Page 17 of Hell and Gone
Morning dawned crisp and ready, a chill biting the air and waking Everett swiftly. His eyes popped open as he rolled his head, and the first thing he saw was Lawrence stoking the coals back to life and adding brush and twigs to get the flames jumping. He had a beat-up tin coffee cup nestled against the edges of the coals heating water. Everett watched him test the temperature with his pinky, then empty a palmful of coffee grounds into tin cup. They dissolved as he swirled everything together.
“Mornin’.” Lawrence tipped his hat to Everett. He held out the cup. “Coffee?”
The smell smacked him silly, like sticking his face inside a coffee grinder and inhaling deep. His stomach growled.
Lawrence chuckled as Everett took the cup, grabbing the rim to not burn his fingers.
Golden fingers of sunlight wavered against the lilac sky, darting behind the shadowed slopes. Crazy Peak was still shrouded in darkness and looming over their camp. Dirt crunched beneath Lawrence’s boots as he moved to the horses, sweet-talking them and scratching their manes while he sliced an apple for Trigger and Lantana.
One sip of coffee and Everett’s throat spasmed, clenching around the bitterness, the oil-slick tar that filled his mouth. He coughed, rolling to the side in case he couldn’t keep it down.
Laughter hit him. Lawrence, brushing the horses. Trigger preened under his touch, shaking his head. “Cowboy coffee,” Lawrence called. “It’ll peel paint off a barn. But it will also wake you up, get you goin’.”
“Got that right,” Everett choked out. The coffee was stronger than anything he’d had in the Army, anything made out at the firebase or downrange. He used to shove coffee grinds from his MREs into his lip like chew, but even that didn’t compare to the sludge Lawrence made him.
He managed a few more sips before he couldn’t take it. His hands shook as he stuffed the sleeping bag back in its sack, and his stomach tumbled as he carried everything to Lawrence and Trigger. Lantana was grazing on meadow grasses, still picketed.
Everett searched for the end of the rope, the picket tied to a small birch at the edge of the meadow.You know what people never think of? It’s the things they do that are routine.
Lawrence had tied a constrictor knot around the trunk.
Same as the rope that secured Carson Riley’s noose.
His eyes flicked to Lawrence.
Lantana whickered as Everett approached. She tossed her head toward him, chewing on grass.
“Here.” Lawrence passed Lantana’s bit and bridle to him, pulling it from his open shirt. The flannel was unbuttoned down to his mid chest.
Everett’s gaze dragged to the furred pecs, the carved muscle peeking through the plaid.
He kept working on Trigger, cinching the saddle and adjusting the stirrups. He didn’t look at Everett. “Put that in your shirt. Warm the metal up. You’d be pissed if you got freezin’ metal in your mouth first thing, huh?”
He tore his gaze away from Lawrence’s chest and fumbled at his own buttons. The bit was already warmed from Lawrence’s skin, but still cool as he slid it under his arm.
He stared at the constrictor knot, his mind churning.
What else was there to find? What else might Lawrence reveal, slip up and let tumble loose while he wasn’t thinking?
Lawrence packed their gear and stomped out the fire while Everett saddled Lantana. She nibbled on his arm, his sleeve, as he tightened the cinch. He ran his fingers through her mane.
He closed his eyes, leaned into Lantana’s shoulder. He was hovering over something inside of himself, suspended over a hole he’d thought he’d buried in his soul. Something about being back on his own and buried in the unpeeled world had brought back a rawness inside of him. Had opened up parts of his soul he’d long thought dead, cut out and thrown away. The last time he’d slept under the stars, he’d been a different man in a different life. He thought—
A single rifle shot broke the stillness of the morning. The shot echoed off Crazy Peak and bounced down the slopes, echoes slowly dying as the sound rolled on and on.
There was haunting sound to a lone rifle shot. One shot was out of place. One shot was never right.
“It’s not huntin’ season,” Lawrence growled. He jogged to Trigger, swinging into the saddle and grabbing the reins.
“Do you have a poaching problem?” Off-season hunters in the back country, killing game out of the hunting season, was always an issue. Some places had it worse than others.
“Not here. This is Endless Sky range. This isn’t public land.” Lawrence pulled his rifle out of his saddle scabbard. He held it up, barrel to the sky.
It could be a hundred different things. A cowboy putting down a hurt head. Or putting his horse out of misery if a rider had an accident. Or shooting a predator. They waited, listening for more shots. Three in sequence was the universal request for aid. A man in trouble could fire three shots and anyone around would come to help.
But there was nothing. Silence, and an eerie stillness that had settled over the slopes, the peak. Even the animals had gone quiet, the morning birds halting their songs, everything within the forest holding their breath.
Everett met Lawrence’s gaze. “Did that come from Robin’s Roost?” They were still on the hunt for the rustlers.
