21 Hours

by Dustin Stevens

  Other works by Dustin Stevens :

  Be My Eyes

  Scars and Stars

  Catastrophic

  Just A Game

  Ohana

  Twelve

  Liberation Day

  Ink

  Number Four

  The Zoo Crew Novels:

  Tracer

  Dead Peasants

  The Zoo Crew

  21 Hours

  Dustin Stevens

  21 Hours

  Copyright © 2012, Dustin Stevens

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or

  distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and

  occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

  For Maddie…

  An Uncle is a bond of faith

  That even time can’t sever

  A gift to last all of our lives

  An Uncle is forever…

  -Anonymous

  It's funny what goes through a man's mind when he thinks he's about to die.

  When you live your entire life as one half of a pair of twins, you get used to being asked an endless series of inane questions. Are you identical? Did you dress alike growing up? Could your parents tell you apart?

  Seeing as how my twin is a woman, the answer to all of those is pretty straightforward.

  The one I get the most though, and don't ask me why this is, is if it is true that twins can sense what the other one is feeling?

  I'm no scientist, couldn’t be further from it. I spent the five years most people spend in college incarcerated at a correctional facility in Orient, Ohio. What I am is a man chock full of common sense, and whenever most people ask me that question, I just look at them like they're crazy.

  All that is why, as I was lying on the banks of the Ohio River, I was as shocked as anybody to realize it wasn't the broken wrist that entered my mind. It wasn't the gravel ground into the exposed flesh of my forearms. It wasn't the coppery taste of blood on my tongue or even the missing half of my pinkie finger.

  Instead, sprawled flat on my back staring at the awakening dawn sky above, waiting for the final death knell to come my way, the last thing I remember thinking before blackness took over was…

  Dear God, I hope Lex can't sense what I'm feeling right now.

  Chapter One

  There are very few incontrovertible truths in life.

  Death, taxes, and no matter how many times you've branded cattle, it always smells like burnt ass. There's no way around it, and while wearing a bandana like an old-time bank robber may keep any residual pieces from actually entering your nose, it does nothing to keep the smell from wafting in.

  I'm long past gagging from it, a skill I've acquired over many rotations on the yearly cycle of working a cattle ranch.

  Sadly, I can't say the same for my cohorts.

  "You boys realize if you don't move faster than this, we're going to be here all spring.”

  Blinking away a few drops of moisture from my own eyes I shoved the design end of my brand back into the glowing coals of the fire and waited. There'd be an excuse any minute. There always was.

  "Damn Shane, can't you smell that?" Bret Hickam gasped. Beneath him, everything he'd eaten in the last two days was gathered in a half-digested heap, dust already settling over it.

  "And you think adding the smell of vomit is going to make it better?" I asked, pulling a second brand free from the fire and inspecting the glowing end of it.

  "Can’t help it," Joe Murphy wheezed beside him. He was bent at the waist with spittle dripping from the end of his lip, a second pile looking to reveal everything he'd eaten in the last few weeks at his feet.

  "Try harder. And go get the next calf. These things don't brand themselves."

  In my periphery I could see Hickam scowling at me before stumbling towards the holding pen, his thin frame still doubled over. Beside him Murphy remained dumping the contents of his stomach onto the ground, continuing their two-man act solo.

  Thrusting the glowing tip of the brand back into the coals I raised my gaze to the horizon just a few miles off. Stretched across the sky in a jagged shark tooth pattern sat the Big Horn Mountains, their top halves still covered in snow. Normally in May the entirety of the range was shrouded in white, but this year an abnormally warm spring had melted the snowpack much earlier than expected.

  Should make for a bitch of a summer. Four long months of drought and fire watch.

  Behind me I could hear Hickam grunting as he drug a second Angus calf into the ring, the critter bawling as it tried its damnedest to fight free. Turning back I cast an angry glare at Murphy, who eventually picked up on the hint and pushed himself up to give a hand.

  Damn greenhorns.

  Every spring the ranch was crawling with them, trust fund babies from the east coast, all dying to spend a year on a real Wyoming ranch and prove how tough they were. Old man Winters, the ranch owner and my boss for the past five years, liked to say they were full of piss and vinegar.

  I just thought they were full of shit.

  After a considerable tussle Hickam and Murphy managed to wrestle the calf to the ground. Each of them held down a pair of legs and looked up expectantly at me.

  "You have to secure the head," I reminded them for the third time. "Otherwise she's going to jerk free the second I touch her."

  Shifting his frame to the side, Murphy pressed a hand down on the calf's neck, wrapping one thin hand around both front legs.

  I couldn’t help but smirk behind my bandana. This was going to be funny.

  Giving the brand one last shake I wrenched it free from the fire and positioned it over the calf's rear haunch. I could see her staring up at me as I stood poised with the glowing red iron in my hand, the look in her eyes exactly the same as mine would be if someone were about to brand my ass.

  Without giving any warning I pressed the iron against her haunches, the smell of charred rawhide instantly filling my nostrils. On cue, the calf bucked wildly beneath it, swinging her head in a wild arc up from the dusty floor of the ring.

