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SAVAGE GETTING HIMSELF up and out of the undersized bed was not a quiet thing. Stiles woke to the sound of his grumblings. He kicked his numb legs down off the bed and let the tingling work its way out before he attempted to stand. Savage was still unsteady on his feet but determined to do things for himself.
“Hold on and I’ll help you.” Stiles stood, letting the feeling return to his feet.
“I need to piss. I don’t need your help for that.”
Stiles stood still and watched as Savage made his way to the door, throwing it open to let himself out. Following after him at a discreet distance, Stiles made sure Savage didn’t fall over while he took care of business. Stiles then walked in the opposite direction and took care of his own morning needs.
“The horses look good. We need to get started.”
“Do you think you can ride?” That question got Stiles the first angry look of the day. He felt sure there would be more.
“Yes. If we take only short breaks for the horses, we should be back at the ranch by noon. We’ll get fresh horses and supplies and head to station two.”
“What?”
“We’ve got to track the herd and see if they are there. That’s where the poison water is. Hopefully, Gus, Larry, and the others got that well filled in and the cattle won’t be able to get to it.”
Stiles tried arguing, explaining that Savage needed stitches to close up the wound on his back. It was no use, so he brought the two horses around and they mounted.
They made good time getting back to the ranch, and Stiles had to admit that Savage didn’t look all that bad when they arrived. He was tired and bleeding again, but he refused to hear anything about a doctor and stitches. Lizzie helped Stiles clean the wound and wrap it again. Savage went to put on some clean clothes. Stiles noted that dark patches of blood also covered the ones he still wore, so he changed as well. Then he returned to the kitchen to speak to Lizzie.
“Have you seen any of the others come back yet?” Stiles asked as he drank down a glass of ice tea.
“No. Not one of them.” Lizzie busied herself about the kitchen making sandwiches and stuffing them into a satchel.
“What happened to Savage?” she asked as she filled Stiles’ glass with tea again.
“Someone shot at us and stampeded the herd.” Stiles could see the panic in her eyes. “I’m all right, Lizzie. Savage took a bullet to his shoulder, but you saw that.”
“Why would someone try to kill you?”
“I don’t know. I think it was more to scare us off. Someone is willing to go to great lengths to destroy Circle W’s herd.” Stiles leaned back in his chair and looked at Lizzie. “I think you should go home.”
“What?”
“You heard me. This is getting dangerous. I’m only thinking of your safety.” Stiles took Lizzie’s hand and she smiled down at him.
“Bullshit, Stiles Long. I’m just as capable as you to work this investigation, and you know it. Besides, I’ve got a lead of my own, and I’m staying to follow it through.” Lizzie pulled her hand away and went to stand by the stove. Savage took that moment to return to the kitchen.
“Thought you’d want to know that Patrick O’Donnell was here early this morning, Mr. Beare. He was looking for Gus,” Lizzie stated.
“Did he say why?” Savage asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove.
Lizzie looked from Savage to Stiles before she continued.
“He wanted to know how Gus and Drew were. He said they had been fighting in town and he’d thrown them out of the saloon.”
Savage didn’t seem to be concerned about the situation or his men. However, her next comment drew his attention.
“Also, he was asking after Mr. Long. He seemed really surprised that Mr. Long was with you checking out stations. He didn’t say anything else and left quickly after that.”
Stiles could see Savage was stunned by Lizzie’s statement. “Why would it matter to him if I was checking the stations?” Stiles wondered aloud.
“Why indeed?” Savage glared at Stiles and let the cup he had been holding slip from his grip.
It dropped to the floor, shattering. The sound of the tinkling porcelain was musical in the stillness of the room. The three of them stood motionless for a moment, just staring at the broken pieces and spilt coffee on the floor.
Savage broke the silence with the words: “Let’s go.”
PARKER HAD TWO fresh horses for them and they mounted. Before they left, Savage turned back to Lizzie with a command.
“Stay near the house. If any of the hands return, tell them to stay here. We’ll be going to station two and then on to three. After that, we’ll head back here,” Savage ordered, then added a little more softly, “Lizzie, don’t trust anyone. Watch your back.”
This ride was an all-day trip. They only stopped to water the horses and eat a meal at noon. It was close to dusk when they arrived at station two. There were no cattle anywhere. Neither man had seen a carcass or a sick cow along the way. The well had been filled in and the trough smashed into hundreds of pieces. Stiles noticed that Savage was bleeding again.
“We need to change the patch on your shoulder,” Stiles said as he dismounted.
“We don’t have time for that,” Savage argued.
“We do or we don’t go on. If you start bleeding again, you’re going to get weak, and then you are no good to anyone. Now get down off that horse.”
Savage glared at him, but did as Stiles demanded.
There was a terrible stench in the air. Stiles had only experienced that smell once before. It was on a case while he was still at Scotland Yard. A corpse had been left decomposing in an abandoned building for several days. Stiles had a very bad feeling about this.
As they approached the station shack, Savage hesitated. They noticed the door was partially open. He held his hand up to Stiles in a stay back sign, then kicked the door aside and waited to see if anything came out. Once he felt it was safe, he motioned for Stiles to follow him. That’s when they saw him, and Stiles lost what little food he had in his stomach.
