Juliet Monroe watched Stu Hansen from her kitchen window, where she had been washing lunch dishes. He looked…well, she didn’t know what he looked. Sad? Worried? Definitely an unusual state for Stu, who was about the steadiest guy she had ever known. He worked on the Bar M, as Ross had named their small spread, as their only full-time ranch hand. He’d come with the ranch, in fact, having worked for the previous owners too. She had seen him attending the birth of calves—even once carrying a calf for half a mile on his shoulders through a near blizzard—mending barbed-wire fences in hundred-plus degree heat, on his back beneath a truck for hours, hauling hay and shoveling out the stables, and he never complained, most always smiled, even whistled sometimes. Ranching was in Stu’s blood, and he seemed to love every aspect of it.
As he approached the house, though, his shoulders were slumped, his creased, tanned face sagged, and his big hands hung loosely at his sides, looking strangely naked without a tool or an animal in them.
She hurried to the refrigerator and poured some lemonade into a tall glass, then dropped a couple of ice cubes in it. Rain or shine, hot or cold, Stu loved his lemonade. By the time his boots sounded on the back steps, she had the glass sitting on the kitchen table, waiting for him.
When he came inside, he seemed to bring a miasma of worry with him; like the cloud of dust that followed Pigpen everywhere in those Peanuts comics. She saw his gaze take in the lemonade, then settle on her.
“I fixed that for you, Stu,” she said.
“Not just now, thanks, ma’am.” He almost always called her that, in spite of her efforts since she and Ross bought the place to convince him to call her Juliet.
“What is it, Stu? What’s the matter?”
“It’s strange,” he said. “I was just out in the pasture.” He tugged a chair out from under the kitchen table, spun it around on one leg, and straddled it. He wore a straw cowboy hat, a denim work shirt with snap closures, dirty jeans, and scarred leather work boots. “And what I saw there…”
“What was it, Stu?”
“Some of the cattle, ma’am. Six of ’em, near as I could tell.”
Juliet didn’t like the sound of that. What could make them hard to count? “What about them?”
“They’ve been…well, slaughtered. Right there in the pasture. I thought maybe wolves, but I’ve seen predation by wolves before and it don’t look like that.”
“Something’s gone after the cows?” She couldn’t quite grasp what he was trying to tell her. He wouldn’t look at her, but kept his gaze trained on the floor, the refrigerator, anything else. The ranch house had been built sixty years ago, and Ross had put some physical effort and money into restoring it to look like it might have then, with rustic, western furnishings and accessories.
“Yes, ma’am. Something strong enough and mean enough to tear ’em to pieces. There’s—” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It was just awful. There’s blood all over the place back there, and bits of those animals. I startled what must’ve been a dozen buzzards and ravens helpin’ themselves to the parts.”
“But…what would do something like that?”
Stu shook his head sadly. “I wish I knew. Like I said, I’ve never seen wolves act that way. Bears, maybe. Seems like it’d have to be something at least that big and strong. Still not something I’ve ever come across. Something I’d be glad never to see again, I can tell you that.”
Juliet had refused to name any of the ranch’s cattle, although she was pretty sure that Ross and Stu had named some, because she didn’t want them to have identities or personalities if they were destined for slaughter. This was worse, though—the animals Stu was describing wouldn’t even go to feed people. They were essentially wasted, not good for anything except the scavengers. The waste shocked her, and the longer she thought about it the worse she felt.
“God,” she said, gripping the counter because her knees had suddenly turned rubbery. “I…I don’t know what to say, Stu.”
“Ain’t much to say. I figured you should know because it’s money out of your pocket. I’ll clean up what I can, but a lot of it’s just too small to do anything about.”
“Maybe we should just keep the cattle out of that pasture for a while,” she suggested. “And let the scavengers take care of the rest.”
“That’d work too,” Stu said. “It’ll take some time, and then there’ll still be the bones to get rid of.”
“I think that’s still our best bet.”
“That’s what I’ll do, then.” When he had a specific idea for something he wanted to do, he let her know it, albeit in a roundabout way because he didn’t want her to feel like he was dictating to her. Since he didn’t press her on this, Juliet got the sense that her suggestion was in line with how he’d wanted to handle it all along. He rose, meeting her gaze for just a moment, his own brown eyes shaded by the brim of his big straw hat, replaced the chair, and left the kitchen without another word. His lemonade remained, untouched, on the kitchen table.
Juliet thought she might just down it herself, and wondered what kind of alcohol would taste the least nasty mixed with it. She was not ordinarily a heavy drinker, but maybe the time had come to reevaluate that position.
She sat down heavily in the chair that Stu had just vacated. There had been many days since Ross’s death when she wished she could sell the ranch, or had never agreed to buy it, or could simply walk away from it.
So far she hadn’t been able to bring herself to walk away, though, and selling the ranch required finding a buyer. She had advertised it all over the place, in specialty magazines, on the Web, in local papers, and elsewhere. A few potential buyers had come around, but not many, and although she had reduced the price below market value, she didn’t have any takers. Too bad those guys she met at the South Rim yesterday, Dean and Sam, weren’t in the market. She was so surprised to see them, she hadn’t even thought to ask why they were going to a backwater town like Cedar Wells in the first place.
She was starting to get up from the chair when a stray thought struck her and she froze, her intestines turning to liquid. Could Dean and Sam be the ones who had attacked her livestock? They were strangers in town, she knew nothing about them, and she’d probably confided far too much—including her name and the fact that her husband was dead. How stupid was that?
Stu had thought animals were responsible, though, and he knew more about such things than she did. She decided to ask him if he thought the sheriff should be notified, and if he said yes, then she would tell him about the strangers.
Until then she’d have to be a little more careful. She went to the kitchen door and locked it, then walked around the house locking the others. Through a bedroom window she spotted Stu chugging out on an ATV to move the herd.
Part of her was glad that Ross wasn’t around to see this. He had loved the ranch and everything about it. The pointless slaughter of his stock would have broken his heart.
But mostly it was one more reason to get herself gone, and as fast as she possibly could.