Black Hills

interest. He doesn’t get a chance to touch Lil. He doesn’t get that chance.” Coop got to his feet. “That’s where I’ll be, most likely, when you’re ready to talk this through.”
    He went home to toss fresh clothes in a duffel. He glanced around the converted bunkhouse and figured he’d spent less time sleeping there than he had on Lil’s couch. Or in her bed.
    That’s the way it had to be, he decided, and trudged through the relentless rain to toss the duffel in his truck before going back to the farmhouse.
    He sat his grandparents down at the kitchen table and told them everything.
    When he’d finished, Lucy rose, went to the cupboard, and got out a bottle of whiskey. She poured three short glasses.
    Sitting, she tossed hers back without a blink or hiss.
    “Have you told Jenna and Joe?”
    “I’m going by there on the way to Lil’s. I can’t prove—”
    “You don’t have to prove,” Sam said before he could finish. “It’s what you believe. That’s enough. We’ll pray you’re wrong about this man they’re looking for. We’ll pray you’re wrong about that, and he just got lost, got himself a good soaking and a good scare.”
    “While you’re praying I want you to stay inside. The stock’s fed and bedded down. I’ll be back around first light. You stay in, doors and windows locked, and the shotgun close. I need you to promise.” He pressed, and pressed hard when he recognized the stubborn set of his grandfather’s jaw. “If you don’t give me your word on that, I can’t leave. I can’t look after Lil.”
    “Putting the squeeze on me,” Sam muttered.
    “Yes, sir. I am.”
    “You got my word on it, if that’s what it takes.”
    “All right. If you hear anything, feel anything off, you call me, and you call the police. You don’t think twice, you just call, and don’t worry about false alarms. I need your word on that, too, your promise, or I’m getting a couple of men to guard the place.”
    “You think he’ll come here?” Lucy demanded.
    “No, I don’t. I think he’s on a mission. I don’t think he’s going to come here because here isn’t part of the plan. But I’m not leaving without your word. Maybe he’ll want some supplies, or a dry place to sleep. He’s a psychopath. I’m not going to try to predict what he might do. I’m not taking any chances with either of you.”
    “You go on to Lil’s,” Sam told him. “You’ve got our word on all of it.” He looked at his wife, and she nodded. “Joe and Jenna are probably on their way over there, or will be soon enough. You can talk to them over there. Meanwhile I’ll call them myself, in case they’re home. I’ll tell them what you told us.”
    Nodding, Coop picked up the whiskey and drank. And stared into the glass. “Everything that means anything to me is here. In this house, with Joe and Jenna, at Lil’s. That’s everything there is.”
    Lucy reached over, laid her hand over his. “Tell her.”
    He looked up, looked at her and thought about the morning conversation. He smiled a little, and gave her the same answer. “Working on it.”
     
     
     
    BY THE TIME he got to Lil’s, feeding time was in full swing. He’d watched the process before, but never in a violent rain. Staff hustled around in black slickers, hauling and carting enormous hampers of food—whole chickens, slabs of beef, tubs of game, all processed in the commissary. Hundreds of pounds of it, he estimated, all cleaned, prepared, transported every evening.
    Tons of fortified feed, grain, bales of hay, hauled, poured and spread night after night, whatever the weather.
    He considered offering a hand, but he wouldn’t know what the hell he was doing. Besides, he’d had enough of the wet for now, and would have more than his share of it later.
    He carried the tub of beef stew his grandmother had pressed on him into the cabin. He’d be more useful, he decided, putting a meal on the table.
    He opened a bottle of red, let it sit to breathe while he heated the stew and buttermilk biscuits.
    It was oddly relaxing, to work in the cozy kitchen with the rain beating on the roof and windows, with the sound of the wild rising with the dark. He took two candles from her living room, set them on the table, lit them.
    By the time she came in, drenched and surly of eye, he’d set the table and heated the stew and biscuits through and was pouring a glass of wine.
    “I can cook my own damn dinner.”
    “Go ahead. More stew for