Montana Sky

when she finished, so she stripped them off, tossed them into the heap. Tying the blanket securely, she set it aside.
    “I’ll bury it,” Adam murmured.
    She nodded, rose. Using her canteen, she soaked another piece of the blanket, then knelt again to wash the stone.
    She couldn’t get it clean, no matter how she scrubbed. She would have to come back with something more than water and a makeshift rag. But she did her best and sat back on her heels, her hands raw and cold.
    “I thought I loved you,” she murmured. “Then I thought I hated you. But nothing I ever felt for you was as deep or as deadly as this.” She closed her eyes and tried to clear her lungs of the stench. “It’s been you all along, I think. Not me, but you it’s been aimed at. Dear God, what did you do, and who did you do it to?”
    “Here.” Adam reached down to lift her to her feet. “Drink a little,” he said, and offered her his canteen.
    She drank, gulping deep to wash the nasty taste from her throat. There were flowers blooming on her mother’s grave, she realized. And blood staining her father’s.
    “Who hated him this much, Adam? And why? Who did he hurt more than me, and you? More than Lily and Tess? Who did he hurt more than the children he ignored?”
    “I don’t know.” He worried only about Willa now, and gently led her back to her horse. “You’ve done all you can do here. We’ll go home.”
    “Yes.” Her legs felt brittle, like ice ready to crack. “We’ll go home.”
    They rode west, toward Mercy and a sky stained red as the grave.
     
    T HE FOURTH OF JULY MEANT MORE THAN FIREWORKS . IT meant roping and riding, bronco busting and bull riding. For more than a decade, Mercy and Three Rocks had held a competition for cowboys on their ranches and any of the neighboring spreads who didn’t choose to go farther afield for holiday entertainment.
    It was Mercy’s turn to host. Willa had listened to Ben’s request that they move the competition to Three Rocks that year, to Nate’s advice that they cancel it altogether. She’d considered, then ignored.
    She was Mercy, and Mercy continued.
    So people crowded corral fences, cheering on their picks. Cowboys brushed off their butts as they were tossed out of the saddle, into the air, and onto the ground. In a near pasture, the barrel-racing competition entered its second phase. Near the pole barn, hooves thundered and ropes flew through the air.
    A bandstand was set up, draped with bunting of red, white, and blue. Music was interrupted periodically as names and places were announced. Gallons of potato salad, truckloads of fried chicken, and barrels of beer and iced tea were consumed.
    Hearts were broken, along with a few bones.
    “I see we’re up against each other in the target shooting,” Ben commented, slipping an arm around Willa’s waist.
    “Prepare to lose.”
    “Side bet?”
    She angled her head. “What do you have in mind?”
    “Well.” He tucked his tongue in his cheek, leaned down close so their hats bumped, and whispered something that made her eyes round.
    “You’re making that up,” she decided. “No one could live through that.”
    “Not chicken, are you?”
    She straightened her hat. “You want to risk it, McKinnon,I’ll take you on. You’re in this round of bronc busting, aren’t you?”
    “I’m on my way over.”
    “I’ll go with you.” She smiled sweetly. “I’ve got twenty on Jim.”
    “You bet against me?” He wobbled between insult and shock. “Hell, Willa.”
    “I’ve been watching Jim practice. Ham’s been coaching him.” She sauntered away. No point in telling him she’d bet fifty on Ben McKinnon. It would just go to his head.
    “Hey, Will.” A little blood drying on his chin, his arm around a blonde in girdled-on jeans, Billy beamed at her. “Jim’s in the chute.”
    “That’s what I’m here for.” She propped a boot on the rail beside his. “How’d you do?”
    “Aw, shit.” He rolled a sore shoulder.
    “That good, huh?” With a laugh she squeezed over to make room for Ben. “Well, you’re young yet, kid. You’ll still be breaking bronc when geezers like McKinnon here are riding their rocking chairs. You get Ham to work with you.”
    She looked up, saw her foreman was standing on the outside wall of the chute, snapping last-minute instructions to Jim.
    “I was thinking maybe you could. You ride better’n anybody on Mercy except for Adam. And he won’t bust broncs.”
    “Adam’s got a