Page 57 of Hell and Gone
His eyes strayed to her tracks: slender tracks from a narrow hoof.
Sirens rose through the mountains, dozens of them, red and blue lights flashing up and down the mountain as police cars and fire trucks wound their way up. But why? No one would have known to call—
Connor O’Donnell leaned against Sheriff Braddock’s truck, waving at him. He held the truck’s radio in his one good hand.
It was too late for the ranch house. They needed to save the fields, the forest. The horses were all free, thankfully. They’d fled for safety, Lantana and Banshee and Trigger off in the pastures, along with Connor’s mare he’d rode in on. They’d come home when it was safe.
He collapsed, falling to his knees beside Everett and hauled him into his arms. Everett’s eyes opened, and he slowly fixed his gaze on Lawrence. His bloody hand cupped Lawrence’s face.
“I promised you I’d get him.”
“Yeah,” Lawrence breathed. “You did.” He pressed his lips to Everett’s hair and rocked him as sirens filled the ranch yard.
Chapter 17
Suddenly,the Crazies was where everybody wanted to be.
State Police and FBI, Montana’s Department of Agriculture, Fish and Wildlife, State Disaster Management, and even the Governor all descended on Timber Creek and the Crazies. Firefighters poured in, and smoke jumpers built barricades to stop the spread of the ranch fire before it chewed through the forest. Delaney’s custom built ranch house was gone, as was his barn, Law’s cabin, and part of the forest next to the meadow.
Lawrence, Connor, and Everett were taken first to Timber Creek’s tiny medical center and then flown to Helena for treatment. Connor was handcuffed to the gurney on the chopper there, bitching the whole time. “I only got the one arm,” he said, cussing out the State Trooper guarding him. “What you think I’m gonna do with one arm?”
Everett was taken to surgery when they landed, and then he disappeared into the Department of Agriculture’s bureaucracy. Try as Lawrence might, he couldn’t get any news on Everett. The man seemed to have vanished, and even when he wandered the hospital halls and poked into each room, he couldn’t find him.
Calls to the Department of Agriculture and the Stock Detectives’ office went unanswered. He left messages with Buck Williams, Everett’s supervisor.
Silence whittled away at his once-fevered hope.
He was given a ride back to Timber Creek by a State Trooper who told him the Timber Creek Sheriff’s Department was being administratively run by the State Troopers for the time being, until they could figure out how deep Sheriff Braddock’s corruption went. Braddock’s deputies walked around like ghosts, shellshocked mannequins that didn’t know which way to turn. None seemed to have been part of Braddock’s designs.
Search parties scoured the Crazies. FBI teams pulled the bodies out of Whiskey Gulch, processed the crime scene, and carted each and every piece of evidence out of the canyon.
Lawrence, Martin from the Rocking H, and Bill Warner got together and divided up the Box 88 cattle evenly. They’d all had stock stolen, but so had Endless Sky to cover their complicity. They divided up Endless Sky’s stolen cattle among them, and Bill decided to move back to his old ranch. Lawrence spent a few days at his place, helping fix it up, repaint the house, and mend the fences while Bill’s cattle grazed with his own in the Lazy Twenty-Two pastures.
The FBI seized Endless Sky, froze its assets, questioned and re-questioned every hand working there. Most tried to split town, get out of Dodge, and were picked up at truck stops in Wyoming, Idaho, and the Dakotas. Others claimed they’d looked the other way, ignored signs they, in retrospect, regretted not have noticing sooner. More than a few were hauled away in handcuffs.
Three weeks after Dan Howell tore off from the Lazy Twenty-Two on horseback in the middle of the night, State Police search teams found him hanging in the woods. Suicide, they ruled.
Tyler Delaney flew into Timber Creek to take stock of the damage, a month after everything settled down. He toured the wreckage with Lawrence and kicked at the ashes, what was left of his first million dollars.
Later, he bought Lawrence a steak dinner in Garrison, the next nice town, and told him he was selling the ranch. “It’s time to let it go,” Delaney said. “Even if I rebuild, I’ll never go back there. My wife never liked it. And with twins, well…” He shook his head. “Ranching life is not for me.”
Lawrence had tried to keep his voice steady, tried to keep his eyes from watering as he took it in. “I understand, sir. I can help you get it ready for sale, help you put it on the market. She’s a fine ranch, and she makes good money. You’ll sell her for a pretty penny, sir. She was a good investment for you. So, whatever you need—”
“Lawrence,” Delaney said, grabbing his arm. “I only want to sell the ranch toyou.”
He did cry then, but he let Delaney see it, let him see the way his eyes went bloodshot and fat drops ran down his cheeks. “I don’t have that kind of money. Not for what that ranch is worth.”
“We can work it out. You’ve more than earned it. That ranch is more yours than it ever was mine. The best decision I ever made was hiring you, Lawrence. I wish I could hire ten more of you in Silicon Valley.”
He laughed. “Sir, you don’t want me near a computer. First time I saw one, I tried to use the mouse in the air.”
A month later, they signed the documents and made it official. Delaney Ranch was now Jackson Ranch. Tyler Delaney got a quarter of his annual profits, and Lawrence had taken over the mortgage for a song.
He taped a cardboard sign over the iron gate that afternoon, his last name spelled out in duct tape and lashed up there. It wasn’t much, but it was his, and as soon as he could, he’d get a real sign made. But for now, the land, the burned-down ranch, and the trailer he’d hauled up the mountain to live in, washis.
He sat on his truck’s tailgate and drank a beer as Trigger, Lantana, and Banshee chewed hay in the corral, snorted at each other and flicked their tails. He’d move his other horses up here, sell the little stable in the foothills. Make this ranch a horse and cattle farm, breed good working horses along with beef. He’d make a good name for himself with this ranch.
His thoughts were interrupted by a truck engine slowly grinding its way uphill, tires chewing dirt and spitting gravel. He twisted, watching as the shiny black truck pulled into his drive and stopped at the gate.
