“He seemed to have a sort of twisted opinion of people,” a student was saying.
“He did. He believed that one-on-one communication was lacking. What do you imagine he would think of today’s communication, of social media and all the things that come with it?”
“He might like Vine,” one of the male students said. “It’s short and sweet.”
“What about his writing makes you think he’d like short and sweet?” a female student asked to the delight of the others.
“Do you think he would appreciate the way people communicate with one another now?”
“He might,” a girl hypothesized. “My mom is always saying people no longer have a filter when it comes to talking to other people. I think maybe Faulkner would appreciate that because people are no longer being so polite that they don’t say what they are actually thinking.”
“That is a possibility,” Miss Frakes said. “Faulkner did say that words often fall short of what they are meant to express. If that fault lay with the speaker, perhaps the lack of filter today fixes that issue.”
“Or makes it worse,” someone said.
“You’re right,” Miss Frakes said. “I think that filter has something to do with miscommunication, but it can also muddy the waters when someone is trying to explain their views.” There was a brief silence, then groaning. “You knew this was coming,” Miss Frakes said with laughter in her voice. “But I’m giving you three days to finish the novel and go over your class notes before we have the test. Then we’ll move on to The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty.”
Another groan filled the room.
“You’ll like it. It’s another novel on death and how it impacts those who survive.”
“Cheerful books you’ve chosen, Miss Frakes,” someone said.
She laughed. “Maybe you’ll learn something from them.”
The Optimist’s Daughter. That was an interesting choice. I’d read the novel—twice actually—so I was curious what the class would think of it. I was also a little surprised by Miss Frakes choice of it as classroom material, but found it somewhat refreshing. It was a well written novel—a Pulitzer Prize winning novel—so I could see the educational impact of it. But another novel on death? Not to mention the commentary on the south? Should result in some interesting discussion with this group of teens.
The bell rang a few minutes later. I wandered down the hall toward Mrs. Collins’ room, watching as students rushed from their last class of the day to take one of the half dozen open computers before someone else could steal them. I’d never realized how many students in this area didn’t have access to something as simple as a computer and the internet at home. Even I had those simple luxuries in my apartment above the stables back at MidKnight.
“Any leads on our vandals, Mr. Stratton?”
I turned, the voice already familiar even though I’d only heard it a handful of times. Mr. Collins. He didn’t like me hanging around outside his wife’s classroom even though he was fully aware of my purpose in being on school property in the first place.
“No absolutamente todavia, Señor Collins.”
Mr. Collins stood nearly a full foot shorter than me and he was round, not really overweight, but round. He crossed his arms over his chest—an act that only increased the sense of roundness—and shook his head.
“Let’s hope we see progress on this soon. If not, then someone will have to point out to the school board what a waste of funds it is to have a glorified security guard hanging around the school day in and day out.”
He marched off, looking like an actor trying to portray a realistic Napoleon.
I bit back a smile. Man had ego problems, just like the real Napoleon.
A couple of girls approached me, coquettish and innocent, their smiles almost too much to resist.
“We heard you were here to find out who robbed the tech room,” one of the girls, a dark-haired beauty, said.
“I am.”
“We heard a rumor that it was a prank by the football team.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
The other girl, a blonde who reminded me a little of my high school girlfriend. She even had the same sort of pompoms hanging from the bottom of her backpack.
“We heard it in history class. Bobby Jensen was bragging about it.”
“Is that right?”
I’d already heard Bobby Jensen’s name half a dozen times, mostly from the teachers. He was a troubled student, one of those ones who came from a poor family and often showed up at school with black eyes. Most of the teachers didn’t like him, and those who did bother to give him the benefit of the doubt seemed to have exceptionally low expectations.
“He said he helped them get in through the door downstairs.”
“Which door?”
The girls looked at each other. “The south door?”
They said it like it was a question. If I hadn’t already suspected this was just a couple of girls looking to make trouble for a fellow student, I would have known it then.
“Doesn’t make sense for them to come through the south door when the north door is closer to the parking lot.”
“Maybe they didn’t drive.”
“And they carried four laptops out of the building on the backs of their bikes?”
The girls glanced at each other again.
“Well, maybe they came in through the south door and left through the north.”
I nodded. “That’s always a possibility.”
The dark-haired girl smiled, touching my chest with a single finger. “You make an arrest, you’ll tell everyone we helped you, right?”
My eyebrows rose, but I nodded. “Of course.”
They walked off a moment later, leaving me there alone, leaning back against the cool tile of the wall, watching girls who looked far too old to be in high school and boys who were far too interested in what those girls were wearing for their own good. Was high school always this hormone soaked? How the hell did I make it through without getting myself into some serious trouble?
I knew how. I had Meredith. And that thought was like a cold shower.