  Murphy's single hand hold was no match for her as she smashed her skull into his nose, sending him tumbling over backwards. With her front half free she kicked Hickam away and bolted around the ring, her throbbing backside sending her running in circles.

  From his knees Hickam looked up at me, mortified, his pale face even whiter than usual. "Joey? You alright?"

  I jammed the brand back into the coals and watched as Murphy rose to a seated position, his hand cupped over his nose with blood oozing between his fingers. "That sumumabitch bwoke my nose!"

  "Told you to secure the head.”

  "I did!" Murphy replied, his eyes pink with involuntary tears. Like Hickam, everywhere on his face that wasn't soaked in bodily fluids was pale white.

  "Like hell. You patted her on the neck. You're lucky she didn't kick in every one of your damn teeth."

  A large knot worked itself down Murphy's throat as he swallowed and stared at me, unsure how to respond. Behind him the calf continued to circle, though she'd slowed to a trot.

  "You mean you knew what would happen and didn't warn him?" Hickam asked. His face was a mix of stunned and appalled, his jaw hanging open as he spoke.

  "I did. Multiple times. And just think, now he doesn't have to smell it anymore."

  Both boys sat in the dust and stared at me like I was a creature from another planet. I call them boys becau
se despite their only being a half dozen years between us in age, I could be their great-grandfather in terms of life experience.

  "You two going to get up and put that calf in the pen? We have a couple hundred of these to do today."

  Murphy pulled the hand back from his face and stared at the bright red blood running in rivulets along the lines in his palm. As I expected, his eyes rolled up and he toppled straight backward into the dust, his body settling without moving.

  "Hey! Shane!" the raspy voice of Winters called out behind me.

  Keeping my back to him I rolled my eyes and turned, ready for some condensed lecture on how I need to take better care of the help. I've heard it before, he knows I don't care to hear it again, but he keeps giving it to save face with the other hands.

  Raising a hand I turned and waved to him, acknowledging I knew where he was going and I didn’t need to hear it.

  "You've got a telephone call!" Winters called out, ignoring the scene playing out in the ring.

  Twirling my hand in a helicopter motion, I yelled out, "We've got cows to brand. Tell them I'll call back."

  "She said she's your sister and it's urgent!"

  The words don't even finish leaving his mouth before the brand I was holding hit the ground. In long strides I headed straight for the side of the pen and hoisted myself over the broad board fence, dropping down on the other side.

  "Get that calf put up," I said to Hickam, still sprawled in the dirt with his mouth agape. "I may or may not be back."

  Moving fast, I walked straight across the opening between the barns and the ranch house, tugging the bandana down around my neck. Already a chill ran the length of my spine and a tangle of barbed wire had formed in the pit of my stomach.

  This couldn't be good.

  Chapter Two

  "I didn't know you had a sister," Winters said, holding the phone away from his body with his left hand. In his right was the gnawed-on remnant of a ham bone, grease staining his fingers and the bottom half of his face.

  A thick paunch stuck out from beneath his overalls, a green thermal finishing the ensemble. Thinning white hair and a patchy neck beard gave him the look of a bizarro Santa Clause, though he was a pretty good employer so I didn't bust his stones about it too much.

  Besides, right then I wasn’t exactly in the joking mood.

  "Heck, I didn't know you had any family at all," Winters said with a twist of the neck, as if considering the topic for the first time.

  "Murphy might need to go to the hospital," I said, ignoring the statements. I wasn't sure if they were actual questions or not, but I definitely didn't feel like getting into it at the moment.

  "Aw hell," Winters said, looking past me towards the ring. "Forget to secure the head again?"

  "Yup," I said, taking the cordless phone from Winters and stepping to the side. I paused a moment to let him wander down towards the ring, still gnawing on the ham hock as he went. His considerable bulk swung from side to side as he walked stiff-legged along, dust swirling around his feet.

  Pausing just long enough to make sure I was alone, I slid off to the side of the porch and pressed the phone to my face. "Lex? What's wrong?"

  Nobody ever called me. I mean, ever called me. On the first and third Sundays of the month I called Mama to check in. On the second and fourth I called Lex. In total, I spent roughly twenty minutes a week on the phone, a few more if Mama was feeling chatty. They both had the ranch number, but it was only to be used in strict emergencies.

  This was the first time either had ever done so.

  "Who the hell is Shane?" Lex asked. Immediately I could hear the strain in her voice. It sounded like she'd either been crying or the tears weren’t far off. Don't ask me how I knew all that from just five words, but I did.

  Maybe it was the twin thing.

  "What's wrong? Is it Mama?" I'm sure she could hear the strain in my own voice, the words strung taut like guitar strings.

  "Why did he call you Shane?" Lex asked again, her voice lowered another decibel.

  I wasn’t happy about it, but I knew there was no point in dodging the question. Once she got on something, she wouldn't let it go until she was satisfied. "That's just what they call me. Like the movie. Guy named Shane showed up alone one day, offered to stay on as a ranch hand."

