Lexie gasped. The Brazilian was a former world champion, in close contention for another title this year. He was currently in position number three—and he was taking a big chance. In a high-stakes sport where ranking was everything, a single great ride—or a buck-off—could make all the difference.
What if Whirlwind didn’t measure up?
Lexie stopped eating and shook her head. “I’m sorry. My stomach’s in knots. I won’t relax till the ride’s over.”
“I understand.” Casey helped himself to a chip on her plate. “You’ve got a lot of hope riding on that bull.”
“More than you know,” Lexie said. “Did you happen to notice which bull Shane drew?”
“Sorry, I forgot to check,” Casey said. “Anyway, I thought you’d written the guy off.”
“We gave it a second chance—and it seems to be working.” Lexie’s face warmed.
“So I see. You’re glowing. If it’s the real thing, I wish you all the happiness—and all the luck—in the world.”
Lexie gave him a smile. “Happiness I can manage. Luck—I’m going to need all I can get.”
She dismissed the brief, unforeseen chill that passed through her as she spoke. Nothing was going to happen on this beautiful day. Everything in her small, happy world was going to be fine.
* * *
Early Sunday morning, when Tess went out to check on the bulls, she saw that old Thunderbolt had died. He lay on his side in the middle of the pasture, the other bulls keeping their distance, as if frightened by something they didn’t understand.
The death was sad but not unexpected. Tess had known that the old bull’s days were numbered. But with Ruben, Aaron, and Lexie gone, the timing wasn’t the best. She would have to depend on the two boys to get the backhoe running and dig a grave in the pasture. If they couldn’t start the cursed machine, which hadn’t worked in months, it would mean long hours of shoveling.
Entering the pasture through the gate, she walked over to the body. Only then did she notice the swollen belly and the froth of white foam around the bull’s mouth. Her heart slammed. Thunderbolt hadn’t just dropped from old age. It appeared that he’d been poisoned.
As the sky paled to dawn, she struggled to make sense of the situation. Cattle on the range sometimes ate poisonous plants. But there were no poisonous plants in the pasture, and the other bulls seemed fine. What would Thunderbolt have eaten that the others didn’t?
Steeling herself, she leaned close to the dead bull’s mouth and breathed in the smell of the white foam. She straightened, stifling the urge to gag. Was it her imagination, or had her nose detected a faint metallic odor?
It was some kind of chemical poison. It had to be.
Aside from the grass in the pasture, the only other thing the bulls ate was the Total Bull supplemental feed, which came in sealed twenty-pound bags. The most recent supply, which Tess had picked up a few days ago at the freight office, was stacked in the feed shed.
The bulls were fed in the fenced paddock, with the food in black rubber tubs that were set out ahead of time, one for each bull. But if the feed had been poisoned, even by accident, why had only one bull been affected?
The two boys had come out of the bunkhouse to start their chores, which included feeding the bulls. Tess could hear their groans of dismay even before she turned and left the pasture to meet them.
In a few words, she told them what had happened. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” she said. “But I need to know exactly what happened the last time you fed the bulls. Did you open a new bag of feed?”
“We did,” Ryder said. “But there was another bag that was almost empty. There was just enough feed in it for one tub. So we used that one first. Then we opened the new bag and filled the rest of the tubs.”
Things were beginning to make sense. “What did you do with the first bag—the empty one?” Tess asked.
“It’s in that trash barrel by the shed,” Chet said. “Hang on. I’ll go get it.”
He was back in a moment with the empty, crumpled bag. When Tess opened the top and took a cautious sniff, the odor of the residue that lingered in the bottom of the bag was unmistakable. Zinc phosphide, the deadliest ingredient in rat poison.
She could picture it in her head—the tubs of feed set out in the paddock, the bulls coming in through the gate, each one going at random to a tub. Any of the bulls could have gotten the poison. It was pure chance that the unlucky animal had been old Thunderbolt—a good bull who’d deserved a gentler death.
The fury that welled up in Tess was almost blinding. Someone with no conscience was out to destroy her beloved ranch, and she’d had enough. Whatever she had to do, she would find out who was behind these atrocities and stop them, once and for all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHIRLWIND WAS IN THE CHUTE, SNORTING, BANGING, AND SO KEEN to buck that Lexie had needed help attaching the flank strap. She stood back now, letting the handlers do their job as Carlos Machado climbed onto the rails above him, preparing to mount.
Machado was currently the highest ranked among the Brazilians who’d come north to ride with the PBR. Raised on the vast South American cattle ranches, they were seasoned cowboys, darkly handsome, sleek and agile as panthers. Out of the arena, they tended to be polite and soft-spoken. Most wore crucifixes and prayed before each ride.