LITMIR.BIZ

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could deceive. Or maybe, more likely, he just worked here. Lived in the bunkhouse, maybe. He was too stove up to work.

      The road took another bend to run along a ridge above the ranch, then began curving in easy switchbacks leading down into the valley. Through the pines, Blue saw a truck with a hay spike on the back driving away from one of the farthest barns. It looked like a toy in the distance.

      “That there’s where I live,” Micah said, as his rig left the gravel road for the asphalt.

      He was pointing to a log house and barn nestled onto a low knoll at the base of this west-facing hill. Before Blue could open his mouth to ask who lived in the big house, the sound of a diesel motor came chugging up the last little rise to meet them.

      Micah glanced at the driver and slowed to a stop. The other truck stopped, too. It was new and white under the mud that had splattered up onto the doors. Nice truck. One ton flatbed with a crew cab.

      The front door bore a brand painted in black and gold, two parallel serpentine lines, elongated versions of the letter S, with the word Wagontracks arching above them. The driver leaned out the window to glance at the roan.

      “Micah,” he said, “what are you asking for that hayburner you’re hauling?”

      Micah grinned and shook his head.

      “Save your breath, Pickle. I’m sellin’ this one to somebody who can ride ’im.”

      They talked some more but Blue was only dimly aware of the sound and took in none of their meaning. He was caught up in reading the words that formed a crescent below the Wagontracks brand.

      Splendid Sky Ranch.

      When the other truck had downshifted and gone growling on its way, Blue spoke, even though he had to push his breath past the pounding of his heart.

      “Where’s the Splendid Sky?”

      “You’re sittin’ on it, son,” Micah said. “That’s the headquarters right down there.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      MICAH DROVE ON.

      “Yes sir,” he said, “this here’s the Splendid Sky Ranch. Gordon Campbell’s place is famous all over the West.”

      He cocked his head and shot a sharp glance at Blue from under the brim of his hat.

      “You ever heard of it?”

      Blue met his gaze. He had to do it to prove he could conceal his shock and he did.

      “Sure, everybody’s heard of the Wagontracks horses,” Micah said, “and I’ll tell you right now, there ain’t a line of ranch horses anywhere, including them famous ones in Oklahoma and Texas that can measure up to ours.”

      Blue couldn’t even listen to him. How, in the name of all that was holy, had he ended up here so soon? He didn’t have his balance yet—hell, he wasn’t even used to trying to see in the sunshine.

      “I started every horse in the Wagontracks cavvy for fifty year,” Micah said. “For the main ranch. How many head you reckon that amounts to?”

      Blue’s gut clenched as he looked out his window at the main ranch. Gordon could be down there in the big headquarters house right now. Or out there in that pickup zipping down the paved, black road that led away from it. Or he could be that tiny man on top of the tiny horse way off riding across the pasture.

      Micah answered his own question. “More’n a thousand head, and that guess is a little on the low side,” he said, pride lacing his voice. “Yessir, Blue, back then, I could ride ’em.”

      The sound of his own name, a voice calling him Blue instead of Bowman, felt almost as warm as a friendly hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at the old man, who was staring through the windshield into the long distance.

      “I was always limber as a cat and I could ride them sunfishin’ sumbitches all day long.”

      “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Blue said.

      Either the words or the sincerity in them drew a flash of a glance from Micah, with some bright light in it that Blue couldn’t read.

      “You got a good eye if you can see it now,” Micah said.

      He used both hands to crank the wheel. The truck veered across the road and onto the gravel trail that followed the low ridge above the floor of the valley.

      “Long time ago, when he seen he couldn’t run me off, Gordon gimme this cabin and barn. Said they was mine as long as I live.”

      Blue looked at Micah’s place as they rattled up into the spot at the edge of the yard where the grass was worn away from years of parking the pickup. Everything there was made of logs a long time ago. Trees sheltered it all and the hill kept it from the north wind. In front of it, the whole West beckoned.

      He tasted bitterness on his tongue.

      Gordon could give a house and a barn to his wrangler but nothing to his family.

      While Micah ground the gears and threw them into reverse, Blue looked again at the Splendid Sky—as much as a man could see of it at one time. There was the headquarters with the house his great-grandfather had built and all its many fine outbuildings dotted here and there, including plenty more nice houses provided for the help. Beneath it all was the land, rolling green and glittering down through the valley like a flung treasure.

      This entire ranch should be theirs. His.

      He had been robbed of his birthright.

      If Gordon had married Tanasi Rose, if he had given his name to her and his children and raised them here, they would be here still. Dannah would never have become a junkie, Rose would never have killed herself, and Blue would not be a murderer.

      His mother and Dannie would be alive.

      His father had robbed him of them, too.

      “You’ve heard of the Splendid Sky, then you’ve heard of Gordon Campbell,” the old man said.

      The name spoken aloud rang strange in Blue’s ears, it had been so long silent in his mind.

      “He ain’t well-liked, that’s nothing but the honest truth,” Micah said, “and I have to admit that he can be one high-handed son of a bitch. But I’ll say somethin’ for ol’ Gordon. He stands by his friends.”

      Oh, yeah. And family. Don’t forget family.

      Blue didn’t even want to hear the name again, it made him so bitter. But he said it anyway.

      “Maybe you’re the only friend of Gordon Campbell.”

      Micah chuckled.

      “I reckon not,” he said, “there’s a few more, here and there.”

      Blue found himself waiting for Micah to say who they might be, but he didn’t. Instead, he cranked the wheel around and started backing up to the gate of the round pen.

      “We’ll run Roanie in there,” he said. “In a good mood, he’ll lead some but we ain’t takin’ no chances. I nearly got mashed to death in a trailer one time.”

      He pulled forward, turned the wheel some more, and backed into exactly the right spot.

      “Well, now, let’s get this roan ridgerunner unloaded ’fore he climbs the wall again and breaks his neck or one of them dainty legs of his,” he said, throwing open his door. “Then I’ll show you around the place.”

      Blue wasn’t sure he wanted that. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to see except for this raunchy colt in all his glory. Anything else was questionable. He wanted to see how the colt moved, wanted to know his natural way of going, and beyond that, he couldn’t think.

      He stepped down. Dainty was a good word for the way his own legs felt. They didn’t quite want to hold him up and he held on to the seat

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