Larry Largo lay on the floor. Dead. Stiles had never seen a body look that way. His arms and legs were at angles not normal for a human being. His face was contorted with what could only have been extreme pain. The eyes bulged from their sockets and massive amounts of saliva that had flowed from his mouth was now a dried puddle on the floor. It was grotesque. The body had begun to bloat from the heat inside the shack; although, it couldn’t have been there for more than a day or two.
Savage knelt beside the body and forced the lips open. More liquid poured out, along with an entire plant, roots and all. Stiles gagged back bile that tried to come up from his stomach.
“Hemlock poisoning,” Savage said as he moved his hands quickly away from the plant.
Stiles could only imagine the effects the hemlock had on Larry, and how the man had suffered before he died. It had been a terrible death.
“Why?” Stiles couldn’t understand.
“I don’t know.”
They buried Larry in a shallow grave and covered it with pieces of broken boulder from the destroyed well. If Savage’s shoulder hurt, he wasn’t showing it. They worked in silence. Stiles assumed Savage was lost in his own thoughts, just like himself. Neither of them said any words over the body but stood silently for a few moments when they were finished.
“I could use a drink.” Savage leaned back against the shack in what little shade there was.
Stiles went to grab the canteens from their horses. He handed Savage his, then opened his own to take a drink of water.
“No. I need a real drink.”
“The whiskey you had in your saddlebag is all gone. Maybe there’s something in the shack,” Stiles offered. “I’ll stick to the water for now.”
Stiles was in no hurry to go back into the cramped, hot shack. The stench of Larry’s dead body still filled the building. Savage walked to the door and went on in. Moments later, Stiles heard cursing, and a red-faced Savage stood in the doorway, holding a whiskey bottle. He was seething.
“It’s whiskey,” Stiles pointed out calmly, not sure why Savage was upset now.
“I know what the hell it is.” Savage thrust the bottle into Stiles’ hands.
He recognized the label as soon as he glanced at the bottle. It was Irish whiskey. Some of the best he’d ever tasted. The last time he’d had a glass of it was when he was still in England.
“How did a bottle of expensive imported Irish whiskey get here in the middle of nowhere?” Stiles asked, spreading his hands out toward the prairie.
He searched his mind, waiting for Savage’s response. Then he recalled standing at a bar with Patrick O’Donnell as he lifted a glass in toast to Stiles. “Best whiskey in the world. It’s all I ever drink,” Patrick had said, just before he downed the entire glass of amber liquid. Stiles had been drinking beer.
“Here’s another question for you. Why would Patrick O’Donnell leave a bottle of his favorite whiskey here?” Stiles watched as the color drained from Savage’s face. Anger quickly flushed it again before he spoke.
“How would you know this was Patrick O’Donnell’s favorite whiskey?”
Stiles could wear a mask too. He plastered on a look of uncaring before he answered, “I shared a drink with him once and he mentioned it.” He looked down, avoiding Savage's eyes, and kicked a pebble across the ground. His mind raced in many directions all at once. He didn’t like where it was going at the moment.
“How long have you two been lovers? Did you come all the way out here for your rendezvous?” Stiles wasn’t jealous. There was nothing to be jealous about. However, knowing who you could trust was becoming more difficult the longer this case went on, and he didn’t like that fact. Not one little bit.
“Lovers?” Savage’s sudden uproarious laughter took Stiles by surprise.
The whiskey bottle hit the ground several feet away from where Savage had thrown it, shattering into a million pieces. He fisted his hand tightly and slammed it into the wall of the shack. Stiles heard the wood shatter as bone connected with it. Afterwards, Savage lowered his hand and seemed calmer.
“O’Donnell and I had occasionally scratched each other’s itch.” He paused and looked at Stiles. “There was nothing loving about it.”
A shiver passed through Stiles at what the two men would have been like together. His mind pictured them as two animals in heat. It still didn’t answer the original question though. How did the bottle get here?
“If not you, then who else on the ranch could Patrick have been fucking?”
It wasn’t often that Stiles had seen a look of surprise on Savage Beare’s face, but he seemed truly stunned by the question.
“No one that I know of.”
“If it wasn’t fucking, then what?” Stiles left the question open as both men stared at one another. “Business?” Stiles questioned.
“What the hell kind of business would he have with any of the hands from Circle W Ranch?” Savage asked.
“I met Patrick O’Donnell on the train ride from Kansas City to Cheyenne. Everything was fine until I mentioned the Circle W. He was even more upset when he mistakenly thought I was here to buy the ranch. Why would it matter to him if the ranch sold?” Stiles was actually thinking out loud, not really expecting an answer from Savage.
“I have no idea,” Savage said as he walked to his horse. He picked up his canteen and hung it over the horn on his saddle.
The man was hiding behind that mask again. He knew more than he was saying. Stiles thought this whole situation was turning from bad to worse. First there was the question of the dead cattle, then the poisoning. Now they find a dead body and whiskey that Patrick O’Donnell could have brought here. The questions were piling up, and Savage Beare was not helping his case at all. Too many questions. Mostly, Stiles wanted to know what Savage was holding back. Maybe he was protecting someone. Could Savage be a suspect as well?