by J K Ellem
Placing the coffee pot in the middle of the table, she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to marry me, it’s just breakfast and I want you to eat up here from now on. You’re not like the other ranch hands I’ve had—I mean employed,” Daisy said, quickly correcting herself.
Shaw smiled, enjoying seeing her cheeks momentarily flush. “I know what you mean.”
“No strings attached. No commitments. That’s what we said last night,” Daisy said. Shaw nodded as he sat down, “That’s right.” Daisy went back into the kitchen and returned with a large serving dish heaped with eggs, steak and toast. She placed it on the table and sat down.
“No one is going to die of hunger working around here,” Shaw said, as he looked at the pile of food in front of him.
They ate and talked, enjoying each other’s company. There wasn’t the usual awkwardness or stunted conversation that typically followed intimacy between two strangers. The conversation was free and flowing, natural not forced.
She touched his wrist. “What’s this?” There was a small tattoo on the inside of Shaw’s wrist, a wreath of antlers encircling the letter V. “I saw it last night.” Daisy had seen a great many things last night.
Shaw put down his fork. “It’s my own design, had it done a while ago. It means Virtus. It’s from ancient Rome, it means doing what is right.”
Daisy nodded with approval. She liked guys with tattoos. Not too many, just a few here and there. It was an expression of themselves, a certain uniqueness. She was keen to discover if Shaw had any more on his body. Last night was a blur, but she still felt the heat inside her, leaving her warm and glowing all over. She felt different, more open to him, and he enjoyed listening to her. It was like she hadn’t had someone to talk to for a very long time and she needed to get out everything that had been bottled up inside.
She spoke more about the ranch and the McAlister family history, and Shaw was just content to sit back after he had eaten, enjoy his coffee and the uninterrupted view of the landscape from the verandah. Cattle moved in the distance and the sky was a wide expanse of light blue.
She smiled when she told Shaw about her father. But there was still sadness behind her smile as she reminisced.
“So he fell from his horse up on the ridge,” her voice petered off as she took a sip of coffee.
“Who found him?” Shaw asked. He didn’t want to pry, but questioning everything was his profession and he could extract information subtly without the person even knowing.
“I did.”
Shaw waited.
“When he didn’t return, I rode up there. I found his horse grazing halfway up along a track. ”
“Was an autopsy done? Did they say how he died?”
“The police said he had fallen, probably from his horse. I found him at the bottom of a ravine. Neck broken. They say his horse maybe got spooked and reared up, and he toppled off.” Daisy gripped the cup, her knuckles white. She never believed the explanation she was given by the police or by the Medical Examiners office.
“But he was an expert rider, grew up with horses. Felt more at home on one than behind the wheel of his Dodge.”
Shaw leaned forward. “Had he been there before, on that part of the ridge?”
Daisy nodded. “Many times. There wasn’t any part of this land he hadn’t ridden, staked-out, measured or walked. This place has been in the family for generations. It was in his blood. The soil was always under his fingernails. But…”
“But what?” Shaw asked.
“He’d been going there a lot before the accident, like he was preoccupied. He would go for days sometimes, camp overnight, take a pack, a bedroll and just his horse. Sleep out under the stars. My mother asked him and made a joke saying that he was meeting another woman up there. But he said he was just scouting out some of the land, making sure of the boundaries.”
“Is it far from here?”
“No, just a few hours ride, we could be up and back easily in a day.” Daisy turned to Shaw. He had a questioning look on his face, his head tilted.
“What now? We go today?” Daisy asked.
Shaw shrugged. “I’d like to take a look. See some of the property. You could give me a tour.”
“But there’s work to be done. I need to move cattle from one of the paddocks and drop some feed. And you need to start fixing the fencing along the eastern boundary.”
“That can wait. Come on. I’d really like to take a look up there. Plus it would be good to get away for the day. We’re not really going anywhere, we’ll still be on the ranch.”
Daisy smiled. “Technically, yes.”
“What do you mean technically?” He looked across the landscape and up to the ridge. It rose up behind the bunkhouse, rugged in places, dotted with pockets of trees and vegetation, rimmed at the top by a forest.
“It’s a fairly easy ride, but some parts can be steep. But the best trail cuts across a tract of land that’s shared with the Morgans. It runs right along the boundary between our two properties.”
“Look, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. But if we went, you’d have to teach me how to ride and we’d need to go slow.”
Daisy thought for a moment. She hadn’t been up to the ridge since her father died.
18
It was gloomy inside the house and it smelt of dust, dead flowers and age. Shaw stood at the start of a long narrow hallway just inside the front screen door. He looked up as floorboards creaked overhead. It was Daisy getting ready and she said she wanted to check on her mother before they rode up to the ridge.
While Daisy had cleaned up after breakfast then went upstairs, Shaw walked the perimeter of the homestead checking that everything was secure.
Old habits.
He started with the outbuildings, the sheds, stables, barn and gradually he moved closer until finally he arrived at the exterior of the homestead itself, all the time he felt like he was being watched, observed, from afar. Not close, but close enough.
