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“Just call me Ma Ingalls,” I said and sighed as I slid under the covers. I plumped my pillow, took a sip of coffee, grimaced, and opened my book. The storyline was picking up now that the aliens had shown themselves. Fucking aliens. It’s always aliens. Or zombies. Or clowns. I wasn’t fond of any of those three, but if I had to choose to face off with one of them, it would be zombies. Slow ones, like on The Walking Dead. Not the fast ones like in World War Z. Clowns were just guys in makeup, like drag queens only with less skills with eyeliner, so I could handle that. Aliens, though…those fuckers were sneaky. You never knew how extraterrestrials would present themselves. From xenomorphs to glowing Cocoon aliens to that funny Paul voiced by Seth Rogen to E.T., they came in all forms. Most are not pleasant and many bent on world domination or eradication of humankind. I especially hated the ones that grew inside you and popped out as you were eating spaghetti and—
“Fuck!” I yelped when something crashed into the barred door. I dropped my book, the corner catching me in the sternum, and leaped out of bed. The blankets tangled around my legs and I went to my right knee. Hard. Another thud at the door had me scrambling for the shotgun, heart pounding in my chest. I limped to the door as I fed two shells into my trusty turkey gun. Whatever was on the other side was desperate to get in. It kept making this odd keening sound as it dug and kicked at the door.
With a final prayer to St. Isadore, the patron saint of farmers aka ranchers, I flung the bar up and the snow-covered blob fell in. Right on its face. If it had a face. All I could see was ice and snow frozen to the human form resting on his—or its—hands and knees. Or maybe they weren’t arms and legs at all but creepy bug appendages. Shit, maybe this was one of those fucking cockroach dudes from Men in Black. Aliens. They come in all shapes. A horse whickered outside at the same time the man/alien coughed out something that contained my name. I glanced out the open door, snow hitting me in the face, and came face to face with the massive Dun stallion that Shepherd McCrary rode. I lowered the gun as my brain tried to process what was taking place. Then I glanced down at the man on the floor. He’d tumbled to his face and wasn’t moving.
“Well fuck,” I said, moving the gun aside as the horse plodded into the cabin. Its black mane and tail were frozen. I couldn’t deny the beast some heat, but I sure as hell didn’t want to shovel up horse shit either. “Do not shit on the floor,” I barked at the horse as I placed my gun on the table, closed the door, and rolled Shep to his side. I gasped when I saw his usually handsome face. Someone had worked the youngest McCrary boy over but good. Both of his eyes were black and swollen, his cheek busted, his lower lip split and slightly blue.
“Doing here?” he croaked, then groaned as I slid an arm under him to raise him into a seated position. “No…ribs…cracked. Don’t…touch me, Abbott. Flaming…asshole.”
He then passed out in my arms. I glanced at the horse and it seemed to be enjoying the hell out of the fire. Water dripped from his mane and tail as well as Shep’s frozen Carhartt jacket.
“Which one of you two do I throw out to the wolves?” I asked the stallion.
One ear flicked, and he nosed Shep, who was lying in my embrace. Even his own fucking horse thought he should be wolf kibble. Truth be told, I’d rather spend the night with the horse than this pompous jerkoff.
“If he’s still alive in the morning, I’ll let you two battle it out. Just like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Two men enter, and one man leaves. Well, one man and a horse enter but you get the gist.” I needed to watch fewer movies.
The horse smiled. Smart horse. Stupid owner, though.
It tooksome hefting to get Shep up and into the lower bunk. He was not a small man. The bastard was heavy, muscles dense and honed from hard work or perhaps a costly gym membership. I’d never actually seen the McCrarys doing manual labor, but then again I’d been barred from their land for a few years now. And even before I’d whipped Morgan like a cheap rug, I’d not ventured over the property line often. The tales of how they treated those who weren’t White and straight kept this bi boy on the accepting side of the barbed wire fence. Shep came to when I’d hoisted his ass from the floor. He spat a curse at me, his skin sallow aside from the mottled bruising flowering into brilliant blue, purple, and black.
“We need to get you out of these wet clothes,” I snapped and released him before he could slap me with that flapping hand of his.
“Can do it…myself.” He drew in shaky, rasping breaths and teetered to the left. His horse danced out of the way. I grabbed him around the middle and he cried out in agony. “Asshole, fuck! Fuck. I think…that…” The lanky bastard passed out again. Which was perhaps for the best. I swept him up like a new bride. His long blond lashes flickered upward when his ass hit the stiff mattress. “You doing here?”
