B.J. Daniels - Forsaken

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MADISON “MADDIE” CONNER felt the change in the air just a moment before she heard the vehicle approaching. The wind had been blowing all night and morning, screaming down out of the mountains, sending anything not nailed down cartwheeling across the yard.

She’d awakened in the middle of the night when one of the big metal garbage cans had taken off, banging across the wide expanse between house and barn before crashing into the side of the shed. It had been difficult getting back to sleep. Everything was always darkest at that hour—especially her worrying thoughts.

Since rising, she’d kept busy. But a feeling of unease had burrowed under her skin like a splinter, festering as the day progressed. Finally at midmorning and unable to shake off her dismal mood, she’d tried to reach her sheepherder by radio. So far she hadn’t been able to raise him or his tender, who were both back in the mountains.

Branch Murdock often purposely forgot to take his radio with him when he was out checking the sheep. He refused to carry a cell phone, not that she blamed him. There was little coverage back in the mountains anyway. She’d told herself she’d try him later.

Stepping out on the porch now, she leaned against the railing and watched the patrol SUV pull to a stop in front of the house. She’d expected to see Sheriff Frank Curry, a handsome fiftysomething big man with a drooping handlebar mustache, climb out.

The man who emerged after the dust settled wasn’t Frank—but he was as large and broad-shouldered.

Maddie squinted with both curiosity and an inkling of concern as a man in what she estimated as his thirties tilted back his Stetson on his thick head of brown hair to look in her direction. His eyes were pale and hooded. She could make out enough of his features under the shaded brim of his cowboy hat to realize she’d never seen him before.

He wore the entire sheriff’s deputy uniform from the tan shirt to the creased-front slacks and dress boots. She’d never seen any of the local law enforcement in anything but the tan shirt, jeans and well-worn cowboy boots.

Even before he opened his mouth, she knew he wasn’t from anywhere around here.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly low and soft. The accent, though, was all “back East.” He removed his hat and turned the brim in his fingers, and she got her first good look at him. His face was more lined than she’d originally thought, and his hair was graying at his temples. She realized he was closer to her own age, mid-forties.

His eyes were a haunting pale gray. It reminded her of the wolves that had been reintroduced just over the mountains in Yellowstone Park. The wolves that often killed her sheep.

“I’m Deputy Sheriff Bentley Jamison and I’m looking for Madison Conner,” he said, squinting up at her.

“Well, you found her.” She saw his surprise and couldn’t help smiling to herself. He wasn’t the first man who had just assumed the ranch owner was male.

“I’m here about one of your employees,” he said. “A neighbor of yours saw a young man come out of the mountains a little while ago.... The man who called thought your employee might have been in trouble.”

His words brought back the full force of the unease she’d awakened with last night. “What kind of trouble? I don’t know anything about—” She took a step to the edge of the porch stairs then stopped as her gaze slid past him to the faded red barn in need of fresh paint.

Her breath caught as she recognized the lathered-up horse standing next to it. The horse was still saddled, but there was no sign of its rider. Even from the distance she could see that the mare needed tending to at once.

She shoved off the porch steps and sprinted toward the barn. When she got hold of Dewey Putman she’d tan his hide for treating a horse like that. Even as she thought it, though, she felt that sliver of worry dig in deeper.

What was her tender doing back at the ranch? And what had a neighbor seen that would make him call a deputy instead of her?

Maddie reached the horse, her heart breaking at the shape it was in. The mare had been ridden hard. Her fingers brushed over a four-inch cut along one flank, and she saw that the mare was favoring one leg.

She dug her cell phone from her jeans pocket and tapped in the veterinarian’s number, then shoved open the barn door and called Dewey’s name.

Behind her, she was only vaguely aware that the sheriff’s deputy had followed her. In the dim light of the barn, dust motes twirled in the early-morning light as she called Dewey’s name again before the vet came on the line.

“I’ve got a horse that needs attention right away,” she said into the phone. “If you can’t come out...” She let out a relieved sigh. “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”

As she disconnected, she heard a rustling sound deeper in the barn, then a whimper and what sounded like sobbing. She felt her chest tighten. Stuffing her cell phone back into her jeans pocket, she grabbed up a pitchfork as she followed the sound to a back stall.

A few feet from the muffled noise she felt the deputy’s large hand drop to her shoulder. He’d unsnapped his weapon and now motioned for her to stand back and let him handle it.

As a groan came from inside the stall, Maddie gave a shake of her head and banged the stall door open with the pitchfork.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Dewey Putman?” she demanded then froze as she saw her sheep tender cowering in the corner. Her gaze took in his bloodstained clothing, the scratches on his face and the terror in his eyes before he dropped his head into his folded arms again and wept.

“Come out of there, son,” the deputy said as he pushed past her.

She let out the breath that had caught in her throat at the sight of Dewey like this and slowly lowered the pitchfork. “You heard him. Come out.”

Dewey looked up. A lock of his dark hair had fallen over one bloodshot brown eye. She felt her stomach roil.

“Come on,” she said, gentling her voice the way she would have for a spooked horse. She dropped the pitchfork over the partial wall into the next stall and held out her hand.

But before Dewey could take it, the deputy stepped between them.

“I’m going to have to handle this,” he said to her then turned to Dewey. “What’s your name?”

“His name is Dewey Putman. He’s my sheep tender.” Then turning to Dewey, she said, “What I need to know is what you’re doing here, and where are Branch and my sheep?”

The deputy shot her a look that said he’d prefer to do this his way.

Before she could remind him that he was on her ranch or that she had two thousand sheep and possibly no herder, he said, “Could you please make some tea?”

Bristling, Maddie raised a brow. “Tea?”

“Or coffee if you prefer. Something to warm him up. Also, he’ll need a change of clothing. His clothes are soaked. If he isn’t suffering from hypothermia, he will be.”

Ready to do what came naturally and take care of things herself, she had to bite her tongue as she shot another look at Dewey. He was trembling like a dog cornered by a grizzly and in as bad shape or worse than his horse.

Something had happened in the sheep camp back in the Beartooth Mountains. Even before she’d seen the blood on his clothing, she’d known by the look in the young man’s eyes that he was in trouble. The deputy knew it, too.

Dewey was her employee, her responsibility. While her first instinct was to help him, she knew from the warning look the deputy had given her that Dewey’s welfare was now out of her hands.

“I’ll see to his horse,” she said. “There’s a pot of coffee on the stove. Help yourself.”