As crimes went, dead cattle usually didn’t rate very high with the sheriff’s office. Ty had instructed Mike to call simply to make their deaths a matter of record. With a touch of cynicism, he wondered whether Echohawk wanted the position of sheriff to become a permanent one and sought to enlist the support of the Calders.
“Could I have the loan of a horse?” Logan asked, turning back.
“Take mine.” Chase offered the reins to his buckskin.
Taking the reins, he led the horse a few steps forward and stepped smoothly into the saddle, his long legs eliminating the need to shorten the stirrups. He put the buckskin on the bit, then swung his attention back to Chase. “Don’t let anyone use that gate until I can take an impression of those tire prints.”
Chase nodded. “I’ll see that the word’s passed.”
“I’ll ride along.” Ty nudged his horse forward with a squeeze of his legs. When Quint started to rein his horse around to accompany them, Ty stopped him. “No, you stay here, Quint.”
Disappointment dragged down the corners of his mouth, but he made no protest. Logan noticed the boy’s wistful look and gave him a smiling nod of farewell, adult to adult. He had a glimpse of the boy’s expression brightening before the buckskin carried him past the bay mare.
A breeze stirred through the tall green grass, bending it before the two riders. The afternoon stillness was broken by the creak of saddle leather and the muffled two-beat thud of trotting horses. Under other circumstances, Logan would have enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his back and the feel of a responsive horse beneath him. But the job demanded a different awareness of his surroundings, the kind that searched out and absorbed every detail.
His keen eyes noticed the narrow band of bent grass that marked the previous passage of several riders, a fact he filed away with a glimmer of irritation. A coyote paused near the mouth of the wide gully and boldly watched their approach, then trotted off when they drew too near, its sides bulging with the fullness of its stomach. Logan caught the first putrid whiff of rotting flesh, the rankness of it confirming his half-formed suspicion that the killings were at least a couple of days old.
He reined in short of the entrance and studied the scene before him. A pair of buzzards stood guard over one of the carcasses. They briefly glared their defiance, then pecked at the dead cow, determined to get another bite before they were driven off. Nearly all the dead cattle were crowded against the back of the gully, suggesting they had been trapped there. Logan took note of the width of the gully’s mouth, then glanced once again at the faint trail left by the first riders.
“How many of you have ridden in there?”
“Four altogether,” Ty replied.
“Did anybody get down to take a closer look?”
“Mike did. After he and Shane Goodman came across the wounded calf, he wanted to see if these had been shot, too. Why?”
“I was wondering—just in case I run across any footprints.” Logan resumed his visual search of the area. “I don’t suppose any of your men recall hearing any gunshots in the last, say, two or three nights?”
“Not to my knowledge, but it would be unlikely. This is a remote section of the ranch. You might check with Culley O’Rourke over at Shamrock Ranch. He’s been known to go riding at night. He might have heard something.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that,” he said, then added, “Stay behind me. I don’t want to sort through any more tracks than necessary.”
He started the buckskin forward, its steps mincing and uneasy. Ty swung in behind him. Single file, they entered the gulch at a walk and hugged the outer edges of it, their nostrils instinctively pinching against death’s rank and rising odor. At their approach, the buzzards hopped off the carcasses, then lumbered into flight with an ungainly flapping of wings. The flies showed no such concern for their presence, the thrum of their wings setting up a steady and solid buzz in the background.
At the head of the gulch, Logan reined in and inspected the scene from a different angle. His searching gaze picked out a large patch of dark-stained grass that remained flattened. It had the look of dried blood, but there were no dead animals in its vicinity. He walked the buckskin toward it and drew rein when he was still short of it, his gaze scouring the area. Flies blackened a twisted pile of shriveled entrails.
Studying it, he said over his shoulder, “When you finish your gather here, I think you’re going to come up a cow short.”
Ty drew up level with him for a closer look. “You think they butchered one?”
“Looks that way,” Logan swung the buckskin away to finish his walk-through of the site.
Twenty minutes later, he had learned as much as he could from horseback. At the mouth of the gulch, he swung out of the saddle and wrapped the buckskin’s reins around the branch of a low bush. “This may take a while,” he told Ty. “If I find anything, I’ll get back to you.”
He set out on foot, this time to comb the entire area for evidence, a time-consuming task made worse by the swarming
flies and fetid odors. A part of him questioned the necessity of such a thorough search, but there was something about the wanton slaughter that made him uneasy. Experience had taught him to trust his instincts.
The afternoon sun stretched its burning light across the rough plains when Logan rode back from the patrol car, empty evidence bags and latex gloves tucked in a saddle pouch. Idly he noted the stock trailer’s closed endgate and the four men gathered beside it, their glances swinging to him. The pickup’s passenger door stood open, revealing the sleeping figure of a boy curled on its seat. The child’s innocence tugged at a corner of his mouth.
At the mouth of the gulch, Logan reined in the buckskin again and stepped effortlessly to the ground. After tangling the reins in the branches of a low-growing bush and removing his gear from the saddlebag, he headed into the gulch.
The fast drumming of hooves pulled his glance to the west where a rider approached at a gallop, bypassing the trailer to make straight for the gulch. Halfway between the two, the rider pulled up with a suddenness that swung the horse sideways, giving a full view of the rider in profile.
It was Cat. Recognition jolted through him like a flash of lightning, pinning him to the spot. A man’s clothes couldn’t alter the shape of the woman’s body within them. With jaws clamped tight, he stared across the intervening space. For a moment, the air had that charged and sulky feel of storm-thick clouds weighted with thunder.
Restlessly tossing its head, Cat’s horse danced in place, revealing the indecision of its rider. A voice lifted, pulling her attention from him to the small group of men by the stock trailer. She threw him a last look, then swung away and cantered her horse to them, a single black braid hanging down the center of her back.