Montana Sky

what a man could do with a woman.
    Maybe she’d irritate him into kissing her tonight. Unless he got distracted by big-busted Tess and her fancy French perfume. At that idea she gunned the engine, then braked hard as she spotted Pickles’s rig on the curve of the road.
    “Well, shit, found him.” And now, she thought, she’d have to placate him. She climbed out, scanning the fence line and the pasture on either side. She didn’t see any sign of him, or any reason why he would have left his rig across the road.
    “Gone off somewhere to sulk,” she muttered, and moved toward the cab of the rig to sound the horn.
    Then she saw him, him and the steer stretched out in front of the rig, side by side in a river of blood. She didn’t know why she hadn’t smelled it, not with the way the air was thick and raw with death. But the smell reared up and slammed into her gut now, and she stumbled toward the side of the road and violently threw up her dinner.
    Her stomach continued to heave painfully as she staggered toward her own rig and lay hard on the horn. She kept her hand pressed down, her head against the window frame as she fought to get her breath.
    Turning her head, she tried to spit out the taste of sickness clawing in her throat, then rubbed her hands over her clammy face. When her vision grayed and wavered, she bit down hard on her lip. But she couldn’t make herself walk back down the road, couldn’t make herself look again. Giving in, she folded her arms and laid her head down. She didn’t lift it even when she heard the thunder of hoofbeats and Charlie’s high barks.
    “Hey.” Ben slid off his horse, the rifle slung by its strap over his shoulder. “Willa.”
    A springing wildcat wouldn’t have surprised him as much as her turning, burying her face in his chest. “Ben. Oh, God.” Her arms came around him, clung. “Oh, God.”
    “It’s all right, darling. It’s all right now.”
    “No.” She squeezed her eyes tight. “No. In front of the rig. The other rig. There’s . . . God, the blood.”
    “Okay, baby, sit down. I’ll see to it.” Grim-faced, he eased her down on the running board of the rig, frowning when she put her head between her knees and shuddered. “Just sit there, Will.”
    By the look on her face, and the din his dog was sounding, Ben thought it must be another steer, or one of the ranch dogs. He was already furious before he stepped up to the abandoned rig. Before he saw it was more, much more, than a steer.
    “Sweet Jesus.”
    He might not have recognized the man, not after what had been done to him. But he recognized the rig, the boots, the hat covered with blood lying near the body. His stomach twisted with both sickness and fury. One thought broke through both as he gave Charlie a sharp order to silence: Whoever did this wasn’t simply mad, he was evil.
    He turned quickly at the sound behind him, then spread out an arm to block Willa’s path. “Don’t.” His voice was rough, and the hand on her arm firm. “There’s nothing you can do, and no need for you to see that again.”
    “I’m all right now.” She put a hand on Ben’s and stepped closer. “He was mine, and I’ll look at him.” She rubbed the heels of her hands under her eyes. “They scalped him, Ben. For God’s sake. For God’s sweet sake. They cut him to pieces and scalped him.”
    “That’s enough.” His hands weren’t gentle as he turned her around, forced her head back until their eyes met. “That’s enough, Willa. Go back to your rig, radio the police.”
    She nodded, but when she didn’t move, he wrapped his arms around her again, cradled her head on his chest. “Justhold on a minute,” he murmured. “Just hold on to me.”
    “I sent him out here, Ben.” She didn’t just hold, she burrowed. “He pissed me off and I told him to ride out here or pack up and pick up his check. I sent him out here.”
    “Stop it.” Alarmed by the way her voice fractured on each word, he pressed his lips to her hair. “You know you’re not to blame for this.”
    “He was mine,” she repeated, then shuddering once, drew away. “Cover him up, Ben. Please. He needs to be covered up.”
    “I’ll take care of it.” He touched her cheek, wishing he could rub color back into it. “Stay in the rig, Will.”
    He waited until she was back in the vehicle, then pulled the grease-stained tarp out of the bed of Pickles’s truck. It would have to do.

EIGHT
    F ROM THE KITCHEN WINDOW LILY COULD