Page 133 of Wild Sanctuary

He swallows, letting his hand drop, then he reaches for his hat again.

“Well, if that’s the way it is, I’ve said what I could say, sweetheart. I hope you understand now that I tried to help you.”

Then he turns toward the door.

I watch as Stan’s eyes flash with unmistakable anger, and for the first time since he walked into this kitchen, I see the man beneath the gun.

“You’re not leavin’.”

Stan’s voice is so quiet I almost miss it.

Marcus turns back, his forehead creased with a frown. “What was that, son?”

“I said you’re not leavin’.” Stan steps fully into the kitchen, color rising up his neck. The gun comes up for the first time, and it isn’t pointed at me. It’s pointed at Marcus. “You are not walkin’ out of this kitchen and sendin’ me home with another face.”

“Stanley—”

“You want her gone. You stay in this kitchen till she’s gone. No drivin’ off to Mason’s. No more lettin’ me carry the faces home alone. Today you watch.”

Marcus has gone the color of old paper.

“Son, you don’t need me for this⁠—”

“I do.” Stan’s voice cracks on the word, and his whole body is tight with it now, shoulders drawn high, chest heaving. “You’ve never once had to look. Well… today, you look.”

His gun hand is trembling—not with fear, but with the effort of holding it steady against everything else rushing through him.

“You remember Cal Miller?”

Marcus’s head jerks. “Stan⁠—”

“The summer Blackwood decided he wanted that ranch. You sent me out to his place one night and you told me exactly how to do it. Break his hands, you said. A rancher can’t work a ranch with broken hands. So that’s what I did. I broke every bone in both of ’em while he begged me to stop. Two weeks later, he was sellin’ his folks’ land for half what it was worth because he couldn’t rope a calf or drive a fence post. Ended up with Blackwood like all the rest of ‘em. I told myself for a whole year I’d just been the muscle. That I hadn’t been the reason they lost everything.”

Cal Miller.

My memory shows him to me at twelve, chasing me through the apple trees behind his grandmother’s house with a water pistol, laughing so hard he fell in the creek.

I press my palm flat to the table to keep the room from moving.

“There’s more.” Stan’s eyes haven’t left Marcus. “You tell her the next one.”

“Son, this isn’t⁠—”

“Tell her, Marcus.”

Marcus shakes his head, fingers worrying the brim of his hat, his voice going soft and pleading.

“Stanley, listen. What we did, we did because we had to. There was never any other⁠—”

“What we did.” Stan’s face turns crimson. “What we did? That’s rich, Marcus. Tell me what you did. Tell me one thing you did with your own two hands.”

Marcus’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

“That’s what I thought. Fine. I’ll do the dirty work. Seein’ as that’s all I’m good for.” Stan’s jaw works. “Vince Holburn and the barn fire nobody could figure out. That was me. On your orders. Because he wouldn’t sell and you needed him out.”

Another name. Another family. The Holburn land sale I’d traced through Cutter’s signature.

“Marty Cooper.” Stan’s jaw is iron. “What was it you said? Break his collarbone, break his nerve?”