“Where the fuck did they go? Forty one-ton cows don’t just disappear. How long was Jimmy gone?”
“Maybe a half hour. Half the guys followed the gates to the pasture. There was sign of the livestock, but nothin’ was left of them except hoofprints, tire tracks, and a thousand pounds of bullshit.”
Olivia and I shared a look.
I turned down a dirt road that headed in the direction of the empty pasture. Headlights glowed in the distance.
“I assume you called the police?”
“They’re on their way. I came straight to get you.”
For a moment, we drove in silence but for the gravel beneath my tires and the ping of rocks against the undercarriage.
The fire. The missing livestock. And just a few weeks apart.
If I hadn’t already been convinced the fire was sabotage, this would have done it.
The gate to the pasture had been left open, and I rolled in, heading for the cluster of trucks and ATVs. There wasn’t much action, just the lot of them standing in the headlight beams, looking stiff and worried. I noted tire marks, big ones. Duallys with double tire tracks inside wider sets so deep, they made six-inch ruts toward the gate. Somebody had let the cows into the pasture where three, maybe four trailers waited to haul them off. I followed trails of hoofprints to the huddle of vehicles, parked, exited the truck. Stalked into the group and looked around.
Their expressions were a mix of concern and shame.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” Jimmy said, his baseball hat twisting in his hands, one in a cast. “I didn’t think to leave anybody back when we wrangled the loose herd. I should’ve only called a few guys to help me and left the rest on watch. I just … I didn’t think to—”
I clapped a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” I assured him. “You did just what you were supposed to. Anybody find anything?” I asked, scanning their faces.
One of the guys spoke up. “Three trailers hauled them out. Cut the bolts at the back gate by the road, drove right in.”
I looked toward a dark pasture, too angry to meet anyone’s eyes.
If we’d chipped the cattle, we’d have found them with a phone call. But we hadn’t had the extra funds for the sizable expense. We were too busy trying to keep our equipment running smoothly and up to snuff.
At the loss of an entire herd, that expense didn’t seem so steep after all.
In the distance, a storm cloud lit up from the inside, a rumble of thunder meeting us a few seconds later. The lot of them were silent, waiting for my direction.
I wished I had some.
“All right,” I finally said. “Anybody see anything?”
They shook their hung heads.
“Jimmy, grab one of the guys who helped with the other herd and stay here with me to talk to the police. The rest of you, head back to the barns. I want two of you making rounds without stopping on ATVs and get a couple of guys together to check the other barns. Mack, go on back up to the house and show the cops where we are when they get here. Take my truck.” I tossed him the keys and turned to Olivia. “What do you want to do? Go with Mack or—”
“I’m staying,” she said grimly.
“Figured,” I answered with a halfhearted smile. “All right, go on. Paul, if you need more hands, call the list until you get somebody. And send somebody to find me when the livestock commissioner gets here.”
“Yessir,” he said, and they broke off, heading for their rides.
One by one, headlights swung around and disappeared, leaving us standing in the rain. I wandered away, my eyes on the tracks in an attempt to read them, wishing they could speak.
We were being targeted, and I wanted to know who the fuck would be so stupid. Because there would be all of hell on my heels when I found them.
I stopped at one of the trailer tracks, staring at the tread. It was perfect, the tires brand new if I had to guess by the depth and sharpness of the pattern. If it was three trailers, they’d have to be big—forty feet, or they wouldn’t have been able to carry the whole herd.
This was no small operation. It was organized, with insider knowledge of our farm, the pastures. An operation like this would know our stock wasn’t chipped.
They knew too much.
Olivia stepped up next to me, sliding her hand into mine. “Our cattle …”
“I know.”
“Who would do something like this?”
It was a rhetorical question, but I looked down at her with an answer all the same. I didn’t even have to say their name, and she knew.
“Why would the Pattons steal our cows?” she asked with indignation. “They can’t keep our heifers or we’d know.”
“Would we? How so?”
“Couldn’t … well, won’t the police be able to check their livestock numbers? See their herd grew?”
“They have cattle moving in and out of that farm every day. A snap, and that’d be explained. They’ll sell the heifers though, probably to a rustler. Off the books. There’s no getting them back, and there’s no proving the Pattons are out for us. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are.”
“That isn’t a fact, Jake. We don’t have any proof—just your hunch.”
“I’m gonna find proof. First the fire, now this. What’s next?”
“Jake …” she breathed, looking up at me. “The sick heifers.”
I stilled. The handful that had been sick just a few days ago had multiplied, then again. We had clusters of cases in a few other herds—all of the herds quarantined—and Miguel had been running tests nonstop to try to figure out what was wrong. He’d tried a handful of remedies without luck. All we’d done is cross possibilities off the list without learning anything new. But if we knew it was some sort of interference, we could narrow it down.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Called Miguel. Told him I’d meet him in his office once I was finished with the police so we could do some more searching, considering sabotage as the primary cause.
Sirens wailed in the distance as I put my phone away, and when I looked in the direction of the sound, I could see their lights shining blue, purple, red. Olivia wrapped her arms around my waist, and I held her close, watching the lights over the top of her head without seeing anything.
“What are we going to do, Jake?”
“Everything we can,” I answered.
I only hoped it would be enough.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, glancing at the clock.
The night had been unending, the sun rising on the forensics team busy around the barn and in the pasture. I’d left Mack with them in favor of partnering with Miguel to talk through what might be wrong with our stock.
So far, no luck.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Miguel said from behind his computer. “None of my panels turned anything up. I’m waiting on some results—viral, mineral—but everything I can check for is negative. If I knew it was viral, that’d be one thing. I even called a few buddies of mine to see if they had any ideas, but I’ve done it all. Until I lose a heifer. An autopsy might help diagnose.”
That grim thought hung in the air.
Olivia entered with two cups of coffee and an exhausted expression on her face. She set one in front of Miguel and handed the other to me before taking a seat next to me. She said nothing.