No Mercy

THREE

The next morning my edgy feeling continued. For years my life had been scheduled down to the nanosecond. During rare downtime I reconnected with my family. Revived my sex life. Hit the firing range.

Spending the day between the sheets with a naked man wasn’t an option. I’d endured as much family time as I could stand. That left one thing. I pulled my guns out from beneath the bed.

Although I’d already cleaned them, I double-checked anyway. I shoved the ammo in the duffel bag alongside the gun cases and zipped it shut.

Sophie turned from the sink when I hit the last creaky stair tread. Her eyes zeroed in on the bag. “How many times do I have to tell you? I can do your laundry.”

“It’s not laundry. I’m going out for a little while to shoot.”

“Good thing Hope isn’t here to see you hauling around a bag of guns, eh?”

“Probably.”

“She still has nightmares,” Sophie said.

My hand momentarily stilled on the shoulder strap of my little black bag of death. I turned away and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. As I uncapped it and drank, my neck burned from Sophie’s hawklike eyes boring into me. I couldn’t blame her for her overprotective instinct when it came to my little sister. We all felt sickened and guilty for what’d happened years ago, and yes, I knew Hope still had nightmares. We all did.

Sophie made a harrumphing noise. “You’re exactly like your father when it comes to dealing with stuff, Mercy. Anyway, I wanna ask you about something else.”

I faced Sophie and couldn’t keep the grumpiness at bay. “What?”

“You thought any more about talking to Estelle? She called me at home last night.”

“About what?”

“About you helping find out what happened to Albert.”

I forced myself to count to ten. “No, I haven’t thought about it. I don’t know why she’s pestering you anyway. Why does it matter that Albert was found on our land?”

“Mebbe she sees it as your land, your responsibility.”

“Have her take her concerns to Dawson. That’s his job-his responsibility-not mine. Besides, it’s not like I don’t have enough to do around here.”

“You?” Sophie’s eyebrows lifted. “And here I thought you was passing everything off to my poor, overworked grandson, eh?”

“You really want to get into Jake’s job description with me, Sophie?”

She sighed. “I don’t know what happened to you, Mercy. Now you and Jake don’t talk about nothing.”

“So?”

“So, you never used to be like this.”

“Like what?”

“Cold. Hard. Mean. Unforgiving.”

Sophie and Hope knew how to push my buttons. Rather than take the high road, I loomed over her. “I’m exactly who I always was, so don’t go coloring the past rosy and painting me as some Pollyanna who turned evil when I left the stabilizing influences of home and hearth. I’ve had darkness and secrets inside me since the day my mother died. The only difference is now I don’t try to hide them.”

A bleak expression flitted through her black eyes.

I didn’t feel like appeasing her. And I sure as hell wasn’t about to explain myself any more than I already had. “Forget it. I’ll be back later.”

Sophie gave me one last wounded look before she returned to the dirty breakfast dishes.

The ATVs were missing, which meant Jake and the ranch hands weren’t around. He’d left my dad’s old Ford 250 diesel backed up to the barn door. Too much trouble to unload the posthole digger, roll of barbed wire, and assorted tools cluttered in the truck bed. I shinnied up the thick nylon rope dangling from the rafters in the barn. From the open hayloft door, I heaved a hay bale on top of everything and rappelled down.

In the pasture, I maneuvered the truck around rock piles and holes, swerving hard to avoid a rusted car door from a ’57 Buick propped up like the start of Carhenge, the quirky tourist spot in Nebraska, where a few enterprising farmers had replicated Stone-henge-not with stones, but with vintage, American-made cars.

Tacky? Maybe. But not nearly as bad as the tourist trap that is Graceland.

Out here the vegetation was fairly high, indicating this section hadn’t been grazed recently. From a distance, pockets of orangish-red and brown soil were laced with drought-resistant tallgrass; blue grama, fescue, prairie dropseed, and the slender green stems of quack grass. Up close, the shorter buffalo grass spread out as a spotty carpet of gray-green sod. Velvety-soft lamb’s ear plants ringed large and small clumps of silver sagebrush. Yucca spikes poked up intermittently. When the fat, dried yucca seedpods shook in the wind, it sounded like dozens of rattlesnakes coiled in wait.

