Without saying a word, Theodore moved to the door, pulling on his coat and boots. The cold night air slapped him in the face as he stepped outside, but he barely registered the sensation.
Jacob was rushing out of the barn toward the house. He looked confused and terrified at the same time. His eyes were wide, and his face was pale. The ranch hands were standing, frozen, in front of the barn, staring at it, as though they were expecting the hand of Lucifer himself to come out of the structure and strike them down.
Theodore hurried across the yard, fear rising inside of him. His heart thundered in his chest, and his stomach knotted.
“Jacob!” Theodore yelled. “What in the world is going on?”
Jacob looked at him with wild eyes. The older man was shaking. Finally, he said, in a low voice, “It’s…it’s the cattle.”
“What about the cattle?” Theodore asked, already rushing toward the barn.
Jacob swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “One of the ranch hands went to check on them a few minutes ago after he heard a racket coming out of the barn. He thought maybe they were spooked by a predator or something. You know we’ve had a lot of coyotes around lately.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Theodore said, willing the man to get on with the story.
“But it wasn’t a predator. I don’t know what happened, but at least half of the cattle are dead. They were slaughtered in the barn.”
Icy fingers of fear and dread crawled up Theodore’s spine. “What do you mean, they’ve been slaughtered? How?”
Jacob shook his head. “We don’t know. There weren’t any gunshot wounds. We would have heard those anyway. There’s no sight of a struggle. It’s like they just suddenly dropped dead.”
Theodore’s mind raced as he tried to process what Jacob had told him.
Cattle didn’t just drop dead like that for no reason. Someone had done this to them.
He glanced at the barn, willing himself to put one foot in front of the other.
These were his prized heifers.
“Show me,” he ordered.
Jacob sucked in a huge breath and wordlessly pulled open the barn door.
Theodore’s heart stopped when he saw the horrifying scene in front of him.
The barn, normally alive with the sounds of cows munching on hay, hooves tapping on the ground, and the low mooing, was silent except for the lowing of the terrified animals.
Half of his heifers were scattered across the floor. Their lifeless bodies were distorted in unnatural positions. There weren’t any gaping wounds from a knife or gunshots. There was no evidence of a violent death on any of the cows.
“What in the heck happened here?” Theodore asked disbelievingly.
He ran his fingers through his hair and stepped into the barn, walking slowly among the dead animals.
Jacob wrung his hands together and stared at the cattle in horror. “We don’t know who did it or how. There were no coyotes or other predators in here, plus there isn’t any blood. They’re just—dead.”
Theodore knelt beside one of the carcasses, inspecting it closely. His hands trembled slightly as he ran his hand over the side of the cow, looking for some clue that could tell him what happened. There was nothing.
“They were fine this evening. Robert and I brought them in from the corral, fed them, and made sure the water troughs were full. They were healthy. None of them were acting weird.”
Picking up the head of one of the cows, Theodore noticed that the animal had some kind of white foam around its mouth.
“Jacob, look at this.” Theodore’s voice was sharp.
The foreman hurried over and knelt down beside the cow and looked closely at its mouth.
“I’ll be darned,” he said. “Poison?”
The two men quickly checked the other cows and discovered that they all had white foam in their mouths.
“Strychnine,” Jacob whispered.
“Robert, get in here!” Theodore yelled.
The short, burly man rushed into the barn.
“Who was around the barn about an hour ago?” Theodore asked tersely.
“No one. We finished dinner. A couple of the guys were playing cards, and I was whittling a toy truck for my nephew.” The man was clearly nervous as his eyes darted back and forth from the cows to Theodore.
“I had gone outside. Blue and Major were barking at something in the north pasture, so I followed them out to see what was going on,” Jacob said.
“A diversion,” Theodore growled. “Someone got the dogs’ attention so someone else could sneak in here.”
“About an hour later, I heard a ruckus in the barn and decided to check on the cows,” Robert said, gesturing to the cows. “This is what I saw. I ran back to the ranch house to find Jacob.”
“I followed him back, saw this, and was on my way to get you,” Jacob said.
Theodore stood and looked at Robert. “Get the rest of the animals out of here. Hopefully, they didn’t ingest anything.”
“They aren’t showing signs of the poison. The animals are obviously agitated, but they aren’t twitching. I don’t see any signs of spasms or convulsions, and none of them seem to be salivating or foaming,” Jacob said, inspecting each of the animals carefully.
“Get them out,” Theodore repeated.
Jacob and Robert drove the rest of the distressed heifers out of the barn. The cows made a racket as the two men herded them into the corral.
Theodore stood frozen in the middle of the barn, scanning the horrific scene in front of him. The air was thick, and he could almost smell the stench of death, although the cows hadn’t had time to start decomposing yet. Some of their bodies were still warm.
He hung his head and felt like crying as he could almost hear their dying cries as their bodies contorted with pain. Theodore felt like someone had stabbed him in the heart, and his stomach knotted; he thought he might be sick then and there.
I can’t believe someone would be so cruel. What they did was pure torture to the animals. That takes an evil heart.
Jacob had to be right. Theodore knew a lot of the ranchers used it to kill the coyotes that prowled around the cattle. Whoever had done this knew exactly what they were doing. They had purposely created a diversion, snuck into the barn, and took out a huge portion of his prized heifers.