When I unzipped his coat, he swatted at my hands. “You do that one more time and I’ll blacken your other fucking eyeball.”
“Only have two, dimwit,” he wheezed but allowed me to unzip the sodden jacket. Easing his arms out of the sleeves made him hiss in pain.
“No, asshole, we have a third eye. It’s the chakra associated with perception, spiritual communication, and awareness. But since you possess none of those traits, perhaps your third eye is blind.” I hummed “Jumper,” as I waited for him to make a comment about the song, the band, or how fucking clever I was. Nothing. Guess getting your ass kicked took all the appreciation of a good pun away. “What happened to you?”
“Fuck off,” he spat and leaned away from me. I flung his coat over my shoulder. The horse blew out a breath, and I glanced back at the stallion watching us lazily.
“Guess you get to stay,” I told the horse, then grabbed the heel of an expensive alligator boot and tugged. Shep nearly went to the floor. He called me numerous foul names. See, now that felt better. A McCrary calling me an uneducated slug felt normal. “And to think I was almost feeling sorry for you.”
“Don’t need…your sympathy.”
“Duly noted.” I managed to get his other boot off before he got woozy again. This time, I gave him a gentle shove on his shoulder to steer his head toward the pillow. My pillow. He flopped to his side, sapphire eyes hazy with pain, then let those long lashes settle on his cheeks. I sat back on my heels and stared at the good-looking bastard. Normally good-looking. Tonight he looked like he went ten rounds with Muhammad Ali and lost all ten rounds. Badly. Blood caked in his neatly trimmed beard. The soft blue flannel shirt he wore was speckled with dark brown spots. There were streaks of blood down his throat and into his usually neat gold hair. “Who the hell did this to you, McCrary?” I enquired in a whisper.
I looked back at the Dun swishing his tail. He had to go. Yes, I had said that I’d toss McCrary to the wolves and probably that would be the better choice, but the police might take exception to me picking a horse over Shepherd. Granted, Mark and Loren both knew Shep so maybe they’d say, “Hey yeah, I can see why you bunked with the horse instead of that fuckwad.”
Deciding to let Shep rest and get warm, I tended to his horse. Which meant getting dressed, leading the horse back into the blizzard—he did not want to go out into the whirling whiteout and I didn’t blame him—and getting him settled in the small lean-to behind the cabin. I busted up a square bale and tossed it into the dusty manger after removing his wet tack. Then I trudged down to the river, ax in hand, and opened a hole big enough to fill a 5-gallon bucket of water. Snow and tiny bits of ice lashed my face, the world seemingly was nothing more than a violent, dark, wintery hell.
I tossed a blanket over the Dun’s back before leaving. It was a little moth eaten, but it was better than nothing. Pulling the door closed, I looked for my tracks from a mere forty-five minutes ago and couldn’t find them. Hand on the rough logs of the cabin, I used the building as a wind break as I plowed through snow that was now nearly to my hips, saddle in one hand, soaked blanket and the rest of the tack over my shoulder. Stepping inside was like walking into heaven. Shep was sitting up, glowering at me through two rapidly swelling slits. Pity. Those eyes of his were really outstanding. Deepest blue, like a fall sky or the depths of Smoke Lake. Much nicer than my plain old brown peepers that I’d gotten from my father. I dropped the saddle and other shit to the floor by the fire.
“Where did you go?” he asked, his voice craggy and rife with pain.
“I took a walk. Nice night for a stroll.” His mouth pulled into a frown. “Asshole. I took your horse to the shelter. But don’t get too cozy because if you snarl at me like that again, I will haul your ignorant ass out to the lean-to and let Dundee sleep in here. Fucker has to be better company than you are.”
“Argus.”
“Bless you.” I stomped off snow, then toed off my boots.
“No, fuckwit, his name is Argus, not Dundee.” He watched me as I carried my wet coat and boots to the fire. I spread his coat out over the lone table and set his boots next to mine. I sure hoped God was watching because this shit right here should get me an express pass to Heaven. Be kind to thine enemies. Wasn’t that a commandment or something?
“I think Dundee is better. Crickey.” Shit, I really needed to stop watching so many old movies. Maybe Perry was onto something with that reading about dead Greeks shit. I padded to the cupboard and pulled out a first-aid kit. “We need to clean you up. I was thinking that we might be able to call out to Blue Ice and see if they could get a search and rescue team out here to get you to—”
“No! No rescue…I’m fine.” He didn’t look fine. He looked like he’d run into a tree with his face. A few times.
