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I prayed the squirrels and badgers wouldn't drink themselves stupid. The thought made me smile, reminding me of Sienna. My humour died as fast as it came on. The dull ache in my chest,the emptiest there, spread until my hands numbed and I wish the rest of me was the same.
Back in the kitchen, Jack sat in his chair, staring at the side of the refrigerator. My phone vibrated across the table, and I caught it just in time, picking up the call before it went to voicemail.
"Is he home?” Trav’s voice was sharp and impatient.
I fumbled the thing and winced. "Shit. I forgot to call you. He’s... Okay. Pretty sick in the head, and in the heart, I think."
A situation I fully appreciated. At least the heart part, albeit for a different reason.
Trav sighed. “I'll get Rachael to drop around later. Make sure he's eating. She's the closest from our side."
"Yeah.” I dropped my fingers on the table. "Why don't you send Jimmy up? He's a new sheriff. This is part of his job and all."
Travis was silent for a moment. "I'll ask him to drop through."
The new sheriff... A stupid, reckless thought slapped me in the face.
"You know if he's got any connections to Double B?"
I could almost feel Travis’ eyes boring through the connection. "Why don't you come on back. We need to have a talk."
His voice was hard and brooked no argument.
Double shit.
"Yes, sir."
I could almost hear the approval in Travis' voice. “I'll see you soon."
****
I'll see you soonincluded a backpack full of fluids – not the alcoholic sort, thank Christ. I'd had enough of that to last me ten lifetimes after last night – and more sandwiches than either of us needed. We started out from the house, and I looked at the trucks.
"We're not driving to wherever?"
Trav stuffed his hands into pockets and glanced over his shoulder, smiling. "Where we're going, trucks won’t help."
It turned out Travis could hold his silence as well as a girl I knew. I firmly banished her – unnamed – to the recesses of my mind, closing off the memories as he headed directly for the waterfall.
Naturally, I was the first to break the impasse between us. "I'm not keen on seeing her again, Trav. "
"Yeah?" He climbed the boulders to the rock cave. "Then why are you asking about double B?"
I hiked my eyebrows. "You knew about that?"Could you not have warned me, motherfucker?
“I know Jamie. And I know Brendan got on the wrong side of him years back." Trav said the words carefully.
I thought he was headed to the cave, but he pushed up around to the right, treading a path behind a huge rock that was invisible from the front. I followed him curiously as we stepped it up, hiking over the top of the cave, and stopping to stare out at the vista over Red Hart. Not exactly over the house, but certainly the north western boundary.
"Are we stopping here?"
Travis laughed. "Tired already, Trader Kyle?"
I bristled the name that had never bothered me before. "I didn't know ranchers got their hands dirty."
His smile disappeared. "Five miles.” He threw a thumb behind us. “That way."
That wayincluded a shit ton of boulders, and unmarked paths. Trev ripped a piece of white hikers tape around an overhanging tree branch every so often. By fifth, one, I frowned. "You’ve never been up this way before?"
