Chapter 5: Cut Wire

We got to County Road 9 in ten minutes, riding hard.

My thighs screamed the whole way, and I didn't care.

Forty black cows stood in the middle of the gravel, chewing and looking confused.

A line of three trucks had stopped on either side, and a man in an orange vest was honking.

"Get on the left side," Jace shouted. "Wave your hat."

"I don't have a hat!"

"Wave your arms."

I waved my arms.

Dolly, bless her, kept walking in a slow arc without my help.

The cows turned one at a time, grumbling, and moved toward the gap in the fence.

Jace whistled low, and his gelding cut back and forth.

The driver in the orange vest stopped honking and watched us.

By the time the last cow stepped through the gap, my hair was stuck to my forehead and I was grinning.

"You're a natural," Jace said.

"I'm a woman on a horse who happened to be standing near the cows."

"That's what natural means."

He swung down and looked at the wire.

I climbed off Dolly more slowly, with a groan I couldn't hold in.

"Look at this," he said.

The barbed wire hung in two neat ends, shiny and bright at the cut.

"A wire snapping from rust looks ragged," he said. "That's a bolt cutter."

"Who would do that?"

He looked at me, and the answer sat between us.

A white truck came down the access road, followed by a flatbed.

It stopped and three men climbed out.

The one in front was big and sunburned, in a Holcomb Land & Cattle jacket.

"Morning, Ransom. Heard you had a problem."

"Heard from who?"

"Radio chatter." The man smiled. "We came to help."

Jace straightened.

I could feel how badly he wanted to put his fist through the man's face.

I stepped between them before he could.

"That's kind of you," I said. "I'm Nadia Haddad. Lottie's niece."

"Holcomb's foreman. Pleased."

"What a nice truck."

He blinked.

I looked past his shoulder at the passenger seat of his truck.

There was a pair of long-handled bolt cutters lying across it, with bright fresh wire dust still on the jaws.

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