elderly than usual.

“Those cattle were our retirement,” Annie, his wife, snapped, folding her arms over her chest. Her gray hair was in a braid down her back, and she donned a dress that reminded me of the pioneer days.

“I’m real sorry about what you’re going through,” I said, keeping my tone cool and sympathetic as I climbed the porch steps. Jackson and Ron were behind me, but they were staying quiet. I didn’t mind doing all the talking, but from the looks of the two, they weren’t gonna make for an easy report.

“I just wanna know what the hell you’re doing to catch these guys,” John cut in, not even acknowledging my apology. “I ain’t go no insurance on those cattle, and I get that y’all are working hard and only got so many resources?—”

“But do your damn job!” Annie cut in, her voice sharp like a knife. “I’m sick and tired of being the target of a bunch of no good, low life thieves.”

“Now, Annie,” Ron finally said from behind me, putting his hands up and motioning for her to simmer down. “We know that you’re real upset about your cattle going missing, and we’re working on it. Whoever is behind this is sophisticated.”

“Probably the same ones that hit us thirty years ago!” She bellowed, shaking her head so hard her braid bounced against her shoulders. “Y’all didn’t catch ‘em then and you probably ain’t gonna catch ‘em now. Just a waste of our damn time.”

Jeez, she’s a cantankerous old lady.

“I can’t make a report if you just keep going on like that,” I said, leveling with John, who seemed to be my only rational choice of conversation. “I need to get all the information that you can think of for this. Why don’t you tell me about what happened? Don’t hold anything back.”

Annie snorted, rolling her eyes. “My god, you people are useless.”

“Oh, just go in the house, Annie,” he finally snapped at her, pointing at the door. “You runnin’ your mouth ain’t gonna help nothing.”

I ignored her as she stormed inside, pulling out my notebook and waiting for him to continue.

“Sorry about her,” he grumbled, plopping down in his rocking chair. “She’s just mad that we lost one of her favorite cows. Bottlefed her as a little thing back when the grandkids still had time to hang around with us.”

I nodded, my heart squeezing with sympathy for them. “I’m real sorry about it. We’re gonna canvas the sale barns for your brand. I don’t have a lot of hopes for finding them—we haven’t found the others—but I’ve let the USDA know, and they got people on the ground. I thought about hitting the sale north of town on my own this weekend. I’m tired of losing all these cattle.”

“Yeah, my sons are heading down here from Wichita Falls. She wasn’t wrong, you know. The cattle we run is our retirement. It’s how we keep food on the table.” John slumped his shoulders. “I might have to go down and get a job workin’ at the grocery store as a bagger if we can’t get them back.”

“Nah, we’ll find them,” Jackson said, taking a step forward. “I’ve helped you out here for years, baling that north pasture.”

I shot him a warning glance. The worst thing we could do was make promises that we couldn’t keep—and right now, that was what Jackson was doing. “We’ll do the best we can,” I added, forcing a smile.

John furrowed his thick white eyebrows beneath his faded green John Deere ball cap. “Yeah, we’ll see. Anyway, I went out to check them this morning, and they weren’t there. We got a total of about fifty head, and twenty-one of them are gone. I don’t know when they went missing.”

“But you fed them yesterday evening? And they were all there?” Jackson asked, leaning against the porch rail.

John nodded. “Yeah, and we was runnin’ late, too. Annie and I didn’t get ‘em fed til right about seven-thirty.”

“And you didn’t see anything that seemed out of the norm?” I asked, glancing around their place. It was mostly cleared pastureland with minimal woods. It wasn’t the best hit when it came to needing some cover.

He took a deep breath, appearing to be in deep thought. “I didn’t see nothin’ out of the norm. Everyone was actin’ the way they should be. I can’t think of anything that we thought was off. I drove the whole place, too. They cut the fence down on the east side of the property. I guess they ran them right out the damn ditch and into a trailer. Had to have been a big one, too.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek as I jotted down the information he gave me, making note to go take some pictures of the scene.

These are some sneaky motherfuckers.

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