I glanced out the window, wishing I was on the back of a horse, checking the fence line, doing anything but standing here. I wasn’t a private investigator, and I sure as hell wasn’t a cop. I was the last person who should have been working this case. I don’t know how I let Ash talk me into it, and I really didn’t know how Sutherland had fallen for his sales pitch. The ranch was struggling, but it would have made it without Gray Wolf.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Miss Frakes—Jonnie—stood in front of me, a smile parting those perfect bow-shaped lips of hers. She was one of the most beautiful women I think I’d ever seen. Chestnut colored hair with gold streaks through it, green eyes that were as pure as a perfect emerald, an upturned nose and high cheek bones, she was the kind of woman who should never look twice at a guy like me.
I let my eyes move over that perfect face, that body that had all the right curves in all the right places, for just a moment before I forced myself to look anywhere else but at her.
“I thought you might be interested in this,” she said, holding up a copy of As I Lay Dying. “I saw you standing outside my classroom yesterday, listening to our discussion.”
“I’ve read it.”
“You have?”
There was genuine surprise in her eyes. That didn’t surprise me. A lot of people believed cowhands couldn’t read. They weren’t that far off the mark with most guys. That’s how they ended up broken and bent by the time they were thirty. Where else could a guy get an honest day’s work without a high school diploma?
“Once. Someone left a copy in the bunkhouse at one of the ranches where I worked.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
I shrugged. “It was interesting, but I found Faulkner’s opinions of the human condition a little dark.”
Her eyes widened, but the surprise had turned into something a l
ittle less offensive. She seemed slightly impressed.
“Is that why you were listening outside my door? Were you interested in what other people thought?”
“I suppose.”
“You’re welcome to come into the classroom any time you’d like. The students could only benefit from another opinion.”
“I’m not here to attend classes. But thank you.”
She tilted her head slightly. “I don’t think the school board would object to you sitting in on one of my classes. The more these students get to know you, the more they are likely to open up to you.”
“They don’t seem to be having any trouble opening up to me,” I said, gesturing in the vague direction in which those two girls had gone. “My problem is that they all want to point fingers at the people who irritate them the most rather than the true culprits.”
“Children are like that.”
“But these aren’t children. Most of these people are sixteen, seventeen years old. When I was their age, I was already paying my own way. I bought my own truck, paid my own gas and insurance from a part time job I had on a neighboring ranch. I was as much an adult by this age as I was ever going to be.”
“But times are different, Mr. Stratton. This is a different world these kids live in.”
“Is it?” I let my eyes travel over her face again, loving the sight of her slightly pointed jaw and the emotions dancing in those clear green eyes a little too much. “My father would laugh at that notion.”
“I’m sure your father was a good man.” She bit her bottom lip for a second, like she was trying to hold back what was coming next, but she wasn’t terribly successful. “Your father was clearly of a generation who believed in ‘sparing the rod spoils the child.’ That is not something modern parents believe in.”
“That’s true. Why do you think someone’s been vandalizing your school?”
“Wouldn’t that have happened in your time?”
“Sure. But it was more than likely some kid who didn’t have parents to provide him with three meals a day. It was probably someone who lived on the streets and needed those things to keep his belly full for another few days. These kids? They probably did it because it was a dare, a way of proving how manly they truly are. Sad thing is, these kids will never understand what it is to be a real man.”
“And you do? You think being a real man is riding a horse, and rustling cattle?”
“No. I think being a real man is standing up for what’s right.”
“How do you do that? Working for this security agency?”
I snickered just at the thought. “No. Serving my country in Afghanistan.”
“Oh.” The color faded from her face just a little. “I didn’t realize…”
“I was in the Army, in the Green Berets. I served alongside Mitchell Knight for three years before his death.”
She nodded again. It was clear she knew who Mitchell Knight was. Everyone in this town seemed to know who Mitchell was, even though some had never heard Sutherland’s name. Mitchell was a small-town hero, the son of the town founders, the son of a family who’d owned the MidKnight Ranch since the turn of the century. There was a plaque dedicated to Mitchell affixed to the front of the brick addition to the school right below the window we were standing beside.
Jonnie crossed her arms over her chest, unconsciously mimicking her colleague. “I apologize,” she said softly. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s not something I advertise.”
Her eyes moved up to my face again. “I made assumptions. I’m sorry for that, too.”
That bothered me more than the entire conversation had. I expected women—especially educated women—to assume I was stupid. I didn’t expect her to think I wasn’t brave enough to have fought for my country, or dull enough that my only desire in life had been to be a cowhand.
“Was it the cowboy hat? Or the boots? What made you think that I was nothing more than a cowhand?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I may not be a college educated man, Miss Frakes, but I didn’t spend my youth aspiring to follow in my father’s footsteps. It never crossed my mind that I would spend my life living on a ranch, breaking my body every single day in a futile attempt to make ends meet. I had aspirations. Just because I never actually did anything more with my life doesn’t mean I couldn’t have. I chose this life because it was what I wanted when I got out of the service. And a month or a year from now, I might change my mind and do something else. But until then, this is honest work, and I’m happy to do it.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said, holding up a hand as though she thought I was going to hit her. “I think what you’ve done with your life is noble. I was only trying to include you in the discussion you were clearly interested in.”
