Mateo Santiago novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: North Fence

The north fence was a quarter mile of dry cedar posts, and the whole line was burning.

Rogues were running with buckets and wet blankets, and the sheep were screaming in their sheds.

Nico had been hit across the head with a pipe while he was pulling a gate.

Chela had him on a tailgate with a rag on his eye, swearing at him in two languages.

"I'm fine," Nico said.

"You're bleeding on my apron," said Chela.

Mateo shifted at the edge of the yard without a word, and his wolf went through the smoke.

I stood there with a bucket in my hand and thought about the hunters.

Nobody sets a fire and stays to watch it, so they would be falling back to the road.

Every wolf on that ranch would smell them coming and the hunters would smell every wolf.

They'd be listening for wolves.

They would not be listening for me.

"Where are you going?" Chela yelled.

"Behind them," I said.

I dropped the bucket and ran into the dark, away from the fire, with the cold wind in my face.

I went wide through the sage, bent low, and I did not make a sound.

Three of them were squatting at the edge of the burning line, laughing, with an empty gas can between them.

The big one from the culvert was a little way off by himself, talking low into a radio.

I came up behind him through the brush and wrapped the frayed end of a bale rope around his neck.

I didn't pull it tight.

I only wanted him to know it was there.

"Drop it," I said.

He froze.

His nose twitched, and I knew what he was smelling, which was nothing.

"Who is that?" he said, hoarse.

"Drop the radio.

"Now, or I find out how good a knot I tie."

He dropped it.

I walked him out of the sage with the rope in my fist, hands behind his back, past the burned posts and through the lines of rogues with their buckets.

He was twice my size, and I made him kneel at the center of the yard in front of forty people and the black wolf.

Mateo shifted back beside him, naked and furious, with smoke on his skin.

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