Never Trust a Cowboy

“What color?” Frank asked, straight-faced as hell.

“The pickup or the gooseneck?”

“Either one,” Frank allowed. “Hell, both.”

Del’s expression matched the old man’s. “Black. Had to be a matched set.”

Brad was speechless, waiting for something to drop—a shoe, a net, something. Del purely enjoyed the seconds that passed before Frank tapped his shoulder with the back of his hand, signaling it was time for a good laugh.

“I can read tracks, but not quite that good,” Del said.

“Ground’s too dry,” Frank said. “You were doing real good finding any tracks at all.” He turned to Brad. “You sure we’re missing six? You got ear-tag numbers?”

“Dad, they’re missing.”

“You get the numbers that are there,” Frank explained with exaggerated patience. “The ones that aren’t there are the ones we’re looking for.”

Brad glared briefly at Frank and then at the fence wire in the back of Frank’s pickup. “You know, I told Del to get that fence fixed.” He turned to Del. “You didn’t need to go to my dad for help.”

“He didn’t,” Frank said. “He was looking for you. I went out there with him because I needed to get out of the damn house.”

“Well, good. That’s good.” Nodding, Brad slid Del a cold glance. “I’ll give the sheriff a call, tell him where to meet up so he can see what’s going on out there.” He turned back to Del. “You go get the tag numbers off those steers out where I showed you yesterday. You remember how to get there?”

“You don’t want him to show you where he found the tire tracks?” Frank asked.

“You said the cut-across, right? How far off the highway?”

“Little less than a mile. I marked the fence with a red flag. You can tell where it was cut. Anyway, Sheriff Hartley can tell.” Frank turned to Del. “I’ll get us the list of tag numbers. We’ll go out and check them off, see what’s missing.”

“You’re not thinking about getting on a horse,” Brad challenged.

“I think about it all the time.”

“Don’t tell Mom that. She’s thinking all the time, too. About that trip you promised her after you get your other new knee.” Brad sidled up to Frank. “Let me take care of this, Dad. We’ll check the ear tags and figure out what’s what. You get hold of Hartley. Better you than me.” He looked over at Del and went back to being boss. “Mount up. Dad knows best.”

* * *

Del let his horse drop back to a trot when he heard the roar of the pickup at his back. He didn’t need help with taking ear-tag inventory—he could easily handle Frank’s metal clipboard himself—and he doubted he would get much. But making waves didn’t suit his purpose. Neither did ignoring Brad, as much as he wanted to. They both knew how many steers were missing. Brad didn’t know or care which ones they were. But Frank cared, and that was another good sign.

Sign. Just a piece of information. Connections, Fox. That’s all you’re looking for.

“This works out better,” Brad called out from the pickup.

Del slowed to a walk. “What does?”

“Letting Frank be the one to deal with the sheriff. I had a few run-ins with Hartley back when I was a kid, young and dumb. But I’ve stayed away from him since then. I need to keep it that way.”

“I hear you.” And hearing was enough. He kept his eyes on the view. Clear blue sky and rolling hills. The grand scheme. “Cops have tunnel vision. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“You know it. I didn’t count, but I figure there was probably a hundred head of steers in that pasture. Frank won’t be satisfied until he has ear-tag numbers. There’s no way around it.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Brad came to a stop and toyed with the accelerator. Power. Play. Del spun his horse and let him prance a little in response.

“But you can’t fake it,” Brad warned. “He still keeps records.”

“He seems pretty sharp.”

“He’s slipping. A year or two ago he wouldn’t trust me to count the eggs in the fridge. So you got this?”

Del spun again, enjoying the buckskin’s responsiveness, but a hint of something black lying in the shade of a chokecherry bush caught his eye. He urged his mount to trot ahead.

Brad shouted out to him and then followed, but he had to slow down for rutted terrain. By the time he reached the copse of bushes, Del had dismounted, dropped a knee to the ground and greeted the little corpse by name. Only the soft black hair moved, ruffled by the breeze.

“You got something I can wrap him up in?” Del asked when the sound of footsteps interrupted his thoughts. This wasn’t the way you wanted to find the friend of a friend.

“Just leave him. I’ll tell her there wasn’t much left.”

Del got up and craned his neck for a look in the pickup bed. “A plastic bag or something? When we get back to the barn I’ll find something better to put him in.”

“It’s a dead dog, for God’s sake. Coyotes should’ve made short work of the thing by now.”

“They didn’t.” Del pulled his hat brim down to block out the sun. Or, far more irritating, the sight of Brad Benson. “She said she wants him back no matter what. It’s a small thing to ask.”

“Throw it in the back of the pickup. What’s the use of having coyotes around if they don’t do their part?” Brad gave him a look, half suspicious, half mocking. “Fox, huh? Maybe you’re the coyote.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

* * *

It bothered him all afternoon. He worked around the steers as quickly as he could, taking care not to disturb them too much while he took inventory, but he thought about that dog the whole time. Thought about Lila. Thought about the fact that her damn stepbrother had no respect for anything that mattered, and that her affection for her dog mattered in a way that not much else in Del’s own world did.

Except the job. His real job. Starting out, the job had meant freedom. It had meant reporting only to one person instead of a dozen. It had meant eating what he wanted, going to bed when he felt like it. It had meant out with the old and in with the new. He wasn’t going to miss any of the old, and the new was yet to be discovered. But affection hadn’t figured in anywhere. His father was gone, and Del couldn’t help but think he’d died of a broken heart, that his affection for his son had become such a heavy burden that his big heart had cracked. And with his father’s death a chunk of Del’s own life had been removed, like some kind of surgical amputation. What he had—what there was for him to build on—was a strange and unexpected job.