stood and waved at the officer. “Nice to see you again, Deputy Larson.”
He flashed her the strangest grin—almost sheepish. “Call me Nash. I’m not quite used to being called ‘deputy’ yet.” He stepped closer. “I may have an interesting prospect for you.”
“Well, now you certainly have my attention. What’s up?”
“Pastor Theo came to see me yesterday.”
That wasn’t news. Pastor Theo was always paying calls on folks all over Martins Gap. She expected he’d show up on the ranch by the end of the week to say hello to her now that word was surely out she’d come back to the Blue Thorn. “Well, you clearly have settled in fine if Pastor Theo is paying calls on you.”
“He asked me to spend some time teaching the high school boys about cars.”
So Nash was a churchgoing man and a car guy. Interesting.
Nash shrugged. “I can’t really help him out there.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rested one foot on the porch stair. “But Theo was looking for someone to teach something after school to the girls.”
“And?”
“And I got the idea you ought to teaching them knitting. I mean, you were talking about convincing your brother there was a market for that sort of thing, so why not create a little band of customers right here? Theo thought it was a great idea, but I promise, I didn’t commit you to anything.”
Sitting back in the swing, Ellie tried to decide how she felt about that. While half of her wondered where on earth he’d gotten the idea to nominate her out of the blue like that, the other half actually liked the idea. “Well.” She sighed. “I suppose I owe you.”
“No, you don’t. You can always say no. I did.”
Ellie laughed. “That’s what you think. Gran calls it getting ‘voluntold.’ You may be the only person ever to tell Pastor Theo ‘no’ when he asks. And he won’t stop asking.”
“Well, I admit he negotiated me down to ‘I’ll think about it.’ But no matter how long I think it over, my answer is still going to have to be no.”
Ellie stood as she saw Gunner coming over from the barn. “My sister-in-law was asking me if I’d teach her how to knit booties and such for the baby. And my niece, Audie, wants to learn to make a scarf. So, believe it or not, this isn’t my first request this week.” She liked how the idea felt as she tried it on. “I was thinking I needed a project. But then again, so do you.”
“No, I don’t.”
Ellie looked at him. “You need to get plugged in to this community. This seems like a pretty good way to do that. Tell you what—I’ll say yes if you do, too.”
His face went dark. “Then you’ll be saying no. Which you shouldn’t. But I won’t be saying yes.”
“Why? Seems like a perfectly good plan to me.”
Nash scowled. “I have my reasons.”
“Well, your recruitment skills leave a lot to be desired, Deputy Larson,” she countered. “You can’t very well tell me I ought to be saying yes when you intend to say no.”
“Fine!” Nash threw up his hands and walked toward the barn. “Do whatever you want. I was just trying to help.”
Doesn’t sound like that to me, Ellie thought as she watched him skulk toward the barn. What on earth was that all about?
Nash climbed out of the rugged little ATV Gunner had driven out to one of the ranch’s far fences. “Big place you’ve got here.”
“Not so much,” Gunner said. “There are a lot bigger. We used to be bigger, too, but my dad hit on hard times back before he passed and had to sell off some of the land.”
Nash remembered Don saying something about Gunner taking over the ranch after losing his father a few years before, and changing operations from cattle to bison. And no one had yet mentioned a mother. Had Ellie lost both parents?
Nash and Gunner began walking the fence, looking for any sign of someone being there. “Your dad raised cattle, right?”
“That’s right. The bison herd was my idea.” Gunner opened a gate and the two of them walked along the grass just outside the fence. “We needed something different, some way to turn the ranch back into a working operation.”
“Anyone not like that idea?” Different wasn’t always a welcome notion, especially in a place like this.
Gunner squatted to inspect a tamped-down clump of tall grass. “Most were curious, doubtful maybe, but nothing I’d call mean-spirited. Except for my neighbor Larkey.” The rancher nodded toward the northwest side of the property, where fences marked the start of another ranch. “But that was more about real estate than livestock. He was in favor of a housing project nearby, and I got in the way by refusing to cooperate when they wanted some of my land. He did threaten one of my animals, though. We were having an argument at the time.”
Nash filed that away under “useful details” in the back of his mind. “Anyone hear about it?”
Gunner gave a sour laugh. “Oh, lots of people heard about it.”
“Well, it’s been my experience that kids copy publicized crimes. For your sake, I hope it’s only dumb kids showing off here and not someone out to harm you or your animals.”
“Hey, look.” Gunner rose with a sizable metal cylinder in his hand. “Rifle shell. Pretty big one at that.”
Gunner had already touched it, but hopefully that wouldn’t mess with ballistics. Nash reached into his pocket for an evidence bag and carefully picked it out of Gunner’s palm using the bag as a glove before sealing it up. “That ought to help narrow things down.” He looked up at the rancher. “I’m glad we’re not picking a round out of a dead animal.”
“We lose one or two a year to injury or illness before we harvest off the heard, but outside of Larkey’s threats, no one’s ever tried to kill one of mine. I hope no one’s thinking about it now.”
Nash tried to view the grassy ridge as a crime scene. It was a far cry from a Los Angeles street corner. That was certain. “How would a group of kids get out here?”
Gunner looked around. “Same as us, I suppose. ATVs, dirt bikes, maybe on horseback. This part’s too far from the road to come on foot, I expect.” Gunner gave him an analytical look. “You ride?”
“We did have mounted police in LA.” Nash kept kicking clumps of grass aside in search of more clues. “But no, I’m a car guy.”
“Like big truck or like shiny sports car?”
This was truck country, clearly. The way Gunner said shiny sounded as though it stood in for “fussy city car.” Nash turned over a crushed can with his toe. “Am I gonna have to git me a truck to fit in around here?”
Gunner gave a small laugh. “Well, now, that depends. You want to fit in or stand out? My brother, Luke, never owned a truck in his life. My dad owned nothing but whatever was the biggest, fanciest truck on the market. My wife, Brooke, owned one of them bitty hatchback things when we first met, and we just bought ourselves a genuine suburban minivan seeing as we’ll have two little ones soon. Fancy car might make you popular with the high school boys, now that I think of it, but then again so would a good truck.”
Nash’s sports car had been an asset in LA, earning him “street cred” with teens. It seemed only to earn him stares here—and not often stares of admiration. Another reason to decline Pastor Theo. “Ellie drives a hatchback, too. Anybody give her grief over it?”
Gunner laughed outright. “Well, Ellie’s a