  "Oh," Lex said. "Wasn't Shane a gunfighter that ended up sticking around and saving their ass?"

  My sister very rarely cussed. Hardly ever. The fact that she was cursing, and over such a random topic, had my nerves on end. "Lex," I said, trying deliberately not to yell, "why are you calling me? What's going on?"

  "That's why I'm calling you. I need you to come save my ass."

  The air caught in my chest as my gaze hardened against the horizon. In the foreground I could vaguely make out the movement of Winters and the boys, though I didn't bother to focus on any of them. "What's happened? Did that son of a bitch hit you?"

  Four years earlier my sister had married Ricky Borden, former quarterback of the Ohio State Buckeyes. I wouldn't say that he and I hated each other, more that we had a tacit understanding between us.

  I'd stay in Wyoming, and he'd keep his ass far away from it.

  "No," Lex whispered, her voice thick with tears. I waited as she sniffed loudly and said, "I'm actually at the hospital with him now."

  If she was expecting me to suddenly break into tears as well, I was sorry to disappoint. Something told me there was more to it than that though. "What's going on Lex? What happened to Ricky?"

  "There were three of them," she said, her voice barely discernible. "Ricky tried to fight them off, but they surprised us."

  I could feel my face twist into a look of confusion, agitation boiling just below the surface. "Who? Why were they fighting Ricky?"

  For several long seconds, Lex said nothing. I could hear her sobbing softly over the line, punctuated every few seconds by a deep sniffle. "Please come home. We need you here. Now."

  "We?" I asked, still not sure what was going on. In front of me I could see an entire corral full of calves that needed branding and two full wagons of manure that needed spreading. She knew how hard it was for me to get away in the spring.

  Besides, if Ricky got his ass kicked, he probably mouthed off to the wrong people and deserved it.

  "They have Annie," Lex hissed, her sobs reaching a much higher level that relayed pain like I'd never heard before. Every function in my body, my breathing, my thinking, even my heartbeat, all stopped instantly.

  My mouth fell open and my eyes went glassy, the world spinning around me.

  Annie was my two year old niece.

  "Who has Annie?" I whispered.

  "I...I..." Lex tried to mutter. "Please, come home."

  Suddenly the calves and the manure didn't mean a damn anything more. Already I was calculating drive versus flight times, working the trip over in my head. I could feel myself squeezing the phone so hard the plastic threatened to explode in my hand.

  "I'm on my way."

  Chapter Three

  The square green sign along the road said it was eighteen miles into Columbus and the clock on the dash said it was nearing two in the afternoon when I decided to stop. It was only the fourth stop I'd made since leaving the ranch the day before, a marathon drive that started outside of Sheridan, Wyoming and was going to end in central Ohio.

  I'd made the trip three times. The first two times I spent the night in Des Moines, Iowa, a town roughly halfway between the two and just small enough that I don't have to worry about leaving my gear in the truck overnight. Both times I was driving in the fall and not moving particularly fast, taking my time as I enjoyed the weather and scenery across the middle of the country.

  This time, I stopped four times for gas and didn't see a single thing. Most of the trip was spent in some shade of darkness, my headlights throwing a fluorescent cone out onto the highway and propelling me forward. The rest of the trip I sat with my eyes aimed forward, chewing my fingernails until all ten o
f them were rimmed with blood. When I was out of fingers, I bought a pack of Wintergreen at the third gas station and started working on it.

  The entire time my mind worked almost as fast as my jaw.

  There was only one picture I'd ever carried in my wallet, and that was of my niece Annie. Less than a month from her third birthday, she was the spitting image of her mother at that age. Blue eyes, puffy cheeks, a head full of curls that could fill the backseat of a car. Precocious and curious, she never stopped moving, her mind constantly inquisitive of the world around her.

  The day she was born was the second trip I made home. I guess you could say I've always had a protective streak in me, especially for the women in my life. Mama, Lex, even my dog before she passed. The day Annie was born, I made a vow to myself, to my sister, and to God that I would watch over her until my last breath.

  The thought of her in trouble had me in a cold rage that was buried just beneath the surface. Each time I looked in the mirror I saw myself looking fairly composed, but I knew that under it flowed a torrent of anger ready to explode like a geyser.

  This last stop was one I made every time I was passing through. To be honest I had barely thought about it until I saw the sign a few miles out announcing the exit. Muscle memory pushed the truck off the freeway without my even acknowledging it, depositing me on a two-lane state route and winding through the woods.

  My final destination sat only six miles off the interstate, but it might as well have been in a different country. There was no trace of the busy thoroughfare or the cluster of restaurants and gas stations around it. The road was narrow and gravel, low-hanging branches pulling at my radio antennae as I passed beneath them. There were no houses, no buildings of any kind, and only a single car was parked anywhere in sight.

  Easing the truck to a stop alongside the familiar aging Jeep Cherokee, I put it in park and climbed out. The heels of my boots made small indentations in the soft earth as I approached the lone figure sitting with her back to me, rows of headstones filing by on either side. The air was chilly, damp but clear. Overhead the sky was a mottled blue, the threat of rain virtually non-existent.