Montana Sky

burn of it, the smell. Jesse had favored Seagram’s. And as the level in the bottle dropped, his temper rose. Always. But now she pretended to drink. “Was it a cat? I thought it was a cat.” Lily bit down hard on her lip to keep her voice steady. “Was it your cat?”
    “The cats are Adam’s. And the dogs. And the horses. But they did it to me. They didn’t leave it on Adam’s porch. They did it to me.”
    “Like—like the steer.”
    Willa stopped pacing, glanced over her shoulder. “Yes. Like the steer.”
    “Here’s a nice pot of tea.” Bess hurried in, carrying a tray. The minute she set it down, she began fussing. “Will, what are you thinking of, giving the poor thing whiskey? It’s just going to upset her stomach is all.” Gently, Bess took the glass from Lily and set it aside. “You drink some tea, honey, and rest yourself. You’ve had a bad shock. Will, stop that pacing and sit down.”
    “You take care of her. I’m going out.”
    Though she poured the tea with a steady hand, Bess gave Willa’s retreating back a hard look. “That girl never listens.”
    “She’s upset.”
    “Aren’t we all.”
    Lily lifted the cup with both hands, felt the warmth spread at the first sip. “She takes it deeper. It’s her ranch.”
    Bess cocked her head. “Yours too.”
    “No.” Lily drank again, gradually grew calmer. “It’ll always be hers.”
    The cat was gone, but there was still blood pooled over the wood. Willa went back for a bucket of soapy water, a scrub brush. Bess would have done it, she knew, but it wasn’t something she would ask of another.
    On her hands and knees, in the glow of the porch light she washed away the signs of violence. Death happened. She had believed she accepted and understood that. Cattle were raised for their meat, and a chicken who stopped laying ended up in the pot. Deer and elk were hunted and set on the table.
    That was the way of things.
    People lived, and died.
    Even violence wasn’t a stranger to her. She had sent a bullet into living flesh and dressed game with her own hands. Her father had insisted on that, had ordered her to learn to hunt, to watch a buck go down bleeding. That she could live with.
    But this cruelty, this waste, this viciousness that had been laid at her door wasn’t part of the cycle. She erased it, everydrop. And with the bloody bucket beside her, she sat back on her heels and stared up into the sky.
    A star died, even as she watched, blazing its white trail across the night and falling into oblivion.
    From somewhere near an owl hooted, and she knew prey would be scrambling for cover. For tonight there was a hunter’s moon, full and bright. Tonight there would be death—in the forest, in the hills, in the grass. There was no denying it.
    It should not have made her want to weep.
    She heard the footsteps and hastily composed herself. She was getting to her feet as Ben and Adam came around the side of the house.
    “I would have done that, Will.” Adam took the bucket from her. “There was no need for you to do this.”
    “It’s done.” She reached out, touched his face. “I’m sorry, Adam, about Mike.”
    “He used to like to sun himself on the rock behind the pole barn. We buried him there.” He glanced toward the window. “Lily?”
    “Bess is with her. She’ll do her more good than I would.”
    “I’ll get rid of this, then check on her.”
    “All right.” But she kept her hand on his cheek another moment, murmured something in the language of their mother.
    It made him smile, not the comforting words as much as the tongue. She rarely used it, and only when it mattered most. He stepped away and left her with Ben.
    “You’ve got a problem on your hands, Will.”
    “I’ve got several of them.”
    “Whoever did that did it while we were inside.” Wrestling, he thought, like a couple of idiot children. “Ham’s going to talk to Wood’s kids.”
    “Joe and Pete?” Will snorted, then rocked on her heels to comfort herself. “No way in hell and back, Ben. Those boys like to run wild around here and regularly beat the hell out of each other, but they aren’t going to torture some old cat.”
    He rubbed the scar on his chin. “Saw that, did you?”
    “I’ve got eyes, don’t I?” She had to take a steadying breath as her stomach tipped again. “Cut little pieces off of him, and it looked like burns, probably from a cigarette on the fur. It wasn’t Wood’s boys. Adam gave them a couple of kittens