had a test tomorrow, and Jinx was helping him study.
Dane knocked softly. “Keep it down in there, guys. Willy and Jason have to get up early to milk.”
He heard a boyish chuckle, then silence. Good, the atmosphere around here was calming a little. The boys had been upset all weekend about the vandalism Friday night, and especially about the fact that some of the townsfolk showed signs of blaming Blaze for the whole thing.
Dane saw light coming from beneath the door of the room Willy and Blaze shared. He knocked. No answer. He opened and peered inside. Willy lay sacked out on the top bunk with all his clothes on. Blaze’s bed was as pristine as when he’d made it this morning.
Dane switched off the light and closed the door, then went downstairs to check the kitchen.
Empty.
He peered out the window toward the barn. No lights glowed, but that didn’t mean much. Blaze could be sitting there in the dark, talking to a cow or a chicken. The kid had an interesting emotional link with the animals. It was as if humans had let him down, and now he preferred the company of other species.
Dane sometimes felt the same way. Not that he ever resorted to talking to the cows except when it pertained to their milk production. He would never sit in the barn and spill his guts to Gordy.
Blaze was different. The chaos that often seemed to reign in this house—with so many male teenagers clamoring for attention—obviously stressed the kid at times. Up until his father’s death, Gavin Farmer had lived quietly, assisting his dad in the veterinary practice, avoiding extracurricular activities at school. Dane knew he craved solitude.
Switching on the outside floods, Dane picked up a flashlight from the end of the cabinet. If Blaze was in the barn, fine, but he tended to wander from the property. Once, Dane had found him on the island in the middle of the lake, fishing from the cliffs with Red Meyer, an eighty-five-year-old neighbor across the lake who was like a grandfather to the boys. Another time he’d been out on the highway, trying to rescue a dog that had been hit by a car.
Two weeks ago Cook had found Blaze inside the vacant house across the lake. The kid had sworn to Cook that he’d heard crying sounds inside. He had no explanation about what he was doing there in the first place, however. At this ranch, three strikes and the ranch hand was out the door. Blaze had been warned once already.
Kicking Blaze off the ranch was not something Dane wanted to do.
Cheyenne swerved to miss a jagged chunk of rock and hit yet another pothole the size of the Grand Canyon, the latest in a series on this road of Ozark gravel. Her head pounded from the tightness that had crept through all the muscles of her body on her drive from Columbia.
It was a four-hour trip, but she felt as if she had driven halfway across the world, from the bustle of Missouri’s premier university town to the backwaters of the borderland between Missouri and Arkansas—this part of the Ozarks was a whole ’nother country.
“I’m crazy,” she whispered.
Maybe so, but if she stayed in Columbia, she could lose her mind for sure.
Dense forest closed around the road on both sides, blocking out the moonlight. The darkness mocked her. She took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
In the weeks since Susan’s death, Cheyenne had tried desperately to sidestep emotion. She’d been aware of a deadly canyon somewhere inside her mind, where she stumbled at vulnerable times. Then she felt devoured by the pain.
She knew better than to go there tonight.
Right now she was wishing she’d known better than to come here tonight, especially since there’d be no electricity until tomorrow. But this afternoon, pacing through the beautiful prison walls of memory in her apartment, she could take no more. Better a sleepless night in an old house in the wilderness than another sleepless night surrounded by images of the depth of her loss. And in the morning, perhaps the beauty of the countryside in April would keep her mind away from the dark canyon.
But morning was still hours away. Tree frogs shouted “cree-cree-cree” from the thickets alongside the road, so loud they nearly drowned out the sound of the car’s engine. Now the forest huddled in clumps, the tallest trees converging over the top of the road.
The eeriness of the night intensified Cheyenne’s sense of isolation.
A gate loomed ahead, shiny aluminum panels fastened with a rusty chain and padlock. Ardis had described it perfectly.
Cheyenne turned onto the grassy track and stopped at the gate. She pulled the key chain from the bottom of her purse and opened the door.
The interior light flashed on. Something rustled in the brush barely three feet from her. She slammed the door and locked it.
A raccoon shuffled across the road in the beam of headlights.
Cheyenne slumped against the steering wheel. “It’s okay,” she whispered to herself. “This is still just Missouri. No wolves, no grizzlies, no anacondas.” The biggest danger to humans in this area of the world was other humans. And she hadn’t seen another human being in the past thirty minutes.
Everything would be okay.
“Blaze?” Dane called from the doorway of the milking room. The barn was empty. Dane saw Starface out in the lot, heard the rustle of another animal somewhere in the darkness. Probably Gordy.
They had purchased two sows last week, both heavy with piglets, due to come any day. The flashlight revealed the door to their abode securely fastened.
Stepping to the fence, Dane leaned his elbows against the top rail. “Are you out here, Blaze?”
No answer. He turned off the light for a moment.
A break in the trees revealed a reflection of moonlight against the surface of the lake. There was a soft, rhythmic splash, followed by a silent ripple in the glow of the moon.
Without turning on the flashlight, Dane strolled down to the private dock. The small canoe was gone. He sighed and stepped onto the wooden planks. Time to intervene before something happened that he and Blaze would both regret.
A coyote cried in the distance. Cheyenne shivered.
The wooden gate swung back on its metal hinges with a screech of complaint. She wouldn’t close it again tonight. Why bother? There wasn’t any livestock on this acreage. Judging by the thick growth of trees, there wouldn’t be much room for cattle.
She got back into the car. Now to find the house and settle in for a night without electricity. She pressed on the accelerator. The car surged forward, hesitating, jerking, as if it echoed her own thoughts. The road grew rougher, rockier, forcing her to slow to a crawl.
The shadow of an animal darted across the far reaches of the headlight beams. It stopped to gaze toward the car for just a moment, its eyes glowing red, then disappeared into the deep foliage. A dog? Another raccoon?
Or maybe the darkness of her dreams was coming to life at last. She wouldn’t be surprised.
She completed a curve in the road, and her headlights reflected against the pale sides of a building—her home for the next couple of months. She stopped and stared at the house in the headlight beams. The paint was dingy gray, dried and peeling. It looked as if no one had lived here in ten years.
Dead weeds covered the yard and wooden porch. So this was what Ardis had meant when she said the house needed “a woman’s touch.” All the sensible women Cheyenne knew would hire a dozer to level the place.
She pulled up to the edge of the yard, where the fence had collapsed, and turned off the engine as she scanned the place with distaste. Sixty-five acres with a solid, two bedroom house. Now that she thought about it, Ardis hadn’t said anything about a bathroom or a kitchen, or even a living room. What else had she failed to mention?
Cheyenne