had cashed in, opting to have the shallow wells dug on their property. Others, like Brandon’s father, Asa, would die before he’d have one on his ranch.
The real battles had less to do with traditional uses of the land and more to do with environmental concerns, though. By extracting the gas from the water, something had to be done with all the water, which was considered too salty for irrigation but was being dumped into the Tongue River. The drilling was also said to lower the water table, leaving some ranch wells high and dry.
Mason VanHorn had the most gas wells and was the most outspoken in favor of the drilling. Because of that, he’d become the target of protesters on more than one occasion.
And that was how Brandon McCall had gotten a night job on the VanHorn spread. He’d been in the Longhorn Café in Antelope Flats the day the new VanHorn Ranch manager, Red Hudson, had come in looking for men to patrol the ranch at night.
Fortunately for Brandon, Red didn’t seem to know about a long-standing feud between the VanHorns and the McCalls and Brandon hadn’t brought it up. He’d hired on, needing the money. While he worked some on his family ranch at the other end of the river valley, that job didn’t pay like this one.
The irony was that his little sister Dusty thought he had a girlfriend and that’s why he dragged in like a tomcat just before dawn every day.
He wished. No, this was his little secret. And given the generations of bad blood between the McCalls and the VanHorns, Brandon would be out of a job—or worse—once ranch owner Mason VanHorn found out. He hated to think how VanHorn would take it when he found out he had a McCall on his payroll.
Something moved again in a stand of pines below him. The wind and something else.
He sat all the way up.
A slim, dark figure stood motionless at the edge of the pines. He stared so hard he was almost convinced it was a trick of the light from the storm.
The wind whipped at the trees. Rain slanted down, pelting the hood, pouring down the windshield. He turned on the wipers, squinting into the driving rain and darkness.
This had been monotonous boring work—until last night when several of the wells had actually been vandalized. Nothing serious, just a lame protest attempt, and patrols had been stepped up.
Red had made it clear he wanted the vandal caught at all costs. And now it looked as if the vandal was planning to hit one of the wells in Brandon’s section.
The presumed vandal sprinted out from the pines, running fast and low as he wove his way through the tall sage and the rain. He wore all black, even the stocking cap on his head. From this distance, he appeared slightly built, like a teenager. A teenager on a mission, since he had what appeared to be a crowbar in one hand.
The vandal disappeared over a rise.
Brandon slapped a hand on the steering wheel with a curse. If he started the pickup, the vandal would hear it and no doubt take off on him. Brandon needed to catch him in the act.
He had no choice. He was going to have to go after him through the pouring rain and darkness. He’d be lucky if he didn’t break his leg or worse, as dark as it was.
Pulling on his coat, he snugged on his Stetson, quietly opened the pickup door and reached back to pull the shotgun from the gun rack behind the seat. Not that he planned to shoot anyone. Especially if it really did turn out to be some teenager with a cause.
But it was always better to have a weapon and not need it than the other way around.
Rain slashed down, stinging his face as he loped down the hillside, winding his way through the sagebrush until he reached the rise where he’d last seen him. In a crouch, the shotgun in both hands, he topped the rise and squinted through the rain and darkness.
At first, he didn’t see anything. Coalbed methane wells were fairly unobtrusive. Not a bunch of rigging like oil wells. The wellheads were covered with a tan box about the size of a large air-conditioning unit. The boxes dotted the landscape to the north past the ranch complex, but there were none near the house.
He scanned the half-dozen wells he could see. No sign of anyone. Frowning, he wondered if the vandal might have doubled back, having purposely drawn him away from his pickup. Brandon had been so sure the vandal hadn’t seen him where he was parked.
But as Brandon started to look behind him, he caught movement down the hillside toward the ranch house itself and the large stand of pine trees behind it.
The VanHorn Ranch was nothing like Brandon’s family’s Sundown Ranch, which was family-owned and run with a main house and the barns nearby.
The VanHorn Ranch was run by hired help, so the main ranch house sat back a half mile from a cluster of buildings that housed the ranch office, the bunkhouses and the ranch manager’s house.
The rustic main ranch house was long and narrow, tucked back into the hillside and banked in the back by pines. Mason VanHorn lived in the house all alone after, according to local scuttlebutt, his wife had run off and he’d alienated his only two offspring.
The vandal disappeared into the pines at the back of the ranch house, the crowbar glinting in the dim light.
This time of the morning, there were no lights on in the small compound down the road from the ranch house, and few vehicles, since most of the men were out riding the huge ranch’s perimeter.
The ranch house was even more deserted since Mason VanHorn had flown to Gillette, Wyoming, two days ago for a gas convention and would be gone for at least another forty-eight hours.
Red had promised a large bonus to any man who caught the vandals or anyone else trespassing on the VanHorn Ranch before the boss got home.
And now Brandon had one in his sights.
A bank of clouds crushed out the light of the moon. Brandon moved, running fast. Had their vandal gone from wells to an even bigger prize: VanHorn’s house?
Brandon reached the trees and stopped, moving slowly through the darkness of the dense pines to the back of the house. The guy was nowhere in sight, but Brandon heard the snap of rain-soaked curtains in the wind and spotted the open window.
He thought about radioing for backup, but just the sound of the radio might warn the intruder. At the window, he raised the glass higher to accommodate his height of six-four, and climbed into what appeared to be a bathroom, since he found himself standing in a large tub, the wet curtains flapping behind him in the wind.
Standing perfectly still, he listened for any sign of the vandal. The bathroom door was open and he could see light coming from down the hall.
Moving cautiously, he stepped out of the tub to the doorway. Across the hall, he could see what was clearly a little girl’s room. A spoiled little girl’s room, from the frilly canopy bed to the inordinate amount of stuffed animals filling the room. It surprised him, since a little girl hadn’t lived in this house in years.
He ventured out into the hall, hoping Mason VanHorn didn’t come home early and catch him here. He cringed at the thought of the rancher finding a reviled McCall not only in his house, but dripping on his hall rug.
The flickering faint glow of a flashlight spilled from the last open door on the hallway. He froze, listening. It sounded like someone was opening and closing file cabinet drawers.
He crept toward the sound and the flickering light, moving cautiously, the shotgun in his hands.
As he neared the open doorway, he could hear the intruder riffling through papers, opening and closing desk doors. What was he looking for? Wouldn’t a vandal just start tearing up the place? Spray-paint the walls with words of protest instead of going through files?
He stopped as the house fell silent. At the sound of a metallic tick, tick, tick, Brandon stepped into the room¸ the barrel of the shotgun leading the way as he wondered what the vandal had done with the crowbar he’d been carrying. Hopefully he’d left it out in the rain after breaking in through the bathroom window.