“Jonah, buddy, I can multitask.” River caught another bag and heaved it sideways with a grunt to Logan.
He caught the bag and passed it left. It was heavier than it looked. His shoulders were already burning. “Why are we doing this?”
“Keeping the lower barn dry,” X said. “Creek’s coming up fast on the south side. We lose the barn, we lose the horses.”
He looked at the barn, then caught the next bag and passed it without complaint.
The rain came down in cold, driving sheets that found every gap in his hood and ran down the back of his neck. His jeans were soaked through to the skin. He’d stopped being able to feel his feet about twenty minutes ago, but every time he thought about stopping, he looked down the line and saw Jonah, Anson, Hatch, and Ghost working without a word about it, so he kept going.
Ghost was the one who surprised him. He’d expected Ghost to be somewhere in the shadows doing something tactical and silent, not standing in the mud in the rain passing sandbags like everyone else.
He worked the line for two hours, and nobody treated him like a guest or even a kid. River started calling him Little Bear, and he didn’t want to admit he liked it.
Around the second hour, hoofbeats came up the road and everyone paused. The horse coming up the road was dark as a shadow in the gray morning, the rain running off her coat in streams. She was rangy and lean, her head up, her movement fluid in a way that made other horses look like they were working harder than they needed to. The rider on her back was somewhere in his thirties — lean, weathered, long dark hair slicked back by the rain, a full beard. He wore a canvas coat that had gone dark with water. A terrifying-looking dog moved at thehorse’s left shoulder, huge and quiet, her gaze ranging across the yard without urgency.
“Who’s that?” Logan asked.
X glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide. “Huh.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” X agreed, and passed another bag without elaborating.
The man stopped his horse at the edge of the yard and looked at Walker.
Walker looked back at him.
After a beat, the man swung down from the saddle, and it seemed to Logan that every person in a five-mile radius was suddenly holding their breath.
“Why is everyone all tensed up?”
X was quiet for a second, watching.
“X?”
“Every man who comes here has a hard first week,” he said finally. “Almost every single one tries to leave at some point. Including me. But Boone always goes out and talks them back.” He paused and nodded to the man. “Evander Cole was the only one Boone couldn’t talk into staying.”
“So he left?”
“He left. Bought land in the backcountry. Built a cabin and usually avoids the ranch like it’s full of lepers.”
“His land’s flooded,” Ghost said, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, making both Logan and X jump.
X swore in a long string of Spanish, ending with, “Don’t do that,cabrón. Scared a decade off my life.”
The faintest smile twisted Ghost’s lips. “Public service.”
X harruphed and crossed his arms, then nodded toward Walker and Cole again. “How do you know about his land?”
“Because I know everything.” A beat. “And because Naomi just called and told me.”
Logan glanced back at the man and his terrifying dog. “Will Walker let him stay?”
Across the yard, Walker stopped in front of Cole and held out his hand. Cole looked at it for a long time, then he reached out and accepted the handshake.
X picked up his next sandbag. “Walker never turns anyone away.”
twenty-four
