Lacey tugged on the reins, pulled her horse to a stop, and glanced down at the Polaris tire tracks in the snow. Looking out at the darkness of the pasture, she stood in the stirrups and widened her eyes but could see no farther than about thirty yards ahead.
The palomino gelding nicknamed Surf, short for Surfer Boy because of his bushy blond forelock, was thankfully tall. But the towering horse still seemed timid about venturing any farther away from the barn on such a cold and gusty night. He turned back several times, resting a big brown eye on her that seemed both curious and troubled.
Lacey reached up and scratched Surf between the ears. “Don’t worry, big guy. Just a quick ride to the back of the pasture and we’ll turn around.”
She couldn’t help but feel that the comfort was more for her than him. But it wasn’t just the foul weather that had her worried. Grace’s ominous confession of “I’ve set some things in motion, and don’t know how to stop them” had somehow superseded every other thought. Part of her wanted to go back and warn Garrett, but at this point there was nothing much to say.
Another bombshell confession of the evening was that Duke Newhouse was actually in fact Preston Kaiser’s son. Vicky’s disclosure seemed to be a warning. But a warning of what? Did she think he was a threat to the Kohls? Because Duke’s real father, Preston, had been a next-level narcissist and a borderline sociopath, Lacey couldn’t help but think that there was much more to the story. And she was determined to drill down on that later.
Lacey trailed the tire tracks and hoofprints to the back of the pasture and then stopped just short of the fence line. She could see a gap where the wires were snapped and tangled beside a splintered wooden fencepost that was busted in two. A cluck-cluck of the tongue brought Surf into a trot and her to the awful scene.
At the sight of the blood near the damaged fence, Lacey’s first instinct was to think the worst. Her mind’s eye envisioned the UTV ramming the fence and the kids ripped to shreds. But another glance beyond its tracks revealed a jumble of hoofprints where the horses broke through.
Leaping from the saddle, Lacey clicked on her flashlight and led Surf by the reins to the fence for a better inspection of the bloody snow. She knelt down and tried to move in closer, but the gelding planted his front hooves and wouldn’t move an inch. Horses had keen intuition, and his nervous snorts and nickers were clear signs that he was totally spooked.
Scanning the area with her flashlight, Lacey pieced together the story and fully understood exactly what happened. This was a rescue mission, which explained why Asadi, Savanah, and Duke hadn’t come back. She climbed back into the saddle and coaxed a reluctant Surf back into action. It took a little nudging to get him directed through the gap in the fence.
Once on the other side, Lacey felt it was she who needed motivating. Beyond the paddock were the open plains and the daunting sandhills that towered in the distance like giant frozen waves. Pushing past her trepidation, she rose in the stirrups for a better view, then eased back into the saddle and clucked her tongue.
As Surf’s momentum built into a trot, it was her intuition that suddenly kicked in. She moved the reins right and looped the gelding in a full circle around the outside of the fence to see if there were any clues she had missed. But being beyond the safe confines of the pasture sent an immediate chill up her spine.
It was well known in the Panhandle that early settlers had made their way through the ranch on the perilous journey out west. And out on the property there were more than a few graves of those who’d not survived the trip. There were several ghost stories about the Mescalero she’d heard as a child, all of which at the moment she was desperately trying to forget.
Lacey pulled the reins, brought Surf to a stop, closed her eyes, and listened. A momentary gust filled her ears, and she concluded it was just her imagination. Between the howl of the wind and dancing shadows cast by the moonlight against mesquite, her senses were in overdrive. She forced a smile to ward off the dread, then gave Surf a little kick to get him into the next gear.
Lacey was going at a quicker clip, but not so speedy she couldn’t follow the trail. She maneuvered between bushes until coming upon a mesquite thicket, then made a wide swath around it. To her disappointment, there was no great discovery or resolution around the bend. The tracks went on and on, seemingly endlessly, out into the dunes on the dark horizon.