In the grove of half-dead elm trees, I parked beneath the largest one, not for shade, but to stand on the cab roof to reach the branches. Climbing trees wasn’t a hobby left over from my tomboy years; it kept me agile, kept my senses sharp. In my line of work, a clear shot was a rarity. Preparation for every contingency was a necessity.

I unwrapped a package of neon orange targets, small dots the size of a dime. When I’d scattered twenty targets, I cracked the case for my H-S Precision takedown rifle. I swapped out the modified barrel and was good to go.

No sunglasses, no cap to shade my eyes from the morning sun. Just me, my gun, and my scope. If I missed a shot, I couldn’t blame it on anything besides my shitty marksmanship.

That familiar tickle started low in my belly. Fear. Anticipation. Confidence.

It’d taken longer to set up the course than to empty the magazine. My self-assurance deflated when I studied the targets. Berating myself, I disassembled the rifle and packed it away. As I readied my handgun, a 9 mm Browning High Power, I knew my ego needed better than 50 percent accuracy, especially when I was used to 95 percent.

Tires crunching on bone-dry vegetation signaled unwanted visitors. A burgundy Dodge Silverado dually crept toward me. No clue who these people were. With a body discovered a week ago, I wasn’t taking chances. I slammed a full clip in the gun, letting it dangle by my side.

My face remained neutral. My body appeared loose-limbed and relaxed. Inside I was wound tight as a new ball of baling twine.

The door opened. Bluish-white ostrich-skin cowboy boots thumped on the chrome running board. I gave a mental whistle. Those babies were high-end Lucchese boots, if I wasn’t mistaken. I tamped down my envy as my mystery guest hopped down. He kept his back and the brim of his silver Stetson to me as he slammed the door.

When he faced me I groaned. Kit McIntyre. Real estate tycoon wannabe. My gaze flicked over the shiny truck. More than a wannabe if he could afford to drop $65K on a rig and $3K on boots. Still, he was a pain in my ass. He claimed a friendship with my father that Dad hadn’t appreciated or reciprocated.

Old Kit had cotton white hair and a matching goatee. Add in his rotund carriage and he was the bastard child of Boss Hogg and Colonel Sanders-a description Kit wouldn’t find the least bit distasteful. He even wore an off-white western suit with a bolo tie, and a silver-studded white leather belt with a buckle the size of my great-grandma’s prized silver serving tray.

The passenger door opened. Hiram “Hi” Blacktower scrambled around the front end. Hi, a Lakota Sioux man, was tall as a spruce, broad as a barn, and dumb as a turkey. Dad always said Hi would be dangerous if he had any ambition. It appeared his ambition was to be a carbon copy of Kit. Hell, they’d even dressed the same.

Kit grinned at me. “We was wondering if we’d ever find ya, Mercy. Whatcha doing all the way out here by yourself?”

“Target shooting.” I lifted the gun. Neither of them had noticed it. Kit’s name fit: he had the survival instincts of a kitten.

“Is that military issue?” Hi asked.

“Nope. Personal. Why?”

“My brother Josiah was in the Gulf War, and he had a gun like that before…”

Before coming home a broken man in a wheelchair, courtesy of a land mine. My father had been freaked out about Josiah’s injury when I accidentally let it slip I’d been in that exact area right before that particular bloody offensive.

“Anyway, it’s good to see you, Mercy,” Hi said.

“How’d you know where to look?”

“Sophie was kind enough to point us your direction.”

Sophie earned herself a free ass chewing. “So, why are you guys trespassing? No one would blame me if I shot first, given all that’s happened round here in the last month.”

Kit softened his good-ol’-boy grin until his jowls sagged. Blinked at me with puppy-dog eyes. “I sure am sorry about your daddy, Mercy. I know it’s got to’ve been hard, coming back here after Wyatt’s death and handling all this stuff, the ranch, your sister-bless her soul-and the estate legalities. Lot of responsibility for a single woman.”

I didn’t have to guess what Kit was getting at. Surprised me it’d taken him a month to get around to it.

“I saw Hope at Besler’s grocery. She told me she’s anxious for you to make a decision on what you’re gonna do with the ranch.”

“Did Hope talk to you about it?”

“Yep. Sounds to me like you might be convinced to sell.” His eyes searched mine. “That true?”

“What’s it matter to you if I sell it or not?”