His mouth was dry, and he felt a heavy weight of hopelessness and helplessness settle in his chest.
Theodore whirled around when he heard soft footsteps behind him.
“Theodore,” Isabel said.
She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes and mouth opened in shock. Her face paled. For a moment, neither of them moved.
“Oh, my heavens,” she breathed. “What happened?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. His voice was rough and hoarse. “This isn’t any place for a woman. You shouldn’t see this.”
She glanced down at the ground for a brief second, and her lips quivered. A faint blush splashed on her face, and she flinched slightly.
“I’m not leaving.” She stepped toward him and put her hand on his arm. “You need me, even if it’s just to stand here with you. I….” Her words faltered for a moment as she glanced around her. “I don’t know what happened here, but I can’t just go back inside and leave you to deal with this alone.”
Theodore looked away, feeling tears building behind his eyes. His fists clenched, and his mind raced. The last couple of nights had been so amazing with her. For the first time in a very long time, he felt something besides anger and frustration. And now there was this. It was hell on Earth.
He couldn’t take her looking at him with compassion and pity. The last thing he needed was for her to see him weak or vulnerable. The weight of the world was pressing down on his shoulders, and he couldn’t afford to break in front of her or anyone else.
He shrugged her hand off his shoulder.
“Isabel,” he said through gritted teeth. “Go back inside, please.”
She shook her head. “No. You need me.”
His chest tightened, every breath coming in short, strained bursts, and he ground his teeth so hard his jaw ached. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, knuckles white as the storm of emotions threatened to break free. There was no way he could let her see him like this, not when he was on the brink of losing control. The tension inside him coiled tighter, like a spring ready to snap.
Theodore’s voice, raw with barely contained anger, rose sharply, echoing through the room. “Blast it, Isabel. Leave now. Get out!”
His words came out harsher than he intended, but he couldn’t stop them. The fury in his chest blazed hotter with each second she stood there, unflinching.
Isabel stared at him with narrowed eyes, her nostrils flaring with anger. Her jaw tightened, and her face turned bright red.
Without another word, Isabel turned and walked briskly out of the barn. The sound of the barn door closing softly behind her echoed in the walls of the death chamber.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head. Theodore’s chest ached in a way that he had never felt before. Isabel had been right. He needed her, but he was too afraid to let anyone see that he needed anyone. Now, he had pushed her away—again.
The silence was overwhelming. He bit his bottom lip hard, thinking about Isabel. She had stood by him, unflinching, even when he tried to push her away. He yelled at her and told her to leave even though, deep down inside, he knew he wanted her to stay. The thought scared and frustrated him. He had never needed anyone before. This woman, who he had brought to the ranch to be some kind of fixture, was somehow becoming more than that to him.
Shaking his head as though to dispel thoughts of her, he muttered under his breath, “I don’t have time for that right now.”
He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. He had raised a lot of these cows from when they were born. The herd had slowly grown after Ellis had destroyed him and his ranch. Now, in one moment, half of them were gone. Theodore felt like someone had ripped his heart out and smashed it into a million pieces.
Theodore turned around as the door opened. Jacob, Robert, Samuel, Paul, and Jeb slowly walked in.
“We’re going to leave everything as it is. I’m going to go for the sheriff first thing this morning. I want him to see everything firsthand. I don’t know what he can do about it. If Jacob and I are right, and this is strychnine, then anyone can buy it. But at least we’ll be on record if we do catch the culprits.”
“Who do you think could have done this?” Robert asked.
“Barnaby Jenkins,” Jacob growled.
“We can’t go around pointing fingers at people with no proof.” Theodore sighed heavily. “However, if I was a betting man, I’d say you were probably right.”
“It’s gotta be the same person who cut the wire and opened the barn door. I’m pretty sure that those cows were driven to that hill. It was a fair distance for cows to meander on their own,” Jacob noted.
“I agree.” Theodore rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think that they’ll be back tonight, but just in case, I’m going to stand guard here. Robert and Samuel, will you take a lantern and check on the cattle in the north pasture? Paul and Jacob, would you check on the cattle in the south pasture?”
Nodding, the men turned to leave.
“What d’ya need me ter do, Boss?” Jeb asked nervously.
He was an older man who had been crippled when a horse kicked him in the back. His duties mostly consisted of cooking and keeping the bunkhouse clean.
“You can make the coffee and keep it coming,” Theodore said. “Can you bring me a chair?”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
Jeb shuffled back to the bunkhouse with his equally ancient dog, Shelby, following behind him.
Theodore shut the barn door and looked at the house, once more thinking about Isabel. As if his thoughts manifested her, she appeared on the porch and looked toward the barn before staring into the field.
She was a strong and good woman. He remembered how it felt to hold her in his arms and almost kiss her, the warmth she had brought him. Her presence would be comforting; he knew that. But he couldn’t afford to think about that right now.
Jeb interrupted his thoughts with a chair and a cup of coffee. “Do yer want me ter sit witcha n keep yer comp’ny?”
“No, thanks.”
Theodore settled in for what was going to be a long and miserable night, but he was going to die before someone came back to finish off the rest of his prized heifers.
He watched Isabel return to the house with a pang of regret in his gut.
“Knock it off. Now isn’t the time for that nonsense,” he told himself sternly.