Montana Sky

the porch.
    “Christ, Adam, is that a cat?” Jim Brewster swiped a hand over his mouth. “Somebody sure did a number on it.”
    Adam glanced back, studying each man in turn: Jim, face pale, Adam’s apple bobbing; Ham tight-lipped; Pickles with a rifle over his shoulder. There was Billy Vincent, barely eighteen and all eager eyes, and Wood Book, stroking his silky black beard.
    It was Wood who spoke, his voice calm. “Where’s the head? Don’t see it there.” He stepped closer. It was Wood who oversaw the planting, tending, and harvesting of grain, and his wife, Nell, who cooked for the ranch hands. He smelled of Old Spice and peppermint candy. Adam knew him to be a steady man, as implacable as the Rock of Gibraltar.
    “Whoever did this might like trophies.” Adam’s words stopped the murmurs. Only Billy continued to babble.
    “Jee-sus Christ, you ever seen anything like that? Spreadthe guts all over hell and back, didn’t he? Now who’d do that to some stupid cat? What do you think—”
    “Shut the hell up, Billy, you asshole.” The weary order came from Ham. He sighed once, took out his pack of smokes. “Get on back to supper, all of you. Nothing for you to do here now but gawk like a bunch of old ladies at a fashion show.”
    “Don’t have much appetite,” Jim murmured, but he and the others drifted back.
    “Sure is a sorry mess,” Ham commented. “Guess a kid might do this. Wood’s boys are a little wild, but they’re not mean. You ask me, it takes mean to do this. But I’ll talk to them.”
    “Ham, mind if I ask if you know what the men have been up to for the past hour?”
    Ham studied Ben through a haze of smoke. “Been here and there, washing up for supper and the like. I haven’t had my eye on them, if that’s what you’re asking. The men that work here don’t go cutting up a cat for frolic.”
    Ben merely nodded. It wasn’t his place to ask more, and they both knew it. “It had to have happened in the last hour. I’ve been here awhile, and this wasn’t here before.”
    Ham sucked in more smoke, nodded. “I’ll talk to Wood’s boys.” He gave one last look at what lay on the porch. “Sure is a sorry mess,” he repeated, then walked away.
    “You’ve had two animals torn up in a week, Adam.”
    Adam crouched down, laid his fingertip on the bloody fur. “His name was Mike. He was old, mostly blind in one eye, and should have died in his sleep.”
    “I’m sorry about that.” Ben understood the affection, even the intimacy, with animals well and dropped a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I think you’ve got a real problem here.”
    “Yeah. Wood’s boys didn’t do this. They’ve got no harm in them. And they weren’t up in the hills slaughtering a steer either.”
    “No, I wouldn’t say they were. How well do you know your men?”
    Adam lifted his gaze. Whatever the grief, it was hard,direct. “The men aren’t my territory. The horses are.” Still warm, he thought as he stroked the matted fur. Cooling fast, but still warm. “I know them well enough. All but Billy have been here for years, and he signed on last summer. You’d have to ask Willa, she’d know more.” He looked down again and grieved for an old half-blind tom who had still liked to hunt. “Lily shouldn’t have seen this.”
    “No, she shouldn’t have.” Ben sighed and wondered how close she’d come to seeing who it was. “I’ll help you bury him.”
    Inside, Willa paced the living room. How the hell was she supposed to take care of the woman? And why had Adam pushed such a useless task on her? All Lily did was cower in the corner of the sofa and shake.
    She’d given Lily whiskey, hadn’t she? She’d even patted her head for lack of anything better. She had a problem on her hands, for God’s sake, and she didn’t need some weak-stomached Easterner to add to it.
    “I’m sorry.” Those were the first words she’d managed since she’d come inside. Taking a deep breath, Lily tried them again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have screamed that way. I’ve never seen anything . . . I’d been with Adam, helping with the horses, and then I . . . I just—”
    “Drink the damn whiskey, would you?” Willa snapped, then cursed herself as Lily cringed and obediently lifted the glass to her lips. Disgusted with herself, Willa rubbed her hands over her face. “I expect anybody would have screamed coming across something like that. I’m not mad at you.”
    Lily hated whiskey, the