Old gear, not ranch gear but rodeo equipment. More paperwork.
Bull ropes worn smooth in spots they shouldn’t be, like they’d been handled too many times without being used right. Tags stamped with circuit codes that haven’t been active in years. A bent spur with a marking I recognized but couldn’t place until Dusty said the name out loud.
Caldwell circuit, four years gone with no clean ending, no explanation, just gone.
“And then the casings,” Wade adds.
That’s the one that shifted everything.
Not old or buried long enough to match the rest, recent.
Which means someone didn’t just use this place once and walk away.
They came back, and they’ve been coming back.
My jaw tightens as I look out over the stretch of land beyond the house, the part we haven’t touched yet, the part that suddenly feels a whole lot bigger than it did when we started.
“This wasn’t random,” I say.
“No,” Lane agrees. “It wasn’t.”
Silence settles for a second, not empty, just full of the same thought moving through all of us at once.
This place was chosen. They had no idea we were going to buy this place and build on it.
“And now it’s not buried anymore,” Luke says.
There it is, the part nobody’s saying out loud.
We uncovered something that wasn’t meant to be found, and whoever put it here knows that now. All the items are hidden and safe in the barn for now.
I glance back toward the house, toward the work being finished, toward something that’s supposed to be new and clean and mine.
It doesn’t feel that simple anymore.
“Then we don’t treat it like it is,” I say finally.
Wade looks at me. “Meaning?”
“Meaning this isn’t just a build anymore,” I answer. “It’s a problem sitting under our feet, and until we know exactly who it belongs to…”
I let the rest hang.
Don’t need to finish it, they already know, we all do.
Because after last night, this isn’t just about the land anymore.
It’s about Riley and Hadley, and also about a guy she used to date in the past.
And whatever line just got crossed.
And I’m not letting that happen twice.
“Then we don’t sit on it,” I add, pushing off the porch railing before anyone can settle into thinking this through too long. “We move now.”
Wade studies me for a second. “Move how?”
“Same way whoever’s behind this is,” I say, fast, quiet, and ahead of the next step.