He was amazed at how open and unlocked everything was. Country folk were certainly more trusting and open with their property and possessions than city people. People living in the cities had layers of security around their homes and apartments, like CCTV, triple-locks on doors, panic alarms and guard dogs.
Urban paranoia that was justified. But Daisy had none of these safeguards, except a gun she said she kept by her bed.
Maybe it was a matter of being more trusting in the country. Leaving your doors and windows open thinking it was safe. Shaw preferred everything to be locked, secured and squared away.
He had made a quick sweep of all the doors and windows from the outside and was amazed to find no window locks and some of the doors had old, flimsy locks that could easily be breached with little or no effort. He made a mental note to fix these when he got back.
He stood in the hallway waiting. To his right was a staircase leading to the first floor, the ornate balustrade was worn with age and the faded carpet was secured with brass carpet rods that were tarnished.
Against the wall near the front door there was an old mahogany hallstand with an arch-shaped mirror, turned legs and a small drawer with a brass handle. The mirror was warped and dulled with age like everything else in the house. Time and neglect was winning the war.
He slid open the small drawer, but it was empty. He would have had the handgun in this drawer, close to the front door where most unwelcomed confrontations happened and where a weapon close to hand would be handy. He had put Daisy’s handgun back under the seat of the Dodge. That’s where she had it, so that’s where he had returned it.
Off the narrow corridor there were a series of doors on each side. The house was laid out in typical fashion for its era, a central hallway that ran from front door to back door with rooms on either.
He paused in the hallway, in two minds whether to have a look around or wait for Daisy to come downstairs. Somewhere deep inside the house a clock ticked.
He decided to have a quick look
around, but not stray too far in case she caught him snooping. He walked along the hallway, his steps softened by the tattered and frayed hall runner that stretched into the murky distance.
The first door he came to, he tried the doorknob. It turned and the hinges protested as he pushed the door open cautiously. Inside was more gloom, curtains drawn shut across large windows. Dark bulky shapes squatted in the corners of the room, covered with sheets, grey with dust, the air stale and musty. Dead flowers brittle and dry sat in glass vases.
Nothing interesting in here.
He quietly closed the door and looked back at the rectangle of light from the front door, making sure he was still alone. It was as though he was descending into a train tunnel, the further he went, the more isolated and distant he was from fresh air and sunshine. He could feel the old house pressing in around him, the walls moving a little closer, the shadows folding towards him. It was eerily quiet except for the mechanical ticking of the clock somewhere in the house.
Shaw saw something move at the other end of the corridor, towards the back of the house, a ripple in the gloom like someone had walked across the corridor. He paused, his eyes squinting, trying to see beyond the shadows.
Maybe it was just his imagination, an optical illusion of being in a narrow, confined space that was poorly lit.
He continued his search.
On the other side was another door, the timber stain peeling and cracked. This door had a large sturdy lock, the kind he imagined would take a large brass key. He tried the doorknob.
No luck. It was locked tight.
“That’s my father’s study.”
Shaw jumped in fright and whirled around.
Daisy stood behind him, just a few feet away, hands by her sides, the light at her back, her shape a dark outline, her face obscured.
“Sorry, I was just looking for the bathroom,” he said. “All that coffee. Thought I’d better to go before I get on that horse.”
For the first time in a long while Shaw felt uneasy.
Daisy just stood there, perfectly still.
Shaw couldn’t see her face clearly with the light behind her, but he could sense she was looking directly at him with an intensity that felt like the air had stood still. Her posture was one of contemplation, making up her mind if he was telling the truth or not.
Shaw walked towards her until the shadows washed away and her face gradually came into focus, cold and hard.
Then a smile broke across her face and all the menace evaporated in an instant. “Come on, I’ll show you. It’s just off the kitchen,” she said, her voice light and upbeat.
* * *
After two hours in the saddle Shaw finally felt the first physical signs that he was not made for riding a horse. They had taken it slow, Daisy leading on Jazz and Shaw on probably the most docile horse she could find for him in the stables. He had settled into the rhythm in his hips as the animal moved under him, but his butt and lower back were sore. He was regretting suggesting they ride up to the ridge, maybe he should have taken the ATV that was in the shed back at the ranch.
Despite this, they had made good time as Shaw urged the horse on with the occasional nudge in its flanks as Daisy had showed him in the quick tutorial she had given him when they had saddled up in the stables.
Rather than confront Daisy about her sudden mood swing back at the homestead, he thought he would just watch her, look for little changes to her demeanor or her posture. The eyes and the facial expression always gave it away before the mood change surfaced. But in a way he was still glad she was cautious with him and hadn’t let her guard down completely. He was still a stranger to her, no matter what had happened in the bunkhouse the night before. Maybe she just felt vulnerable, just in that moment, her system flushed with adrenalin from the confrontation with the Morgans in the parking lot. Maybe she just needed a release. She seemed to turn on a dime from being all sweet and hospitable, to sudden hostility and aggression. There was an underlying current to her, something dark and sinister below the surface. She was certainly an intriguing woman.
