Page 18 of Hell and Gone
“No.” Lawrence shook his head. Trigger stamped his feet, snorting and pulling on the reins. He seemed to sense Lawrence’s tension, strained against it. He wanted to ride. So did Lawrence. “That came from Endless Sky’s north pasture on the other side of Crazy Peak.” He pointed to the mountain with his rifle. “Their furthest range.”
“They run cattle out there?”
Lawrence shook his head. His scowl never left the peak, the shadows just beginning to lift from the steep slopes.
Everett hauled himself into Lantana’s saddle. “Let’s ride.”
* * *
Riding deeperinto Endless Sky range, toward the sound of the single shot, the air seemed to prickle, as if the sky itself was waiting. Danger whispered to Everett from the edges of the forest. Pine and aspen branches brushed down his back like fingers grabbing at him and crowded the trails he and Lawrence guided their horses down in a single file line.
He’d felt the prickle before, the way the earth, the air, seemed charged and full of expectation just before something deadly, something dangerous, was about to happen. The quiet before a battle in Afghanistan, or the hush that would fall over the platoon during their patrols. The waiting.
It was the worst feeling in the world, riding a hair trigger and knowingsomethingwas about to happen, but not being able to do a damn thing about it.
He’d thought getting as far from Afghanistan as possible would shake that feeling free from his bones, get rid of the failure that drowned him from the inside and clawed at the inside of his skin. Failure was a monster that lived inside of him, wore his skin in the world.
He wanted simplicity. He wanted quiet. He wanted no more complications.
Complication breathed down his neck and danger whispered in his ear. A pine bough shivered across his neck as Lantana plodded ahead, following Trigger and Lawrence.
Every part and piece of Everett was on guard, watching, waiting. Wary. If he closed his eyes, he could transport back to Afghanistan, Lantana’s sway the rock and roll of the Humvee, the dust in his nose the same dust from the village, the taste of blood—
He shoved the memories from his mind.
Crazy Peak passed them on the right, close enough to reach out and brush, it seemed. They circled below the peak, stepping carefully over a pine-clad, narrow mountain pass. A ravine on their left plunged, sheer rock and the tops of pines the only thing Everett could see far, far below. He held his breath as Lantana followed Trigger, shadowing his steps.
Eventually, Lawrence guided him down from the pass and through a thick forest to the edge of a pasture, sloping golden grasses growing wild in a clearing on the rolling rise beneath Crazy Peak. Fir and pine ringed the meadow, the tips glowing with the rising sunlight and filtering sunbeams in spirals to the thick forest floor below. The grasses here were taller than the pastures Everett and Lawrence had ridden through on the Lazy Twenty-Two. No stock had grazed here in a long while. Everything grew wild, unbothered, untamed.
Lantana ducked her head to eat, though Trigger stayed alert, waiting for Lawrence’s next command.
In the middle of the pasture, a lone stallion chewed on grass, his head down, reins hanging loose around his neck. An empty saddle waited on his back.
An Endless Sky brand, the Crazy A, read clear in the sunlight on the stallion’s thigh.
Lawrence shot Everett a long look.
Everett pulled out his pistol. He’d practiced shooting from horseback with Buck for fun, shooting at bottles and pails and moldering melons on Buck’s ranch. He wasn’t great, not yet.
Lawrence hefted the rifle to his shoulder and laid Trigger’s reins over the pommel. He clicked and nudged Trigger forward with his knees.
Following, Everett scanned the tree line, the empty spaces, the shadows. Movement, always look for movement. For anything out of place. Misplaced colors, misplaced lines. Concealment and cover. Or betrayal.
Nothing struck out at them as they crossed the pasture to the Crazy A horse. The stallion snorted at their arrival, tossed his mane, but otherwise seemed unbothered. He was content to chew his grass and ignore the world.
Wind ruffled past Everett, shifting the trees. Branches creaked.
“Here,” Lawrence called. Everett twisted to him. Lawrence shouldered his rifle and hopped down from his saddle. He picked his way carefully through the grass and knelt, and Everett lost him in golden waves. He clambered down from Lantana and followed.
Lawrence knelt beside a dead man, lying facedown and flattening the field. A single shot had entered the center of the dead man’s back, gone through his heart, and exploded out his chest. His hat lay in front of him, tipped off, his arms and legs splayed wide. He’d fallen where he’d been shot.
And he hadn’t been expecting it.
“Shot in the back.” Lawrence shook his head, his face twisting hard. “No way to go.”
The world spun, mountains and time slipping around each other. Everett, in another time and place, standing over another man shot in the back, another man who hadn’t been expecting it. Betrayal, the taste of it, weighed heavy on his tongue, stained his soul. He tried to swallow but choked on blood and dust. He blinked, and the cowboy’s corpse in front of him shimmered, changed. Now it was a man in uniform, an officer, lying dead in the dust—
“Army?” Lawrence’s voice, shaking him free from the back hole of his memories. “Y’alright?”
