Montana Sky

meat. Pickles washed his back with beer and scowled.
    “I’m sorry to interrupt your meal.”
    “We’re about done here,” Ham told her. “Billy, get to the dishes. You eat any more, you’ll bust. You want some coffee, Will?”
    “I wouldn’t mind.” She walked to the stove herself, poured a cup, and left it black. She understood that this was a delicate matter and she’d have to be both tactful and direct. “I can’t figure who would slice up that old cat.” She sipped, let it stew. “Anybody have an idea?”
    “I checked on Wood’s boys.” Ham rose to pour coffee for himself. “Nell says they were in the house with her most of the evening. Now they both have pocketknives, and Nell had them fetch them to show me. They were clean.” He grimaced as he drank. “The younger one, Pete, he busted out crying when he heard about old Mike. Tall boy, Pete. You forget he’s only eight.”
    “I heard about kids doing shit like that.” Pickles sulked in his beer. “Grow up to be serial killers.”
    Willa spared him a glance. If anybody found a way to make things worse, it was Pickles. “I don’t think Wood’s boys are John Wayne Gacys in training.”
    “Coulda been McKinnon.” Billy clattered dishes in the sink and hoped Willa would notice him. He was alwayshoping she’d notice him; his crush on her was as wide as Montana. “He was here.” He jerked his head to flop his straw-colored hair out of his eyes. Scrubbed harder than necessary at dishes so the muscles on his arms would flex. “And his men were up in the hills when the steer got laid open.”
    “You ought to think before you start flapping your lips, you asshole.” Ham made the statement without heat. Anyone under thirty, in his mind, had the potential to be an asshole. Billy, with his eager eyes and imagination, had more potential than most. “McKinnon isn’t a man who’d cut up some damn cat.”
    “Well, he was here,” Billy said stubbornly, and slanted his eyes sideways to see if Willa was listening.
    “He was here,” she agreed. “And he was inside with me. I let him into the house myself, and there wasn’t anything on the porch then.”
    “Nothing like this happened when the old man was around.” Pickles tipped back his beer again and flicked a glance at Willa.
    “Come on, Pickles.” Uncomfortable, Jim shifted in his creaking chair. “You can’t blame Will for something like this.”
    “Just stating fact.”
    “That’s right.” Willa nodded equably. “Nothing like this happened when the old man was around. But he’s dead, and I’m in charge now. And when I find out who did this, I’ll take care of them personally.” She set her cup down. “I’d like all of you to think about it, to see if you remember anything, or saw anything, anyone. If something comes to you, you know where to find me.”
    When the door closed behind her, Ham kicked at Pickles’s chair and nearly sent it out from under him. “Why do you have to be such a damn fool? That girl’s never done anything but her best.”
    “She’s a female, ain’t she?” And that, he thought, was that. “You can’t trust them, and you sure as hell can’t depend on them. Who’s to say whoever cut up a cow and a cat won’t try it on a man next?” He swigged his beer whilehe let that little seed root. “Are you going to look to her to watch your back? I know I’m not.”
    Billy bobbled a dish. His eyes were huge and filled with glassy excitement. “You think somebody’d try to do that to one of us? Try to knife us?”
    “Oh, shut the hell up.” Ham slammed down his cup. “Pickles is just trying to get everybody worked up ’cause his pecker’s in a twist at having a woman in charge. Killing cows and some old flea-bitten cat isn’t like doing a man.”
    “Ham’s right.” But Jim had to swallow, and he wasn’t interested in the rest of the dumpling on his plate. “But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be careful for a while. There are two more women on the ranch now.” He pushed away his plate as he rose. “Maybe we should look after them.”
    “I’ll look after Will,” Billy said quickly, and earned a quick cuff on the ear from Ham.
    “You’ll do your work like always. I’m not having a bunch of pussies jumping at shadows over a cat.” He topped off his coffee, picked up the cup again. “Pickles, if you haven’t got anything intelligent to say, keep your mouth shut. That goes for the rest of you too.” He took a moment to aim a