LITMIR.BIZ

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clipped the barbed wire on the northwest side of the ranch, came in and shot one of the calves. Three times in the abdomen. A heifer. About four months old.”

      Keith’s hand hesitated over the sugar bowl and his head snapped up. “You think it was done deliberately?”

      “Had to be. I called the sheriff’s office. They’re sending a man out this morning. Rex is spending the morning going over all of the fence bordering the ranch and checking it for any other signs of destruction.”

      “Just what we need,” Keith said, cynicism tightening the corners of his mouth. “Another crisis on the Lazy W. How’d you find out about it?”

      “One of Len Ross’s men noticed it yesterday evening. Len called Rex and he checked it out.”

      “What about the rest of the livestock?”

      “As far as I know all present and accounted for.”

      “Son of a bitch!” Keith forgot about the sugar and took a swallow of his black coffee.

      “Trask thinks it might be related to that,” she pointed to the blackened letter.

      “Trask thinks?” Keith repeated, his eyes narrowing. “How does he know about it?”

      “He was here when Rex came over to tell me about it.”

      Keith looked physically pained. “Lord, Tory, I don’t know how much more of your cheery morning news I can stand.”

      “That’s the last of the surprises.”

      “Thank God,” Keith said, pushing himself up from the table and glaring pointedly at his older sister. “You’re on notice, Tory.”

      She had to chuckle. “For what?”

      “From now on when I decide to stay on the ranch rather than checking out the action at the Branding Iron, I’m not going to let you talk me out of it.”

      “Is that so? And how would you have handled Trask when he showed up on the porch?”

      “I would have taken your suggestion yesterday and met him with a rifle in my hands.”

      “This isn’t 1840, you know.”

      “Doesn’t matter.”

      “You can’t threaten a United States senator, Keith.”

      “Just you watch,” Keith said, reaching for his Stetson on the peg near the back door. “The next time McFadden trespasses, I’ll be ready for him.” With those final chilling words, he was out the back door of the house and heading for the barn. Tory watched him with worried eyes. Keith’s temper had never had much of a fuse and Trask’s presence seemed to have shortened it considerably.

      It was her fault, she supposed. She should never have let Keith see the books. It didn’t take a genius to see that the Lazy W was in pitiful financial shape, and dredging up the old scandal would only make it worse. But Keith had asked to see the balance sheets, and Tory had let him review everything, inwardly pleased that he had grown up enough to care.

      * * *

      DEPUTY WOODWARD ARRIVED shortly after ten. Tory had been in the den writing checks for the month-end bills when she had heard the sound of a vehicle approaching and had looked out the window to see the youngest of Paul Barnett’s deputies getting out of his car. Slim, with a thin mustache, he had been hired in the past year and was one of the few deputies she had never met. Once, while in town, Keith had pointed the young man out to her.

      When the chimes sounded, Tory put the checkbook into the top drawer of the desk and answered the door.

      “Mornin’,” Woodward said with a smile. “I’m looking for Victoria Wilson.”

      “You found her.”

      “Good. I’m Greg Woodward from the sheriff’s office. From what I understand, you think someone’s been taking potshots at your livestock.”

      Tory nodded. “Someone has. I’ve got a dead calf to prove it.”

      “Just one?”

      “So far,” Tory replied. “I thought maybe some of the other ranchers might have experienced some sort of vandalism like this on their ranches.”

      The young deputy shook his head. “Is that what you think it was? Vandalism?”

      Tory thought about the dead calf and the clipped fence. “No, not really. I guess I was just hoping that the Lazy W hadn’t been singled out.”

      Woodward offered an understanding grin. “Let’s take a look at what happened.”

      Tory sat in the passenger seat of the deputy’s car as he drove down the rutted road she had traveled with Trask less than twelve hours earlier. The grooves in the dirt road were muddy and slick from the rain, but Deputy Woodward’s vehicle made it to the site of the clipped fence without any problem.

      Rex was already working on restringing the barbed wire. He looked up when he saw Tory, frowned slightly and then straightened, adjusting the brim of his felt Stetson.

      As Deputy Woodward studied the cut wire and corpse of the calf, he asked Tory to tell him what had happened. She, with Rex’s help, explained about Len Ross’s call and how she and Rex had subsequently discovered the damage to the fence and the calf’s dead body.

      “But no other livestock were affected?” Woodward asked, writing furiously on his report.

      “No,” Rex replied, “at least none that we know about.”

      “You’ve checked already?”

      “I’ve got several men out looking right now,” Rex said.

      “What about other fences, the buildings, or the equipment for the farm?”

      “We have a combine that broke down last week, but it was just a matter of age,” Tory said.

      Woodward seemed satisfied. He took one last look at the calf and scowled. “I’ll file this report and check with some of the neighboring ranchers to see if anything like this has happened to anyone else.” He looked meaningfully at Tory. “And you’ll call, if you find anything else?”

      “Of course,” Tory said.

      “Does anyone else know what happened here?” the young man asked, as he finished his report.

      “Only two people other than the ranch hands,” Tory replied. “Len Ross and Trask McFadden.”

      The young man’s head jerked up. “Senator McFadden?”

      Tory nodded and offered a confident smile she didn’t feel. Greg Woodward was a local man. Though he had probably still been in high school at the time, he would have heard of Jason McFadden’s murder and the conspiracy of horse swindlers who had been convicted. “Trask was visiting last night when Rex got the news from Len and came up to the house to tell me what had happened.”

      “Did he make any comments—being as he was here and all—or did he think it was vandalism?”

      Tory’s mind strayed to her conversation with Trask and his insistence that the animal’s death was somehow related to the anonymous letter he had received. “I don’t know,” she hedged. “I suppose you’ll have to ask him—”

      “No reason to bother the senator,” Rex interjected, his eyes traveling to Tory with an unspoken message. “He doesn’t know any more than either of us.”

      Deputy Woodward caught the meaningful glance between rancher and foreman but didn’t comment. He had enough sense to know that something wasn’t right at the Lazy W and that Senator McFadden was more than a casual friend. On the drive back with Tory, Woodward silently speculated on the past scandal and what this recently divulged information could mean.

      When the deputy deposited Tory back at the house, she felt uneasy.

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