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“Like I told you, I didn’t take your horses. The law did. So what makes you think they’re here?”
“This is River Gorge, you idiot. Everyone talks,” he said, snarling. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with the way I treat those horses. They’re my property. It’s nobody’s business what I do to them.”
“It is if you abuse them.” I shouldn’t have said that. My goal here was to de-escalate the situation, not to rile him up even further, but that attitude drove me nuts.
“Those horses are mine, you little shit.” He bared his teeth at me as he took an awkward stumbling step and reached out to grab my shirt. Lucky for me, the alcohol slowed him down, and I just took a step back out of his way, which infuriated him all the more.
“You need to take that up with the sheriff. He’s the one who took your horses.”
He narrowed his eyes at the mention of the sheriff. “Yeah, well, he’ll be sorry he did that. I never voted for him anyway, and nobody else will after he pulled this stunt. I got friends in this county.”
I bit back a laugh because I didn’t think laughing in his face was the best way to manage the situation. This town loved Eli, and he was in no danger of losing his position as sheriff.
“Now get out of my way and let me find my horses.” He moved to step around me, and I blocked his way.
“Not happening, Elmer.”
“I said get out of my fucking way,” he yelled as he lunged forward with uneven and unsteady steps and swung a wild punch toward my face. But I saw it coming and ducked, his fist flying through the air inches above my head. The miss only made him more furious, and he charged forward with reckless abandon.
I sidestepped Elmer’s lurching attack, and as he stumbled past, I seized the opportunity to grab him from behind, locking my arms around his neck in a headlock. He struggled and flailed, but I held on tight until he stilled. Then I leaned down near his ear so only he could hear me.
“Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I’m not one of your horses that you can beat into submission, and you’re lucky I’m not a violent asshole like you are, or you’d be on your ass right now.”
“You can let him go, Nash,” a deep voice said. “Elmer’s going to behave now, aren’t you, Elmer?” I looked up to find Cruz standing there, so I released my grip and lifted my hands in the air, taking a step back.
“You stole my horses,” Elmer whined, sounding more pathetic than angry now that he was facing Cruz instead of someone he mistakenly thought he still had power over. Man, I was glad I no longer worked for this man.
“The sheriff’s on his way, Elmer. You had to know coming here like this was a bad idea.”
He held his hand up in surrender. “Fine, fine, I’ll just leave.”
I was pretty sure Cruz could smell the alcohol on him, but just in case, I moved around them so I could block him if he tried to leave. Turned out that wasn’t necessary. Cruz had picked up on it and had no intention of letting him leave.
“Actually, you’re gonna wait right here for the sheriff. Murph, why don’t you let down his tailgate so he can have a seat?”
“Sure thing, boss.” Murphy nodded and went to the back of his truck.
“You can’t make me stay here.”
“I can and I will. You came on my property, threatened one of my employees, hell you took a swing at him. Not to mention the fact that you smell like a distillery, so you can just sit your ass down.”
Thirty minutes later, Eli had Elmer loaded up in the back of his SUV and had promised to make arrangements to pick up his truck.
As they pulled out of the drive, Cruz clapped his hand on my shoulder. “I can’t believe you didn’t deck him when he took that swing at you.”
“Right,” Murphy said with a grin. “The whole time, you really kept your cool. Hell, I wanted to take a swing at him, and he’s got at least four inches and fifty pounds on me.”
“I bet you could have taken him,” I said with a grin.
Cruz chuckled, but then he turned to me, all humor gone from his expression. “That could have gotten ugly, but you did a good job handling him. It does make me wonder if we should refrain from taking horses in the area, though.”
“There’s less danger of someone showing up like that if we do, but who would take those horses?”
“You’re right, but I have people here to protect.” He glanced over toward the building that housed Nolan’s computer lab.
“I hear you, man. But we handled it.”
“This time. It’s something to think about for the future, though.”