“Well, now, I’m glad you asked. ’Cause I’ve put together a sweet opportunity. It’s real exciting.”

“Real exciting,” Hi chimed in.

They paused, letting the silence build drama.

I made the on-with-it gesture. With my gun.

“First off, let me tell you I know better than anyone what this ranch means to the community. It’s a piece of living history. We’d all like to see that history preserved, Mercy. In a beneficial manner to the Gunderson family, for all they’ve done over the years.”

I muttered, “What a bunch of bullshit,” but old Kit heard something else because he beamed an indulgent smile.

“Saddens me to see young folks being forced away from the country way they was raised in because they can’t afford to ranch. Either because their older brothers and sisters are carrying on the family traditions, or because the price of the land is too damn high for a young couple just starting out. I’d like to keep some of them around here and offer them the same chance that was given to their daddies and granddaddies. Keep the community young and thriving.”

“I imagine you’ve got something in mind?”

Dollar signs lit his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve rounded up a group of investors that would like to buy the Gunderson Ranch from you. In its entirely.”

“Yeah? What are their plans for it?”

“We’d keep a large chunk of it intact. The rest we’d parcel out, about five hundred acres each. It’d give some of these young ranch couples a place to start.”

Five hundred acres might mean a lot of land in fertile prairie-farming communities, but as far as ranching in western South Dakota? Forget it. Not enough room to run a decent herd of cattle. Not enough cattle meant not enough money to live on. Which meant the people buying the land wouldn’t be ranching.

In essence, he was proposing to turn the “historic” seventy-thousand-acre Gunderson Ranch into a bunch of hobby ranches. Where white-collar professionals could play cowboy. Dress up in new Wranglers, fancy cowboy boots, and custom-made hats. Talk about low cattle prices, the lack of moisture, the high price of feed. Build a half-million-dollar house next to the quarter-million-dollar barn where they could stable their expensive hobbyhorses and fleet of top-of-the-line ATVs.

They’d throw branding parties in the spring. Sit in air conditioned- three-season porches in the summer and watch satellite TV while chatting on their cell phones about “real” country livin’ with their stockbrokers. Then in the fall, they’d invite their buddies with purebred Labrador retrievers for a week of roughing it out West to do some real hunting.

God. Maybe I was channeling my friend John-John’s abilities to see visions. A shudder ran through me. I actually felt my dad spinning in his grave.

What bothered me more than Kit’s offer was Hope discussing our private family business with this big mouth. No wonder everyone in the county gossiped about my intentions. No wonder Dad left the final decision about the fate of the ranch to me and not my flaky sister.

“Whatcha think? Would you be willing to sit down and talk to the investors?”

“Sure.”

Kit looked so happy I was afraid he’d lay a big honking kiss on me. Eww. I’d pop him one first, and not necessarily with my fist.

“When?”

“That’s the thing, Kit. A group from Florida has asked to come and check the place out.”

His white eyebrows rose clear to his hairline. “Florida? How’d they hear about it? Why would you even be talking to them kinda folk?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know how they heard, but they offered to buy the whole property, sight unseen, as an investment.” I grinned nastily and lied, “In cash.”

Now old Kit looked like I had plugged him in the heart with my trusty gun. “B-but. You ain’t seriously thinking about it, are ya?”

“Yes. Seems these other folks really do have the Gunderson family’s best interests at heart.”

Kit’s sagging shoulders snapped straight with indignation. “You saying I don’t?”

“I’m saying none of the people who have contacted me are pretending they want this chunk of land for any altruistic reasons.”

“But-”

“You think I’m stupid, Kit? You think I don’t know what this land is worth? You think because you paid me a personal visit I’ll be inclined to sell it to you? Or will you bring up my daddy and your great friendship with him and lie about what he would’ve wanted?”

His brown eyes turned as cold and hard as frozen cow chips. “For years your daddy hoped you’d come back here and take over. Except we all know he was delusional when it comes to you and your crazy sister.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to defend Hope. No one had the right to call her crazy but me.

But Kit wasn’t finished. “You always thought you was too good to stick around these parts. You couldn’t even be bothered to show up before your daddy passed on. No big surprise you’re finally back here, now that you don’t have to look him in the eye as he was wasting away to nothing. I’m glad he ain’t around to see the heartless creature you’ve become, God rest his soul.”