“Not really interested in your pity.”
I brushed past her, aware that it wasn’t really her I was angry at. Well, I was angry with her, but it was someone else’s words, someone else’s attitude that brought the anger to the surface. Someone else who told me I was too ignorant to give her the kind of life she wanted.
You dropped out of life when you left high school, Hank. You have no ambition, no future. I can’t be with a man like that.
I’d never stopped hearing those words, never stopped feeling them chipping away at my self-confidence and my self-worth. I believed I’d done the right thing when I left school. My father was on the verge of losing the ranch. I was all he had, the only rock he had to lean on. What kind of son would I have been if I’d chosen my own future over the future of the only home, the only form of income, my family had ever known? It was a simple choice, but Meredith had never understood it.
Ironic she was now married to a drunk cowhand who barely got out of bed long enough to earn the rent for his growing family. I wanted to find joy in that, but it only made me even sadder.
She’d been right. She’d just married the wrong cowhand.
Chapter 5
Jonnie
I felt like an absolute ass. What kind of a person insults the guy she’s trying to flirt with?
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I ran over what I’d said and what he’d said in my head over and over again. Finally, I just couldn’t live with it anymore. I had to fix it.
I climbed out of bed and threw on a worn pair of yoga pants, tugging my long t-shirt down over them, covering the hole that had begun to wear itself through the thigh. I grabbed my keys without bothering to look in a mirror—if I had, I might not have left the house—and drove across town to the huge gate that was marked MidKnight Ranch in old bronze. The gate opened automatically as I approached, swinging slowly inward over a cattle guard. My car’s tires didn’t like the cattle guard much, rattling and making all kinds of racket that I was sure would wake the entire ranch. I wasn’t sure where to go from there. Would he be in the main house? Was there a bunkhouse somewhere? Where did the operatives/cowhands live? Was he even here on the ranch?
My headlights caught the attention of a woman walking along the dirt lane. She was dressed in a long sweatshirt that was covered in odd colored patches and a pair of leggings that looked better suited to the wardrobe of a kindergartner. I slowed to a stop and rolled down my window, still taking in her outfit as she approached the side of my car.
“It’s late,” she said with a friendly smile that belied the admonishment in her words.
“I’m sorry. I was hoping to find Hank Stratton.”
The woman’s face registered surprise, but it might have just been the colorful array of makeup on her upper eyelids.
“He’s got an apartment over the main barn.” She pointed up the lane. “It’s down that way, past the main house, about a half mile.”
“Thank you.”
The woman cocked her head. “This doesn’t have something to do with the vandalism at the high school, would it?”
“In a roundabout way.”
She seemed pleased with that. “He’ll probably be up. I t
hink it’s the door on the left at the top of the stairs.”
I drove down the lane, going slow so as not to hit anything that might be crossing the road in front of me. I passed the main house. I’d never actually been to the fabled MidKnight Ranch, despite the fact that they opened their gates to the town every six months or so, throwing picnics for the Fourth of July and hay rides around Christmas. I’d never been curious enough before. But I had to say, that house was really impressive.
Wouldn’t that be a sight to change my mother’s opinion that everyone in Wyoming lived like hillbillies!
The barn was a beautiful structure set back off the road, a low building with a peaked roof. It was all wood and stone like the main house, the wide doors closed now, guarding their secrets to the dark of night. I pulled to a stop beside an old pickup and an older Jeep Wrangler, doubts beginning to trickle cold in the pit of my stomach.
What did I really know about Hank Stratton? How did I know I wasn’t about to knock on the door of a man—in the middle of the night, mind you—who had a live-in girlfriend or some other sort of romantic arrangement? What if he wasn’t alone? What if I was about to make a massive fool of myself?
But I was already here. There wasn’t much I could do but keep going forward.
There was a small, human-sized door in the center of the building that was unlocked. I stepped through it and was immediately hit with the smells I’d always associated with horses: manure and the sweetness of hay and the earthiness of hard-packed dirt. It brought back memories of horseback riding lessons when I was ten. My mother had insisted. She said all proper young women knew how to sit a horse. It was one of those ironies of a southern woman. She wanted me to be able to ride a horse, she just didn’t want me to live my life in a town where agriculture and livestock were the driving force behind the local economy.
There was a stairwell toward the back. I climbed it silently, my heart pounding so hard I was afraid he could already hear it. What if he was asleep? Would he be angry at me for dragging him out of a sound sleep?
The more I thought about it, the more I knew this was a huge mistake. But it was too late to back out now.
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