They passed through foothills dotted with small boulders, scrub and low vegetation, and as they ascended up the trail the air cooled, a slight reprieve from the beating sun. It was late morning by the time they reached the top of the ridge and they paused by a small stream to water the horses and let them graze for a while.
Shaw grimaced as he gingerly slid out of the saddle, thankful for the rest stop. His rear was almost numb and he could feel each vertebra in his back creak and groan.
Daisy smiled, amused at his discomfort. “You’ve been in the cities too long, sitting on your ass in trendy cafes and sports bars. You need to spend more time out here away from things like that, get in the saddle more.” She opened a saddlebag and pulled out a pair of binoculars as Shaw stretched and arched his back.
“I don’t sit in cafes or sports bars,” he replied, wincing at his discomfort. He slowly hobbled away from the horses and looked out at the spectacular view. Nestled in the valley below was the ranch. From up here it looked like a child's toy farm set. The red barn, the homestead, the sheds, and he could make out the bunkhouse. Cattle moved slowly, brown dots against a pale backdrop, and he had an appreciation for the beautiful and vast landscape. There were hills in the distance and he could just see the town of Martha’s End with the red water tower.
Daisy walked and stood beside him. Pointing below and to her left she said, “That line there is where the Morgan’s land starts, just on the other side of the fence line. If you follow the edge of the forest there, it takes you straight to their boundary between us and them.” She handed Shaw the binoculars and he followed where she was pointing. The ridge fell away abruptly on the opposite side into a sea of fractured rock and deep furrows where wind and rain had gouged the soil. At the bottom there was a wooded spread of cottonwoods, thick and wide. Beyond that a narrow dirt road curved around the cottonwoods and ran parallel to a fence made of rough posts and barbed wire.
“What’s that road, the dirt one down there? Where does it lead to?” Shaw said, without lowering the binoculars and without sounding like he really cared.
“That used to be an old cattle trail, but it was graded by my father more than twenty years ago. It eventually runs to some old cattle yards on our land on the other side of the ridge. There’s nothing there, just a few rusted-out sheds and outhouses. I think my great-grandfather built them and used to brand cattle there. There’s an old pit mine hole there as well. My grandfather did a little prospecting a long time ago, dug it out. It flooded a few years back, I think.”
Shaw followed the dirt track back towards the McAlister ranch, and he could see where it joined the main road past the paddocks until it ran through a series of cattle gates then up past the barn.
“So where is the Morgan homestead?”
“It’s more like a compound. You can’t see it from here. It’s on the other side of that line of hills. Three, maybe four miles away. Too close to this side of the boundary for my liking.”
Shaw raised his point of focus. In the distance a series of low hills rippled in the haze. Nothing difficult to traverse. The forest of cottonwoods on this side of the dirt road would provide good cover, especially at night.
He pulled his focus closer.
The road branched off towards the Morgan boundary fence, then stopped a few feet before an old hinged cattle gate but didn’t continue further. Obviously it was once used as a property entrance for cattle to pass through, but now the trail was overgrown with grass.
He panned slightly to the right, then the left. As far as he could tell there were no surveillance measures along the fence line or on the open ground beyond. No visible structures at least. But once he left the cover of the cottonwoods, crossed back over the dirt road and the fence, he would be out in the open, exposed. A vehicle with half-decent headlights or spotters would light him up like daylight. If they knew he was there. There were just a few rocky mounds, but nothing subs
tantial to provide cover. It was “no-mans-land.” The place he didn’t want to get caught.
He would have to move fast. But he could, when he needed to.
“So where to now?” He handed back the binoculars to Daisy. They walked back to where the horses were grazing, taking care to stay away from the edge.
“It’s not far, we just cut across the top here through the trees. The trail runs along one side.”
She passed him a canteen and some food from her saddlebag. Her Winchester sat snuggly in its saddle sheath.
Shaw wandered back to the edge on the opposite side to get the best view of the ranch below as he ate, while Daisy readied the horses again. There was a line of trees a few feet back from the cliff edge. He looked down towards the ranch then backed up slowly, one foot at a time, keeping the ranch in view until he felt the first row of tree trunks at his back. Low branches fell around him as he retreated a few more steps then stopped. He still had a clear line of sight to the homestead below and all the main structures including the bunkhouse. The trees provided a quick cover, if someone needed to pull back and hide while still keeping an eye on the ranch.
It was the perfect spot. A spot he would have chosen, if he wanted to watch the bunkhouse below and not be seen.
He looked around on the ground. The dirt, bracken, and scrub were undisturbed. Nothing to suggest someone had been here recently. When someone stood for a while, even for just a few minutes, they tended to shift their weight on their feet, kicking up the soil and dirt, even get bored and nudge stones and rocks aside with their toes. But not this person. Their movement was minimal, and what footprints or marks they may have made, they had covered them up, walking backwards, retracing their steps typically with a branch sweeping the ground in front of them as they retreated.
They were good, Shaw thought. Really good.