Wind rustled through the elm leaves. A drawn-out, high-pitched hawk’s screech made me twitchy.

Hiram moved in. “He don’t mean it, Mercy.”

I stared at Kit. Revulsion stared back at me. “Yes, he does. So now that I know how you really feel, Kit, don’t hold back.”

“Fine. Here it is: you don’t know all the problems you’d be causing if you sell out to someone who ain’t local. Who’s it gonna hurt? Your neighbors. Remember them? The ones who helped out your family when your mama died? When your daddy’s diabetes got so bad they chopped off his leg and he couldn’t take care of this place? When your granddad nearly lost everything in the dirty ’30s? Oh, and let’s not forget way back when your great-grandma Grace nearly lost her mind.”

Seemed old Kit knew my family history better than I did.

When he spit a wad of tobacco out the side of his mouth, I expected to see a forked tongue.

“Think those fellers from Florida give a rip that your daddy’s been letting the Marshall family hunt here off-season so they don’t starve in the winter? Them rich snobs will close the land off to all hunting except for their bigwig buddies.

“Sure, they’re willing to pay you top dollar. They don’t have to worry about some damn conglomerate moving in next to them, sending ag-land values through the roof and forcing them out of their heritage. By then they’ll probably already have bought up half the damn county and sent the people who’ve lived in this area for generations into town so’s they can work for Wal-Mart.”

His venomous declaration wasn’t a revelation to me. So far he’d been the first person to voice his concerns to my face. For that alone I ought to have given him props. I might have, if it weren’t for the sneaky-ass way he’d gone about it.

Oh, and his shitty opinion of me and my family.

“You done?” I asked coolly.

“No. Some powerful people are backing me on this. Life on the ranch is mighty rough, especially for a city girl like you.”

Whoa. That was a name I hadn’t been called. Ever. “City girl?” I repeated.

“Yeah, you ain’t cut out for this life. Never were. Wyatt kept you in the dark about what it really takes to run a ranch this size. Neither you nor your sister has the guts to do it. ’Sides, you never know what can happen around these parts. Accidents and the like.” Kit lifted his hand and casually studied his fingernails.

Oh. My. God. I could hardly keep a straight face. Talk about him acting like a caped villain in a bad melodrama. He should’ve been cackling evilly while he twirled his mustache. Was he secretly imagining tying me to a railroad track as I cried for help?

Screw that. Screw him.

“Don’t got nothing to say?”

“You threatening me?”

“Consider it a fair warning. You may act tough, but when it comes down to it, the years away made you soft. With the right kinda pressure, I suspect you’ll give way like a marshmallow in the sun.”

Soft. With that suggestion my humor vanished. My gun arm lifted of its own accord. I fired at the right headlight on his truck. Metal chinked. Glass exploded. Gun smoke hung in the air. I didn’t flinch, although Hiram hit the ground pretty damn fast.

Kit screeched, “What in the hell are you doing?”

“My way of warning you that I don’t deal well with any kind of threats, Kit.”

“You’re just as crazy as your sister and the rest of the women in your family.”

“Maybe.”

“You just made a big mistake.” He shook his finger at me. “You’re gonna pay for that.”

“Yeah? Then go ahead and put this one on my bill, too.” I shot out the other headlight just for fun.

Hiram crawled away.

Chicken.

Kit’s face matched the color of his rig. “You just bought yourself a whole passel of trouble, Missy.”

I swung the barrel away from his front tire and aimed at his sweat-covered brow. “Wrong. You breathe one word of my little misfire to anyone and I’ll come for you.” I inched closer, and he backed up. “When you’re all alone, Kit. I’ll have you pissing yourself in the dark before I shoot off your worthless dick. Then we’ll see who’s tough and who’s soft.” I pointed at the driver’s-side door. “Now get the hell off my land.”

Hiram scrambled to his feet. “Come on, Kit. Let’s go.”

“Next time I see you trespassing I’ll shoot you-or anyone else-on sight. Feel free to pass that around.”

I fully expected Kit to crank down the window to shout out something lame and ominous like, “This ain’t over.” But he hauled ass away as fast as his ten-cylinder allowed.

After they’d gone, I slumped against a hay bale. This was the first confrontation, but I knew it wouldn’t be the last. And I couldn’t get rid of all my problems by shooting them.

Pity.