They Sent Me to Prison for the Family Fire, So I Came Home to Sell the Ranch Out From Under Them novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Cairn
We went in Iker's truck, because it was the one with the spotlight.
He drove, and Ansel sat in the middle, and I sat against the door with the heater blowing on my shins.
Nobody spoke for the first ten miles.
"Where did he leave her?" Ansel said.
"He stopped at Halleck for gas," Iker said.
"He says she got out to use the ladies' room, and when he came out of the store she was gone.
"He thought she'd walked off to cry.
"He says he drove the lot twice.
"Then he went on to the cousin's without her, because he thought she'd have called."
"He lost her at a gas station," I said.
"And told nobody for a day."
"He is not a man who tells anybody he's lost something," Iker said.
"He told me because he was afraid.
"He'd never say it."
I looked at Iker's profile in the dash glow.
I could see the pulse in his jaw.
I realized that he was more afraid than I had ever seen a person be.
"Where does she go when she's frightened?" I asked.
"Church," Ansel said.
"She doesn't go to church," Iker said.
"Not since the fire."
He drove a quarter mile in silence.
Then he said, in a flat, odd voice, "The cemetery."
"Which one?" I said.
"Elko.
"The new section by the fence, past the Basque corner.
"There's a cairn.
"The county put it up after the fire, and the ranch paid for the stone."
I felt Ansel go still against my shoulder.
"The herder's," he said.
"The widow wouldn't have him shipped home," Iker said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of They Sent Me to Prison for the Family Fire, So I Came Home to Sell the Ranch Out From Under Them are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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