LITMIR.BIZ

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had shoved his Stetson back and mopped his red brow. There were dark sweat stains under his sleeves. “If it’s hot here, it’s hell down in Mexico. Those damn Mexicans have been burning off their crops down in the Yucatán, and the fires got out of control, so now all the animals are on the move. Pumas follow the rivers, you know.”

      “What about creeks?” Ritz asked in a trembling tone, pushing her glasses up her perspiring purple nose.

      Keller Creek traced a meandering, north-south path through the Triple K when there was water in it.

      “Same thing as a river. Cats come out when the sun’s going down. They crouch low in tall grasses to stalk their prey.”

      “Do they really eat horses?”

      “Sure they do.” He leaned down so his jowly face and bulging brown eyes were level with theirs. “Cats are killers. They eat anything that moves. They’ll jump you from a tree. Had a horse a cougar jumped once. No man ever spread his legs across that mare’s back again.”

      Static buzzed on his walkie-talkie. Grabbing it, he barked, “You girls better get. You’ve got that long ride and I’ve got work to do. Cattle rustlers. You be careful going home, you hear? Don’t you get yourselves gobbled up by a cat, you hear!”

      Ritz had been watching the sun sink ever lower, wiping the sweat off her lenses, and on the lookout for cats ever since. Every time Buttercup pricked her ears back or snorted, Ritz imagined pointy ears in the high brown grasses. Every time they passed a hole animals had dug to burrow under Benny Blackstone’s high electric game fence, she wondered if a puma could slink under it.

      The caged puma and the cool safety of the air-conditioned courthouse were nearly six miles behind them now. So were the frosty colas out of the courthouse soda pop machine. If Ritz didn’t get a drink real soon, her tongue was going to swell and her throat was going to close.

      It was really, really hot, hotter than it usually was even in the dead of summer. The grasses that had been fresh and green and sweet smelling in May were already seared brown around the edges. The last of the red and yellow wildflowers were wilted and dusty, and the air smelled a little smoky.

      Ritz squinted up at the cloudless sky. A blindingly bright sun broiled them from above while the black asphalt steamed them from below. Their sleeveless, cotton blouses and cutoffs were so wet; they stuck to their bodies like glue. On Jet, the effect was so sexy, the sheriff’s young deputy had eagerly rushed off to buy her a cola. Ritz had thrust out her flat chest and stared at him hopefully, but in the end she’d had to dig in her pockets and plunk in her own quarters.

      Ritz’s sunburn made her feel feverish. Her temple throbbed. She was almost glad Jet had mentioned Roque. At least, thinking about his thingy had distracted her from being so scared of cats.

      “He must’ve been something running home naked….”

      Roque was so dark and handsome and fierce. Even before she’d snuck up on him last night, she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off him. Not that she got to see him much. There was the dumb old feud. He was a Blackstone, and she was a Keller. Their families avoided each other.

      Last summer though, she’d seen him once at the hardware store in town buying fencing. She’d stared at him, and he’d taken off his aviator glasses and stared back so intently, she’d grabbed a pair of pliers as if she was interested in them. Only she hadn’t been able to pretend. It was like he smelled her fascination. That single glance before he shoved his glasses back in place had set her heart racing.

      It had been weird, the way she hadn’t even looked at those pliers. Just at him. Her hands had begun to shake, and she’d dropped the pliers with a clatter. He’d dashed over, as silently as a cat, and she’d stared at his weird silver-toed boots.

      Then Daddy had yelled at her and she’d run. Roque had laughed and thrown the pliers into the pile of stuff the Blackstones were buying.

      “His father beats him,” Jet said out of the blue.

      “How come?” Ritz asked, remembering the way Roque had swayed, bronzed and shirtless, before the fire.

      “He’s crazy. First time he came, the cowboys were working cattle, and he jumped in the pens with the bulls. He set off a string of firecrackers and nearly got himself trampled. Then Caleb jumped in, too. Only he fell. Even though Roque dived under a bull to save him, his daddy beat Roque and would’ve killed him if Pablo hadn’t stopped him. He’s got scars…everywhere.”

      Ritz shivered, remembering the purple marks on his back. Just thinking about Roque getting beatings after saving his brother made Ritz feel sorry for him.

      To their right, on Keller land, a patch of dense brush was thick with mesquite and live oak. Ahead, she could see their tall white, ranch house with its welcoming shady verandas shimmering in the heat waves. Soon they would be past the Blackstone gate and on their own private road.

      On the left, a caliche road meandered from the Blackstone gate across open pasture vanishing into the distant trees.

      Ritz shuddered. The gate gave her nightmares. Used to, it had never been locked. Used to, Blackstone Ranch had made up two divisions of the Triple K. Used to, Uncle Buster had been alive and married to Aunt Pam, and Ritz’s cousins, Kate and Carol had lived there.

      Benny Blackstone had married Aunt Pam just a month after Uncle Buster had died. Bad things had happened behind the gate ever since.

      When the gate rattled, Buttercup’s forelegs skewered to the right.

      “It’s just a silly old gate, girl,” Ritz said even as she grabbed the mare’s neck and clung.

      In Ritz’s nightmares the ten-foot high electric fence that separated the Triple K and Blackstone Ranch had been cut, and the gate was swinging back and forth. Always she was running down the caliche road to find her cousins. Always, she ended up in Campo Santo, the ancient Keller cemetery, standing over two open graves.

      Sometimes she’d wake up screaming. Then she’d remember Kate and Carol lived up in San Antonio now with Grandma Keller because Benny Blackstone didn’t want them. He only wanted Aunt Pam, who was beautiful and famous. He only wanted his own boys, even Roque, the bad one he beat.

      All of a sudden the lopsided shadow of the Blackstone’s massive gate slanted across the road, swallowing them whole as it did in her nightmare.

      Ritz made a strangling sound. Clutching the reins and knotting fingers into Buttercup’s mane, she urged the mare faster.

      Wings whooshed above them. Jet clenched Ritz’s waist tighter and then pointed toward the gate. “What’s that?”

      Shadows of black wings swept low along the grassy shoulder beside the game fence.

      Buttercup pinned her ears back and jerked her head.

      “Easy. Easy,” Ritz said as the big black bird made a crash landing on a thick gray stone post.

      “It’s just a buzzard. That’s all,” she said to Jet.

      “Not that dirty old buzzard, silly!” Jet pointed at a bit of gold glitter beside the fence post. “That! It looks like…a…lock….”

      Then the wind played in the tops of oaks and rustled the brown grasses so that the bit of gold vanished.

      Jet was about to jump down and run see what it was, when another wild gust of wind swung the gate away from the posts.

      “Why, it’s open,” Ritz breathed.

      Like in my nightmares.

      The metal gate banged back into the loose chain hanging down from a stone pillar with a thud that made the chain rattle and the buzzard take off.

      Not one for loud sounds, Buttercup snorted and shot forward. When she started bucking, the girls tumbled backward onto sizzling asphalt.

      Jet screeched and sprang to her feet. “Ritz, watch out!”

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